ON ST. ANGELA OF BOHEMIA, VIRGIN, AS THEY WILL HAVE IT, A CARMELITE.
CRITICAL COMMENTARY.
Angela, Virgin, in Bohemia (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. P.
§ I. Those things are set forth which confirm the Acts of St. Angela.
The sum indeed of my wishes would be, that all things which pertain to St. Angela were so certainly established, that to him who more attentively weighed these things, not a few things should not occur which would create no little trouble and labor. But since this, beside my wish, has otherwise happened, and there thrust themselves, upon the acts of this Saint to be illustrated, not a few things which not mediocrely stand in the way of their sincerity and firmness, it has seemed good candidly and openly to exhibit on both sides the weights of the reasons, and to inquire into the truth, for which alone all our contention ought to sweat in the prosecution of this work, whose unique aim is to separate true from false, genuine from spurious, certain from fictitious. Let us therefore consider accurately on both parts, party zeal being laid aside, what can be said for, what against, in the present subject, and let the beginning of the writing be from those things which can most of all militate for the existence, country, profession of life of St. Angela, and the rest pertaining hither.
[2] The very reverend Father F. Daniel of the Virgin Mary, from various authors cited in the Carmelite Mirror, of the Carmelite Order, emeritus president of the Flemish-Belgian province, and also historiographer, in the fourth part of the Carmelite Mirror, published by him in the year 1680, with intent zeal heaped up not a few things, prefixed to the life of St. Angela on 6 July in the same Mirror, by which he strenuously busies himself to defend the cult of this Saint, the profession of Carmelite life, country, birth, [and] the sincerity of the Acts against adversaries feeling otherwise, bringing into the midst the authority of Palaeonydorus, a religious of the Carmelite Order, who in the tripartite Little-bundle, embracing several persons illustrating this Order and the world by sanctity of life and doctrine, thus speaks in chapter 12: Angela, daughter of the king of Bohemia, who illustrates Prague: Joanna and Anna of Toulouse, holy Virgins … followers of Elijah and Mary. And in part 3 book I, which contains a collection of examples, chapter 5, as the aforesaid Mirror cites, St. Angela, daughter of the king of Bohemia, who from childhood studied to serve God and the glorious Virgin in chastity and devotion, etc.
[3] Next in the same place is alleged the second book of the same part, namely by Palaeonydorus, Bostius, the Mechelen manuscript codex, which is of Arnold Bostius On the Patronage of the Blessed Virgin, chapter 9 §3. Angela, daughter of the king of Bohemia, who is then written to have shone widely under the cloak of Elijah, with copious sanctity and miraculous prodigies. These being thus recounted, Father Daniel proceeds in the cited place: In a manuscript codex of venerable antiquity, of the Carmel of Mechelen, whose exterior superscription is this: "A book on the peculiar deeds of the Carmelites with many other things," but the interior: The Mirror of the Order, etc., there is frequent mention of St. Angela. First of all on folio one, page two, in verses on the chief Saints of this Order, there stands this distich of antiquated poesy:
Angela, spouse of Christ, daughter of the king of the Bohemians, Lived angelically, [and] is now associated to them.
Then again the said author thus pursues: On folio five, page two, in a very ancient Calendar, and an ancient Calendar, of which there was frequent mention in the preceding, on the last day of February is read: "Holy Angela, daughter of the king of Bohemia, of our Order." Then in the Carmelite Catalogue folio 77, page 2, he says it is handed down in what manner the female Saints of this Order are to be painted, and indeed these things to the purpose:
"On St. Angela's image a crown on the head, with a ciborium in the hand" … But why in the aforesaid Calendar and Catalogue she is commemorated on 28 February, though she died on 6 July, will be said in the following. Other writers treating of St. Angela P. Lezana reports in the Annals.
[4] From domestic writers the same author passes to external ones, taking his beginning from our Martin Antonio Del Rio, Del Rio, Antonio Possevino, thus recording of St. Angela: Of the prophecies or revelations of virgins or women, who were canonized and of noted sanctity, many of this kind, whose revelations are extant, as of St. Angela, daughter of the king of Bohemia, virgin, of the Order of the Carmelites, who wrote a book of revelations four hundred years ago. Antonio Possevino accords, in the Appendix to the Sacred Apparatus revised: Angela the virgin, he says, daughter of Raymund king of the Bohemians, at Tyre in Palestine, after her father's death, under the teacher Brocard of Jerusalem, received the veil of Carmel, and, leading an anchoretic life, wrote contemplations on Christ, 1 book: on the Eucharist, 1 book: likewise a book of Revelations. She was living in the year 1190. To the name by which Possevino writes the father of St. Angela to have been called, the Author of the Carmelite Mirror, adverting, observes the following: As to the name of the father being Raymund; others write Uladislaus, or he was of two names.
[5] Let John of Cartagena too have his place here, who, as he is cited in the oft-mentioned Mirror, John of Cartagena, Jacob the Frisian. volume 2 of homilies, book 17, homily 4, thus speaks to our purpose: But afterward, as St. Thomas observed 2. 2. question 174, this prophetic spirit did not fail in the Church of Christ, even in women. For with the gift of prophecy flourished Bl. Angela, a Carmelite nun, daughter of the king of Bohemia. Wilt thou hear also Jacob the Frisian in his Zurich library, augmented and published in the year 1583? as is asserted in the same Mirror. Angela the virgin … under the teacher Brocard of Jerusalem, received the veil of Carmel. Moreover the said obtaining of the veil the Author of the Mirror judges to have happened in this manner: That she is said to have received the veil of Carmel from St. Brocard, is probably to be so understood, that, departing from Constantinople toward the Holy Land, she first put in at Tyre, and there met St. Brocard, and, the condition of her person being declared, then obtained from him the faculty of taking the religious habit; but the veil she afterward received from the same at Jerusalem.
[6] The Author of the Mirror, having digressed to the determination of the Brocardian epoch, and having spoken in very few words but affirmatively of the monastic life of Bl. Angela passed in Bohemia, What is to be said of Angela's Tyrian withdrawal, after the return from the Holy Land, and, by way of doubting, whether the aforesaid virgin did not also lead a solitary life in the city of Tyre, or in the tract neighboring the same city, proceeds further, and records a compendium of the life, taken from Maracci, book 1, whose title is Marian Heroides, or on the piety of illustrious princess-women toward the Mother of God, published at Rome in the year 1659 from an old manuscript codex and from the reverend father Paul de Porta. Meanwhile, we esteem that we must here forbear reprinting the aforesaid compendium, partly because it supplies nothing of new and distinct light, which is not had in the life to be subjoined below; partly because, if it be of anyone's interest, he can see all things in the Carmelite Mirror. There comes to be noted nonetheless the epoch in which Angela is there written to have flourished, namely the year 1230.
[7] The epitome of the life, which is there to be read, being purposely passed over, the codex from which the life is taken; I cannot but transcribe briefly those things which the Author of the Mirror brings in commendation of the codex from which the life of St. Angela is reported to be taken. The life, he says, which we here give distributed into chapters, is from an ancient manuscript codex of the monastery of the Carmelite nuns of our Flemish-Belgian province at Bruges, called Sion. Thence too P. Lezana had the same and inserted [it] into the Carmelite Annals, as he himself testifies in volume 4 of the Annals, on the year 1196 n. 2. The life of St. Angela is also handed down in the book whose title is Decor Carmeli, by the author R. P. Philip of the Holy Trinity, Prior General of the Discalced Carmelites, of the congregation of St. Elijah; whose exordium reports this: As among men we have Angels and Angelinos, so among women we have Angelas, Angelinas, and Angelicas. We have also in our Carmel an Angela, truly most worthy of this name, both by virginal purity, and by contempt of all earthly things and desire of heavenly things, and by the angelic doctrine expressed in her books, and by the assiduous familiarity of the Angels, and finally by the exercise of heroic virtues.
[8] the day of death; Of the day of her death, and her sacred cult, receive the following from the oft-repeated Mirror: The day of her death in the aforesaid Bruges codex is written 6 July. The same assign the aforesaid John Paul de Porta and Maracci, and also the aforesaid Father General. In certain ancient Calendars or catalogues she is commemorated on 28 February, probably on account of some translation, elevation, or other cause, as often happens in other Saints. Of her cult on the first Sunday of July, from P. Aegidius Leondelicato, of Sciacca, of the Carmelite order, in the work entitled The Garden of Carmel, published at Palermo in the year 1600 by John Maringo, he brings testimony in these words: Holy Angela, daughter of the king of Bohemia, virgin, nun of the sacred and most ancient Order of the Carmelites, who by her sanctity illustrates Prague, the royal city of the kingdom of Bohemia. A solemn festivity of her is celebrated on the first Sunday of the month of July, in the celebrated convent of the Carmelites of the city of Sciacca in Sicily, with the greatest devotion and concourse of those peoples. The penitent who are confessed, and refreshed by sacred communion, gain there from first Vespers up to the setting of the sun of the following day of the said festivity, a plenary indulgence, granted by Clement VIII, as is plain from his Apostolic Brief, issued at Rome on 10 June of the year of our salvation 1593, in the second year of his Pontificate.
[9] The chief things which can persuade the cult of Bl. Angela, the sacred cult; the same Mirror represents from P. Seger Pauli in the historical Commentary after the life of Bl. Angela, in these words: Whether Bl. Virgin Angela was once venerated in her Carmelite order with an ecclesiastical office, on account of the inscription of her name in ancient Calendars, I would not deny. First, because the title of sanctity her manuscript life both bears, and everywhere through the whole life she is called holy and blessed … Second, because from immemorial time, before a hundred, two hundred, and more years, that title was given to her in the ancient Calendars of this order, especially in the old Mechelen manuscript. Third, because ancient writers, illustrious from nearly a hundred and two hundred years [ago], adorn her with that title. Fourth, because publicly within and outside the churches of this order, her effigy, both painted and sculptured, and to be venerated by the people from immemorial time, is seen set forth with the title of sanctity. Fifth, which is by way of confirmation, because there is extant a Breviary of this religion, printed at Paris in the year 1517 in 12mo, in which before the Common of Saints is represented a sculptured image of this Bl. Angela in full Carmelite habit, with the title of sanctity and a crown, wont to be set to saints, having an open book in one hand and a palm in the other; but above the head this inscription in capital letters: S. Angela: and this at the right of St. Albert the confessor, likewise a Carmelite, there portrayed; but in the middle of both is contained the Virgin Mary Mother of God, standing on the summit of Carmel …
[10] There is extant also here at Cologne in Germany, from the sacred relics of the Blessed virgin Angela herself a certain part of quite just quantity, and the relics. set on a certain quadrangular little tablet, venerably and singularly, no other relics being mingled, with this inscription on the reverse part: Of St. Angela the virgin, of the Order of the Carmelites, buried at Prague. To the things which for the existence, cult, sanctity, origin, and birth of St. Angela have hitherto been said, can be added the announcement of Claude Castellan, who in the additions to the Universal Martyrology, published by himself in French, thus has on 6 July: In Bohemia, St. Angela the old Carmelite, daughter of Vladislaus II.
[11] What? that our Balbín, excellently deserving of Bohemian affairs illustrated, Balbín published a special treatise in the Historical Miscellany, decade 1, book 4, which is the Hagiographic, §28, says: St. Angela was cultivated to a miracle both in virtue and in all the sciences. They marvel at and commend her works, which she wrote in Latin, exhortations to her nuns, heavenly revelations, and a book on the venerable Sacrament, and several others, namely our Del Rio, Possevino, and then the Carmelite writers. And perhaps this it is, that we see her in effigy at St. Gallus of Prague painted among the Saints of her order, holding a book, upon which book a monstrance, as we call [it] in the temples, stands: nay even the praised writer drew up a special treatise, inserted partly into the Carmelite Mirror, and subjoined to the life of St. Angela, as it were a part of the historical Commentary; by which treatise he wished to indicate what he felt of St. Angela. The chief things which make hither, lest anyone be able to complain that anything in this subject was neglected, passed over, or not sufficiently weighed, I shall thence glean.
[12] Holy Angela, he says, a virgin and a Bohemian, and sprung from royal blood, and of the Carmelite institute, I altogether do not doubt to have been. of Angela of Bohemia; The faith of our Antonio Possevino moves me, who without doubt described the things which he found in ancient codices; nor had he any cause of feigning; the learning of our Del Rio moves [me], and his diligence in sifting manuscripts; the authority of the Carmelite History moves [me] finally; the very books of St. Angela move [me], which we know from Possevino to survive; which betray the name of their author; the ancient images too move [me]. At Boleslav in Bohemia there ceased to be seen not long since, hung on a wall, an image of St. Angela the virgin, who in the subscription was affirmed to have been the daughter of king Wladislaus and a Carmelite. The same is seen at St. Gallus of Prague. Second, I ask to be granted me … that a change of names, especially in the female sex, was in use among the ancients, and most of all if a change of state and condition accede.
[13] This postulate, to be admitted by all as undoubted, in which not a few things in her favor; he confirms, various examples of each sex in Bohemia being adduced, thus at last concluding: These things being thus laid down, and, as I hope, granted by the reader, I say, that it seems to me probable and more than probable altogether, that St. Angela … the Carmelite virgin, was the daughter of Wladislaus II king of Bohemia, begotten of his first wife Gertrude, sister of Conrad III the Emperor, and daughter of St. Leopold Margrave of Austria, begotten of Agnes, daughter of Henry IV the Emperor; and so St. Angela the virgin had for grandfather the Emperor Henry, for paternal uncle the Emperor Conrad, for father king Wladislaus II, for mother queen Gertrude, a most holy woman, whom the historians commend for piety, foundress of the monastery of the Premonstratensian virgins of Doksany,
brother king Przemysl Ottokar I, another brother St. Adalbert, or Albert, Bishop of Salzburg, founder of the monastery at Straubing, of the Premonstratensian Order; but for sister Bl. Agnes, first prioress of Doksany, afterward princess and Abbess at St. George in the Castle of Prague. But this before all is to be noted, that St. Angela was of two names, and either in baptism was called Helena Angela. Thus far the praised Balbín.
[14] which however are not without difficulty. Nor indeed did he so acquiesce in the things asserted by himself, but that he was sufficiently aware that certain things could be objected against them; which whether and how he expedited and dissolved, I think must be discussed more conveniently and opportunely in the following paragraph, to which likewise we reserve other difficulties touched in the Mirror, as to the father of St. Angela, called by others by the name of Raymund; [and] what king of this sort existed among the kings of Bohemia—none; likewise as to the chronology of St. Angela. Besides these arguments, which we have just brought forth, I scarcely think there remain others which can favor Bl. Angela. For I so esteem, that if anything else solid could have been dug up from anywhere, the author of the Carmelite Mirror would not have neglected to bring it into the midst, who treated of this matter so much of set purpose, as, according to his powers, scraped together in patronage whatever he could anywhere; so that he is deservedly to be esteemed to have reduced as it were into a compendium whatever was handed down to memory by preceding writers concerning Bl. Angela.
[15] Another testimony of Balbín in favor of St. Angela. To these things which we have said for the Saint, add as a colophon the notable place of the fore-praised Balbín, who in the Historical Miscellany of Bohemia, decade 1 book 4 §28, thus again pronounces: Two holy Virgins from Bohemia, St. Angela, and St. Euphrasia the martyr, who, unknown in their own country, are venerated in the kingdoms of Spain. Purposely I join in treatment these two most holy virgins, once unknown to our Bohemians, though born in Bohemia, and therefore ours. I long doubted whether I should place them in this census of the Saints of Bohemia: and the deepest silence of all our writers dissuaded [me]; but at last, overcome by the unconquered authority of the greatest authors, I succumbed, and now give my hands surrender, and, although I cannot certainly name their parents, yet I gladly concede to them a country among us. P. John Tanner makes St. Angela the daughter of Wladislaus king of Bohemia; P. George Crugerius makes her his sister, who followed as a pilgrim her brother the king setting out for the Holy Land with the forces of the Bohemians, to bring aid to the Christians. That she embraced the Carmelite institute in Palestine, and led an altogether angelic life, the annals of that holy Order affirm. They report the life and deeds of this holy Virgin to have been lately published in print in Belgium, which have not come into my hands; from these perhaps we could establish something certain. And these are the things which I have thought must be brought forth in favor of Bl. Angela of Bohemia. Let us now see what can be said against [it].
§ II. Those things are set forth which make against Bl. Angela.
That P. John Bollandus long since foretold in the Passed-over on 28 February, The life of Angela needs examination. namely that the life of Bl. Angela needs no slight examination, how true it was, comes to be investigated. The whole matter, that it may be more orderly treated, I distribute into three chief heads. First there will be treatment of the life; second, of the testimonies of the authors cited in the preceding paragraph; third, of the circumstances of things, persons, places, and times. What name the Author of the Life had, I hold unascertained. That he was a Carmelite by institute is dug out from chapter 2 of the Life, where it is narrated that by the boy Jesus there was offered to Angela a Latin book of horary prayers of the Order of the Brothers of Our Lady, from which she might pray to God. The Prefect of the nuns of Jerusalem, having beheld Angela with the book, first in a vision, then also face to face, saw that they were the prayers of our (Carmelite) order, as the Author there records in chapter 3.
[17] At what time the said Author lived, he left testified in these words at the end of the life: Written by an Anonymous Author not very ancient. But St. Angela understood concerning the heresy which arose at Prague in the year of the Lord one thousand four hundred and ten, which even now still lasts. The Author therefore has nothing whereby he may be much commended for antiquity, nor accordingly is his copy so ancient—whether thou designate the Bruges copy, or another—as by some in the preceding paragraph is trumpeted; since it was written, according to the epoch of St. Angela fixed above, about two hundred and more years after her death, since she is handed down to have flourished in the year 1190. I ask now, who shone before that author as author? From what source did he draw his own? On what foundation, by what witness, by what surety does he reconcile a sincere and incorrupt faith to the things narrated by him? especially since he wrote at so great an interval of time removed from the time in which the things which he writes happened.
[18] To say with P. Seger Pauli, that it is not without probability, Was another, more prolix, once published? that the same writer was not the primary author of that life, but an abbreviator, which the aforesaid writer had asserted in the prologue prefixed to the manuscript life by himself, does not seem to rest on solid probability. For what? Let us consider by what reasons Seger, being led, makes this conjecture: The same acts, he says, are unknown to the writers of this century, and were not even known in the preceding century to Jacob the Frisian, who, although in his Zurich Library he made some memory of this Virgin Angela, nevertheless brings forward nothing of those things which the present life embraces; nay rather of those things which he reports, no mention is made in these acts. Whence too a conjecture not slight is given, that the same life which we here give is rather a certain compendium excerpted from her once more copious writings, in which a more recent abbreviator, who lived only after the year 1410, passed over not a few things.
[19] But this conjecture seems plainly improbable. For grant that the Frisian, in the things which he wrote of Angela, had before his eyes some author; who will prove, The judgment of P. Seger Pauli on this matter, with P. Seger, that he wrote the life in a more prolix style? Who will prove that this author was the primary [one], and that the life written by him was genuine, sincere, and pure? What if others better argue, that neither of these lives (if indeed two were written) is genuine, for this reason, that the one differs from the other in not a few points? Besides, why should not the Frisian rather have drawn his own, which he has, from some compendium, put together by some more recent writer? To Seger's conjecture I oppose my conjecture, and openly pronounce, that there appears to me nothing of reason for asserting an older writer from this, that the Frisian in the Zurich library brings forward certain things, of which no mention is made in these acts, or life.
[20] and its refutation. But indeed its author flourishing in the fifteenth century, I both hold, and wish to be held, [as] the primary [one], until some earlier be found; whom, unless I am much deceived, no one will easily find. Let it therefore remain, what I asserted at the beginning, that the life of Bl. Angela is not much commended by the antiquity of the writer, nor is there a greater age to the most ancient codex of the monastery of Bruges, commonly called Sion, than that of the fifteenth century. We have at hand a life, expressed in the French tongue, which in most points coincides with the above life, printed in the Mirror, if thou except a few things which crept into the French, and are better omitted in the Latin. As when John, of whom the life chapter 3 n. 8, is said to have been first a Carmelite monk, then patriarch of Jerusalem, brother of St. Angela; [and] Angela to have flourished about the year 1230; [and] the father of the Virgin to be called Raymund, king of Bohemia. In the Latin life to be produced by us, the name of Angela's father is wanting, and where discourse is made of John, patriarch of Jerusalem, it is nowhere had that he was the brother of Angela. Finally nowhere there is it reported in what century at last St. Angela lived or died. And yet, which thou wouldst marvel at, it is said at the end of the French life that these things were described and taken from a most ancient manuscript, and from our Martin Del Rio.
[21] Whether the codex be sincere from which the life is taken. Whether those errors were in the codex of the fifteenth century, and afterward corrected; or rather inserted afterward by another, matters little. It seems probable enough that these lapses were committed in the primary codex, since the French life so perfectly agrees with it, so that it cannot seem to be doubted that this was translated from that. However it be, it is abundantly clear that observations of this kind will not much conduce to establishing the authority of the life of St. Angela. To which is added, that it bears before it not a few indications, giving no slight handle for reckoning the things narrated in it among histories destitute of the due notes of credibility; and which therefore to the lovers-of-antiquity of a more refined judgment will perhaps seem to waver.
[22] The characters of the same life. Indications of this kind are: the everywhere vague, indeterminate, and indefinite narration of the deeds, the proper names of persons being omitted, as also the circumstances of times and places, and other things which surround a history; then the collection of apparitions and visions, repeated and heaped up to nausea, the colloquies, the unexpected outcomes, the spectacles, and the rest of that kind. And that the life which we shall presently give labors with these defects, if not all, at least several, he will easily be able to gather who shall wish to peruse it. For which he can be aided from the annotations to the life, if he consult them. These things, party zeal being laid aside, being weighed in the balance of truth, I thus determine: to the life which is in hand, whether thou consider its quality or its Author, not so much is to be deferred as the Authors alleged in the preceding paragraph esteem must be deferred; not to say anything worse of it.
[23] No one is so foreign in historical matters as to be ignorant, The authors, as being more recent, that one must not stand at once at the number of authors; who not rarely describe others' work, having followed earlier authors, no otherwise than sheep follows sheep. Attention therefore must be paid to other things, accommodated to making faith: such as, if the writer lived contemporaneously; if he either saw the matter himself, or heard [it] from those seeing. He deserves less faith, other things being equal, if, following in the nearest times, he write those things which he received from the mere report of others; but the least, if he was removed by an interval of very many centuries. Which last deserves no more faith than his preceding Authors deserve, whom he followed. Therefore that one must not trust more recent authors, or attribute more to them than to the very source from which they drew their own, that saying of Baronius on the year 1125 page 146 letter B admonishes: We ought not to estimate the truth of a history by the number of historians; but with how great faith the first author of any assertion is strong. For that the rest first follow the author, and cling to his footsteps, we find placed in custom by a rather frequent use.
[24] Which since it is so, it follows what must be determined concerning the writers set before us in great number,
in the preceding paragraph. I challenge the patrons of the opposite opinion to exhibit even one older than the fifteenth century. Nay rather most, nearly all, savor of nothing but the sixteenth and seventeenth century, if thou except two from these, the author of the life presently to be given, and Balduin Leers. This Leers is said in the oft-cited Mirror to have died in the year 1483. Of that author of the life there was treatment above. And yet the defenders of the contrary opinion wish, by so numerous a heap of recent authors, [and] at so great a distance of centuries removed from the age of the things which they treat, to persuade us that those things are true and sincere which they have brought forward concerning Angela's royal stock, the Jerusalem journey, the apparitions, revelations, monastic life, cult, and miracles, after so long, so constant and perpetual a silence of all preceding antiquity. Believe [it], posterity.
[25] Moreover, that I may respond severally to the places produced from the authors in the preceding paragraph in favor of St. Angela: They are weighed Possevino, when he writes in the Appendix to the first volume of the Sacred Apparatus, that Angela was the daughter of Raymund king of the Bohemians, is convicted of having erred, by reckoning among the kings of Bohemia a Raymund who never was in the nature of things. For I ask: who was that Raymund? when did he live? which king did he precede, which did he succeed in the administration of the kingdom of the Bohemians? when finally did he depart from the living? Deeply silent are the tables of the Kings, silent the older authors treating of set purpose of this question, on the testimony of Bohuslav Balbín, most skilled in Bohemian Histories, as he is named in the oft-mentioned Mirror; who, after a little dissertation put together for St. Angela, directed to the venerable Father Charles, of the Carmelite order, of the Counts Sclavata, at last, the matter without doubt being more maturely weighed, thus speaks in the Epitome of Bohemian affairs book 3 chapter 13:
[26] It ought to be the less a wonder, that at this time two Saints of the royal blood of Bohemia, and are compared with each other St. Angela and St. Euphrasia, are read among the Spaniards and other writers, of whom the native writers knew absolutely nothing. So great was the sloth of our elders in describing the genealogy of princes and kings! Although, that I may sometime say what I have long felt: often a fear and vehement suspicion has come upon me, lest in St. Angela, whom so many egregious writers make the daughter of Raymund king of Bohemia, we all err. For what Raymund did Bohemia ever have as king? It moves [me] too, that at this very time we read of Raymund the son of the prince of Antioch and Bohemund the count of Tripoli his brother; add other things which make the narration less probable, concerning which I treated in a special little dissertation directed to the venerable father Charles, of the Carmelite order, of the counts Sclavata. So not undeservedly our Bollandus: "The life," he says, "of Bl. Angela, which we have obtained in manuscript, needs no slight examination. Of the same opinion is P. Daniel Papebroch, a most learned man and most worthy successor of Bollandus, as he signified in letters lately given to me from Antwerp." Bl. Angela is handed down to have died on 6 July. Dost thou hear what the author most skilled in Bohemian histories, Balbín, feels concerning Raymund, the father of St. Angela, and concerning the whole life of Angela, whose narration he proclaims less probable, [how] he sparingly and only from the report of others enunciates it, and fixes a timid and cautious foot in the course of the present subject?
[27] the testimonies of the authors; The place of Balbín just cited, and chastened by second cares concerning St. Angela, can be opposed to the quite long text of the praised author in the little dissertation or particular disquisition on St. Angela, of which above, from number 11. There accedes to it, that the assigned place rests for the most part on postulates and suppositions, from which it is not so much proved what was done, as what could congruously and fittingly, certain postulates being laid down and admitted, have been done. And that anyone may not think this said by me gratuitously, let Balbín himself be heard in the Carmelite Mirror thus saying: That from more certain things more certain things are proved, the philosophers teach. I will therefore bring in this place certain more probable things, as the mathematicians are wont, who ask that certain things be granted them before all, and call them postulates. These foundations being cast, I will build up MY CONJECTURE. First, that St. Angela [was] a virgin and a Bohemian, etc., which I gave in the preceding paragraph.
[28] from which is made out From the words of the praised author brought forward there, it is only made out, that he, impelled by the authority of the writers, admits both that some St. Angela sometime existed, and that she was by country a Bohemian; daring to affirm nothing certain concerning her parents, journey into the Holy Land, Carmelite profession, visions, apparitions, and other circumstances pertaining to her. That the number or authority of writers, especially if they are further distant from the things which they treat, is to be esteemed at no more than the primary sources themselves, we again wish here to be intimated. It helps to remember, how solidly the cited author confutes the fictitious little fables and old wives' dirges of certain [men], asserting that St. Angela governed at Prague a monastery of women, and was buried there, in the cited place thus proceeding: But that I learned, from those same Fathers (Carmelites) narrating [it], that she governed the Prague convent of Carmelite Virgins, and died at Prague on 6 July, cannot be sustained; since, what is established most certainly, Bohemia had no convent or sacred nunnery of that order before the times of Charles IV.
[29] most of the things which are narrated of St. Angela, Which he proves further by this reasoning: This most happy emperor first brought the Carmelites into Bohemia, the basilica of St. Mary of the Snows at Prague, a work of the highest magnitude, being built, and given to the same with a convent, and founded another new convent for the same at Tachov; whose example the Counts of Guttenstein following, afterward built two convents, of Chiss and of Rabstein. Thus having spoken, [he] most skilled in Bohemian histories, then brings forward his conjectures, which prove nothing else than that it could have been done, but not that it was done, that Bl. Angela came into Bohemia, so that it is easy for any reader to gather that he timidly wished to determine all things, [and] nothing certain. Nevertheless, he says, St. Angela could, with the certain hope of a new convent to be founded for her sisters, being already designated prelate, have come to her brother the king in Bohemia, and at Prague, while she was intent on the greatest foundation, have been extinguished, especially if her endeavor fell into those times when the most ungrateful emperor Frederick Barbarossa cast king Wladislaus, the Virgin's brother, from the royal dignity. But of the tomb no trace survives at Prague. How easy a loss of a sepulchre! Were there wanting at Prague convents, and especially the one which her sister Bl. Agnes governed in the castle, where she might be laid? Enough of a much-controverted question.
[30] are doubtful and intricate. From what has been said it is abundantly clear that the history of Bl. Angela is most intricate with many difficulties on every side, and that this one thing alone seems here almost certain, that scarcely anything certain or probable can be established. To which the various and manifest hallucinations of various writers, one enunciating the matter thus, another otherwise, will conduce not a little. As many heads, so many opinions. Wilt thou have a specimen? Daniel of the Virgin Mary in the Vineyard of Carmel says that Angela flourished about and after 1190; Maracci judges that she flourished about the year 1230. M. Antonio Alegre de Casanate, on the testimony of Bollandus in the posthumous sheets comprising observations on the life of St. Angela, in the Paradise of Carmelite adornment (which book [is] prohibited, until it be corrected) state 4, age 13 after Christ, chapter 4 treats of Angela, and says she lived in the year 1166. But he seems to hesitate whether he makes [her] a Bohemian Certain circumstances, or a Tyrian. What more? The Author of the Carmelite Mirror objects to himself a difficulty as to the time spent by St. Angela in the government of the monastery of Jerusalem, which whether he solves sufficiently, let it be the judgment of others. It has a difficulty, he says, that she was chosen Prioress, at the time when the patriarch of Jerusalem was John, brother of St. Angela … about the year of Christ 1218, and that she was over her monastery 35 years; for so she would have been in the Holy Land up to 1253, before she returned into Bohemia at the admonition of the Mother of God, and thus would have been of a very advanced age.
[31] Then he refers the reader to Philip of the Holy Trinity, in this subject General of the Order; who in the life of St. Angela busies himself to unravel the present entanglements in this manner: In what year the departure of Angela from the Holy Land happened and she sailed into Europe, is not so established. Those who say that she was over the Jerusalem monastery 35 years defer this departure to the year of Christ 1253, and are compelled to admit that the virgin Angela herself lived before this departure 93 years, and, those being added in which she survived in Bohemia, reached about the hundredth year, or perhaps surpassed [it], and remained at Jerusalem after the last ruin of this holy city, which happened in the year of Christ 1244. Whence I would more probably believe, according to others and more congruously to the aforesaid revelation of the most blessed Virgin, of which see the Life at the end, that she was over the Jerusalem monastery 25 years only (for numbers are easily changed) and in the year of Christ 1243, a little before the Saracens took Jerusalem, departed from it, and sailed into Europe.
[32] not sufficiently aptly cohering To whom here would this opinion, resting on conjectures alone, concerning so advanced an age of Angela, not displease! For so great an age the author of the Mirror judges that the following words of the life chapter 3 militate: Whoever had seen her would have esteemed [her] another Anna, of whom there is treatment in the Gospel. But she had 84 years of age. Good consequence! That Angela was by no means likened by the Author of the life to Anna on account of an equal old age, but rather on account of the fasts and prayers continued day and night, is understood from the text: Whoever had seen her would have esteemed [her] another Anna, of whom there is treatment in the Gospel; who departed not from the temple, serving in fasts and supplications day and night. What? that the whole preceding period is wanting in the manuscript life of P. Seger, which is with us, and so it would be no wonder if some more recent interpolator had intruded it.
[33] are weighed. It remains therefore, that we conclude both those things which regard the time in which Angela is handed down to have been over the Jerusalem monastery, and the very time in which she was among the living, to be by no means stable, but to waver, one author ordering the chronological computation of each time thus, another otherwise. Nor indeed is it agreed among the authors concerning the books written by Angela, as Daniel Papebroch already long since observed in part 1 of the Responses §32 and 33, where on page 295 he thus speaks: Stuffed by authors of like faith, in augmenting the Gesnerian Library, Josias Simler ascribes to the same Angela … book 1 of Revelations; which last Martin Del Rio, book 4 of the Magical Disquisitions chapter 4, q. 3, sect. 4, cites in a similar manner: but both are to be corrected from Antonio Possevino in the Apparatus, where he ascribes that book to Angela of Foligno. Deservedly indeed: for thou hast the whole text inserted into this same life of Angela of Foligno by the Confessor of the Blessed woman herself on the 4th day of our January. So he.
[34] What must be answered to the objected public cult Now the public cult of St. Angela among the people of Sciacca, set forth and established
To Daniel Papebroch it was long since among his wishes, as he testifies in the cited place, to see the bull, and much more the foundations of the people of Sciacca, on account of which they rather than the other Carmelites in the whole world keep that feast. To these the same Author subjoins this his conjecture; by which he suspects that the same happened to the Carmelites of Sciacca in Sicily, which happened to the Augustinians of Fréjus in Gaul. These, persuaded from mere conjecture, that St. Maxima of Callidiana, wont to be venerated on 16 May, is the same whom Victor of Utica in Africa, as known to himself, praises, and says that, dismissed from the Vandal servitude, she was the mother of many virgins of God; asked that the cult of her be granted to them by that right by which that order draws to itself the whole African monachism, as instituted by St. Augustine; and, what they asked, they obtained, as is explained in volume 3 of May page 580.
[35] of St. Angela among the people of Sciacca. Moreover, as she, of whom no more distinct notice now exists, but only the memory and traces of a most ancient cult, is gratuitously presumed to have come from Africa, whereas it is far more probable that, born in Gaul, she instituted her life from the rule of St. Hilary; so it can be that a certain St. Angela, after a votive pilgrimage to the sacred places, lived near Sciacca [as] a solitary; who however was by nation a Sicilian (for among the Sicilians the names of Angelus and Angela seem to have been frequent) and of whom the most ancient cult is there, [but] no more distinct memory of [her] life; and hence the Carmelites took occasion, having obtained a church, perhaps sacred to her of old, to be held, of confounding her with the daughter of the king of Bohemia, of whose true existence we wish to be taught more certain things. And would that the same happiness might befall the people of Sciacca, by which the people of Fréjus in the year 1643 found the body of their St. Maxima. For then it would be established, that at least she who was buried at Prague, as is pretended, is wrongly confounded with the patroness of the people of Sciacca.
[36] And this is the Man's conjecture; which perhaps to those skilled in matters of this kind will not altogether displease in a subject quite involved, more certain documents being wanting, which might establish the matter with certainty. Conclusion concerning Angela and her cult. The things which pertain to the existence, country, birth, life-institute, and public cult of St. Angela having hitherto been brought into the midst and agitated on both sides; I wish the reader to be asked, that he supply us more certain documents concerning Bl. Angela of Bohemia, we being most ready rather to speak in her favor, if other reasons persuade it. It has seemed good to us meanwhile to determine nothing on either part. Let a fair arbiter of things judge which are to be preferred to which; and let him consider whether Papebroch was so greatly to be blamed by the pretended Exhibitor of errors, for having sometime doubted whether St. Angela of Bohemia, such as she is described by her patrons, ever existed in the nature of things.
VITA
From the printed part 4 of the Carmelite Mirror, page 535, collated with another manuscript life of P. Seger Pauli, a Carmelite of Cologne.
Angela, Virgin, in Bohemia (S.)
BHL Number: 0454
FROM THE CARMELITE MIRROR.
CAPUT I.
Angela's birth; studies; piety; contempt of an earthly spouse; letter to her father.
In the city of Prague in the kingdom of Bohemia was born the virgin Angela, daughter a of the King of Bohemia, fair indeed and chaste in face, The birth of St. Angela, her instruction and progress in knowledge. but much more chaste in faith herself; noble by birth, but much nobler by life and the practice of a most holy life. And first indeed, according to the will of her father the King, dwelling in a monastery, that together with the Latin tongue she might also learn good morals, and imbibe them from her tender years; she so far profited, that as iron is filed and sharpened by iron, and charity is fostered by charity, so she too the Virgin, sedulously edified by the erudition of the other virgins, and by good and most praiseworthy works, according to the fecundity of her mind, made very much fruit in the understanding of sacred Scripture, and in divine love: according to that which she attested to her father the King concerning that matter, saying, that she had seen in the monastery holy Jerome among the nuns, and with him St. Eustochium. It happened, that on a certain day toward night, The apparition of the Virgin Mary as a suppliant she made prayers to God before the high altar, and, prostrate, was little by little overcome by sleep; in which sleep she saw the glorious Virgin Mary, surrounded by a multitude of Angels making a most sweet harmony. Returned to herself from which sleep, she recognized that they were singing: Hail Queen of the heavens, hail Lady of the Angels. This song being finished, she was forewarned by an Angel sent to her, that it was in her father's mind to summon her to himself, and to join her in marriage. Wherefore, he says, set out b for Jerusalem, to the monastery of the most blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel.
[2] At a heavenly admonition she tends to Jerusalem At this very time there had arrived at Prague the son of the King of Hungary c and heir of the kingdom, a youth of remarkable beauty, to see and address the King's daughter concerning the future marriage: But Angela, by night, clothing herself with a manly garment, the byssine linen habit being cast off, wrote in a larger character a handwritten note in this manner: I Angela take to myself thy garments, and leave thee my very precious robe for the same. This thou shalt sell, that thou mayst procure for thyself other garments for it. The morning therefore being made, there were present the King's messengers, to bring the daughter home, but in vain: for she had before slipped away by flight. Thence the whole monastery was troubled, and the King himself, indignant, entered the monastery and the very chamber of his daughter Angela; in which he found, in his daughter's hand, a letter written in Latin. a letter being first written to the father, You will seek me, and you will not find [me], etc. Therefore I will open to thee my counsel, and manifest by this writing the purpose of my mind. Above all things I love Christ alone, to whom I have betrothed my faith and myself. And therefore I have gone out hence, because my heart is held with an excessive desire of seeing the chamber where in the afternoon he himself lay. Behold, now thou knowest where I am. If therefore thou desire to be my father, and to have me as thy daughter, presume not, I beseech, to separate me from my true heavenly father. I confess, thou art my father, and I am thy daughter: But I have another father in heaven, who is King of Kings, and Lord of Lords. I have heard his messenger sent to me. Hear, he says, beloved daughter, and incline thy ear to me, and forget thy people, and the house of thy father.
[3] bearing it grievously. The King therefore, astounded at these things, inquires whether there be anyone in the monastery who knew this her purpose: but when all excused themselves, and said that they were ignorant of the cause of her departure, the King returned home, bearing it grievously that he had once placed her, for the sake of her instruction, in the monastery. But those who were with him, noble men, consoled him, and said: Lord King, put away grief; for if it be God's will that she lead a religious life, it is not lawful, nor canst thou resist God; but if she do this only by her own arbitrament, in a short time she will console thee by her presence. A woman [is] ever a varying and changeable thing. She has no money, nor is she accustomed to poverty, nor apt for labors, who has worn out her whole age in the schools. Only send to all the monasteries and lodgings, [and] thou wilt easily get her back. And so the King's mind was rendered more peaceful, executing meanwhile the counsel of the nobles.
ANNOTATA.
CAPUT II.
The Jerusalem journey; the conversion of an unfaithful man; the apparition of the Mother of God and the little boy Jesus.
But holy virgin Angela, while she went toward the vast solitudes, in the evening betook herself to the house of a certain unfaithful host, The conversion of an unfaithful man, the apparition of the Mother of God. whom she instructed in the sacred letters, and converted to the faith. But before she gave herself to rest, having spoken with herself: New battles, she said, the Lord has chosen and overthrows the gates of his enemies; and thus commending herself to God and the blessed Virgin, his blessed mother, she indulged her little body, wearied by the long journey, a little sleep. But at first light the blessed Virgin Mary appeared to her: Daughter, she said, arise, I have prepared a place for thy rest. And thus departing thence, she proceeded into a hidden solitude, to which scarcely anyone dared to commit himself alone. In which, when she had accomplished some of the way, she met some who put her to flight from that wood, fearing lest she had come, desperate, into that horrid grove. She was asked what art she knew. And when they understood that she wrote accurately and neatly, each one longed to have her as a scribe a.
[5] The journey to Constantinople. Among others there was a soldier who meditated a journey to Constantinople, and thence into the Holy Land. He asked further what her name was. I will tell, she said, Lord, when we shall have departed from Bohemia; for my name is glorious and admirable. The soldier did not understand what that matter was; nevertheless he bought her a horse, and led her away with him from those lands. Meanwhile, when they conversed together, the soldier, turned to her: Tell me, he said, seriously, whence hast thou those rude garments? Neither to thy face nor to thy hands do they suit, with those garments. Hear, she said, my most worthy Lord, my speech, for I will narrate to thee the whole matter. My parent had me instructed in a monastery. Meanwhile I conceived in mind there, for the love of God, to see the Holy Land. But since I dared not go out from the monastery clothed in my own garments, fearing namely lest I be recognized by anyone, I gave my garments to one of the servants, and those with which I am clothed were his. But the soldier added nothing further to these things, nor suspected anything else beyond what he heard from her. Since indeed Jesus, her spouse, himself preserved his spouse; nor suffered the soldier to think anything unbecoming of her.
[6] Jesus, appearing to her, offers a book. She came therefore to Constantinople and they entered the church of St. Sophia. Where she in spirit heard Jesus speaking, promising her incorrupt riches. Which same thing when the Virgin of Christ had understood in spirit, she saw Christ, called in Greek Sophia, that is, eternal Wisdom, to whose honor the principal church at Constantinople is dedicated. And Jesus appeared to her in the form of a most beautiful little boy, offering her a Latin book of horary prayers, of the Order of the Brothers of Our Lady, which, in praying to God, she should use.
ANNOTATA.
CAPUT III.
Entry into the monastery; she appears to the patriarch of Jerusalem; is chosen prioress; her holy life.
[7] She visits the sacred places, After therefore St. Angela came to Jerusalem, she visited the sacred places with the said soldier. But when they had also come into the church of the sisters of Our Lady, she secretly opened her condition to a certain devout woman there, and likewise the purpose of her mind. The woman soon clothed her with a feminine garment, leading her to the Prioress, [and] asking that she be received as a nun. the prioress, admonished from heaven, inscribes her among the nuns, But the Prioress herself had seen in a vision of the night a a certain woman coming, who cast herself at her feet, having Latin horary prayers. Bl. Angela therefore being seen face to face, she herself not unmindful of the vision, inspected her book, and, having recognized that those prayers truly were of our Order b, asks Angela whence she got this book. Who, when she answered that it was the work and gift of God, and disclosed whose daughter she was, was received in friendly wise by all. Where she so excelled in the holiness of the life which she led, that afterward she was worthy to succeed to the prefecture of the monastery.
[8] and after a vision made to the patriarch of Jerusalem, For when the Prioress had met her last day, and the nuns were anxious about choosing the most fit (for there were easily six fit for the government of the house), they supplicated St. John, patriarch c of Jerusalem, who was also of the Carmelite Order, that he would pray God for the supplying of a good governess in the place of the deceased. John therefore, when in the sacrosanct Office of the Mass he had come to the first memento, saw passing before him six Virgins of the said monastery, and each had burning lamps in their hands. But she who was the last of them, St. Angela, carrying in her hand a ciborium, with a dark crystal, followed the others; whom St. John therefore said to be above the others most fit. she is chosen prioress. But Angela was unwilling to bring forth her brightness into public, out of the submission of her mind, which was signified by the crystal; as David the prophet speaks: He who sends his crystal like morsels: that is, of the virtue of humility, he bestows more on one, less on another, according to his divine will, and the capacity of men.
[9] This venerable spouse of God, Angela, for thirty-five years d most laudably was over the monastery in Jerusalem. Virtues in [her government,] No one among the nuns like her in penitence, vigils, fasting, and prayer; and, what is greater than these, in humility. Although she was over others, she did not boast, exalting herself above the rest. She ordained twelve nuns to sing the horary prayers. She was liberal to the poor, and a consoler of the afflicted. Often she had speech with the Angel of God, frequent speech with the Angel. whose sister she was, like in name and in virginal chastity, who also foretold to her that she was not to die there. It happened likewise, that on the Sabbath day (which day was always to her honor because of the Bl. Virgin) she saw the Angel coming to her, who spoke to her of the kingdom of God, and, finishing his speech, added: He who shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved. Which said, he showed her the riches of the heavenly Jerusalem. Whoever had seen her would have esteemed [her another Anna, of whom there is treatment in the Gospel, who departed not from the temple, serving in fasts and supplications day and night. From that time when she received the bridal veil flammeum f, and was consecrated by the patriarch of Jerusalem, who then prayed God, that he would preserve the good purpose in her unto the end.] This blessed virgin of God with all sedulity day and night studied to please her spouse, and so always to profit in his love. For whatever of good works she had either done before, or still did in the very act, seemed to her few and scanty, before the height of humility with which God had adorned her. Whence also whatever her mind desired, the spouse of God himself abundantly bestowed on her.
ANNOTATA.
CAPUT IV.
Rain obtained by her prayers; the monastery preserved from a hostile invasion; return to her country; holy death.
[10] She foretells rain, and obtains [it;] It happened that for almost half a year God gave no rain. Whence the people, most grievously afflicted and consternated in mind, coming to John patriarch of Jerusalem, bewailed the common misery. Therefore the said Patriarch, taking with him his deacon Eusebius, coming into the monastery, thus addresses the Prioress and the other religious daughters: Daughters of the heavenly spouse, ask God for the common salvation of the people. But the blessed Prioress Angela, Tell, she says, the people of Jerusalem, that in the evening they confess their sins, [and] on the morrow God will give them a sufficient abundance of rain. Therefore the holy Virgin, with all her humble congregation, gave their mind and their whole selves to praying God; but the people to confessing their sins, and contrition over their sins. On the morrow, the prayer of the holy Virgin being heard before God, it began to rain, and God gave an abundance of rains.
[11] she puts the Saracens to flight. The Saracens tried to destroy that monastery, but by her prayers were put to flight. It happened that a certain Mameluke a came with many Ethiopians, to invade the monastery by night by force. And when he had begun to do it, he heard a voice: Sin not against my ciborium. Terrified by which voice, anxious and confused, he departed thence. But Bl. Angela was sitting upon the stone of the Lord's sepulchre, like another Magdalene, weeping bitterly: having with her her spiritual daughters, whom she taught the virtue of patience.
[12] Admonished by the Mother of God to return to Prague, After, when God had decreed that the Holy Land be occupied by the heathen, and the Christians be slain and dispersed, there came to holy Angela a little before the blessed Virgin Mary: Depart hence more quickly, she said: for the time draws near, in which God is about to give this Holy Land, the sins of the Christians requiring [it], to the Heathen and Saracens, that they may inhabit it; as also St. Cyril indicated. Wherefore return into thy country, and pray for thy people, for a great tribulation draws near to them. But holy Angela understood concerning the heresy which arose at Prague in the year of the Lord one thousand four hundred and ten; which even now still b lasts.
[13] she secretly departs; dies among the Angels; shines with miracles. So secretly departing thence, she sailed across the sea, and coming to Prague, caused herself to be shut in a little cell or anchorage, until she finished her life in the same devotion. And the number of the days of her life being completed, she was fortified with the most holy Eucharist and anointed with the sacred oil, and thus delivered her spirit into the hands of God on the sixth day of July; the Angels of God ever assisting her and receiving that noble and chaste soul, which, as the sister of the Angels, is believed never to have had the stain of mortal sin. Leading her at last with hymns and canticles, as was fitting, into the choir of the holy Virgins, in the heavenly paradise. After death she shone with many miracles.