ON ST. ZOERARDUS OR ANDREW, CONFESSOR, AND ST. BENEDICT, MARTYR,
IN POLAND AND HUNGARY.
ABOUT THE YEAR 1020.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Zoerardus or Andrew, confessor, in Poland and Hungary (S.)
Benedict, martyr, in Poland and Hungary (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR G. C.
§ I. The present cult of these Saints in Poland and Hungary from the Polish Offices and Hungarian letters.
The Hungarians venerate these two hermits, as holy inhabitants of their region, on the XVII day of July; but the Poles honor the same with ecclesiastical Office on the preceding day, as their own countrymen. The Polish cult is plain from the proper Offices of that kingdom, which, printed at Antwerp in 1637 and 1643, comprise the Acts of each in two Lessons. St. Zoerardus or Andrew, Of St. Zoerardus or Andrew the following are read: St. Andrew Swirad, whom others name Zoerardus, sprung from the province of Poland, the Christian religion then first flourishing in Poland and Hungary, professed the monastic life in the monastery called Zobor, near the city of Nitria, under the abbot Philip. In that region namely of the Slavs and Hungarians, which, bordering on Moravia and the Danube, was once called the Sarmatia of Pannonia, the wondrous abstinence of that man and mortification of the flesh is proclaimed, so that besides a frequent three-day fast, he passed Lent too content with only forty nuts: nevertheless he would work by day; but by night he took scarcely any rest. For sitting near a thorn hedge was his sleep, his loins girt with a hidden bronze chain.
[2] Then of St. Benedict these things are subjoined: Andrew being dead in exercises of this kind, and St. Benedict, Benedict his disciple, likewise of the Polish nation, succeeded: and, imitating the morals and life of his master, survived three years. Finally slain by robbers in hope of finding money, and cast into a nearby river, Vag by name: where his body, sunk, lay hidden under the waters a whole year: at length by the indication of an eagle, daily observing the place, it was found whole and incorrupt, and placed in the church of St. Emmeram beside the body of his master. But of each this common collect is recited: O God, who grantest us to celebrate the birthdays of thy holy martyrs Andrew and Benedict: grant us to rejoice in their society in eternal beatitude. Through the Lord. I wonder that each Saint in this prayer is adorned with the title of martyr, since Benedict alone underwent martyrdom, and that in a broad sense; but Andrew, as is plain from the Acts themselves, was extinguished by a natural death. But perhaps the Poles took his austere manner of living for a certain kind of martyrdom.
[3] It is not sufficiently ascertained by me, with what other honor these Saints are affected in Poland. they are venerated in Poland. Yet from a miracle, which Martin Baronius, a Jaroslavian cleric, and Peter Hyacinthus Pruszec in the Spiritual Bulwark published in Polish, chapter 2, and other Polish writers committed to letters, I gather that the annual festivity of St. Andrew or Zoerardus is there celebrated in a church built over the cell, in which the Saint is believed to have lived for some years, before he set out into Hungary. Among the rest, Stephen Damalevicius, Provost of the Regulars of Kalisz, in the Life of St. Bogumil, chapter 32, narrates this prodigy thus: In the year of the Lord one thousand five hundred and sixty-nine, on the sixteenth day of July, on which the feast of the Saint is wont to be celebrated, in the times of Sigismund Augustus king of Poland, a frequent people was present, to be free for the divine offices, and to commend itself to the prayers of the holy Man, in the church which is built over his cell, in which the holy Man, before he went into Hungary, tarried some years. There the violators of public security with rash daring, and the sacrilegious overturners of ecclesiastical immunity, with great force assail the catholic people praying, and try to drive them out of the church. The people meanwhile implore the help of the holy Man with great contention of voice, and fervor of spirit: St. Andrew Zoerardus, servant of God, defend the church from the impious Lutherans, enemies of the catholic faith. Forthwith the Saint being called appeared manifestly, and with the fiery staff which he bore, driving off the heretics, drove them out of the cemetery; many of them the divine vengeance consumed with flames, many it blinded, many it deprived of life; some, restrained by a wondrous punishment, gave their hands to the holy Mother the Catholic Church. There remains to this present day the memory of the deed, a stone in the cemetery of the church, which is eight Polish miles distant from Cracow, great, black, of flint, quadrangular, flat as a table, three cubits long, one wide, in which the soles of the feet of St. Andrew standing are at present seen impressed. And these are the things which I could find of the veneration of the Poles toward these Saints.
[4] It will be permitted to treat more distinctly of the Hungarian cult of the same Saints, which the Hungarians themselves clearly and accurately explained in letters given to our Elders. But these notices chiefly received we refer to the Rev. Father Ladislaus Vid, The Rev. Father Ladislaus Vid accurately wrote these things to us. Rector of our College and novitiate of Trenčín, who diligently investigated very many things pertaining to these holy hermits, and transmitted them to our Henschenius. Among other things that accurate man, being at Nitria in the year 1660, noted the following about the present cult of those Saints, which here I faithfully report in his own words: The patrons at this time of the cathedral or capitular church of Nitria, he says, are Sts. Andrew and Benedict, of whom as patrons commemorations are made. Of St. Emmeram there is no memory in the divine offices, although once in his honor a chapel is said to have been erected in the same place, in which today the basilica of Sts. Andrew and Benedict stands.
[5] which pertain to the public veneration Then the solemn festivity of these Saints, and other indications of public veneration, he thus goes on to describe: On the XVII of July is celebrated through all Hungary under a semidouble the feast of Sts. Andrew and Benedict, and St. Alexius yields to them: but at Nitria with a most solemn rite, as patrons of the place, they are honored with an Octave. There are also fairs on the same day in the city of Nitria. Once too a procession, to excite the devotion of the people, used to be instituted to the top of the very high mountain Zobor, and there, an altar being erected in the open air, Masses and sermons used to be held on this day. But in these years the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend George Szelepcheni, archbishop of Kalocsa and Bács and administrator of the church of Nitria, takes care to have built on the summit of the same mountain Zobor, in honor of Sts. Andrew and Benedict, an eight-cornered church to be adorned with a cupola. The basilica of Sts. Andrew and Benedict, which is in the citadel of Nitria, assigned to the episcopal residence and the uses of the Chapter, the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend John Telegdi, archbishop of Kalocsa and Bács, and also administrator of the church of Nitria, so renovated it, that he can be called as it were its founder: for he erected the walls for the greater part from the foundations, raised a tower of great work and elegance entirely anew; provided at great cost an organ of singular craftsmanship; erected a most august high altar, a chair, and a double stall in the church itself for the dignity of the bishop, paved the pavement with marble.
[6] of these Saints Moreover, after enumerating other buildings of the same archbishop, which do not pertain to our Saints, he thus proceeds: In three altars of this cathedral church the images of Sts. Andrew and Benedict are seen sculptured with polished work: Andrew indeed with a rosary in an iron chain or hair-shirt, and with nuts and a crown, hanging with hair from four parts, as if placed among thorns; but Benedict with an axe; both in hermit's habit, like Palestinian abbots, are expressed on these altars, and (I know not what is the cause) St. Benedict is placed on the right; but St. Andrew on the left. Moreover here at Nitria the greater memory is made of St. Andrew Zoerardus; nay the people carry about the name of Zoerardus alone, as at Trenčín in Skalka that of Benedict alone. I conjecture that St. Benedict, although younger and a disciple of St. Andrew Zoerardus, is placed on the right, because, besides the merits of a holy life, he obtained the little laurel of martyrdom.
[7] in Hungary, Finally the Rev. Father Ladislaus Vid thus concludes his observations: There are seen the ruins of a once great monastery and church of St. Hippolytus the martyr, built by St. Stephen the king for the Benedictines outside Nitria in the first valley under the very mountain Zobor, where the mountain looks to the north. Not far from the monastery is a cave, below it a delightful spring, celebrated for the memory of Sts. Andrew and Benedict; another spring likewise a little below the monastery, called that of St. Stephen the king, is visited and drunk with great frequency, very many sick confessing their health restored by the benefit of that water; which too the popular signs affixed round the spring testify. This cave of Nitria is not that in which St. Benedict is written to have been slain by heathen robbers: for that is in Skalka, where an abbey stands. But that all these things may obtain fuller credit with all, the praised Father Vid took care that his narration should be subscribed by two men constituted in ecclesiastical dignity, and fortified with their seals. The first subscribes thus: I testify that these things are so, I John Szászy abbot of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Three Fountains of Bél, canon-lector and Vicar of the cathedral church of Nitria. But the other thus: The same I attest, I Stephen Podragzai abbot of St. Michael the archangel of Batha, and guardian and canon of the cathedral church of Nitria.
[8] I add to these the indulgences for the church of St. Benedict of Skalka in the year 1560 by the purpled ones of the Holy Roman Church
granted by the cardinal fathers, and he transmitted at the same time a copy of the indulgences, which the same our Ladislaus took care to have described from the autograph. But the tenor is such:
Rodolph of Porto, Francis of Tusculum, Frederick of Palestrina, John of Albano, bishops. John of the title of St. Vitalis, James of the title of St. Mary in via. John of the title of St. Prisca, John of the title of St. Pancras. Clement of the title of St. Mary in Ara Coeli, James of the title of St. Mary in Cosmas and Damian, presbyters. Guido Ascanio of St. Mary in via lata, and Vitellozzo of St. Mary in Porticu, deacons; by the divine compassion Cardinals of the sacrosanct Roman Church, to all the faithful of Christ who shall inspect the present letters, everlasting salvation in the Lord. The more frequently we induce the minds of the faithful to works of charity, the more wholesomely we provide for the salvation of their souls. Desiring therefore that the church of the monastery of St. Benedict of the Rocks, otherwise of Skalka, martyr, of the Order of St. Benedict, of the diocese of Nitria, may be frequented with congruous honors, and continually venerated by the faithful of Christ, and duly repaired, preserved, and maintained in its structures and buildings, and also fittingly furnished with books, chalices, crosses, luminaries, ecclesiastical ornaments, and other things necessary there for divine worship; and that the faithful of Christ themselves may the more willingly flock to it for the sake of devotion, and the more promptly stretch forth helping hands to its preservation, repair, and maintenance of this kind, whereby from this they may know themselves the more abundantly filled there with the gift of heavenly grace:
[9] We the aforesaid Cardinals, namely each of us for himself, [which the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church granted in regard of St. Benedict Martyr.] inclined by the supplications of Stephen Radetius, beloved to us in Christ, abbot or commendatory of the said monastery, humbly presented to us on this matter, trusting in the mercy of almighty God, and the authority of his blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, to all and singular the faithful of Christ of either sex truly penitent and confessed, who shall have devoutly visited the said church of the monastery yearly on the several feasts, namely of their Benedict and Andrew Zoerardus the martyrs, who are celebrated on the same day, and of St. Stephen the protomartyr and of the Paschal Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and also of St. George and of Pentecost, and on the days, from first Vespers even to second inclusively, and shall have stretched forth helping hands to the premises, for the several feasts and days aforesaid on which they shall have done it, one hundred days of the penances enjoined on them we mercifully relax in the Lord, these presents to endure in perpetual future times. In faith of which we have caused these our letters to be made, and to be fortified with the impression of our seals. Given at Rome in our houses in the year from the Nativity of the Lord 1560; on the XXIX day of the month of August; in the first year of the Pontificate of the most holy Father in Christ and our Lord Pius IV by divine providence Pope.
§ II. The ancient cult of the same Saints from Martyrologies and other monuments.
Although from what has been said the legitimate cult of these Saints is sufficiently established, From various Martyrologists, yet after our manner we shall enumerate some Martyrologists who made mention of the same. Greven in the augmented Usuard thus records them: In Hungary in the church of Nitria, of Sts. Andrew and Benedict martyrs. Ferrari too names each a martyr, when in the General Catalogue of the Saints at the fifth day of May he thus writes: At Nitria in Hungary, of Sts. Andrew and Benedict, hermits and martyrs. But what martyrdom of St. Andrew he understood, he sufficiently intimates in the notes there in these words: Andrew, bound with an iron chain over his naked body, endured a long martyrdom. The same on the XVI day of July places these Saints in the same Catalogue thus confusedly: At Nitria in Hungary, of Sts. Benedict the hermit, and Andrew his disciple the martyr. I scarcely understand what Ferrari means by that confused announcement, and why he wrongly calls Andrew the disciple of Benedict. But in the notes here he adds, that on this day they are venerated at Olomouc. I inspected the proper Offices of the diocese of Olomouc, printed in 1630 and 1679; but I found no vestige of this cult. Molanus in the Usuardine additions, published in the year 1568, on the first day of May thus celebrates their feast: On the same day of the holy hermits Zoerardus and Benedict martyr, whose Life Maurus bishop of Fünfkirchen described. But he notes in the margin that their Acts exist in manuscript among the Regulars of Rouge-Vallée. But in the Usuardine edition of the years 1573 and 1583 he explains them a little more distinctly in this manner: In Hungary, of the holy hermits Zoerardus confessor and Benedict martyr, whose history Maurus bishop of Fünfkirchen described. Almost the same at this day has our Canisius in his German Martyrology.
[11] The Benedictine hagiologists inserted the same Saints, as their own comrades, the cult of the same Saints is shown, everywhere in their Martyrologies and Menologies at the first day of May. Arnold Wion in the Wood of Life, book 3, page 152, thus commemorates them: In Hungary, of the holy hermits and monks Zoerardus confessor, and Benedict martyr, slain by robbers. Dorganius in the Benedictine Calendar thus imitated Wion: Of Sts. Benedict martyr, and Zoerardus confessor, slain by robbers. Hugo Menard in his Benedictine Martyrology rightly corrects the error of each preceding one, and in book 1 of the Observations, page 224, thus notes: In the Martyrology was read corruptly SLAIN (in the plural); I have restored SLAIN (in the singular): for Benedict alone was a martyr, slain by robbers, as is to be seen in Surius in his Life. Then he adds some things from Martin Cromer about the dwelling and age of these Saints, which we shall examine in the following paragraph. Bucelin in the Benedictine Menology on the Kalends of May wove a more prolix elogium of the same, which here I omit, since it is a compendium of the Acts, which after this Preliminary Commentary we shall give whole. Constantius Felicius in the Historical Calendar written in Italian adorns each Saint on the Kalends of May with this brief elogium: Zoerardus confessor, and Benedict martyr. Zoerardus a Pole was made a monk in Pannonia and called Andrew. He was a man of great abstinence, and dies with great miracles. Benedict his disciple and imitator was slain by robbers.
[12] I pass over here other more recent ones who made mention of these holy Hermits. and the error of Castellan is detected. Yet I cannot but touch in a word that unheard-of thing which Castellan most recently inserted into his Universal Martyrology. After he placed St. Zoerardus on the XVI day of July at Nitria in Hungary, in the supplement of the Saints who have no fixed day of cult, page 909, he thus writes of our St. Benedict: St. Benedict Vagaeus, hermit in Hungary, slain by robbers, whose body is honored at St. Emmeram of Regensburg. Without doubt he surnames him Vagaeus, because he was cast into the river Vag. But I know not what he means by that cult of Regensburg, of which among other writers not a word exists. The body of St. Benedict indeed was buried in the church of St. Emmeram, and there is venerated, as we said above; but this church of St. Emmeram was once built in Hungary. Perhaps Castellan, knowing that St. Emmeram was bishop of Regensburg, and that there under his name a monastery was founded, thought that in the Life of St. Benedict the Regensburg church of St. Emmeram was treated, and so confused two churches far distant from each other. This is our suspicion, which, better informed, we shall willingly lay aside.
[13] The testimonies which hitherto we have adduced from the Martyrologists for the cult of these Saints The cult of St. Benedict martyr is confirmed from a diploma of King Bela, do not exceed the antiquity of two centuries. Wherefore from more ancient monuments we proceed to establish the same cult, and we here insert the following diplomas, from which the sanctity of Benedict martyr is proved. Bela by the grace of God king of Hungary, Dalmatia, Croatia, Rama, Servia, Galatia, and Cumania, to all the faithful of Christ who shall inspect the present page, salvation in the Savior of all. To the knowledge of all, both moderns and posterity, we wish it to come by the series of these, that when we had turned aside to the place which is called Szkalka in the county of Trenčín, where St. Benedict the martyr led an eremitic life to God, perceiving the brothers of that place remaining in the service of God to suffer excessive want and indigence, moved by mercy for our soul's affection, wishing to succor their poverty, that, sweating for divine contemplation, they might be sustained with temporal benefits, the middle part of a certain land, by name Geztec, pertaining to the castle of Trenčín, which had been divided by certain boundaries, and assigned in part to the castellans of Trenčín, of the village of Bork, and in part to the guests of the same castle of the village of Geztec, that part which was assigned to the said guests, we conferred on the oft-said brothers of Szkalka to be freely and perpetually possessed, under the same boundaries with which it was divided, and assigned to the aforesaid guests. That therefore the benefit of this our grant may obtain by the progress of times the perpetual strength of firmness, we have commanded the present page to be strengthened with the protection of our double seal. Given in the year of grace one thousand two hundred and thirty-eight; on the ninth Kalends of July; but in the third year of our reign.
[14] and of James bishop of Nitria, The ancient cult of the same St. Benedict is demonstrated from the diploma of the bishop of Nitria, of which this is the tenor: James by the grace of God bishop of Nitria, to all to whom these presents shall come, prayers in the Lord. I make known to your love, that to the honor of almighty God, and of blessed Benedict martyr, in the cave which in the vulgar tongue is called Szkalka, where too the blood of the same Martyr is recognized to be suffused on the wall of the cave even to this present day, a church built to the title of blessed Benedict and of all the Saints, counsel and consent of our brothers being had, we have constituted an abbey according to the rule of blessed Benedict, and for the sustenance of the brothers serving the Lord in the same church, the land Wygezd formerly pertaining to Mogos, which the same long ago gave to the church of Nitria with seven oxen, two servants, by name Martin and Zambocz, two vineyards with two vinedressers, sons of a vinedresser, Mikou and Joachim, forty sheep with as many swine, one hundred capetiae (they are among the Hungarians fifteens, and sometimes little heaps of sheaves of grain) namely the fiftieth of our tithes with the estate which in the village of Skala Wikozlaus, now a monk, held, when he was parish priest, we have conferred on the same to be possessed in perpetuity… But that this donation made by us might so remain hereafter,… we have caused it to be noted in charters, and strengthened with the protection of our seal and of the chapter of Nitria. In the year from the Incarnation of the Lord one thousand two hundred and twenty-four.
[15] on which last some things are noted. I judge it superfluous here to adduce other diplomas of later times, which confirm the former already exhibited, and, as genuine, acknowledge them. All these joined together are kept at Vienna in our professed house, as in the year 1660 the Rev. Father John Berthold Provincial of our Society through Austria testified, who fortified with his seal the copy of the authentic diplomas transmitted to us, and subscribed with his own hand. Yet I add some things which for the clearer understanding of the immediately preceding diploma the already oft-
praised Father Vid observed, thus writing in his letter: There no longer exists any indication on the wall of the cave of the shed blood of St. Benedict the martyr, as it is reported once to have appeared, by bishop James about the year 1224 in the foundation letters of the abbey. But concerning the present state of those things which are mentioned in the preceding diploma, he noted the following: Here moreover, in memory of his consummated martyrdom, upon the rock, the Vag overhanging, a little temple was built, which in the old letters of the abbey is written to have been made in honor of St. Benedict; yet in this age it is venerated as a house dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, on whose solemnities accordingly it is frequented with great devotion of the people flowing in even from Moravia. The care and possession of this little temple too, as also the abbey of St. Benedict, is now in the hands of the Society. How this abbey passed to the Society of Jesus for the foundation of the college or novitiate of Trenčín, is plain from the letters of the Emperor Ferdinand III, which are kept in our Professed house at Vienna in Austria, and a copy of which, fortified with the seal of the above-said Rev. Father Provincial, I here pass over, because they contribute little to our purpose, since we have already brought forth more ancient testimonies of the cult of St. Benedict.
[16] As regards St. Zoerardus; from the book of the Decrees of the kings of Hungary it is gathered The ancient cult of St. Zoerardus or Andrew is proved. that the sepulchre of that Saint was magnificently adorned already from the beginning of the fourteenth century: for in tome 2 of the Decrees, page 45, it is narrated that Matthew of Trenčín, a rebel against Charles I king of Hungary, perished by a wretched death, after he despoiled and plundered the church of Nitria, the sepulchre of the divine Zoerardus, made most excellently of pure silver. I could moreover confirm the cult of each Saint from the very ancient Breviary of the church of Nitria; but I forbear these, both because I see those Lessons taken word for word from the Acts, and because I do not think that Breviary, although it be called very ancient, reaches to the age of the diplomas given above. And let these things said about the cult of these Saints suffice. Now let us discuss some more obscure points of the Acts.
§ III. The homeland of the Saints; their dwelling in Poland, and their profession of life in Hungary.
Our Acts, no. 1, testify that St. Zoerardus came from the land of the Poles into Hungary; from which arises a not improbable conjecture, Our Saints are said to have been Poles by nation, that he was a Pole by nation, especially if to this old testimony you add the constant tradition of the Poles, by which they acknowledge and venerate both these Saints as their own countrymen. But I know not whence certain more recent historians drew so distinct a knowledge of the homeland and parents of St. Zoerardus: for after Martin Baronius, a Jaroslavian cleric, Stephen Damalevicius, cited above, no. 3, in the Life of St. Bogumil published at Rome in the year 1661, chapter 32, page 168, thus writes of this matter: Andrew Zeorardus, born in the parts of lesser Poland, in the town of Opatowiec near the river Vistula, of Christian and pious parents, his father Marcus, his mother Agnes; who, rightly instructed by the holy education of his parents in the precepts and law of the Lord, led a monastic life in the monastery called Zobor. I do not indeed deny that these things are perhaps true; but I am eager to know whether they were drawn from ancient and trustworthy monuments. I know not either where Antonio Bonfini found those things which in book 1 of the Hungarian Affairs, Decade 2, page 174, he handed to memory of these Saints; namely, that in the time of St. Stephen the king, among others, there came into Hungary from that part of Dalmatia which they call Poliana, two hermits: of whom the one was called Andrew, the other Benedict. Andrew by the sanctity of his life put forth miracles. Benedict, since he shed his blood for Christ, is numbered among the divine martyrs.
[18] and to have led an eremitic life in Poland, before they proceeded into Hungary, The Poles moreover assert that these Saints led an eremitic life in Poland, before they departed into Hungary; of which kind of life in our Acts and the Hungarian writers there is deep silence. The most ancient historian in whom I found this Polish dwelling is John Dlugosz, otherwise Longinus, who in book 2 of the Polish History at the year of Christ 998, column 124, has these things: Two men at that time distinguished in life and example and conversation flourished; Swyrardus, who at the river Dunajec near the town of Czechow in the diocese of Cracow dwelt as a hermit under a rock, which to this day we behold, and in which for many years he had served Christ as a soldier, and Benedict, both leading an anchoritic life, having gone out from Poland entered the Pannonias, and serving in the monastery of St. Benedict at the foot of the Iron Mountain under the abbot Austericus, Swyrardus, who is also Zorardus, merited the honor of a confessor by the harshness of his life, Benedict, his blood being shed, was crowned with the little laurel of martyrdom.
[19] [in which last Dlugosz places them in another monastery and under another abbot than our Acts.] I observe that Dlugosz moreover here, concerning the name of the abbot and the monastery when St. Zoerardus lived in Hungary, disagrees with the Polish Lessons and our Acts, which no. 1 expressly assert that St. Zoerardus received the habit from Philip the abbot, whose monastery, named Zobor, was situated in the territory of Nitria to the honor of St. Hippolytus the martyr. Of Austericus or Astericus, who after obtaining the archbishopric of Esztergom was called Anastasius, bishop Chartuitius, a writer of nearly that same time, has these things in the Life of St. Stephen printed at Cracow in the year 1511: Abbots and monks, desiring to have nothing of their own, resolved to live regularly under the governance of so religious a prince: among whom Astericus, a father of the regular life, came with his disciples… There came too two others from the Polish land, choosing an eremitic life for the sake of contemplation; of whom one, Andrew by name, through the merit of confession was associated to the angelic choirs, the signs of miracles wrought by him from the Lord being witnesses; the other Benedict, his blood being shed for Christ, was mercifully laureled. Astericus the abbot, honorably received with his own, built at the foot of the Iron Mountain a monastery under the title of the holy father Benedict. Perhaps Dlugosz, seeing these things narrated thus mixedly, thought that Sts. Andrew or Zoerardus and Benedict were to be numbered among the disciples of Astericus. But, besides that Astericus came from Bohemia, where he presided over the monastery of Břevnov, into Hungary, we rather believe the coeval writer of the Acts, who places St. Zoerardus under the abbot Philip in the monastery of Zobor, built to the honor of St. Hippolytus.
[20] Some will have it that they were monks in Poland, which is explained. Nor were there wanting those who affirmed that St. Zoerardus embraced the monastic rule in Poland, before he set out into Hungary. Of this matter Martin Baronius the Jaroslavian in the Lives of the Polish saints, published at Cracow in the year 1610, part 1, page 24, thus writes: Andrew Zoerardus … the Christian religion then first flourishing in Poland, afterward in Hungary, led a monastic life in the monastery called Zobor, raised in honor of St. Hippolytus the martyr … in which, the habit being received from Philip the abbot, which he had before received in Poland from St. Barnabas, he bound himself by solemn vow to the rule of St. Romuald, and, named Andrew, resolved to lead an eremitic life. I do not sufficiently understand what that double monkhood means. Perhaps Baronius gathered this from Martin Cromer, bishop of Warmia, who in book 3 of the Polish Affairs, page in my copy 51, hands down the following of our two Saints: There were too at this time in the solitude near the river Dunajec, which, flowing from the borders of Hungary, mingles with the Vistula near the town of Opatowiec, two monks celebrated for the sanctity of their life: of whom Benedict was slain by the Hungarians, because he professed Christ, Swirardus, after a life most hardly passed in the monastery of the Iron Mountain in Hungary, whither both had migrated, was consumed by his own death. But, although these two Saints are called monks by Cromer, when they lived in the Polish solitude, it does not follow that they were then bound to any rule, since this name is often attributed to followers of the solitary life, as Papebroch shows in the Responses to article XV, §6, no. 123. But it could easily happen that before both these Saints were hermits in Poland, and afterward in Hungary, having professed the monastic state strictly so called, as more perfect, repeated the same kind of solitary life with the license of their abbot.
[21] The question now is, of what Order's institute they embraced: for the Benedictines, Camaldolese, There is a dispute among the Religious of St. Paul the hermit, and Paulites, or monks who think themselves instituted by Paul the Theban, contentiously claim these two hermits for themselves. Paulinus Klodauski of the Order of St. Paul in the year 1635 wrote a little book, in which he strives to deduce the origin of his Order from St. Paul the Theban hermit, and to show how this religion was propagated through Poland, Hungary, and other regions of Europe. Among other things, contending that this religious institute of hermits was brought into Hungary by St. Gerard the Venetian, he speaks thus of our Saints, § XI: Two distinguished men, namely Andrew Zoerardus and Benedict, passing from Poland into the kingdom of Hungary, came to the said St. Gerard; of whom the first, made from a cenobite of the monastery of Zobor a Paulite hermit in the territory of Nitria, is piously thought to have been joined by the merit of confession to the angelic choirs: but the other his disciple is reported to have shed his blood for Christ near the river called Wag, if we believe Maurus bishop of Fünfkirchen. Why should we not believe the coeval bishop, whom various Martyrologists on the IV day of December adorned with the title of blessed or holy? But where does Maurus say that those two Hermits came into Hungary with St. Gerard, or were of the Order of St. Paul? But of this matter presently more.
[22] Various writers attribute the same holy hermits to the Camaldolese Order, as is to be seen in Thomas Minius in the Catalogue of the Saints, and the Camaldolese, published at Florence, in Guido Grana in the Camaldolese Dissertations, printed at Lucca in the year 1707, dissertation 2, chapter 5, no. 4, and in Martin Baronius cited above, no. 20. Of the same profession of life Stephen Damalevicius, already several times praised, in the Life of St. Bogumil, chapter 32, records these things: Andrew Zeorardus … led a monastic life in the monastery called Zobor, raised in honor of St. Hippolytus the martyr (near the city of Nitria, namely in that dominion of the Slavs and Hungarians, which, bordering on Moravia and the Danube, was once called the Sarmatia of Pannonia); in which, under the obedience of the abbot Philip, who had succeeded the holy Maurus bishop of Fünfkirchen (each was of the Camaldolese institute), he lived in the highest austerity of life. As regards Maurus; he lived in the monastery of St. Martin, as he himself in the Acts, to be subjoined to this Commentary, no. 1, testifies: but the monastery of St. Martin seems to have pertained to the Benedictines, since St. Stephen king of Hungary in the diploma which Mabillon in the Acts of the Saints of the Order of St. Benedict
at century VI, part 1, page 73, adduces, grants to that monastery such liberty as the monastery of St. Benedict on Monte Cassino holds.
[23] and to the Benedictines, which Order these Saints embraced in Hungary. Moreover the Benedictine writers, both in the Martyrologies and in the Annals, number these two Hermits among their saints, and call the monastery of Zobor their own, until the Camaldolese of the Congregation of Monte Corona occupied it about the end of the last century, as Guido Grandus, a Camaldolese monk, in a letter given to Papebroch in the year 1696, indicates in this manner: In the year 1689 our hermits of Monte Corona, raising a hermitage in the monastery of Zobor in Hungary, restored the place celebrated for the dwelling of these Saints (namely Andrew and Benedict; of whom being asked he had answered), with the help of the Lord Blasius Zachi, bishop of Nitria. Moreover, to show that these two Saints pertain to his Order, in the same letter he asserts that he saw in the library of his monastery the Offices of the patrons of the province of Poland, published at Cracow in the year 1603, in which are read two proper Lessons: from which, he says, for the greater part were afterward taken and composed the four Lessons of the second Nocturn of our Camaldolese Breviary, several times reprinted with the license of the sacred Congregation, in which at the XVI day of July you will see prescribed the celebration of the solemnity of the same under a double rite of the second class, as we observe at this day, and our Missals too prescribe, yet from the common of confessors not pontiffs.
[24] We think that they were probably Benedictines, I think that I shall displease fewer, if with our Martin Czeles in the Indications of Hungarian sanctity, printed at Trnava in the year 1692, of this whole controversy I should thus pronounce: Andrew both the Benedictines and the Camaldolese and the Religious of the first Paul claim for their saints: I would not act the judge. But since such an answer does not satisfy the curious readers, who exact the judgment of ours in similar matters as if by a certain right of their own, I have resolved to declare roundly what I think of this dispute, lest I should seem to have hidden the truth, however odious, out of fear of offense. But I do not wish more weight to be in my opinion than the reasons to be alleged for it evince. I judge therefore it more probable that both these Saints were of the Order of St. Benedict; because the Benedictines can show from synchronous and nearly-contemporary writers that in the time of St. Stephen the king they had monasteries in Hungary; which for the other religious claiming these Saints for their Order would be difficult to prove. Add to this the diploma of the year 1224 adduced above, no. 14, in which James bishop of Nitria testifies that to the honor of St. Benedict the martyr he gave certain alms to the Benedictines dwelling in Skalka. From what has been said the Benedictines themselves can further draw arguments by which they may demonstrate that these holy Hermits were nurslings of their Order. Meanwhile let it be permitted to propose some difficulties to their competitors.
[25] I judge that not much is needed to call off the Rev. Father Paulinus Klodauski praised above, and the other religious of St. Paul, from that opinion by which they persuade themselves and to the Pauline monks, that Sts. Andrew and Benedict are to be ascribed to their Order: for unless they wish to number all hermits of whatever kind among their own, by no right can they claim these Saints living in the tenth century for themselves, since the Order under the name of St. Paul the Theban only began to flourish in Hungary in the thirteenth century, as was said on the X day of January in the translation of St. Paul, subjoined to his Life, and it may be seen more fully in tome 3, chapter 42, of the French work which a certain anonymous author not long ago published at Paris on the Religious and military Orders. Nor does the ancient manuscript codex move me, which our Melchior Inchofer in the Ecclesiastical Annals of the kingdom of Hungary cites at the year of Christ 1009, in which our holy Hermits are said to have been of the Order of St. Paul: for however ancient that codex is called, certainly it does not surpass the antiquity of that Order itself, instituted in the thirteenth century. Wherefore let this religious congregation, having professed an anchoretic manner of living, proceed to venerate and imitate these holy Hermits, but let it confess that they neither were nor could have been nurslings of its Order.
[26] The opinion of the Camaldolese, by which they venerate Sts. Andrew and Benedict as their own, and to the Camaldolese, bears a greater appearance of truth, since from trustworthy monuments it is established that certain disciples of St. Romuald, the founder of the Camaldolese, were about those times in Hungary and the neighboring regions: nevertheless the following can be opposed to their opinion. St. Peter Damian fifteen years after the death of St. Romuald wrote his Life, which our Bolland illustrated with notes on the VII day of February. In it are recounted the chief disciples of St. Romuald, and among others Benedict (he is plainly different from our martyr of the same name) and John, who are reported to have undergone martyrdom slain by robbers in Poland: in it too are enumerated the monasteries erected in various places by the holy Founder of that Order. But everywhere both of our Saints and of the monasteries built at that time in Hungary there is deep silence. Would, I pray, that author nearest to that time have omitted Andrew memorable for the rigor of penance, and Benedict illustrious for the palm of martyrdom, if each had been a disciple of St. Romuald? To me indeed it does not seem probable, especially since he mentions by name other disciples of the same illustrious in virtue. That argument, however negative, is not without its force, as it will be plain to one considering attentively.
[27] Add another positive argumentation, and thus reason: In the same Life, chapter 13, it is narrated that St. Romuald departed into Hungary with twenty-four disciples, we oppose certain arguments. and that the holy man, compelled by sickness to return, foretold to the Brothers wishing to remain there that none of them would be crowned with the laurel of martyrdom. Which the event taught to have been true: for although they suffered many things there, yet to martyrdom, says Peter Damian, as the holy man had foretold, they do not attain. From this it seems legitimately to be able to be concluded that our Benedict, who about the same time obtained the palm of martyrdom in Hungary, was not a disciple of St. Romuald. Moreover this Benedict martyr in the synchronous Acts is said to have been the disciple of St. Andrew; but it is very probable that he followed the same institute as his master; since therefore, on the testimony of Maurus the coeval, St. Andrew received the habit from the abbot Philip in the monastery of Zobor, it lies upon the Camaldolese to prove that that monastery at that time pertained to their Order. But I think they will prove that with difficulty, since the fifteen brothers left by St. Romuald in Hungary seem to have run through that region on all sides to disseminate the Christian faith after the manner of apostolic men, rather than to have lived in monasteries. That I may finish in a word, let the Camaldolese monks show from ancient monuments that these two holy Hermits were aggregated to their Order, and we shall give our conquered hands, and congratulate them on the victory.
§ IV. The time at which these Saints came into Hungary.
[The opinion of Inchofer is rejected, who thinks they came into Hungary under Geisa I.] Concerning the chronology of these Saints, from the Acts it is established that in the time of Stephen the king they came into Hungary. Wherefore I cannot embrace the opinion of our Melchior Inchofer, who in the Ecclesiastical Annals of the kingdom of Hungary at the year of Christ 1009, after the Acts given from Maurus bishop of Fünfkirchen, thus reasons, page 295: Thus far of the deeds of Andrew and Benedict Maurus of Fünfkirchen, who lived in the time of Stephen the king. He is the same to whom Emeric the royal boy fixed seven kisses, as we shall say below, for the merit of purity, and whom Stephen, tested and praised in virtue, promoted to the bishopric of Fünfkirchen. He moreover, since he says that he saw Andrew at the time when he was a scholastic boy, that is, gave his labor to letters; and then professed the monastic life in the monastery of blessed Martin of the holy Mountain, nor so suddenly, in the manner we have said, ascended to the episcopal dignity, it is consequent that Andrew came into Hungary in the time of Geisa the father of the divine Stephen. That consequence I by no means admit, because it directly contradicts the Acts written by a coeval, which expressly assert that in the time … of the most Christian Stephen the king … many canons and monks from other lands flowed together to him, as to a father, and that among them a certain one, Zoerardus by name, afterward called Andrew, came from Poland into Hungary. Moreover Inchofer in this place seems to have forgotten those things which in the same Annals at the year of Christ 1000 he had thus expressly said of the coming of these Saints: In this same thousandth year came from Poland into Hungary the brother hermits Andrew and Benedict, about to profit the new plant by their doctrine and example, and were liberally received by the king, most desirous of the salvation of his own.
[29] Others assign to them different epochs. But since in the Acts there occurs no other characteristic note of time, and St. Stephen ruled the Hungarians from the year 997 to the year 1038, I cannot determine for certain in what year these Saints sought Hungary, or in what year they departed from this life. Only from the same Acts it is safe to affirm that St. Benedict was slain by robbers three years after the death of St. Andrew. Since therefore this whole chronology is vague and uncertain, the authors have gone into various opinions, so that they seem to have assigned the epoch of these Saints at their own pleasure: for Wion and Bucelin place them in the year 990, Menard 999, Surius 1000. John Dlugosz in book 2 of the Polish History, page 124, mentions the same Saints at the year of Christ 998; but Cromer in book 3 of the Polish Affairs, page 51, records the same in the following year. If those authors, as they often are wont, wish by the years already said to designate the time in which these Saints died, without doubt they are mistaken: for since under Stephen the king (only in the year 1001 did Stephen obtain the title of king) they penetrated into Hungary, and only after some time passed in the monastery withdrew into the hermitage, their life is to be further prolonged. Add that St. Benedict survived his master Andrew three years.
[30] Charles Stengel in the Images of the Order of St. Benedict, page 60, they assign to them. after a brief elogium of these Saints says: They flourished about the year of Christ 1020. George Garnefelt the Carthusian of Cologne in book 2 on the Lives of the Hermits, no. 24, at the Life of St. Zoerardus reduced to a compendium, notes in the margin 1020. In the annotations to the same Lives, page 1207 and elsewhere, he repeats the same year; but nowhere distinguishes whether in that year he lived or died. This epoch, however uncertain, does not displease me, whether it denote the eremitic life of St. Zoerardus, or his happy passage from this life, provided his death be not deferred too long after this epoch: Zoerardus could too have come into Hungary about the year 1010 with his companion, and lived in it even to
the year 1021 or 1022. Nor is it probable that he prolonged his life longer in so rigid an affliction of his body, such as is described in his Acts. To this is added that at that time he probably numbered not a few years of life, since he had St. Benedict as a disciple, and, according to the Polish writers, had before in Poland led an anchoretic life for several years. But since the Acts determine nothing certain about the coming, I have chosen for it the year 1010, because St. Stephen from the beginning of his reign to this time could easily have built the monasteries and churches which are related in the Acts. But although this epoch is not without its difficulties, yet it seemed to me more apt for explaining the various consequences of the Acts, as we shall see below.
[31] Andrew Placidus Maggor, archabbot of St. Martin, seems to me to have placed the coming of these Saints too late: [The archabbot of St. Martin places the foundation of the monastery of Zobor too late,] for their monastic life in the monastery of Zobor is to be deferred beyond the year 1031, if that be true which that archabbot ordered to be written to our Bolland in these words: The once distinguished monastery of Zobor near the town of Nitria is founded in the year one thousand thirty-one by the holy king Stephen in honor of St. Hippolytus the martyr, in which these holy men Andrew and Benedict under the first abbot Philip professed the monastic life. These things could easily be explained, if that archabbot, thirty years being omitted, should say the monastery of Zobor was founded in the year one thousand and one. But who will reconcile the foundation of this monastery made in the year 1031 with the Hungarian and Polish writers, who commonly hand down that St. Andrew embraced the monastic life in Hungary under the beginnings of the reigning Stephen? Nay even the Acts themselves seem in a manner to intimate this, when at the beginning they narrate that St. Andrew came into Hungary, and received the habit in the monastery of Zobor at that time when, under the will of the most Christian king Stephen, the name and religion of the Deity, still rude, was sprouting in Pannonia. But in the year 1031 the religion was not sprouting quite rude in Hungary, since then there very many churches and monasteries were built, and various bishoprics had been erected, as is manifest from the Life of St. Stephen the king written by bishop Chartuitius nearly contemporary.
[32] Moreover if St. Andrew, coming into Hungary, received the monastic habit from the abbot Philip in the monastery of Zobor, which is said to have been founded only in the year 1031, who will compose this epoch with the testimony of Maurus himself, who at the beginning of the Acts affirms and consequently defers the coming of our Saints too much. that the holy Man was seen by him when a scholastic boy? For Maurus, according to the Life of St. Emeric and the Hungarian historians, was raised to the chair of Fünfkirchen by king Stephen, who in the year 1034, or as others will, at the latest in the year 1038, flew to the heavens. Wherefore not rashly do I suspect that the archabbot of St. Martin was either deceived in making the computation, or his amanuensis erred in expressing the numbers, just as he himself in the same letter erred, thus distinctly subscribing with his own hand: I testify, I Andrew Placidus Maggor archabbot of St. Martin, that this history (he speaks of the lessons of Sts. Andrew and Benedict) was described word for word from the most ancient monastic Breviary printed at Venice in the year of Christ 1326. Certainly in that year which he notes, the typographic art was not yet invented; and so I conjecture that he wrote the year 1326 for the year 1526.
[33] To a certain objection, From what has been said it can be gathered that we place the coming of St. Zoerardus into Hungary in the year 1010. But perhaps someone will augment the difficulty moved above by our Inchofer, and thus argue against our system: In the Life of St. Emeric, written by an ancient author, and other Hungarian histories, it is narrated that St. Emeric the royal boy went with Stephen his father to the monastery of St. Martin, situated on the mount of Pannonia, and fixed seven kisses on Maurus, a monk there, for his eminent chastity, and that Stephen, knowing the singular virtue of the same Maurus, a little after promoted him to the bishopric of Fünfkirchen. But Inchofer in the Ecclesiastical Annals of Hungary writes that St. Emeric was eight years old when he kissed Maurus seven times, and so thinks that this visitation of the Martinian monastery was made in the year of Christ 1015. If therefore St. Zoerardus only in the year 1010 came into Hungary, and Maurus a little after the year 1015 was raised by the same Stephen to the chair of Fünfkirchen, how can the same Maurus at the beginning of the Acts truly assert that, being a scholastic boy, he saw St. Zoerardus or Andrew, since in that hypothesis between the boyhood of Maurus and his episcopate scarcely six or seven years intervene? There is added to the difficulty moreover that Maurus in the Acts themselves, no. 4, indicates that he was an abbot. How, someone will say, do all these things cohere? Now we shall try to answer this objection, and to loose its several knots.
[34] it is answered, First I admit those things which in the Life of St. Emeric are related about the seven kisses given to Maurus, and about his promotion to the bishopric of Fünfkirchen; but I deny that those things happened at that time in which our Inchofer assigns them. But this I deny by the same right by which he asserts: for he brings forward no testimony of ancient writers in his Annals for this epoch. Perhaps Inchofer thought that St. Emeric did this at eight years old, because in the Acts and other histories narrating that matter Emeric is called a boy. But it must be observed that once infants and boys were promiscuously called the sons of magnates, who could not enter into the possession of their paternal fiefs until they had reached the legitimate age, that is, had attained the twenty-first year, as Cange teaches in the Glossary of middle and low Latinity at the words infantes and heres. St. Emeric therefore could then be called a boy, although he numbered sixteen or more years of age, and consequently that visitation of the Martinian monastery can be tied to the year 1024 or 1025. In this way it will be explained how Maurus a scholastic boy saw St. Andrew in the year 1010, and after this kissing of Emeric was ripe for the episcopate.
[35] But, you will say, in the Life of St. Emeric, published at Cracow in the year 1511, and to other difficulties, thus it is read: But then blessed Stephen knew the words of his son to be ratified, and, the order of the matter being narrated, extolled Maurus (but he is called a brother, not an abbot) with praises, and, that the pontifical place might be adorned by him, a little after raised him to the bishopric of Fünfkirchen. If Maurus at that time did not administer the abbatial office, and a little after was assumed to the episcopal dignity, when then could he have been an abbot? Nevertheless in the Acts, no. 4, he indicates that he was constituted an abbot in these words: But the things which follow, the abbot Philip was wont to narrate to me constituted an abbot. I ingenuously confess that this difficulty is so intricate that I scarcely hope that it can be altogether unraveled by me. But the same knot, besides other difficulties, is to be loosed by Inchofer and the other writers, who must admit those things which I am now about to say, or bring forward better than these.
[36] I judge therefore that the particle "a little after," expressed in the Life of St. Emeric, which to our chronology is to be taken in a broader signification, so that it signifies that Stephen a few years after this visitation took care to have Maurus set over the diocese of Fünfkirchen. Certainly promotion to a bishopric often suffers a delay of some years. If therefore between this visitation of Stephen and the episcopate of Maurus a space of five or six years be granted, there will be found the time in which Maurus could, occasion being given, be elected abbot, especially after the holy King had extolled his virtue with public praises. I am not ignorant that Bonfini in Decade 2 of the Hungarian Affairs, book 1, page 177, writes that king Stephen set Maurus over the bishopric of Fünfkirchen a few months after. But since the ancient writers do not express such a space of time, by the same right I will thus explain the particle "a little after," that it signifies this was done a few years after.
[37] As regards the boyhood of Maurus, in which he testifies that he was, could be opposed, when he saw St. Zoerardus or Andrew; it must be observed that by "scholastic boys" were once designated those who in the monasteries were being disposed for the monastic life, and gave their labor to the humaner studies, or even the theological, whom the monks commonly called boys, as Cange proves with adduced examples in the Glossary already cited at the words "monastic schools" and "infants of the monastery." Maurus therefore, by the received custom, calls himself a scholastic boy, when he saw St. Andrew, although then perhaps he was fifteen or sixteen years old. But another scruple remains concerning the same Maurus, which Mabillon moves for me from the Life of St. Gerard the apostle of the Hungarians, in which thus it is read: Meanwhile he came into the parts of Pannonia, whose reins then the most Christian king Stephen governed … But the servant of Christ, seeing himself left there alone, that he might avoid the noise of the people, sought the hermitage of that region which they call Bél, and there, for seven years free for fastings and prayers, except Maurus a monk, dwelt alone. Mabillon here at the name of Maurus notes that this is the same with ours; and in the Benedictine Annals at the year of Christ 1026 (our Inchofer defers the coming of St. Gerard into Hungary even to the year 1030), tome IV, book 55, no. 102, page 326, thus expressly pronounces: The man of God, wearied of the crowds, with Maurus a monk, who afterward was bishop of Fünfkirchen, departed into the solitude which they call Bél, and in it spent seven years.
[38] these being explained, It is no light suspicion to me that here, on account of the homonymy, two Mauri are confused by Mabillon, just as for the same cause he fused two far-different monasteries into one: for thus the Břevnov monastery of St. Martin, situated in Bohemia, he confused with that which king Stephen had built to the honor of St. Martin on the sacred mount of Pannonia or Hungary, as the ancient writers expressly hand down in the Acts of St. Stephen and St. Emeric. Whence Mabillon in the Benedictine Annals at the year of Christ 1008, book 53, no. 8, thus wrongly writes: Andrew … likewise cultivated the eremitic life, accompanied by one companion, whose name was Benedict, from whom Maurus the bishop, then a Břevnov monk, learned the manner of his life, and related it. If Maurus was then a Břevnov monk in Bohemia, how did Benedict the companion of Zoerardus, dwelling in Hungary, often come to the monastery of Maurus, as he himself in the Acts, no. 1, testifies? Not to stick here longer, all the circumstances of the Acts cry out that the monastery of St. Martin, in which Maurus dwelt, was situated in Hungary. What if that Maurus, the companion of St. Gerard, was a Břevnov monk? What if there were several monks of the same name? Nor is this last indeed so wonderful, since I scarcely doubt that many, having entered the Benedictine Order, took the name of Maurus
assumed the name of Maurus out of veneration for St. Maurus, who was the illustrious disciple of St. Benedict. However it be, the distance of times and places and the Hungarian historians afford a sufficient foundation for judging that these two Mauri differ from each other. Perhaps the same scruple could be removed in another way: if namely it pleased me here to examine accurately the time at which St. Gerard came into Hungary; on which epoch the writers do not agree. But, that controversy being left to that sacred day, the XXIV of September, we shall fix our hypothetical chronology, since we cannot draw a certain and absolute one from ancient monuments.
[39] our system is proposed. Those things which in this paragraph we have said being thus laid down, St. Andrew could have been in Hungary in the year of Christ 1010 or 1011, and been seen by Maurus a boy of fifteen years. Maurus too could about the year 1025 receive seven kisses from Emeric, and after five years be adorned with the episcopal miter: and so Maurus had thirty-five years before he ascended the chair of Fünfkirchen. But if he began the episcopate at this age, he could easily administer the same even to the year 1070, in which year the Catalogue of the bishops of Fünfkirchen, which is inserted in the Tripartite work of the Decrees and Constitutions of the kingdom of Hungary, tome 2, page 615, assigns Anthony to him as successor. What, I pray, in this whole matter is paradoxical? Is it prodigious if Maurus reached the old age of 75 years? What hinders that within five years from the visitation of St. Emeric Maurus should for some time have borne the office of abbot? Yet all these things I do not warrant to have been so done, but I contend that they could have been done, that our Acts may keep their authority, and the Life of St. Emeric written by an ancient author be not rashly contradicted. Let these things about the uncertain chronology of our Saints be said enough and more than enough.
§ V. The hermitage of the Saints, their relics, miracles, and Acts.
The already oft-praised Father Ladislaus Vid describes the place which our holy Hermits inhabited in Hungary in these words: The solitude where these two holy men dwelt Our Ladislaus Vid describes the place, is distant from the royal and free city of Hungary Trenčín almost one small German mile, which is called Skalka, which in the common Slavonic tongue is the same as a little rock. Here an abbey of the Order of St. Benedict was founded in the year 1224 by the ordinary bishop of the place, the fourth of Nitria, James. Skalka moreover is a pleasant place at the river Vag upon a little hill, between two woods, looking from the east upon the river Vag, and from the north a most pleasant plain cultivated on each side of the river, filled with villages and towns, which makes a valley visible for several miles as the Vag flows down. But of the place where St. Benedict, the disciple of St. Andrew, underwent martyrdom, he has these things: The cave, whence St. Benedict was dragged out by heathen robbers and mortally wounded, is distant from the Vag, as it actually flows, about a thousand paces; but from the place or the rock, from which he was cast headlong into the Vag, and afterward where he is reported to have been observed by an eagle for the space of a year, it is distant a little more. Then he subjoins that there, to the honor of St. Benedict and the memory of the martyrdom accomplished, a chapel was built; as I said in §1.
[41] Finally of the dwelling of both he adds these peculiar circumstances: In which these holy Hermits dwelt, There stands a cave, which we in fact religiously venerate, which these two Saints are believed to have inhabited. It is situated in a vast rock, touching the southern side of the monastery (today a Residence), and the western temple. There are seen there in the stone clear traces where, as much as we have received by continuous tradition, they are reported to have lain upon the hard rock. Likewise the rock appears moderately hollowed out by assiduous genuflections: moreover the pressed signs of the fingers of each hand in the stone, on which they supported themselves, while with hands stretched out in a cross, standing in the cave, they for a long time gave themselves to prayer. From this measured dimension of the extended hands it is gathered that they were men of more than moderate stature. Thus far the Rev. Father Ladislaus Vid, rector of our College of Trenčín. I scarcely know what the Rev. Lord Andrew Placidus Maggor archabbot of St. Martin means, who in the letters mentioned above thus speaks of another cave: I saw with my own eyes the whole church of St. Hippolytus, yet lacking roof and vault, with a great part of the monastery now ruined, and I considered the place most apt and most accommodated to the cenobitic life, and I venerated the cave in which the divine Andrew lay hidden, in the year 1633. I think that he means that in the monastery of St. Hippolytus now destroyed he venerated the cell of St. Andrew, in which he dwelt while he still lived in the monastery of Zobor.
[42] Memorable is (if only it be true) the prodigy which Martin Baronius in the Lives of the Polish saints, part 1, page 10, narrates to persist in the dwelling of our Hermits in this manner: and there is reported to persist a prodigious vineyard, There stands too even to this our time in Nitria (by Nitria I suppose is here understood the county or diocese of Nitria) where those holy fathers Andrew and Benedict remained, one small vineyard surrounded by a wall, which was planted by the Saints with their own hands for the use of the divine office of the church, from which through the whole year wine was supplied, and did not fail, of which even to this day it abounds in the same abundance, and does not fail, through the mercy of God, and love toward his glorious Saints. But if anyone from that vineyard shall have unworthily or furtively eaten the grapes, or tasted any fruit of the wine, he falls into a pestiferous fever, nor is restored to his former health, until he has done penance for the things taken away. Now the vineyard too has been devastated by the heretics, and is planted by no man: nevertheless by the divine clemency, as also before, it produces most abundant fruits (like other vineyards which are cultivated). But that the aforesaid wine, offered with devotion to the sick with fevers, confers health, is proved by the testimony of many trustworthy men.
[43] of which nevertheless the Hungarians made no mention. Let the credit of this narration be with the author, who in adorning the deeds of the Polish saints seems too liberal. Wherefore Stephen Damalevicius, Provost of the Regulars of Kalisz, in the Life of St. Bogumil, chapter 33, somewhat mitigated the same miracle taken from Martin Baronius, and, certain circumstances being omitted, thus proposed it more briefly and more probably: There stands in Nitria, where the holy Men remained, a small vineyard planted by their hands, for the use of the divine sacrifice, which through the whole year was wont to supply wine: from which if anyone had taken away grapes, he fell into a fever, nor was restored to his former health before he had done penance. That to the sick and feverish, the wine from it being given to drink with devotion, health and strength are conferred, is proved by the testimony of many trustworthy men. Whatever be of this double narration, which is supported by the testimony of no ancient writer, I greatly wonder that the Hungarians, who accurately indicated by letters to our Henschenius very many things pertaining to these Saints, made no mention of this so distinguished a miracle. Wherefore even from this head the credit of Martin Baronius wavers with me not a little, who perhaps from popular fame or tradition committed to letters a thing so prodigious.
[44] As regards their relics, After Hungary was so many times devastated by the Turks and Tartars, and in our age too overturned by intestine wars, it is difficult to assign in what place today the relics of our Saints rest. Wherefore here we shall be content with that notice which we received of them about the middle of the preceding century. The archabbot of St. Martin, mentioned a little before, thus writes of this matter: The relics of these Saints, translated from the church of St. Hippolytus the martyr to the citadel of Nitria, and placed in the church of St. Emmeram the martyr in a place and tomb more eminent, lay [even to the year one thousand six hundred and thirty-eight, in which John Thelegdinus of the best memory, archbishop of Kalocsa, administrator of the bishopric of Nitria, a chapel being fabricated with beautiful work, laid up the same with great solemnity in the middle of the altar]. But the Rev. Father Ladislaus Vid, who being at Nitria curiously investigated many things about these Saints, at this assertion of the archabbot noted in the margin the following: After diligent inquiry I did not find these things deleted (he had deleted those things which I here enclosed in brackets). Yet there exist small relics of St. Andrew, which I saw and venerated. Martin Baronius in the work just cited, page 29, divines that St. Andrew was buried in the year 1009 on the XVI day of July on the Iron Mountain. Our Acts, no. 4, indicate the ancient burial of each Saint clearly enough.
[45] I would easily believe that at the relics of these Saints, wherever they were, very many miracles are said to be done. many miracles were done, since in the Acts themselves we read two prodigies worthy of faith and admiration, wrought by the intercession of St. Andrew; but that magnificent and general manner of speaking does not satisfy me, which Martin Baronius, on the page just cited, uses in extolling the miracles of St. Andrew: Indeed if I should wish, he says, to explain in writing or speech the miracles of this Man which I learned through my own self, or which I knew by the narration of the faithful, and which even now daily are declared at his sacred body, the pen and words would not suffice: since through his invocation and merits the dead have been raised, the blind enlightened, and very many other languishing men have been in wondrous ways restored to their former health. If so great was the abundance of miracles, it is truly to be grieved that he did not at least leave the chief ones, confirmed by authentic testimonies, one by one to posterity. A little before I indicated what I think of the prodigious vineyard, described above by the same author. The miracle wrought in Poland in the year 1569 by the intercession of St. Andrew I related on another occasion in no. 3 of this Preliminary Commentary. But I could wish these more recent things to be corroborated by so many and so great testimonies, that the heretics, even unwilling, might be convinced of their truth: for we live in an age in which men acquiesce only in evident arguments of truth. Now of the writer of the Acts, of whom we have said much above, few things remain to be added.
[46] The Polish Legendary (it seems to be John Dlugosz) published in type at Cracow in the year 1511, [After various writers, from the Corsendonck Ms. we publish the Acts of these Saints,] folio 107 verso, Surius at the 1st day of May, our Inchofer in the Annals of the kingdom of Hungary at the year of Christ 1009, Gonon in the Lives of the Fathers of the West, book 3, page 159, Mabillon in the Acts of the Saints of the Order of St. Benedict at century VI, part 1, page 76, and others inserted into their books the deeds done by our Saints. Our Peter Skarga, and Peter Hyacinthus Pruszec published their Life in Polish. But all, as I see, drew their things from the same source, namely Maurus bishop of Fünfkirchen. We have in Belgium a double manuscript copy of the same Acts: one, which is kept among the Canons Regular of Rouge-Vallée near Brussels, as Molanus in the Usuardine Additions on the 1st day of May noted in the margin; but the other
exists among the Canons Regular of the monastery of Corsendonck, from which we excerpted it from a codex which is inscribed: The second part of various Legends. But these, both manuscript and printed, agree among themselves, so that it easily appears that all were faithfully taken from Maurus, the first writer of the Acts; except that here and there Surius after his manner somewhat changed the style, whom most others followed in their editions. Yet the Polish Legend, published in type at Cracow in the year 1511, agrees almost word for word with our Ms.
[47] I have said hitherto confidently that Maurus bishop of Fünfkirchen is the writer of these Acts, [under the name of Maurus bishop of Fünfkirchen, who is asserted to have been their author.] although Mabillon prefixed to this Life somewhat timidly such a title: The Lives of Sts. Zoerardus or Andrew confessor, and Benedict martyr, hermits. By the author (as they report) Maurus bishop of Fünfkirchen. Certainly the writer of these Acts names himself Maurus, and clearly expresses that he, when he wrote these things, was a bishop. Moreover that he was before a monk in the monastery of St. Martin, he not obscurely indicates; all which wondrously agree with those things which of Maurus bishop of Fünfkirchen the Hungarian history hands down. Hence our Possevino in the Sacred Apparatus, tome 2, page 95, thus writes of him: Maurus, a monk of the monastery of St. Martin on the mount of Pannonia, provost of the church of Fünfkirchen about the year 1003 (this epoch I do not approve), whom for sanctity and chastity they commend, Arnold Wion asserts to have been a bishop. He wrote the Life of Sts. Zoerardus and Benedict monks. Vossius, book 2 on the Latin writers, chapter 42, and most recently David Czvittinger in the specimen of Learned Hungary, page 252, more distinctly mentioned the same Maurus as bishop of Fünfkirchen, and the certain author of this writing. Wherefore under his name we here commit those Acts to type from the Corsendonck Ms., collated with certain editions, and we note in the margin various readings of some moment.
ACTS
By the author Maurus bishop of Fünfkirchen.
From the Corsendonck Ms. of the Canons Regular, which has been collated with the Cracow Legend of the year 1511, and the edition of Gonon, Mabillon, and others.
Zoerardus or Andrew, confessor, in Poland and Hungary (S.)
Benedict, martyr, in Poland and Hungary (S.)
BHL Number: 0452
FROM MSS.
St. Zoerardus, the monastic habit being received in Hungary, called Andrew, In that time in which, under the will of the most Christian king Stephen a, the name and religion of the Deity, still rude, was sprouting in Pannonia b, the fame of the good ruler being heard, many canons and monks from other lands flowed together to him, as to a father, not indeed compelled by the cause of any necessity, but that the new joy of holy conversation might be fulfilled from their assembly. Among whom a certain one, touched by the instinct of the Holy Spirit, sprung from rusticity, as a rose from thorns, by name Zoerardus, came into this country from the land of the Poles [*], and, the habit being received from the abbot Philip, whose monastery, named Zobor c, was situated in the territory of Nitria d to the honor of St. Hippolytus e the martyr, and named Andrew, resolved to lead an eremitic life: and there with how great contrition of heart, and maceration of body he afflicted himself, from the relation of his disciple Blessed Benedict conversing with him, which things I heard, I have resolved to commend in a few letters. I indeed Maurus, now by God's mercy a bishop, but then a scholastic boy f, saw the good man; but what his conversation was, I perceived not by sight, but by hearing. To our monastery therefore, consecrated to the honor of blessed pontiff Martin g, when the already-said monk Benedict had often come, he narrated to me these things which follow of his venerable life.
[2] After the same blessed man Andrew entered into the solitude of the hermitage, he sat in the hermitage, and his body with fasts, with great weariness of body, but strengthening of the spiritual life, he always observed fasting: for three days he abstained from every thing that can be eaten, for the love of the grace of Him who, for the sake of men made man, fasted forty days. But when the Lenten time came, by the example of the regular life under which the abbot Zosimas h lived, where each passed Lent with forty-five dates, he himself received from father Philip, from whom he had received the habit, forty nuts, and being content with that food, awaited the day of the holy Resurrection with joy. But on those and other days, although the eating not only did not suffice to refresh the body, but even brought the spirit itself to failing, yet he, except at the time of prayer, never ceased from labor: but, an axe being taken, about to work he entered a solitary place of the wood; where, when because of excessive labor and the strictness of fasting, his body and spirit failing, on a certain day he lay as if dead, a certain youth most beautiful in aspect and of angelic vision came, and, placing him on a vehicle, led him to his cell. But the ecstasy in which he was having passed, after he had returned to himself, and recognized what the mercy of God was doing toward him, he professed the same to his above-said disciple Benedict, who narrated these things to me, binding him with an oath that he should make it known to none before the day of his death.
[3] But after the daily labor, he applied to his body such nocturnal rest and afflicts it with wondrous torments. as could have the name rather of torment and affliction than of rest: for he surrounded a smoothed oaken trunk with a hedge, and through that hedge fixed sharp reeds on every part; but he himself sitting on the trunk used such a rest of his limbs with reiteration, that if perhaps his body, weighed down with sleep, bent itself to a side, wounded by the point of the reeds it awoke heavily. Moreover a crown made of wood he put round his head, from which on four parts he hung four stones, so that if his sleeping head should incline anywhere, it would be struck by a stone. O the reward of the blessed man Andrew, adorned a hundredfold with the crown of blessed and eternal life, which in heaven recompenses what on earth had been heavily bought! O unheard-of kind of confession, which makes more precious the kingdom of the promise! Not food, not rest could take away with vain sweetness the life of eternity; and the wicked spirit could not find an approach of deception.
[4] These things which are inserted I knew from his already-said disciple Benedict relating them; St. Benedict his disciple is slain by robbers. who himself too, his Father being dead, resolved to inhabit the same deserted place. When for three years by the example of his Master he led a strict life, robbers coming upon him, and hoping that there was much money with him, having led him to the bank of the river Wag i, slew him, and sank him into that water. But his body being long sought and not found, through a whole year an eagle was seen to sit on the bank of the river Wag, as if about to observe something, through which, being made certain of the body, they made a certain one to be immersed into the waters, and so found it whole, as if he had lately died. But Benedict was placed there in the basilica of blessed Emmeram k the martyr, in the same sepulchre in which the bones of the holy father Andrew the venerable reposed, who related to me of the same blessed Hermit all that I have now written: but the things which follow, the abbot Philip was wont to narrate to me constituted an abbot.
[5] St. Andrew being dead, his hard manner of living appears. When therefore the time of the dissolution of his body was at hand, indicating this to those who were present, he commanded that he should be stripped by no one of the covering of his garments, until the abbot Philip, after whom he had sent to be summoned, should come: who father, coming where the venerable body of the now dead man lay, stripping it to be washed, found a bronze chain now reaching to the inward parts. O wondrous and unheard-of thing! The chain, rotting the flesh within, was covered over by the skin from without. But this kind of martyrdom could not be known, unless the knot of the metal appeared bound at the navel. But the chain being loosed, while it is drawn from the body, the sound of the crushed ribs is heavily heard. The middle part of which chain, obtained from the same abbot, and kept even now, I could not deny to the petition of the most Christian Duke Geisa l, with desire pressing me for it. The body too of the blessed Man being buried, those things which, known by the revelation of the abbot Philip, seemed to be worthy of memory, I noted.
[6] By his intercession a dead robber is raised; At a certain time robbers, whose bands for the most part inhabit the solitude, met in the wood. As they fought, they had much wounded one of them. The conflict being broken off, when his companions were by no means willing to leave this wounded man in the wood, counsel being taken, they resolved to carry him to the cell of the above-said man Andrew, whose fame touched all round about. But when the place was still far off from there, the robber died on the way. But his body being carried to the cell, and placed in it, when at midnight they wished to commend his bones to the earth, suddenly his spirit returning, he, now dead, began to rise. But those who were present being much terrified, and fleeing for fear, that raised one called them back, saying: Do not, brothers, fear, nor flee: for holy Zoerardus has raised me from death to life. But they weeping for joy, and asking that he should depart with them, he said that he would never depart from that cell, but there would serve God and holy Zoerardus forever. He did therefore what he promised, and even to his death remained there.
[7] and another hanged on a gibbet is freed from death. Another miracle of his too I have by no means wished to keep silent, which in the same manner, the abbot Philip narrating, I knew. In the city of Nitria m a certain guilty man condemned was hanged; who afterward loosed by God's mercy, came to the abbot Philip, and indicated how through the merits of the blessed man Andrew he had been freed: for he said that, when he had been condemned, he had always implored his name; and when he was lifted up on the gibbet, at once with his own hands the blessed man Andrew sustained him. But when those, all thinking him dead, returned home, he himself permitted him, loosed by his hand, to go away. O of what merit a Man before God, who appearing visible, looses men, while invisible he possesses a place among the choirs of the angels!
ANNOTATIONS.
Inchofer indicates in the Ecclesiastical Annals of the kingdom of Hungary at the year of Christ 1010, page 296.
* otherwise "of the Poles"
* otherwise "but there"
* otherwise "venerable"
* otherwise "Zosimus"
* otherwise "the habit of religion"
* otherwise "departing"
* otherwise "known"