Arnulphus of Metz

ON ST. ARNULPHUS, BISHOP,

AT METZ IN BELGICA I.

IN THE YEAR 640.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Arnulphus, Bishop, at Metz in Belgica I (S.)

BY THE AUTHOR P. B.

§ I. The cult of St. Arnulphus, the basilica, relics, elogia.

Metz, once the capital of the kingdom of Austrasia, and Austrasia itself, our Commentaries both elsewhere and especially in volume 1 of February from page 206, where concerning St. Sigebert king of the Austrasians, have already often and at length claimed for themselves, Of St. Arnulphus we treat on this day; so that they need not here again be described. This most noble city still displays the monuments of its ancient times, as may be seen in Meurisse, bishop of Madaura and suffragan of the church of Metz, in the Preface to the history of the bishops of the church of Metz; but none more pleasing to God or more glorious to itself than the sacred remains of Arnulphus, once its prelate, whose translation on this day, the same Meurisse being witness, page 117, it recalls with an anniversary celebrity; while it consigns his birthday, in the same place, page 123, the Metz fasti, to the day XVI of August in these words: "At Metz, the birthday of blessed Arnulphus the bishop, who, illustrious for sanctity and the grace of miracles, choosing the eremitic life, rested with a blessed end."

[2] In almost the same words Ado recounts his birthday on the XVIII of July, although this is not his birthday; following, I think, Bede, or rather Florus, who on the same day has thus: "The birthday of St. Arnulphus the confessor," not sufficiently clearly expressing whether he means ours or another Arnulphus designated, as was observed in our Usuard. To Ado agree on the same day Rabanus and Notker; the latter using a succinct, the former a more prolix elogium; and others in Martène, volume 3 of the Thesaurus of Anecdota. To these accedes also the Roman Martyrology; where Baronius subjoins this note: "Of the same on this day (XVIII of July) Bede; but Usuard and Ado on the XVII Kalends of September, on which day his venerable body was translated." And although on the XVI of August no mention is made of that translation in the modern Roman Martyrology; yet Galesini made it in his, and before him the manuscript Florarium of the Saints, and more recent writers, Canisius in the German Martyrology, Wion, Menard, Dorgain, Bucelin, Antonio de Heredia, and others everywhere, thus differing from the institute of the church of Metz, that what day the latter celebrates as the birthday of St. Arnulphus, these wish to be of the translation; but they think that day the birthday on which among the people of Metz the translation is venerated.

[3] but of the translation. For the people of Metz indeed Ado does not make, as he was purged by Rosweyde, who on the XVII Kalends of September makes no mention at all of St. Arnulphus. Baronius therefore must have consulted an interpolated codex, where he read that passage on the XVII Kalends of September, which Rosweyde, as supposititious to Ado, relegates to the Appendix. Yet Usuard, edited by us, favors them, who, since he transferred the words of Ado concerning the birthday of St. Arnulphus, which he had found on the XV Kalends of August, to the XVII Kalends of September; is to be judged not to have done this rashly. Usuard, moreover, had been preceded by Wandelbert. But this controversy, such as it is, the earlier Acts of St. Arnulphus, which we shall give, number 27, most certainly of all settle: for there they narrate that the translation of the relics of St. Arnulphus was made "the time of nearly a year being now passed after the death of blessed Arnulphus." But it is nearly a year from the XVI of August to the XVIII of July following; but it is somewhat more than a year from the XVIII of July to the XVI of the following August: therefore, since those two days only are in question, there can be no doubt that St. Arnulphus died on the XVI of August, but was translated on the XVIII of July. But because nothing of our Saint, except on this day, is noted in the Roman Martyrology, this is the cause why we too have mentioned him on this day.

[4] But it is clear from what we have just adduced how celebrated and widespread among all the Martyrologists was the cult and veneration of St. Arnulphus, His cult most ancient, at least from the ninth century. But much higher, and indeed from the very first translation of the sacred body, that is, from the year of Christ 641, its beginnings are to be traced; as from our first Life, from number 27, will become clear. Thereafter the piety and confidence of the people falling suppliantly at his tomb, by a multitude of miracles, began continually to be poured out so widely; that even then the church of the Holy Apostles, in which he was buried, the former name gradually falling out of use, was commonly called the church of St. Arnulphus, as the instruments produced by Meurisse, page 110 and following, give proof. And since mention of this church here occurs, I seem to be about to do not amiss if I commemorate some things pertaining to it; since they contribute very much to the matter which we treat.

[5] It had once been built not far from the city of Metz, and the Suburban church at Metz of the Regular Canons, according to the Bishop of Madaura in the history of the bishops of Metz, page 24 and following, by St. Patiens, the IV prelate of the same See, of whom we too treated on the VIII of January, and not very sumptuously, as the times bore. From time to time its magnificence grew immensely: until in the fifth century it was overthrown by the Huns, says Mabillon in the Benedictine Annals at the year of Christ 585, number 33, "but a little after restored, and granted to monks; at last it was ennobled by the body of St. Arnulphus, brought thither by Goericus his successor, and by his name. In this basilica were the monuments of many emperors, kings, and princes, and of distinguished persons, before, the old monastery being destroyed, in the fifty-second year of the last century, our monks were translated into that church of the Preachers which they now possess." All these things the curious Reader will find at greater length in Meurisse in the cited place; except that which Mabillon says about the basilica granted to the monks about the fifth century; whereas according to the Bishop of Madaura, page 31, this first happened in the tenth century: which matter indeed seems certain to me; however Mabillon may seem elsewhere also to deny it.

[6] For the monastery and basilica of St. Arnulphus belonged to canons of the rule, that is, regulars; until Adalbero, bishop of Metz, the first of that name, expelled them thence, granted to the Order of St. Benedict in the year 941, because they were of a more dissolute life and could not be amended, monks of St. Benedict being introduced in their stead, and this Otto I the Emperor assenting, on the fourth Ides of January, in the year of the Incarnation of the Lord nine hundred and forty-one, Indiction fourteenth, in the sixth year of Lord Otto; as the authentic instrument in Meurisse, page 304, has; which another follows, by which the same Emperor adjudges the goods of the Canons to the same monks, on the third Ides of June in the year of the Lord nine hundred and forty-nine. Likewise others of Adalbero himself, which so openly teach that never before that time were there monks at St. Arnulphus's; so that one cannot sufficiently marvel that these were either not seen by Mabillon, or certainly dissembled in the places I have read. The same assert the Acts of the four Abbots of the Metz monastery of St. Arnulphus, which Dom Martène recently edited in the Thesaurus of Anecdota, volume 3, where it is said: "When the order was changed, that is, the Regular Canons into the monastic Order, then Albert (Arbert) was made the first abbot in the church of St. Arnulphus … He held the pastoral church only two years. And after him Lord Ansteus received the office." But he affirms that Ansteus presided for XVI years, and was buried in the year of the Lord 960.

[7] enriched by many princes, Now in how great veneration and esteem was the sanctity of Arnulphus, it is manifest from the profuse liberality of many princes toward this church of his from the very translation, as I just said. Let it suffice here to have assigned some specimens of it, the order of time being kept. The first is in duke Notho or Noddo, on whose estate that miracle was wrought, when these sacred remains were first translated to Metz, which is narrated in the first Life of St. Arnulphus, number 30: "On account of which miracle (the words are excerpted from the manuscript Life of St. Goericus, to be given on the XIX of September) the same most liberal duke hastened to hand over the possession itself with all its appendages to God and St. Arnulphus." The authentic charters of nearly all the other benefits to the same basilica may be read in the often-praised Meurisse: both of Pippin of Herstal, who was the great-nephew of our Saint through Ansegisil, page 109: of Drogo, his son, page 110; of his sons Godfrey, Arnulphus, Hugo, in the same place up to page 113; of Chilperic II the king, page 145; of Charlemagne the emperor and his wife Hildegard, page 179 and following; of his grandsons through Louis the Pious, Lothair, Louis the German, Charles the Bald, from page 269 to 274; of Arnulphus the emperor, page 294. (There is also another of the same Emperor, earlier, in Martène, volume 1 of the Thesaurus of Anecdota, column 54.) His son Zwentibold too conferred some things, to omit others later, of whom easily the chief, with Otto I the emperor, is Adalbero bishop of Metz, concerning whom page 304 and following. And likewise Eva the countess, and her son Ulric archbishop of Reims, page 139. But by no means to be passed over is St. Leo the Pope IX, who, dedicating the same basilica, in the year one thousand and fifty, according to the Chronicle of Senones, book 2, chapter 18, or rather 19, adorned it not mediocrely; and this at the request of the venerable abbot Warin, as was narrated in volume 2 of April in the Life of St. Leo, page 660. These are enough, I think, as clear traces for ascertaining the most ancient public veneration and piety, not only of the people, but also of the highest princes, toward St. Arnulphus.

[8] But the princes handed over to our St. Arnulphus not only their resources, but also their bodies; and adorned with tombs; especially that of St. Chlodulph the Bishop. concerning which consult Du Chesne in the Writers of the History of the Franks, volume 2, pages 202 and 320, and Meurisse, where concerning St. Patiens, the IV bishop of Metz, from page 26. Among them stood out St. Chlodulph, both son of St. Arnulphus and his successor in the church of Metz after St. Goericus and Godo; who, as he had always adhered, living, to the morals and life of his most holy parent, so neither, dead, wished to be separated even in the tomb. For he was buried at St. Arnulphus's, as the author of his Life narrates, which we gave on the VIII of June, page 132; until thence in the tenth century he was translated to Lay, a place in Lorraine not far distant from Nancy, and, after the donation of Ulric of Reims and Eva his mother, distinguished with a priory of the Benedictine Order, as you will find narrated in the Preliminary Commentary of his Life, number 4: in which place our Henschenius added also this: "Meurisse adds (in the Life of St. Chlodulph bishop of Metz 32, book 2, page 136) … that his head is preserved at Metz in the church of St. Arnulphus. The same had Mabillon said in the Acts of the Saints of the Benedictine Order, century 2, page 1047." Meanwhile the most distinguished Lord Augustin Calmet, most well-known for his Commentaries and dissertations on Sacred Scripture, warned us, in a letter given on the IX of March 1718 to Sollier, that this is altogether to be corrected: "For the head of St. Chlodulph is with his body in his own shrine at Lay; and by no means in the abbey of St. Arnulphus." Let the faith rest with the Author.

[9] For the rest, the basilica and monastery of St. Arnulphus being leveled to the ground in the year 1552, It being destroyed in 1552, he was translated to another within the city, the Benedictine monks were called into the city, and ordered to inhabit the monastery of the Friars Preachers, where they still dwell. The remains of the holy Prelate were translated thither with that pomp which Meurisse describes, page 25 and following, and there are venerated even today, as the same author affirms, page 117, fortified with a silver coffer, on whose lid these things are read inscribed: "In the year from the Incarnation of the Lord one thousand one hundred and sixty-seven, Indiction fifth, Lord Frederick reigning, in the presence of the venerable Theodoric, elect of the church of Metz, the most holy body of blessed Arnulphus, bishop of Metz, was translated into this vessel by the venerable abbot of this place Simon, on the second Nones of June." The lid is surrounded by many heads of kings and emperors, wrought in ancient work. One side displays these names engraved: "King Priam, King Marcomirus, King Pharamund, King Clodio, King Merovech, King Childeric, King Clovis, King Lothair the first, King Lothair the second, King Dagobert, King Clovis, King Theodoric, King Childebert, King Dagobert, King Childeric, King Childeric, King Pippin, Charlemagne Emperor." The other side is marked with these: "Louis Emperor, Charles the Bald Emperor, Louis King, Louis King, Charles Emperor, Arnulphus Emperor, Odo King under Arnulphus, Charles King, Louis King, Lothair King, Louis King, Hugh Capet King, Robert King, Henry King, Philip King, Louis King, Louis King."

[10] The foot of this shrine the heads of other kings and emperors surround, silver in a shrine. these names being subjoined here: "St. Arnulphus, Anchises Duke, Pippin Duke, Charles Martel Duke, Pippin King, Charlemagne Emperor, Louis Emperor, Lothair Emperor, Louis Emperor, Charles the Bald Emperor, Charles Emperor, Arnulphus Emperor, Louis

Emperor, Conrad King, Henry the Saxon King, Otto the first Emperor, Otto the second Emperor, Otho the third Emperor." Thence indeed with these: "Henry the second Emperor of Bavaria, Conrad the second Emperor, Henry the third Emperor, Henry the fourth Emperor, Henry the fifth Emperor, Lothair the Saxon Emperor, Conrad the third King, Frederick Emperor." "Hence one may understand," says the Bishop of Madaura in the same place, "the illustrious genealogy of St. Arnulphus"; but of this we shall treat a little below.

[11] Thus far concerning the cult which in his own church of Metz he constantly obtained from nearly his very happy death: His cult in other places. for I omit other churches which venerate this our Saint with a peculiar celebrity, among which by no means the least is that of Amay, founded, as is believed, by St. Oda the mother of St. Arnulphus, in the diocese of Liège; the testimony of which matter is in Dominici in his various monuments of antiquity, which are had at the end of Ansbert's Familia Rediviva, page 19. Of the chapel which is still seen on the mountain to which our Saint withdrew from the episcopate, there will be place for speaking below. All Gaul certainly was once his patronage far most celebrated, when, as it is in the Annals of Frankish affairs in Du Chesne, volume 3 of the writers of the history of the Franks, page 263, "St. Arnulphus was held the chief patron of all the Franks before God and men." Nor does the anonymous author of the Life of St. Deicola, abbot of Lure, omit him on the XVIII of January, page 201.

[12] Elogia, In the Life of St. Goericus these distinguished elogia are attributed to him: "Blessed Arnulphus, the ornament of the world, the light of his homeland, the establishment of the peoples, the glory of priests, a lamp to those sitting in darkness, the ornament not only of his own but also of all the holy churches." Another the Saxon Poet sings to him, book 5 On the Deeds of Charlemagne, to Arnulphus the emperor, in Du Chesne, volume 2, page 175:

Let me commemorate one father of so great a stock, Whom the Church of Christ proclaims a saint of Christ; Namely Arnulphus, who was once Prince of the Franks, and afterward a right distinguished Prelate: Who, led by the love of God, had spurned all things of the world, Which soothe the eyes, and which draw the minds, Preferring to hand on the divine, rather than the laws of the world, To be the servant of God, rather than the lord of the people. Now he exults in the heavens, offering miracles to the earth, The comely signs of his sublime merit: And thence the whole line of our lords, Namely his own stock, he protects and cherishes. Before all his descendants, therefore, one care be thine, We beseech, that Arnulphus be thy homonym, etc.

[13] from the epistle of St. Desiderius bishop of Cahors. But by how much more ancient is the testimony of Desiderius bishop of Cahors, by so much is it more illustrious for commending the sanctity of Arnulphus. Thus therefore it has in the epistle which, now nearly worn out with age, he gave to St. Chlodulph, son of St. Arnulphus, in Du Chesne in the writers of the history of the Franks, volume 1, page 878: "With the greatest congratulation I have destined the present page to your Lordship, through which, ample health being poured forth, I pray the Lord that more and more he may bestow in you his largess of piety, and make you abound with good successes. And because we read it written: 'The generation of the upright shall be blessed,' do thou, most excellent Man, always keep the paternal blessings by the liveliness of memory: and if there are any things, either which he admonished, or which he did, retain them as it were before thine eyes by present remembrance: for there are many things of his deeds to be recalled to thine ears, which if thou add to the deeds of this life, and keep by intent meditation, he indeed by his prayers will grant now the favor whereby thou mayest laudably be strong in probity, and hence, the course being happily begun, rewarded with paternal rewards, mayest be joined to him."

§ II. The ancestors of St. Arnulphus; the time and place of his nativity; his honors in the royal court; his wife and sons.

Concerning the ancestors of St. Arnulphus his more sincere Life has this in number 2: Various opinions concerning the ancestors of St. Arnulphus. "Blessed Arnulphus therefore the bishop, sprung from the stock of the Franks, was of high enough and noble parents, and most opulent in worldly things." In the second Life, number 2, he is said to have shone in the court of King Theodebert "with the nobility of his ancestors." Nor thus far is there any dispute among the authors. But when it comes to designating those ancestors each by his own name, there is almost no consent among them; some contending that nothing here is sufficiently ascertained, nay, that whatever was long boasted of them was fabricated for the favor, as they say, of the princes of the Carolingian stock: others on the contrary tracing his origin from Ferreolus the first, prefect of the praetorium of the Gauls; so that consequently he drew his race not from the Franks, but from the Gauls and foreigners. Again others wish him to have been a Merovingian prince; others finally altogether deny this, and prefer to read for him as ancestors those Franks who reigned before Merovech.

[15] This last opinion our Adrien Jordan thus defends in the little book which he entitled: What Father Jordan judges is to be held here. "La Critique de l'origine de l'auguste Maison de France," edited at Paris in the year 1683; that he may at the same time confute the opinions of others: and this at last he himself, as it were the collection of his dissertations, page 323, constructs the series of his ancestors up to St. Arnulphus:

Francus, first king of the Franks, in the reign of Valerian and the following. Genebaudes, under the emperors Maximian and Constantine. Mallobaudes, under the emperors Constantius, Valentinian, and Gratian. Priam; under Theodosius the Great. Marcomirus, in the time of Valentinian the second. Pharamund, in the reign of Honorius. Clodio, in the times of Valentinian the younger and Maximus. Sigismerus, under Avitus and the following emperors. Ferreolus, under king Clovis. Ansbert, in the time of Lothair the first. Arnoald, under Sigebert the first and Guntram. St. Arnulphus, in the time of Lothair and Dagobert.

In this series, moreover, which he himself extends farther, he says that this reckoning is kept, that the following are the sons of the preceding without any interruption. Whoever desires this whole argument, neatly indeed, and with as much diligence and erudition as could be, elaborated, let him go to the cited little book in its whole first part: for I have no mind to renew a controversy so diffuse, and so often agitated by men most versed in this kind.

[16] Concerning the grandfather, however, and the father of St. Arnulphus, there is an opinion sufficiently received among most genealogists, [The grandfather of St. Arnulphus was Ansbert, the grandmother Blithildis; the parents Arnoald and Oda.] even those later than Le Fèvre and Adrien de Valois; while they show that from Ansbert and Blithildis, daughter of Lothair the first, was Arnoald, who was also called Boggis and Butgisus, Buotgisus, or Burtgisus; but from Arnoald and Oda was born Arnulphus. Consult Jordan at each single name in the place which is assigned in his index; likewise the Sammarthani in the history of the Frankish house, book 6, Labbe in the Genealogical Tables, Dominici, Bouchet, and others. Whether this Arnoald was he whom the church of Metz numbers twenty-seventh among its bishops; or some other, who founded the monastery of Glanderium together with Dignus and Undo, and who with them, under the name of Bodagisl, is venerated in the Martyrology of St. Nabor as a Saint on the XV Kalends of January, Meurisse inquires from page 94, and defends the latter opinion. Concerning Oda, who, or whence, or at what time she was born, the matter is no less intricate. Umno makes her a Swabian in the Life of St. Arnulphus, number 2, and other instruments in Bouchet cited, pages 31 and 41, and Meurisse, page 95; not however the daughter of Gunzo Duke of Swabia, which some wish. Meanwhile Dominici may be read in Ansbert's Familia Rediviva, part 1, chapter 14; until we treat of her at greater length in her own place, where concerning St. Oda the Widow, mother of St. Arnulphus, as the Acts bear, it will have to be written on the XXIII of October.

[17] Arnulphus is born in modern Lorraine, about the year of Christ 582: Concerning the place and time in which St. Arnulphus first beheld this light, his first Life mentions nothing; but the second has thus, number 2: "Now blessed Arnulphus was born of an Aquitanian father, a Swabian mother, in the castle of Lay, in the county of Chaumont, in the times of the Emperor Maurice." But Lay is in Lorraine, not much distant from Nancy toward the North, as the maps exhibit; and was once a villa of Eva the countess, of whom above, and of Ulric archbishop of Reims, therefore assigned by these to St. Arnulphus, because "the same venerable Prelate … in the same villa received the beginning of the present life; and because my sons," says Eva, "drew their origin from him by the paternal race." The instrument of this donation Meurisse gives, page 136. But Maurice began to reign in the year of Christ 582 from the day XIII of August, according to Labbe, up to the year 602 nearly ending: it is necessary, moreover, that Arnulphus was born about the beginning of his reign; since he undertook the episcopate, as we shall see below, in the year of Christ 610. Nay, I would not doubt to make him older, if I met any suitable author whom I could oppose to Umno: (for the author of the Life of St. Chlodulph errs by ever so much, when he confesses that Arnulphus was made bishop under king Theodebert; and then subjoins at the end of the Life: "But he Chlodulph could have been thirty years old, when his father, Lord Arnulphus, was raised to the pontificate.")

[18] he comes to the court of Theodebert at about the age of 16; But so far is it from being true that anything is repugnant to the testimony of Umno, that even the first Life seems rather to favor: for it narrates, number 3, that Arnulphus, as soon as he had emerged from the literary school (which seems scarcely to be set later than the 16th year of age, although the anonymous author there calls that age "strengthened"), was handed over to Gundulf the subregulus, or also rector of the Palace, or the king's counselor, to be exercised in good acts. By "king" he here without doubt understands Theodebert, since he names the same a little after: which Umno too, number 2, expressly asserts. But Theodebert first succeeded his father Childebert in the kingdom of Austrasia in the year of Christ 596; when, namely, Arnulphus could already be about the 14th year of age. But who could affirm either that Gundulf was made mayor of the palace immediately with the new king; or that Arnulphus was handed over to the mayor of the palace while still recent? There is nothing therefore here whence you may think our Saint was brought into light before the year of Christ 582. But that he cannot be thought born much later, both the time of the episcopate and the things done by him before it convince.

[19] of whom at last he becomes a domestic; For that many years were spent by him in the service of the king under Gundulf, before he at last began to be anything there, the author of the former Life sufficiently hints, number 4, thus writing: "Him (Arnulphus) he (Gundulf), when he had received him, proved by many trials thereafter, and fitted him now worthy of the ministry of king Theodebert. For the virtue of warring, or his power thereafter in arms, who could relate? Especially since he often subdued with his sword the phalanxes of the adverse nations. Wherefore at last he was made, Christ presiding, the first of all, who a little before seemed almost the last of all: so that six provinces, which then and now as many domestics govern, were ruled under his administration by his sole discretion." He had therefore given many trials of himself, and had been a little before nearly the last in the court, when at last he became a domestic: a domestic, I say, not just any kind, as one to whom only one royal villa or palace was subject; but such that other domestics, several with their own palaces each, were compelled to obey him throughout six provinces in all. Which administration indeed by itself required both an age and authority in some measure mature, and an industry versed in the conduct of affairs; which in St. Arnulphus were so eminent, that no other seems to have been able to be found equal to him, when a bishop was to be consecrated: since the same burden he was then also ordered to sustain even unwillingly. "So thereafter, bearing the episcopal infulae," says the anonymous author of the Life, number 8, "that he held even the solicitude of the domesticate, and the primacy of the palace, as if unwilling." It is a wonder, therefore, if this administration was committed to him before about the 24th year of age, which, reckoned from the year of Christ 582, falls in the year of Christ 606, the tenth of Theodebert.

[20] Further, from the texts cited in the preceding number, it may also be gathered what was the condition of our St. Arnulphus in the court of Theodebert: yet not mayor of the palace; although some wish this, for however much "he flourished first in various honors and ministry in the palace," as it is in the first Life, number 5; yet that he was then mayor of the palace, it by no means becomes probable to me; Valois certainly roundly denies it, Frankish Affairs, book 17, page 558; and to this also our Elders seem to have inclined on the XXI of February, page 252. And indeed if St. Arnulphus had then been raised beyond the dignity of a domestic, why would the contemporary author have expressed this less of him than he did of Gundulf, whom he calls Subregulus, or also rector of the palace; but by no means a domestic? Why would he have called St. Arnulphus a domestic only; why would he have assigned him only six provinces, and not rather the whole kingdom of Austrasia, to administer? Besides, if he was mayor of the palace under Theodebert both before and after obtaining the episcopate; why would Lothair have moved him from that grade, when he entered Austrasia especially by his and Pippin's faction? as Fredegar narrates, §40. Why would he have substituted Rado for him? Why would he not immediately have confirmed St. Arnulphus in the same dignity in Austrasia; as in it, according to the same author, §42, he confirmed the later Warnacharius in Burgundy? For so Valois, cited above, understood Fredegar in that place.

[21] Here therefore are to be deserted those who make St. Arnulphus mayor of the palace either under Theodebert, which the author of the Life of St. Goericus does, but others under another king. to be given on the XIX of September, and of St. Chlodulph in Mabillon in the Acts of the Saints of the Order of St. Benedict, century 2, pages 1044 and 1045, and Meurisse, page 114; or under Theodoric, as the same Life of St. Chlodulph according to our edition of the VIII of June, page 128, and Regino in the Chronicles at the reign of Maurice; or under Lothair, as the same Regino at the reign of Heraclius, and Hariulf the monk in Bouchet above, page 38; finally "all our Authors," says Meurisse, page 113. But concerning Umno, whom he holds among the chief, I shall speak §4, numbers 54 and 55. Nor is it an obstacle, that our anonymous author says he was then the first of all, or first in ministry, and attributes to him the primacy of the palace: for these things he himself sufficiently explains; so as to signify that he understood nothing beyond the domesticate and the administration of six provinces: for domestics too could be adorned with titles of this kind; since Valois notes that they were sometimes even called mayors of the palace, Frankish Affairs, book 11, page 180. In which sense indeed the authors just adduced can be admitted.

[22] [He seems to have acted as mayor of the palace with Blessed Pippin under Dagobert.] A greater patronage in our author will those find who make St. Arnulphus mayor of the palace in the kingdom of Austrasia under Dagobert, son of Lothair: for this those words not obscurely signify, number 17: "For the aforesaid king Lothair loved him (Arnulphus) with such faith and love, that, when he had raised his offspring Dagobert to the summit of his principality, he handed over to the same the kingdom to be governed and his son to be instructed into his hand." And to this place, I think, Paul the Deacon looked, who had read our former Life, when in Du Chesne, volume 2, page 201, he wrote of St. Arnulphus: "So he presided over the church of God, that he was also the moderator of the palace under the honor of the Mayoralty." Yet if our Saint obtained this honor under Dagobert, he does not seem to have had it alone, but in common with Pippin; nay, Fredegar, though nearly a whole century younger than our author, indeed calls Arnulphus in the first place among the ministers of Dagobert, §§52 and 58; yet grants to Pippin alone the title of mayor of the palace in both places: whence this may be concluded, that in the counsels and the deciding of the affairs of the kingdom the greater part was St. Arnulphus's, which was proper to the mayor of the palace; but in the execution of the decrees the greater, and indeed the sole, part was Pippin's; since these no less than the title of mayor of the palace befitted a lay man rather than a bishop.

[23] He was Duke before the episcopate. It may also be disputed whether St. Arnulphus was ever a duke before the episcopate in Austrasia: for since the author of the anonymous Life attributes to him only the domesticate, above, number 19, it seems consequent that he was not a duke; since the dignity of a domestic, however great it was, yet yielded to the dignity of a duke; as is clear from Gregory of Tours, book 6, chapter 11; where he says that Gundulf, his mother's maternal uncle, was made a duke from a domestic. But on the contrary, since dukes were once so called in Gaul who presided over provinces, why should we not think St. Arnulphus was a duke; since six provinces, according to our Anonymous, "were ruled under his administration by his sole discretion"? For as to my having said above that those provinces were royal villas, situated in as many provinces, in that I gave rather the interpretation of Valois and his followers Mabillon and Pagi than the very words of the Anonymous as they stand, which Du Cange takes as they sound; so that they signify, namely, the provinces themselves, not villas. See his Glossary at the word Domestici. In the same opinion Dominici had preceded Du Cange in Ansbert's Familia Rediviva, part 1, chapter 15; where thence he gathers that St. Arnulphus was a Duke, arguing against Le Fèvre, who had denied it. Certainly that duke Thegan too calls him in Du Chesne, volume 2, page 275, Albericus the monk in Bouchet On the true Origin of the second and third stock of the Royal Frankish Family in the Proofs, part 1, page 39, and others, to say nothing of the diplomas which Rosières prefixed to his work On the Stemmata of the Dukes of Lorraine and Bar, concerning which there will be occasion for speaking below. I would here add something about the Margravate of the Holy Roman Empire on the Scheldt, which Rosières, Meurisse, and others wish to have fallen to St. Arnulphus by inheritance; if it did not displease me to grope in the darkness, which in the beginnings of that Margravate are more than Cimmerian; as may be seen in Baron Le Roy, Notitia of the Margravate of the Holy Roman Empire, book 1, chapter 4, and elsewhere. Consult also Le Fèvre, Historical Considerations, book 1, from page 79.

[24] Our Saint had meanwhile married a wife, named Doda, He had for wife Doda, as it is in Bouchet cited, page 39, in the Life of St. Chlodulph, and the second of St. Arnulphus, in Sigebert in the Chronicle at the year of Christ 640, and others everywhere. Her nobility is celebrated also in the former Life of St. Arnulphus, number 5; but so that both her race and her homeland are passed over in silence. Hence again a battle among the more recent authors; while some contend that she was Saxon, in the Sammarthani, history of the Frankish Family, book 6, chapter 4, and Rosières, Stemmata of Lorraine, volume 3, capital history 48; others wish her to be the daughter of Desiderius count of Boulogne in modern Picardy, as our Jacques Malbrancq On the Morini has, book 2, chapter 56, page 259, and in the scholia in the same place, page 657, and book 8, chapter 47, page 742; likewise Wassebourg in Meurisse, page 108, and Rosières just cited: others finally establish that she was a Swabian, which opinion pleases the Sammarthani, and which that fragment confirms which below I shall subjoin to the second Life; than which indeed I doubt whether anything more ancient can be brought forward to settle this controversy; although its author otherwise does not seem to be of very great value.

[25] Doda's elogium is distinguished in the Life of St. Chlodulph in these words: who is greatly praised, "But the mother of the lord and venerable Chlodulph, called Doda, shone with no less (than St. Arnulphus) nobility: but this very nobility she most gloriously illustrated and adorned with piety of morals and sanctity of soul. Who, living most chastely with her Husband, as the world bears, did not suffer herself to be unequal in the exhibition of good things. And while Blessed Arnulphus was raised to the pontifical chair, she too, the fiery grace of the Holy Spirit fervent in her, not only was clothed with a spiritual garment and veil; but also at Trier thrust and bound herself in enclosure until the day of death." Read similar things in Umno below in the second Life of St. Arnulphus, number 5, and in the Fragment subjoined to the same Life, as also in the Chronicle of Sigebert at the year of Christ 640. The place to which she withdrew at Trier the ancients do not define, says Brower, Annals of Trier, book 7, number 38. Yet our Josse Coccius in his Dagobert, chapter 9, De Heredia in the Lives of the Saints of the Order of St. Benedict, on the XVIII of July, and others, relate that that place was the monastery of St. Mary; but whence they drew this, I indeed know not.

[26] But there are also those who ascribe her to the Saints, as Greven in his edition of Usuard on the VIII of September, nay, she is even placed among the Saints by some. where he has thus: "On the same day, of St. Chlodulph bishop of Metz, and of Doda his mother." The same has Canisius on the same day in both editions of his German Martyrology. Arthur in the Sacred Gynaeceum thus announces her on the 11th of January: "At Trier, in the Moselle region of Lorraine, of St. Doda, Widow; who, exercising herself in holy works, shone with piety and religion." But of any cult ever exhibited to her, whether at Trier or elsewhere, nothing thus far has become known to us: except that to her, in the most celebrated basilica of the Holy Cross at Innsbruck, is seen a bronze statue among several others, cast, with this inscription; which, because it was sent to us from Innsbruck in most distinct characters on the XII of July 1712, I here transcribe in the same words and letters: "S. Doda Herczogin von Schbbeina S. Arnulphen Gemachel": that is, "St. Doda, Duchess … wife of St. Arnulphus." I do not translate that "Schbbeina"; because I do not understand it; unless perhaps it is corruptly put for Schwevia, or rather Suevia (Swabia): but "Gemachel" anyone easily perceives to be altogether the same as what the Germans now write "Gemahl" (spouse).

[27] By her he had only two sons, Chlodulph and Ansigis. From this so distinguished woman he received the joys of two sons; as our Anonymous asserts, number 5. Of these the elder-born was Clodulf, whose Life we gave on the VIII of June; the younger Anchisus or Ansigis, according to Paul the Deacon, Umno, and others in Bouchet and Dominici. Whence Mabillon not undeservedly rejects, both here in the notes and elsewhere often, those who, since they are of much inferior name and age than those authors, assign a third son to St. Arnulphus, Walchisus, of whom the discourse will recur in the Life of St. Wandregisil on the XXII of this month. Mabillon is followed by Le Cointe in the Annals at the year of Christ 601, number 41. What then is to be thought of Antonio de Heredia in the Lives of the Saints of the Order of St. Benedict, on the XVIII of July, who not only attributes three sons to him, but also says that they were all Saints, and died in the cowl of St. Benedict, professed monks? What of Rosières, who, Stemmata of Lorraine, volume 3, capital history 48, to the three already mentioned sons of St. Arnulphus adds also a fourth, Arnulphus, and moreover a daughter Maria? Certainly he who thinks his authority in this matter is to be stood by; let him believe him also, if he pleases, affirming in the same place that St. Waltrude was the daughter of Walchisus and at the same time sister of St. Begga, daughter of Pippin of Landen. Further, how widely St. Arnulphus propagated his most noble blood through Ansigis into princes, kings, and emperors, may be seen everywhere in the Genealogists. But how great was the love and veneration of the descendants following in a long order toward him, may somehow be drawn out from what was said above, numbers 7 and 8. Singular too is that which we related of Louis the Pious the emperor in the Translation of St. Sebastian M. on the XX of January, page 295, where he is said to have embraced St. Arnulphus, from whom he drew his race, "with incomparable love." Carloman too, grandson of Louis the Pious, ordered his son, according to Regino at the year of the Lord's Incarnation 880, to be named Arnulphus, "for the remembrance of the most reverend Arnulphus, bishop of the church of Metz." I omit all his other descendants, who counted nothing so much to their honor as that they drew their race from Arnulphus; among whom not a few, placed among the heaven-dwellers, adorn even now our Acts.

§ III. The episcopate of St. Arnulphus; his abdication; solitary life; time of death.

St. Arnulphus before the episcopate was not a monk. "While these things were being done," says our Anonymous, number 5, as we have already said above, "(St. Arnulphus) flourished first in various honors in the palace, and in ministry; but his continual meditation watched over the monasteries, or holy places." That meditation St. Romaricus fostered and kindled in a wonderful manner, who himself also, wearied of the court, panted for the monastic solitude. By common counsel, therefore, they resolve to go to the monastery of Lérins, thereafter to have leisure solely for God and heavenly things. But "the desires of both," says the Anonymous, number 6, "in this cause the will of the Most High opposed: nor did almighty God judge it right that these two men … should be hidden under the corner of one bushel … Meanwhile the city of Metz begins to need a bishop," etc. That same counsel of going to Lérins with Romaricus was turned elsewhere by the divine will, Umno narrates below, number 10; and the author of the Life of St. Romaricus, cited by Mabillon in the notes on the same Life, century 2, page 416. But the author of the Life of St. Chlodulph on the VIII of June, page 128, says that St. Arnulphus, the king at first resisting, was suddenly made a cleric and bishop from a courtier. These things it has seemed good here to note; because some authors, after St. Peter Damian, Little Work 19 On the Abdication of Bishops, chapter 7, and St. Antoninus, part 2 of the Chronicle, title 13, chapter 6, §13, write that he was a solitary or monk before he came to govern the church of Metz; and indeed at Lérins, as it pleases Wion, Tree of Life, book 3 on the XVIII of July, and others; or certainly in the Vosges, as others wish in Antonio de Heredia in the Spanish work just cited.

[29] It is now asked at what time he was called to the infulae of Metz; At what time he was made bishop, is disputed. for here there is almost no consent of the Writers anywhere. For Arnold Wion in the place assigned, Vincent Barali in his Chronology of the Saints of the island of Lérins, page 203, and others think this was done in the year of Christ 623: our Coccius in the Chronographic Epitome, in the year of Christ 622; Meurisse in the Chronography prefixed to the history of the bishops of the church of Metz, in the year of Christ 624; Baronius already mentions him, as a bishop flourishing in sanctity, in the year of Christ 614, number 11; but he refers his abdication and withdrawal to the year of Christ 631, number 11; which two cannot stand together; since St. Arnulphus was bishop only 15 years, 10 days. Baronius our Henschenius at one time nearly followed in the Diatribe on the three Dagoberts, book 4, chapter 6, and elsewhere; but afterward the same Henschenius established otherwise in the notes on the Life of St. Chlodulph on the VIII of June, page 132, where he begins the episcopate of St. Arnulphus from the year 611, or rather 612, and terminates it at the year 626. Valois, Frankish Affairs, book 18, page 26, candidly acknowledges the difficulty of this matter; yet thinks that he did not begin to sit in the episcopal chair except after the death of Theodoric, which happened in 613: to Valois adhered Mabillon in the notes on the Life of St. Arnulphus, century 2, page 151, so that he refers the beginning of his see to the year of Christ 614; but the end to the year 629: but the same, in volume 1 of the Annals, book 11, number 62, attaches his withdrawal to the year of Christ 627; and so the beginning of the episcopate to the year 612; since he confesses that he presided 15 years and 10 days. I shall here bring forward first the opinion which is most approved by me, and then shall try to answer those things which will seem to avail especially against it.

[30] Our Anonymous being here silent, no one can doubt It is shown from Fredegar, that the authority of Fredegar ought to be the greatest, as one who is both accurate, and comes far nearer to the age of St. Arnulphus than the rest who made mention of that Saint. But it is established, first, from this author, chapter 53, that St. Arnulphus was still bishop in the 42nd year of the reign of Lothair, of Christ 625, when, to settle the suit between the kings Lothair the father and Dagobert the son, nobles were chosen by each, among whom, says Fredegar, "and Lord Arnulphus pontiff of Metz with the other bishops is chosen, who most benignly, as his sanctity was, spoke between the father and the son for the concord of peace." The same can be confirmed from the synod of Reims, which Labbe in the Chronological Epitome, and Le Cointe in the Annals, teach was held in the year of Christ 625 under Sonnatius: for among the bishops who came together to it, Flodoard reckons Arnulphus first of all, Ecclesiastical History of Reims, book 1, chapter 5: where also "St. Arnulphus prelate of Metz is found to have been present." It is established moreover from the same Fredegar that St. Arnulphus departed from the court and the administration of the church of Metz before the year of Christ 628, in which Lothair died, and Dagobert came to Paris: for there he praises Dagobert, that up to that time he governed the kingdom most excellently, "after the departure of blessed Arnulphus, still using the counsel of Pippin the mayor of the palace, and of Chunibert pontiff of the city of Cologne." Now therefore Arnulphus had withdrawn, and Chunibert had filled his place for so long a time, that even to his counsels, no otherwise than to Arnulphus's, the most upright conduct of all affairs which Dagobert had held up to that year would seem to be ascribed. And indeed that Arnulphus went to the solitude while Lothair was living, is sufficiently clear, I think, from our Anonymous, from number 17; and so Valois himself thinks above, page 27. Scarcely therefore can this be feigned to have happened either after the year of Christ 627, or before 625.

[31] [and from others, that it could neither happen before the year of Christ 610, nor after 612.] Since therefore he sat at Metz 15 years, as it is in the Life of St. Chlodulph toward the end, and the Chronicle of the bishops of Metz, otherwise very faulty, in d'Achery, volume 2 of the new edition, page 227; nay, 15 years, 10 days, as Umno relates below, number 23, and the Index of the bishops of Metz both in the Body of Frankish History edited at Hanover in the year 1613, page 178, and in Dominici at the end of Ansbert's Familia Rediviva, where the same Index is edited fuller and more correct from the codex of St. Symphorian of Metz; since, I say, Arnulphus sat 15 years, 10 days, his beginning can neither be placed before the year of Christ 610, nor after the year of Christ 612, according to the Fredegar already adduced: not before the year 610, since in the year 625 he was still bishop: not after 612, since before the year 628 he withdrew. Those writers therefore err, even ancient ones, yet younger than Fredegar, who wander beyond these prescribed limits; and those only are to be heard who keep within them: but these, at least such as are somehow ancient, say that St. Arnulphus was consecrated under Theodebert, brother of Theodoric, king of Austrasia: (for thus has the Life of St. Chlodulph both according to the exemplar of Mabillon in the Acts of the Benedictines, century 2, page 1044, number 4, and of Meurisse, history of the bishops of the church of Metz, book 2, page 14; from which correct ours, in which for Theodebert was Theodoric. Theodebert too has the Life of St. Goericus, both the more prolix manuscript, which we shall give on the XIX of September, and the other briefer one which on the same day Surius exhibits.) Rightly therefore the beginnings of the bishop Arnulphus are recalled by Le Cointe and Pagi to the times of Theodebert.

[32] But since Theodebert perished only in the year of Christ 612 after the month of May, slain by his brother, He was ordained in the year of Christ 610 about September; and sat until 625, according to Fredegar, chapter 38; there remains a doubt whether St. Arnulphus undertook the episcopate in the year of Christ 610 (for he could not earlier, as was just said), or 611, or finally 612; the first pleased Pagi, the second Le Cointe, the last Henschenius. Pagi is favored by the more correct Index of the bishops of Metz from the Codex of St. Symphorian in Dominici: for according to it St. Arnulphus sat 15 years, 10 days; to whom, departing from the episcopate, St. Goericus was immediately substituted, who sat 18 years, and died on the XIII Kalends of October (so also has the same Catalogue in the former edition; yet in the Life of St. Clodulph, nay, of St. Goericus, which we shall give on the XIX of September, Goericus is said to have sat 17 years;) Goericus was succeeded by Godo, and he sat 10 years, 2 months; and died on the VII Ides of May; Godo was followed by St. Chlodulph, who presided 40 years, 20 days; and died on the VIII Ides of May. If these times are rightly noted; it seems assuredly to be said that in the year of Christ 610, about the beginning of September, St. Arnulphus was ordained: for reckoning all from thence up to St. Clodulph, you will fall upon the year of Christ 655, in which it is altogether necessary that Chlodulph was consecrated; since his ordination must have happened on the twentieth day counted back from the VIII Ides of May, that is, on the XIX of April; but that day in the year of Christ 655 was a Lord's day, such as was required for episcopal ordination, as Pagi teaches in the Critique of Baronius at the year 67, number 20.

[33] That this may be more manifest, it pleases here to accommodate the series already given to the years of Christ, according to the corrected Index of St. Symphorian. beginning from the year of Christ 610, in the month of September, in which St. Arnulphus must have been inaugurated. The 15 years, therefore, and 10 days in which he presided, will run out into September of the year of Christ 625; for thence the 18 years of Goericus, who was immediately substituted for him according to our Anonymous, reach to the year of Christ 643, the day XIX of September, on which he died: (for I think completed years are here marked; for if the author had understood only begun ones, he would not have written 18, but 17, and would have added the months, nay, the days, which remained, as he does elsewhere.) There follows a vacancy of the see for some months up to Godo, who began to preside about the day VIII of March, namely of the following year, of Christ 644; Godo then sat 10 years, 2 months, that is, up to the year of Christ 654, the day VIII of May, on which he died. There succeeds a vacancy of the see for a whole year besides 20 days; which is gathered from the time in which St. Chlodulph is said to have sat and died: for he too, according to the same index, died on the day VIII of May, and yet sat 40 years and 20 days: he did not therefore begin in the same year in which Godo had died, but at least one year later, namely in the year of Christ 655, on the day XIX of April, marked with the letter D, which in that year was Dominical: but the same in the year 656 signified a Tuesday, and in the year 657 a Wednesday; not therefore in this or that year was Chlodulph ordained; which yet would be consequent, if St. Arnulphus had undertaken the episcopate either in the year 611 or 612. It remains therefore that we say he was ordained in the year 610; since it is not permitted, according to what was said before, to run beyond those three years. But if to anyone the authors of the Life of St. Clodulph and St. Goericus are of such value that he thinks them to be preferred to the Index of St. Symphorian; and wishes so much that St. Goericus sat only 18 begun years; let him, the corrected Index of Dominici being left, follow another more ancient one with Pagi. I shall not indeed oppose: for so too the ordination of St. Arnulphus is reduced to the year 610, as may be seen from the bishops already produced in him.

[34] From what has been said it is easily gathered that those diplomas in Rosières are supposititious, Hence are gathered some chronological errors in this matter. by which St. Arnulphus, not yet bishop, but Duke of Mosellan Austria, subscribes in the year of Christ 623; although that is not the only fault of those diplomas. Think the same said of the instrument of the foundation of the Mount of St. Romaricus in Meurisse, page 97, and any others of that kind. It is also gathered that Umno erred, when below in the second Life of St. Arnulphus, number 23, he has: "But Blessed Arnulphus presided over the church of Metz fifteen years, 10 days, under the Apostolic Popes Boniface, Honorius, Severinus, John"; for so he would have presided up to the year of Christ 641; and would have been ordained in the year of Christ 626; which enormously disagrees with the Chronicle of Fredegar, to whose authority the obscure Umno cannot even be compared; as neither the author of the codex of St. Symphorian, at least in the earlier bishops up to the times nearer to himself; since he was perhaps later than Umno; for he enumerates the bishops of Metz up to the tenth century in Dominici; or at least up to the advanced ninth century, as it is in the Body of Frankish History mentioned above. Of that passage of Umno I shall speak again a little below. Here it is enough to have observed that St. Arnulphus went to the hermitage while Lothair was still living; as Umno himself sufficiently hints, numbers 16 and 17; after he had already presided over the church of Metz 15 years, 10 days. By what reasoning then could he feign that he was ordained in the year of Christ 626? Since Lothair died in the year of Christ 628.

[35] The objections of Valois are dissolved More pressing are those who object to us Fredegar himself; that they may defer the ordination of St. Arnulphus up to the monarchy of Lothair, or the year of Christ 614; which Valois does in the place assigned above, and this by a triple argument; and first indeed, because Fredegar writes, he says, that "in the forty-second year of the reign of Lothair, the fourth of Dagobert, which after the death of Theodebert was the fifteenth, Arnulphus pontiff of Metz was among the twelve men for settling the controversy of the kings": so that, if he was ordained priest by the command of Theodebert, at least sixteen years of episcopate must be attributed to him. This argument is nothing, if you deny that the 42nd year of Lothair was the fifteenth after the death of Theodebert; but concerning this the learned already agree; since they place the death of Theodebert in the year of Christ 612; but attach the 42nd year of Lothair to the year of Christ 625. Therefore this first reasoning of the learned Valois Mabillon prudently omitted here in the notes, page 151, where he defends the Chronology of Valois.

[36] drawn from Fredegar; The second argument of Valois is this: "The same too (Fredegar) relates that, Theodoric the brother of Theodebert being dead, Lothair, invited by Arnulphus and Pippin, entered Austria, being about (unless I am mistaken) to call Arnulphus, in his usual manner, bishop; if he had then already been bishop." This reasoning, although it is only negative, as they call it, is yet stronger than the former; for I would not dare to deny that our Arnulphus is here treated of. Wherefore Mabillon seized upon this in the cited place; that he might fix the beginning of the holy Prelate in the second year of the monarchy of Lothair, of Christ 614. But he who thinks thus, must either deny that he sat 15 whole years (which I know no one has thus far done; not even Mabillon himself, who in the Annals, where he places the withdrawal of St. Arnulphus two years earlier than he had established in the Acts, preferred to be silent about his ordination, rather than, by deferring it to the year of Christ 614, as he had done in the Acts, to pluck anything from the 15 years of the episcopate;) or depart from Fredegar, who in chapter 58 most openly teaches that St. Arnulphus had, at least in the year of Christ 628, already ended the pontificate. Indeed to do either of these I am not sufficiently impelled by a negative argument. And truly who would deny that Idatius, that Isidore, that Gregory of Tours were held for bishops by Fredegar? Yet to none of them does he add the title of bishop in his Prologue in Ruinart in the Appendix to the History of St. Gregory of Tours, page 585 and following. So neither to St. Columbanus does he ascribe the appellation of abbot, chapter 36: which yet in chapter 44 he ascribes to Austrasius, who had succeeded Columbanus. Why then should we not believe that he did this same thing in the case of Arnulphus?

[37] The third argument of Valois is: "Moreover in express words (Fredegar) teaches that Dagobert king of the Austrasians first used the counsels of Lord Arnulphus pontiff of Metz and of Pippin mayor of the royal palace; from Fredegar; then, after the death of Arnulphus, of the same Pippin, and together of Chunibert bishop of Cologne, up to the death of his father and his own coming to Paris. Wherefore it seems to me that Arnulphus did not begin to sit in the episcopal chair except after the death of Theodoric." This learned man is deceived, when he changes the words of Fredegar ("after the departure of blessed Arnulphus") into these: "after the death of Arnulphus": as will be clear from the Life. Then the things which Fredegar there narrates pertain to the 7th year of Dagobert, of Christ 628; but the departure of Arnulphus is by no means there affirmed to have happened in that year: as we said above, number 30. Nay, the things which Fredegar there says could be true, even though Dagobert had used the counsels of Arnulphus only for one year or another, and then up to the seventh year Chunibert had held his place. Nothing therefore hostile to us can be hammered out of this passage, so that we should think St. Arnulphus endured in the episcopate up to the year of Christ 628, nay 629 according to Mabillon in the Acts, and so came to it only under Lothair.

[38] There remains a difficulty which could be drawn from his age; as also the difficulty drawn from the age of St. Arnulphus: for we said that he was born about the year of Christ 582: he was not therefore much more than twenty-eight years old, when he was made bishop in the year of Christ 610; which the Canons prohibited from being done before the thirtieth year in Gaul, as is clear from the Council of Agde, celebrated in the year of Christ 506, canon 17; and the fourth of Arles, which was held in the year of Christ 524, canon 1; likewise the third of Orléans, convened in the year of Christ 538, canon 6. But this objection inconveniences us little; since examples are not lacking, even several, of those who were ordained before the thirtieth year of age; when yet they came nearer to the times of those councils than St. Arnulphus. Such are those which on another occasion our Jordan adduces (in the little book of which I spoke, number 15) from page 131: of St. Gregory of Tours, ordained in the 29th year of age; of St. Remigius in the 22nd; of St. Firminus in the 21st; of St. Germanus in the 17th, etc. Dispensations therefore in age were not rare at that time; provided maturity, doctrine, distinguished sanctity supplied it; all which and other ornaments were in the highest degree in St. Arnulphus.

[39] But how much these shone in him immediately in his very pontificate, for he supplied the canonical age by his virtue. may be understood from both Lives; the second, however, is richer in commending the munificence of St. Arnulphus toward the poor and the churches: for on these he spent not only his own resources, but also those of his sons, certainly of Ansigis, and of his friends: for the things which are narrated in the second Life, numbers 8 and 10, pertain equally to the time of his episcopate, as the circumstances concerning the consent and dissent of his sons demonstrate, and those things which are read in the same place, number 18. To which this too may be added, which he acquired for the church of Metz from St. Bertichramnus bishop of Le Mans by a pious legacy, concerning which see our Acts, volume 1 of June, page 722. But that is especially to be wondered at; that, although he provided not only for his own but also for other churches; yet meanwhile he handled the affairs of the kingdom, both many and each most grave; as is manifest from Fredegar's chapters 40, 52, 53, 58. But at last, impatient of so great a mass of cares, he was borne with his whole soul to the long-desired tranquil solitude, until, after fifteen years in which he had presided over the church of Metz, the obstinate benevolence of two kings and their zeal to keep so great a man with them being at last overcome, he attained it in the year of Christ 625, about the month of September; according to the epoch of the episcopate established before by us. And this example of Arnulphus, no otherwise than his admonitions, put into the soul of St. Bertulph, that he too, all things being left, should embrace the monastic institute at Luxeuil; as is narrated in his Life in Mabillon in the Acts, century 2, page 160.

[40] The episcopate being abdicated, he becomes a solitary, His journey into the solitude, and the miracle wrought in it, and finally the place to which he withdrew, Umno narrates from number 19. Theodoric Ruinart in the notes on Fredegar's chapter 58 thus describes the place, as it was when he inspected it in the year 1696, and its neighborhood: "St. Arnulphus, his see being left, withdrew into the solitude of the Vosges, where, received by St. Romaricus, who had built a monastery of virgins in the castle of Habend, and another for monks, he dwelt on a neighboring mountain, where today a chapel is seen with a small cabin of hermits. The monastery of Habend, which from its situation and the name of its founder Romaricus was afterward called Romaricus's mount (Remiremont), afterward translated into the valley below, where even now it stands with a town of the same name near the Moselle, inhabited by secular canonesses, who have shaken off the yoke of the Benedictine rule. But the mountain itself, which today is called the Holy Mountain, is inhabited by Benedictines of the Congregation of St. Vitonus, where, besides the greater church, some chapels are seen here and there," etc. More briefly Mabillon in the Annals at the year of Christ 627, number 62: "Arnulphus withdrew into the solitude of the monastery of Habend: where, cells being built among the wild beasts, with some monks he passed the rest of his life most holily. The hermitage of St. Arnulphus, which the writer of the Life of St. Germanus abbot of Grandval calls Horemberg, is distant nearly two miles from the Holy Mountain, a very deep valley being interposed, joined to each mountain by a stone bridge of great mass, that the approach to Arnulphus's cell might be easier."

[41] and puts on the habit of a monk. He dies in the year 640, according to Sigebert, "It is established moreover," says Umno below, number 24, "that this blessed Man received the habit of a monk in the hermitage." Which seems to be confirmed from this, that he tonsured St. Germanus of Grandval fleeing to him in the hermitage, and, having instructed him for some time himself, thereafter directed him to the monastery of St. Romaricus, as Bobolenus narrates in the Life of St. Germanus, which we gave on the XXI of February, page 264. Then he had monks there as companions of his life, and, fortified by them with the last sacraments, and dying a little after, was carried to the monastery, as the Anonymous testifies. But he lived after laying down the infulae up to the year of Christ 640, according to Sigebert in the Chronicle, and up to the day XVI of the month of August, as we said before; and so about 15 years. Meurisse, however, page 122, thinks he died in the year of Christ 641; and that this is proved from his Life, which namely Umno wrote; since in it (number 23 below) he is said to have died "under Constantine son of Heraclius." But there Umno commits so many faults that he scarcely deserves any credit: for these are his words: "But Blessed Arnulphus presided over the church of Metz fifteen years, ten days, under the Apostolic Popes Boniface, Honorius, Severinus, John; in the reign of Heraclius, with Heracleona the mother (I think it should be read: Heracleona with the mother) and Constantine his son. But he died on the XVII Kalends of September in the first year of the same Constantine, son of Heraclius."

[42] Alas, how many errors! First he makes Arnulphus bishop too late, to whom this Umno does not deserve to be preferred. as we showed before; then he fights with himself, when he says that he presided 15 years, 10 days, and at the same time adds that he did this under Boniface and John the Apostolic Popes and Constantine the emperor, son of Heraclius: for Boniface ceased to live in the year of Christ 625 on the day XXII of October, as Pagi proves; but Constantine began to reign from the death of his father in the year of Christ 641: therefore even from the death of Boniface to the reign of Constantine it is more than 15 years, 10 days. Thirdly, what does "in the first year of the same Constantine" mean? Certainly Constantine did not survive his father Heraclius a full 4 months. Fourthly, why is the reign of Constantine placed after the reign of Heracleona, since the latter, the former being dead, reigned yet some months, at least two? I am mistaken, unless here Umno, as elsewhere often, followed Paul the Deacon On the Deeds of the Lombards, book 4, chapter 51, where he says that, Heraclius being dead, Heracleona reigned with his mother two years; but that, Heracleona being dead, Constantine his brother succeeded for six months; which things are both false, and increase the error of Umno by two years. Finally, under Constantine son of Heraclius the death of St. Arnulphus could not have happened on the XVII Kalends of September; since Constantine survived Heraclius only a hundred and three days, according to Nicephorus the Patriarch in the Historical Breviary; but Heraclius died either in the month of March, as Theophanes has, and indeed on the day XXI, as Cedrenus affirms; or rather on the day XI of February, as Pagi shows at the year of Christ 641, number 2. I forbear to say how little time this Umno grants to St. Arnulphus after the episcopate; which our Anonymous, number 31, asserts was long; nay, of many years, if we believe Grimlaïcus, chapter 1 of the Rule of Solitaries, which is had in the Codex of Rules collected by St. Benedict of Aniane the abbot (who died at seventy in the year of Christ 821, as we showed in the Preliminary Commentary of his Life on the XII of February), part 2 from page 464 of the Roman edition of the year 1661. Indeed to such a Chronologer, I think, Sigebert, such as he is, is to be preferred; whom without doubt St. Antoninus followed, part 2 of the Chronicle, title 13, chapter 6, §13, where he says that Arnulphus migrated to the Lord in the twenty-eighth year of Heraclius, which year Sigebert joins with the year of Christ 640, although not rightly.

§ IV. The Acts of St. Arnulphus which we here give.

Concerning St. Arnulphus very many authors, as is clear from those things which we have thus far touched through the course of this Commentary, both more recent and ancient, have mentioned some things, Authors treating of St. Arnulphus. and those drawn from nearly one of these three fountains; namely from the most ancient Life, which we shall give in the first place; from Paul the Deacon, whose Fragment will be subjoined at the end; or certainly from that other Life of St. Arnulphus, which will here follow the first. Therefore, that anyone may understand how much is to be attributed to each of these, I shall here bring forward my judgment, such as it is, on each.

[43] The greatest authority of the former Life of St. Arnulphus. And that former Life, which I mentioned, is to be held far in the greatest esteem; since he who wrote it thus testifies of himself, number 2: "Of his laudable deeds which he did, some I have learned from his familiars relating them, most through myself, which are to be written." Most therefore of what he narrates, he himself took in with his own eyes, at most he was present. So in numbers 22 and 23 he narrates the miracle of the fire calmed in such a way that he betrays himself to have been not only present, but also a monk and companion of St. Romaricus. The time in which he wrote this Life, he indicates at the end in these words: "Behold, most reverend Lord Chlodulf the pontiff, have the Life which thou didst ask written," etc. Whence it is gathered that he elaborated this lucubration when St. Chlodulph was already bishop, that is, after the year of Christ 654 or 655. What then is there that anyone should further demand for the highest authority of this writer? A religious man narrates what he saw; and not so long after the death of St. Arnulphus; and offers his writings to St. Chlodulph son of St. Arnulphus; upon whom in this matter it could not easily be imposed; as neither on very many others who then survived, and had either seen or heard the things which could truly be related of their holy Pontiff.

[45] which an anonymous monk, familiar with the Saint, composed, This author we have called Anonymous: for that the Eminent Baronius suspects him to have been Jonas, a monk of Bobbio, this Mabillon denies here in the Preliminary Observations; for that Jonas was not a companion of St. Romaricus; which yet our author not obscurely confesses of himself, numbers 22 and 23. But neither was he Paul the Lombard; which others wished: for that Paul reached the ninth century; and so could not have lived either with St. Arnulphus or with Chlodulph. Yet Paul wrote some things concerning St. Arnulphus: but no other, as we think, than those which after both Lives we shall produce below; nor does anything more seem able to be drawn out from his book 6 On the Deeds of the Lombards, chapter 16, where he has thus: "Of whose (Arnulphus') wonders at the church of Metz, where he held the episcopate, there exists a book containing his miracles and the abstinence of his life. But I too in the book which I wrote on the bishops of the same city, at the demand of Angilram, a most mild man and distinguished for sanctity, archbishop of the aforesaid church, composed some wonders of this most sacred man Arnulphus, which now I have judged superfluous to repeat."

[46] That book "containing the miracles and the abstinence of the life" of St. Arnulphus is that very Life and which itself we give in his own words, which we shall give in the first place; for that very one Grimlaïcus cites, older than St. Benedict of Aniane the abbot, and than Paul the Deacon himself, I think, Rule of Solitaries, chapter 63: "Blessed Arnulphus too," he says, "when he was bishop, afterward made a solitary, bore with equanimity the detractions of depraved men. Whence in his Deeds it is thus read: For a certain man, named Noddo," etc.; with which he so pursues the history narrated in our Life, number 13, that he employs nearly all the same words. Which is the cause why I have thought that exemplar of the Life of St. Arnulphus which the editor of the Works of the venerable Bede followed, volume 3, is to be far postponed to our transcripts, since it agrees neither there with Grimlaïcus, as our exemplars all do; nor elsewhere with our and others' codices in words and phrases; although in the matter indeed there is such agreement that I do not doubt that that author, whoever he is, had the genuine exemplar before his eyes when he composed that Life of his with a more polished art. On the same stone Surius struck; yet more worthy of pardon in this, that he forewarns his reader of it, in these words: "The style, where it seemed good, Brother Laurentius Surius moderately polished." From Surius drew their material Vincent Barali in the Chronology of the Saints of the island of Lérins, page 194, and Du Bouchet On the Origin of the Royal House of France in the Proofs of the 1st part, chapter 6, and others.

[47] More rightly, in our judgment, Mabillon; who, the brilliance of Surius being dismissed, thought the same matter, but with the phrases which he had found in the Du Chesne manuscript codex not changed, should be committed to the press. Which we too, in our manner, keep; not one Du Chesne codex, however, but also several others of the age. For the Life which we here publish, our ever most praised Pierre-François Chifflet furnished to us written by his own hand from a double manuscript of Corneux and Val-des-Choux. The same I afterward collated with another manuscript, which Father Charles Werpaeus submitted to our Elders, so cut up into Lessons as it serves the Office of St. Arnulphus in the church of Amay; and which, unless I am mistaken, is that very one which the Canons of Amay demanded from the abbot of St. Arnulphus in the year 1446, as may be seen in Dominici in the Various Monuments of Antiquity, subjoined to Ansbert's Familia Rediviva from page 19. I collated besides with another transcript from a manuscript of St. Maximin at Trier, which our Elders had received there collated with others, namely with another manuscript of the same monastery of St. Maximin, with another likewise of St. Matthias there, which lacked a beginning; and at last also with the Life which was had in the codex of St. Maximin in red 4, as Henschenius noted, adding that the same exists in the manuscript which was of Lord Schenckinck.

[48] In the things in which the codices, found in so various places, agree, and differing little. there can be no doubt that they render the genuine and first exemplar of the Life of St. Arnulphus expressed in them, as it was composed by the Anonymous. But they agree in nearly all things; if you except a very few. And first indeed neither in the Amay codex, nor in any of the Trier ones, do I find noted that Prologue which the Surian codex, the Du Chesne, that of Corneux and Val-des-Choux had, below number 1. Of one only Father Henschenius added this: "In the manuscript codex of St. Maximin in red 4, before the Life of St. Arnulphus was his genealogy, then this prologue of the Life: 'In the name of the Lord, in honor of St. Arnulphus the bishop, Adeldrudis devoted to God ordered it to be written. Here begins the Life of St. Arnulphus the bishop. In the name of almighty God,' etc.," which then coincide with our Prologue. Secondly, the miracle of the ring cast into the Moselle and afterward found in the entrails of a certain fish, which you have below in number 7, was not in the codex of Surius, nor in that which the author of the Life of St. Arnulphus which is among the Works of Bede followed, nor in the Amay manuscript; yet it is in other transcripts everywhere, as in the Du Chesne, of Corneux, of Val-des-Choux, of Cîteaux, and of Auxerre, according to Mabillon here; nay, also in the Trier ones, but in these inserted in another place and with other words; so that it is manifestly established that in the first exemplar that was not written, which Paul the Deacon too will testify below; from whom without doubt that miracle was borrowed by those who described the Life of St. Arnulphus after his times. Thirdly, finally, there is not read in the Trier manuscripts, nor in Bede or Surius, nor in the Amay transcript, that Epilogue in which the author offers his work to St. Chlodulph bishop of Metz; which yet the Du Chesne, Corneux, and Val-des-Choux manuscripts have. And indeed that the Life of St. Arnulphus was written by the command of St. Chlodulph testifies he who collected his Acts in our work on the VIII of June, chapter 4, number 15, page 131.

[49] An objection born to be made against it is dissolved. This former Life, therefore, according to those three manuscripts of the best stamp, is that ancient one which St. Chlodulph ordered to be written. Where then, you say, is that history in which is narrated that St. Arnulphus asked from Chlodulph and Ansegis a subsidy for the poor, and obtained it indeed from Ansegis, but by no means from Chlodulph? That indeed Chlodulph himself ordered to be inserted into the Life of his Father, as his biographer relates in the cited place. I answer, that it is found in no exemplar of the former Life, but that it was erased from all, seems little credible. I think therefore that there is an error in the author of the Life of St. Chlodulph; who wrote indeed that some Life of St. Arnulphus was written by the command of St. Chlodulph; but either did not see it, or confused it with another written far later (say by Umno), in which that history is described, number 8. Just as that same one Meurisse confuses with the former, where he treats of Pappolus, the XXVIII bishop of Metz, pages 98 and 99. For the author of the Life of St. Chlodulph is not so ancient as he seemed to our Jordan and others, as Mabillon rightly shows in the Acts of the Saints of the Benedictine Order, century 2, page 1043; so that he could easily have seen another Life of St. Arnulphus, and not sufficiently distinguished it from the ancient one, which perhaps he did not have. However it be; whether this history was in the genuine and most ancient exemplar of the Acts of St. Arnulphus, or was not; no one made so much of that defect, or of any other, as to think that anything of authority and antiquity was to be abrogated from this Life of St. Arnulphus, as it has hitherto been edited; much less Cantatarellus Le Fèvre; although James Long notes it in his Library; for Le Fèvre wonderfully commends this our former Life in the Historical Discourse on the Marriage of Ausbert and Blithildis, chapter 20. But if Le Fèvre censures the other Life adorned by Umno, as we think; not undeservedly does he do this.

[50] The other Life, Certainly neither did our Philippe Labbe seem to judge that work of Umno worthy of his Library; for I do not doubt that he had it, before he committed the Library of Manuscripts to the press; since he wrote hither from Paris on the XXIX of March 1647, that he was awaiting the Life (of St. Arnulphus) written by a certain Umno. Nor has any other, so far as I know, been found thus far, in so great an itch for editing Anecdota, who committed it whole to the press. Yet because it has some things of which the Anonymous makes no mention, and especially because certain fragments of it are cited by Dominici and the bishop of Madaura, as monuments of whatever value; I thought I should do a worthwhile thing if I subjected the whole of it to the eyes and judgment of the readers; so they will more easily and more safely establish how much is to be granted to the authority of Umno, who in the torn shreds here and there does not sufficiently betray himself. The whole of that Life, I say, I shall give; not its rather long exordium, in which the author discourses on the nobility of St. Arnulphus, as he testifies who once most kindly submitted to us from Pont-à-Mousson the Life, the exordium omitted, written by himself with this title: "The Life of St. Arnulphus, bishop of Metz and confessor, faithfully copied from an ancient manuscript codex of the Chancery of Vic in the year 1647 by Father François Lahier of the Society of Jesus." In a letter given in the same year he had warned that that Life in the said codex was written in a most ancient Gothic character. Yet he found there no name of the author; since in the same place, conjecturing, he says that its author seems to him to have been Paul the Deacon.

[51] not by Paul the Deacon, But Paul the Deacon manifestly hints above, number 45, that he wrote nothing concerning St. Arnulphus, except in his book on the bishops of Metz; but what he there composed, we shall bring forward below. Then this Life was written at least after the year of Christ 816, as the author makes plain in it, number 9, from what he narrates of Louis the Pious: not therefore by the command of Charlemagne (as some wish), who had died in the year 814 in the month of January; nor by Paul the son of Warnefrid, the Deacon, who according to Mabillon in the Benedictine Annals at the year of Christ 799, number 86, does not seem to have passed this year (799). Much less can it be said to have been written a little after the death of St. Arnulphus, which I marvel could occur to Meurisse, pages 98 and 99: for what he there asserts cannot fall except on this second Life, in which alone is defined, although not rightly, the time of the episcopate of St. Arnulphus, and his predecessor is assigned as Papolus.

[52] I would prefer therefore to establish its author as a certain Umno, but adorned by a certain Umno, whose preface neither Father Lahier nor Meurisse saw; but which was had in another codex, however, of the monastery of the Holy Mountain, of the Order of St. Benedict, near the Mount of Romaricus, whence Dominici received it from Father Vignier, and thus edited it in Ansbert's Familia Rediviva, part 1, chapter 15: "Admonished by the exhortation of very many, I, Umno, prevented and impelled by the grace of God, undertook to explain the deeds of the blessed pontiff Arnulphus; not that I might serve up feigned things to my hearers in the golden cup of Babylon; but that I might assign to the faithful, for edification, the works of God, which he deigned to work in his saint. For the former things written of him seemed to some less clear and ungrateful; both because they passed over the stemma of his nobility, the time and place of his nativity, which are the authentic foundations of a work, as if by excellence known to all; and because the things which they began to set forth, they left less assigned. They also altogether kept silent about the memorable emblem of his ring, which Charlemagne, to whom he was a great-great-grandfather, ordered to be written with the approbation of truth (namely by Paul the Deacon in the book on the bishops of Metz)." This author, says Dominici, describes the race of Arnulphus in chapter 1. But in chapter 3, the same Dominici being witness, it has thus: "But blessed Arnulfus was born of an Aquitanian father, a Swabian mother, in the castle of Lay, in the county of Chaumont, in the times of the emperor Maurice, who was the first of the race of the Greeks to reign over the Romans." From this last fragment (since Dominici furnishes no more), which agrees word for word, as they say, with our transcript, number 2, it is manifestly gathered that the Life which Dominici had was the same as this ours; and that its author therefore was that Umno, whoever at last he was.

[53] For the rest, although in his Prologue he censures the ancient Acts, and himself promises far more accurate ones; yet so far is it from being true that he performed this, that this Life of his, in my judgment, is filled with many errors, is not even to be compared to the other ancient one. For besides his chronological errors, which we noted in the preceding paragraph, how many other things are there which convict him of ignorance and rashness? For, to dissemble other things, who was ever so rude in Frankish history as to assign to the sons of Childebert, to Theodebert the kingdom of Neustria, but to Theodoric that of Austrasia? Which Umno does, number 3. Who ever, as he there, feigned that Lothair the second was the son of Guntram; when he was the son of Chilperic king of Soissons? Who before Umno said that the Saxons were subdued, and those who exceeded the length of the royal sword slaughtered, by Dagobert; which falls upon his father Lothair alone, who had come to the aid of his son in peril? But what more absurd than that which he has, number 4; where, naming Burgundy, he adds: "That is, Austrasia"? As if those two were not then two, and plainly different, kingdoms. What does he mean in the same place by "Neustria extended from the city of Paris up to the river Garonne"? But who, even dreaming, placed there the kingdom of Theodebert? How alien in the same place is the portrait of Lothair II? For although he was "using too great an assiduity of the hunting of wild beasts," as Fredegar writes, chapter 42, "and at last too much assenting to the suggestions of women and girls"; yet he was not so inert in the administration of the kingdom that, Warnacharius being dead, he did not substitute another mayor of the palace in Burgundy, that he might himself do all things through himself; and this by the highest will of the nobles. Fredegar, chapter 54. Yet to feign the king dissolved by the inertia of luxury pleased Umno, that he might impose so much the graver a mass of administering the kingdom upon Arnulphus, whom he had already made his mayor of the palace, and this through the whole monarchy, or the three kingdoms of Austrasia, Neustria, and Burgundy; in which he is greatly deceived.

[54] some of which For Lothair never subjected three kingdoms to one mayor of the palace: for as soon as he had joined Burgundy and Austrasia to his own Neustria, "Warnacharius in the kingdom of Burgundy," says Fredegar, chapter 42, "is substituted as mayor of the palace … In Austrasia Rado assumed this same grade of honor." But Warnacharius being dead, no one succeeded in Burgundy under Lothair. But to Rado in Austrasia was substituted, with Arnulphus, Pippin, commonly of Landen, as I said above, number 22, who long survived Lothair. Nothing therefore was ever of Arnulphus's jurisdiction outside Austrasia; and so not through those six provinces which Umno here reviews rather in the Roman manner than in the Frankish and that usual in these times of which he writes, and which were most widely diffused through the three kingdoms. Many things in this matter ill-cohering I purposely pass over.

[55] No better are the things which he has, number 5, concerning the name of Anchisus, we have noted? derived from the Trojan Anchises; and the martyrdom, nowhere else acknowledged, of Ansigis. Of the principate of Blessed Pippin, of which he treats, number 9, see the Preliminary Commentary of his Life on the XXI of February. But what he there asserts of St. Wandregisil will be examined on the XXII of this month. Why should I commemorate the miracles which he narrates, numbers 20 and 21? Meurisse certainly keeps deep silence about these, who yet had this Life in his hands when he wrote; not being about to omit them, if he had approved them. But it is a wonder that Umno does not mention the glorious apparition of SS. Arnulphus and Abbo or Goericus, which was made to a certain deacon on the very night of the impending death of St. Romaricus, and is narrated in his Life in Labbe, volume 1 of the New Library of Manuscript Books, page 783. Finally, that he narrates, number 24, that St. Germanus, consecrated abbot by St. Arnulphus, was sent by him to preach in the region of Basel, this has it quite otherwise in Bobolenus, a contemporary author, in the Life of St. Germanus in us, volume 3 of February, pages 264 and 265. These things I would have said, not that I may take away all credit from Umno; but lest thereafter he obtain more than he deserves.

[56] Of the two Fragments which we subjoin to both Acts. The Life of Umno was followed, according to Father Lahier, in the same codex (I know not whether by the same author) by a fragment, which I have subjoined. Of it there is nothing that I may add, it itself gives indication of itself, how wretched it is. But the crowning finish to the Acts of St. Arnulphus will be imposed by that well-known and commonly handed-down elogium of St. Arnulphus, which Paul the Deacon composed, who could learn from St. Charlemagne the emperor himself the things which he commemorates of St. Arnulphus; which of his ring cast into the Moselle, and afterward found in the intestines of a disemboweled fish, he himself testifies in express words, number 2. This fragment I would not copy from Surius, because he corrupted the text in more than one place. I have therefore taken it from the Writers of the History of the Franks edited by Du Chesne, volume 2, page 201; which agrees with the little book of Paul son of Warnefrid, the Lombard, deacon of Friuli, On the Bishops of the church of Metz, edited at Hanover in the year 1613 in the body of Frankish history, Old and Sincere, from page 172.

THE LIFE

BY AN ANONYMOUS AUTHOR, CONTEMPORARY OF THE SAINT HIMSELF.

From the manuscripts of Corneux and Val-des-Choux, which were collated with many others both handwritten and printed.

Arnulphus, Bishop, at Metz in Belgica I (S.)

BHL Number: 0692

FROM THE MANUSCRIPTS.

CHAPTER I.

The birth of St. Arnulphus; his progress in letters and piety; his power in the court; marriage and children; the episcopate of Metz; austere manner of living; works of mercy; various miracles; love of solitude.

In the name of almighty God, and of Christ Jesus, our Lord, his Son, I shall undertake to elicit with my pen the Life, or Acts, of the most holy Arnulphus the prelate, Preface of the Author. the Holy Spirit helping, who rested in him, the Lord commanding concerning good things: "Open thy mouth, and I will fill it." Therefore those things are not to be kept silent which, published for the example of good action, profit, and without doubt bestow on their followers citizenship with the Saints.

[2] Blessed Arnulphus therefore the bishop, sprung from the stock of the Franks, [The noble birth of Arnulphus, and his sanctity foretold; as also the credit of the Author.] was of high enough and noble parents, and most opulent in worldly things; but nobler thereafter, and more sublime, he remained in the faith of Christ. Of his laudable deeds, therefore, which he did, some I have learned from his familiars relating them, most through myself, which are to be written. On which account I judge it worth while that we take the beginning of speaking from the very day of his nativity. There was therefore a certain pilgrim, dwelling in that neighboring place, coming from the parts of Italy, a servant of God, named Stephen. To whom, when the beginnings of this nativity had been revealed, silence being for a little interposed, as if a response given him from heaven, beginning with a prophetic voice, he said: "Know all, and attend, for this boy who is born, to be borne to the most sublime and highest honors, will be great with God and men." Which the truthful event afterward also proved.

[3] Arnulphus learns letters After this, moreover, the boy of laudable disposition, full of the grace of God, as the time came, is committed to be imbued with the studies of letters. Soon therefore, handed over to a preceptor, among his other comrades, sagacious in genius and capacious of memory, he shone lovable: and, Christ dwelling in him, was subject to all, but higher than all in faith and charity.

[4] [is instructed by Gundulf, and becomes powerful in the court of Theodebert, and pious;] And when, now well taught, he had come to a strengthened age, he is handed over to Gundulf ^a the subregulus ^b, or also rector of the palace, or the king's counselor, to be exercised in good acts. Him, when he had received him, proved by many trials thereafter, he now fitted worthy of the ministry of king Theodebert. For the virtue of warring, or his power thereafter in arms, who could relate? Especially since he often subdued with his sword the phalanxes of the adverse nations. Wherefore at last he was made, Christ presiding, the first of all, who a little before seemed almost the last of all: so that six provinces ^c, which then and now as many domestics ^d govern, were ruled under his administration by his sole discretion. For he was diligent, applying himself to prayer, to fasts, to mercy toward the poor: and, as it is written, "He rendered the things that are God's to God, and the things that are Caesar's he restored to Caesar."

[5] he marries a wife, of whom he had two sons; Meanwhile, therefore, scarcely his friends and kinsmen ^e compelling, he took to wife a girl from a renowned and most noble race, because God so willed: for the Lord granted him that special gift, as the splendid ornament of two gems in the world, that from that same distinguished woman he should receive the joys of two sons. While these things therefore were being done, as we have already said above, he flourished first in various honors in the palace, and in ministry: but his continual meditation watched over the monasteries, or holy places.

[6] He thinks of Lérins with Romaricus; but it seemed otherwise to God; But in those times there was in the king's ministry a distinguished man, named Romaricus ^f, who was joined to his holy desire and familiar affection. With him therefore, counsel being entered upon, according to the precept of the Lord (who said: "Go, sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me"), all things being left, he resolved to journey by pilgrimage, for Christ's sake, as far as the monastery ^g of Lérins. But the will of the Most High opposed the desires of both in this cause: for almighty God did not judge it right that these two men, who at last shone as two lamps in the world, should be hidden under the corner of one bushel; the Lord saying: "No one lights a lamp and puts it under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all who are in the house."

[7] he recovers a ring cast into the river as a sign of his sins remitted: But I shall undertake, by narrating, at least some miracles ^h of the many which he did: but this first indeed I think should be set down, which he is reported to have done before he ascended the throne of the episcopate. This one indeed, when he was repenting for his excesses, it happened that he crossed the bridge of the river Moselle: and when he saw beneath him the depths of the river, and, from the immensity of the whirlpool, not penetrable to sight, he took a ring which he happened to have with him, and cast it into the river with these words: "Then," he said, "I shall think myself loosed from the bonds of my sins, when I shall have received this ring which I cast." But after some years, the priestly throne being now ascended, a fish was brought to him by a certain fisherman; which, when the holy man had received it with thanksgiving, he ordered the same to be prepared for him (because he abstained as usual from meats) for his evening refreshment: which, being received, the servant, when according to custom he had disemboweled it, found the same ring in the entrails of that fish. But, ignorant of the deed, wondering at the matter, he brought it to the holy Pontiff: which he, recognizing, now faithful, giving thanks to God for the loosing of his sins, thereafter led his life remiss in nothing, but even more after this constrained himself with fasts, vigils, and prayers. The ring indeed is still had in the palace ^k. One may marvel, and in these things God be magnificently praised, how in a present effect the holy man deserved to be certified, still subject to the world, of the remission of his sins: which without doubt would not happen, unless he were most worthy of God.

[8] Meanwhile the city of Metz begins to need a bishop; and the consonant voice of the people to insist that Arnulphus be given them as pontiff; [he becomes bishop of Metz, kindly toward the poor and pilgrims; strict toward himself:] because he was held most acceptable to the prince, and was known to excel in holy acts. But he, weeping and compelled, because it was so pleasing to God, undertook the city to govern; so thereafter bearing the episcopal infulae, that he held even the solicitude of the domesticate, and the primacy of the palace, as if unwilling. Soon too so great and so profuse a munificence in alms for the poor grew, that even from distant regions and cities, report running, an innumerable throng of the poor hastened to St. Arnulphus the pontiff to be refreshed. For he was continually solicitous, and intent on all good acts, especially in the reception of monks or pilgrims he watched most devoutly; so that those whom he had received in hospitality, he washed their feet with his own hands; and, conducting them clothed and refreshed, he soon received others to be refreshed. But the standard of his abstinence who could relate; especially when at times, after fasts of three days or more prolonged, he lived on barley bread or a cup of water? For, continually and secretly clothed within with a hair-shirt, and thus his limbs already consumed, by vigils and fasts he heaped up a twin torment.

[9] And while in these and various good acts, like a most powerful charioteer, he continually watched, he frees a demoniac, it happened that he was in the neighboring parts of the Vosges, on the estate of St. Stephen ^l; and there was brought before him a certain woman, named Bettila ^m, wickedly seized by a demon, and often strongly shaken to the peril of her life. And when she had begun to rage before the holy Prelate, he indeed, led by immense piety, as he ever was, said: "Alas, most wretched human race! Why has the enemy so prevailed, that where Christ ought to dwell, there the unhappy one possesses a dwelling?" On the coming night, therefore, he ordered the woman to assist at the vigils: and when the holy Man had given himself to prayer, soon the demon, crying and howling, departed from the woman. Immediately, all rejoicing, he ordered her to go away safe and glad, who a little before had been oppressed by the enemy, and sick.

[10] likewise two others: For at the same time in which the universal church is wont to celebrate a three-days' fast, the holy Man went out of the city with crosses and a mixed kind of people, for the sake of praying, according to custom, from the city: and, behold, from the midst of the throngs a woman seized by a demon began to cry out. Her, when he had seen her, the standard of the cross being cast in, he soon healed, snatched from the adversary. At another time also within the city, for the sake of prayer, he came to the basilica of the Holy Cross ⁿ; and there he found a girl wickedly raging. Whom, when he had seen, moved with mercy, he said to his archdeacon: "Now therefore, brother, this night let us celebrate the vigils of prayer for this most wretched one, and, the dawn coming on, let us return here together"; and when on the morrow, according to the agreement, they had been present there, they found the girl freed from the ancient enemy: and so it came to pass that the sanctity of this Man cured the absent and those placed afar.

[11] he heals a heathen leper by baptism: In the times also of king Dagobert, when he was in the palace, a certain leper began to cry out to him, asking for food or clothing; but he immediately ordered him to be led to the guest-house: and when toward him he bestowed his accustomed piety according to his custom, he wished to inquire (because he was a barbarian) whether he had been washed with the sacred wave of baptism. Suddenly he: "By no means (he said), my lord; for I, unhappy, cast off among the people; who would grant me the grace of baptism?" Then the same said: "Fear not, brother: it is possible: only believe in Christ, and it will be the Lord's will that thou receive a twin, that is of thy soul and thy body, remedy." The sacrament of baptism therefore being received from the holy Man, suddenly the leprosy departed from his body, and he was made thereafter sound in both substances, who before had been a sinner and spotted.

[12] he suddenly restores a dying man. Afterward, when he had entered the countries of the Toringi ^o to visit them with the same king, it happened that a certain one of the nobles, named Oddilo [p], was mourning with his last weepings his boy and kinsman, whom he greatly loved: for he was joined to him both by near consanguinity and by an indissoluble affection of friendship. But the king now hastening as quickly as possible from that same villa, no other counsel was at hand to the distressed man, except that, the head of the sick one being cut off, in the manner of the heathen [q], the corpse should be given over to be burned by fire. But we believe that by the will of almighty God it was then brought about that St. Arnulphus the bishop had not yet gone out from his lodgings. Which being learned, Oddilo went to him with swift step, and set forth the cause of his unhappiness, rather by sobs than by words. The distinguished Man therefore went with haste to the couch of the sick one; where, when he had been prostrated on the ground, he prayed very long. Then at last he addresses the half-alive man, as was his custom: "Repent (he said), son, if perchance thou hast done any evil, that thou mayest receive a double medicine." But he, exulting that the man of God had come, scarcely utters in words what he revolved in his heart; because he was shaken with his last efforts. What more? Warmed water is brought, and with his own hands the holy Man washed the face of the sick one, his feet and hands with great diligence, and anointed his body with oil [r]: and so it came to pass that on the same day, as if he had suffered no infirmity, going out from the villa with the rest, unharmed, glad, and rejoicing, he took the road.

[13] Finally, another time, the miracle which he did is not to be kept silent. Divine vengeance upon his detractors. For a certain wicked man, named Noddo [s], on a certain day, his belly refreshed, hot with wine, with his accomplices dared to disparage the holy Man; namely that he was not a worshiper of God, but rather a man given to pleasure; to whose couch, namely, in the nocturnal hours, not only the king but also the queen hastened, as if demanding counsel. When therefore he had sought his bed together with his detracting companion, the Lord commanding, it happened by chance that a flame, surrounding, walled in all their garments; and immediately, leaping up, they asked for water with mighty voices: but water thrown on did not extinguish the flame divinely sent; their shirts burned wickedly about the buttocks or genital parts, nor were they able to strip off from themselves the burning garments. What more? They who could do nothing else, leaping up, and, in the manner of pigs, roll themselves, shouting, in the mud. But more and more the fire sent in burned their genitals. Then indeed, as I think, was fulfilled upon them what is written: "Him that secretly detracted his neighbor, this one did I pursue": and so, the divine censure commanding, it was brought about that in the very things concerning which they had detracted the holy Pontiff, they should feel the punishment: for not long after, the aforesaid Noddo was caught in such great transgressions, that the royal sword cut off his crimes together with his life, because it was just: and, lest he should die alone, his son, soon struck with the same sentence, perished.

[14] But at the same time, when he had now spent nearly all his treasures for the uses of the poor, He recovers with interest a dish given to the poor: there still remained a dish of silver, having a weight of seventy-two pounds. This a certain Hugo, among the chief of the nobles, having given food, procured, with the things that were necessary for the poor: but almmighty God did not suffer that man to enjoy it more freely, which had already long been consecrated in honor of blessed Stephen the protomartyr. For, the aforesaid Hugo being prostrated by a sudden death, the aforesaid dish was taken to king Lothair, who, when he had learned from those relating that this had been sold by St. Arnulphus for the food of the poor, soon, by a wonderful inspiration, as if moved from heaven, ordered the same to be conveyed quickly, a hundred gold pieces being placed upon it, to St. Arnulphus the Pontiff at Metz: and so it came to pass that both the matricularii [t], or the other poor of God, had the sustenance of food, and the things of the Saints, to which it had once belonged, were returned without loss of anything.

[15] And when these and very many similar powers had begun through him to grow frequent among the people, he frequents the solitude. soon he sought places more remote from the noises of the crowd; in which, often thrust into a workhouse, he might most studiously have leisure for God alone in sacred prayers; the Most High admonishing, who said: "Be still, and see, for I am God." For often in the villa of Dodiniac, which is neighboring to the Vosges; at times at Calciac, not much far from the city [u], thrust into a little cell, he beat heaven day and night with prayers.

ANNOTATIONS.

p. The Trier codices have "Nodilo."

q. That it was a custom of the heathen to burn corpses is commonly known; which the Gauls and Germans too kept, Caesar and Tacitus testify; that not a few even among the Franks, especially the Northern ones, were long after these times addicted to idols, Valois teaches, book 23. But that it was ever the custom among them to cut off the heads of the sick, this indeed I have not yet been able to find elsewhere. Therefore I suspect this is to be referred to the impious pity of Oddilo; but that, "in the manner of the heathen," affects only what follows, namely the burning of the corpse.

r. The Trier codex has "with holy oil."

s. This history Grimlaïcus described in nearly all the same words in the Rule of Solitaries, chapter 63, in St. Benedict abbot of Aniane, part 2 of the Codex of Rules, page 587.

t. "Matricularii" were those poor who were entered in the matricula or register of the church, that they might be fed with ecclesiastical stipends. See Du Cange in the Glossary at the word Matricula.

u. That Calciac I think is what they now call Chaucy, which is a village east of Metz, beyond the Nied, a Gallic river, about five leagues, unless the maps deceive, distant from the city. But the villa of Dodiniac I have found nowhere more precisely described.

* elsewhere "with affection" (affectu).

* elsewhere "I pursued" (persequebar).

* The Trier codex, "brought" (allatus).

CHAPTER II.

The abdication of the episcopal office; withdrawal to the hermitage; a fire extinguished; life in solitude; holy death; burial; translation of the body; miracles.

But while in these things the athlete of Christ was contending most holily and strongly against the devil, touched in conscience, He asks a successor in the episcopate from Lothair; lest the people entrusted to him by the Lord, he being removed, should receive somewhat less of the food of eternal life, he suddenly began most intently to demand from the prince that he should give a successor as prelate for him: and, sending letters by messengers, he cried out that he was unworthy of this office, and a sinner: and that they should elect such a one as would worthily sow the word of preaching to the people. Which being left read: read, soon king Lothair is filled with no small anguishes, crying out that he was destitute of all help, if St. Arnulphus should cease from the frequency of the palace; to whom, among other things, he nonetheless sends back such writings, saying:

[17] "Lord father, what you have written by your letter, that in our place we ought to elect another successor, Lothair refuses to give a successor; and reluctantly permits the withdrawal. this our presumption by no reason presumes to do." Hence again among the rest he says: "As much as we rejoiced concerning your devotion, which we trust is from divine admonition; so much again, grieving, we have treated of it, that we did not wish to be absent from your sight: nay, lord and father, if, compelled by any devotion, for the doing of a good work, you resolve to set out anywhere; we ask that you by no means leave us without your peace or communion, for divine love." For the aforesaid king Lothair loved him with such faith and love, that, when he had raised his offspring Dagobert to the summit of his principality, he had handed over to the same the kingdom to be governed, and his son to be instructed, into his hand; whom he, having received, so instructed with lofty and profound wisdom, that in the nation of the Sicambri ^b no king was related to have been like him.

[18] But when he was disposing to hasten to the hermitage with an indissoluble desire, But Dagobert deters him with threats; the prudent king Dagobert wished and suspected that he should be terrified by threats, namely that he should not depart from his counsel or comfort; saying to him: "Thy most beloved sons, since it holds so admitted, unless thou stay with us, I will cut off thy head." To this he answering said: "The life of my sons is in the hand of God: now thou possessest not thy own life, when thou disposest to take away life from the innocent." Then the king, angered against him, seized with his hand the sword hanging from his thigh. Then St. Arnulphus, making little of the wrath of the king about to die, constantly said: "What doest thou, O most wretched one? Wilt thou repay me evil for good? Behold me ready: exercise thy arms upon my blood, as it pleases thy mind; I do not hesitate to die for the commands of him who both gave me life, and died for me." Then one of the nobles said: "Do not act impiously against thyself, O good king: dost thou not see the holy Man, destined and desirous of martyrdom? Or why dost thou not fear to provoke the servant of Christ the Lord?" And these things said, the Lord commanding, his wrath, ensnared, was for a little while silent.

[19] but at last he assents, the crowd of the wretched weeping, Meanwhile the queen too is present; both, remembering their fault, fall at the feet of St. Arnulphus, and with tears beseech that he have mercy on them, saying: "Go, lord, to the hermitage whither thou wilt; only let us have thee appeased, whom, presuming, we have provoked to trouble." Then the holy Man, pardon being given them, goes out from the palace. And, behold, he finds before the doors a nearly innumerable multitude standing, of the lame, the blind, and of all the poor, widows, and orphans; and when they had seen him, all began to cry out, saying: "O holy pastor, why dost thou forsake us wretched ones? Or who will have mercy on us? Or who will give us food and clothing? For, thou being removed, we shall all die, consumed by nakedness and hunger. We beseech thee for Christ, do not forsake us."

[20] whom Arnulphus consoles; Then he, weeping, addressing them with a soothing voice, says: "God will give you a pastor, who will feed you in pity and mercy; for my face you will not for a long time from now behold: but do you 'Seek first the kingdom of God,' as Christ said, 'and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you.' Be at peace, kindly to one another, merciful; that, while you are now straitened by this poverty and misery, in the future life you may deserve to reign happy with Christ: since Lazarus too the beggar was carried by the angels into the bosom of Abraham: so do you too seek the Lord, and both here and forever your soul shall live." And these things said, immediately he proceeds to the contests of prayers.

[21] But after this, a short time being passed, the just Man beating with his intention, for whom Goericus is elected as successor. holy Goericus ^c, surnamed Abbo, is elected his successor. Worthily indeed was it done by the Lord, that a saint should succeed a saint. Which being heard, the distinguished man Romaricus, going out from the fathers of the Vosges, proceeds to blessed Arnulphus; and by the providence of both, prepares for him a fit place of the vast hermitage. But soon on the same day, the night coming on in which he had come, what miracle was wrought within the city through this nourishing Pontiff, I cannot keep silent.

[22] It happened by chance that a devouring fire vexed the storehouse of the king, Arnulphus, the author of this Life being present, extinguishes a fire, and, belching forth a most lofty flame, threateningly licked the houses neighboring round about. Suddenly all the city, rising up, seeing their destruction, was turned to wailing and shouting. Which being heard, we came with swift step to the house of the holy Man, and found him, as was ever his custom, resounding with psalmody: and immediately, his hand being seized, Romaricus said: "Go out, lord; behold," he said, "our horses are before the doors, lest (which God forbid) the fire consume thee in this city." To this he said: "By no means, most beloved; but lead me thither, and let us see this impious fire which rages: and set me near it; and, if God so wills that I burn; behold, I am in his hand." Then we, holding his holy hands, came to the hearth; and soon, at his command, prostrate in prayer, a little chapter being said, we all rose. Then he, raising his hand, cast the standard of the cross against the huge flames: and soon, in a wonderful manner, as if struck from heaven, harming nothing elsewhere, within the walls, wholly turned back upon itself, the fire perished.

[23] And we thereafter, now secure from the peril subdued, by which the whole city would have been burned up, as was revealed. giving thanks to God, matins being said, returned to our little beds. But immediately to a certain one of the brethren such a vision appeared. Looking into heaven, he saw as it were in the flame of fire the little sign of the cross depicted: and immediately from heaven, from the transverse of the cross, a voice was made, saying: "Dost thou see this sign? This night the bishop Arnulphus through it freed this whole city from the fire." As we all wondered at the power which we had seen from the fire prostrated, that brother narrated this vision.

[24] But after this the good Arnulphus, all worldly things being left, [All his goods being distributed to the poor, he seeks the hermitage, where he serves lepers, etc.:] and, well and perfectly, the poor being provided for, and now faithful and secure of the treasure hidden in heaven, not many days having elapsed, poor indeed for Christ's sake made in the world, but now rich in the virtue of the Lord, like a new Elijah, hastening to the hermitage, and among the beasts and wild animals of the wood, little dwellings being built, with daily meditation he resounded praises to God. Some few little monks too being taken with him, as also lepers; with his own hands he continually bestowed on them a most faithful service; drawing the shoes from their feet, and wiping them; frequently washing their heads and feet, and preparing their beds too, most studiously arranged on alternate days. For the holy Bishop, not shrinking from the office of the kitchen, and himself often a hungering cook, fed his comrades. But also the bed of his couch, cheap indeed in the eyes of men, but most beautiful in the sight of the angels, soft and precious garments alone being spurned, hair-shirts adorned.

[25] In these therefore and other innumerable good things, while he led an angelic life, near death, he is distressed by the fear of his sins: now almighty God, wishing to call his Athlete to the destined prize, is urged to the last day. Which being learned, the most religious man Romaricus is present, with the other monks, awaiting his going out. Then the elect of God, and most sacred Pontiff, addressing him, said: "Good man and lovable to the Lord, beseech Christ for me: now the day is at hand, in which I shall appear to be presented to my judge. What shall I do? I have done nothing good in the world: I am straitened, walled in by all crimes and sins; for which I beseech, entreat the Lord, that I may deserve pardon." These things the holy Man said, because it is written: "The just man is his own accuser in the beginning of his speech."

[26] he dies; and is buried by Romaricus in the castle of Habend. Meanwhile the hour came that that holy soul should be carried by the hands of the holy angels to Christ. But there was there, without doubt, great joy of the heavenly powers in heaven, and immense mourning of the poor of Christ and of the monks in the world. Soon, according to the holy custom, the sacred Gospel is present, which the reader resounds with his voice amid the mourning and songs of those chanting psalms; and so at last the distinguished man Romaricus, the most holy body of him being brought, with the dignity and honor he could, delivered it to burial in the castle of Habend ^e.

[27] Goericus translates the sacred body to Metz, not without many miracles wrought: After the death of blessed Arnulphus, the time of nearly a year being now passed, the most choice man his successor bishop Goericus, counsel being entered upon, an immense throng of clerics and even of peoples being gathered, two bishops also being taken with him, together proceed to the hermitage: in which place, celebrating the watches with reverence, taking the holy limbs from the urn of stone, they place them on a bier: and soon, seizing the roads, they return with joy to the city. For a sweet odor from these sacred limbs filled all who bore them. But what kind of miracles thereafter shone through him on the journey, I shall show, as I am able.

[28] for, the bearers falling, the bier hung of itself in the air; But while those carrying it come to a certain stream, whose earth of the banks being cleft, opened to those going a valley and a slippery passage, the hinder ones, who carried the bier, fall by chance. But, as I think, the angels immediately received the same; for the former bearers, delaying with no step, the bier being raised in the air, walk freely; and those who had fallen, rising, the valley being now crossed, join themselves to their colleagues.

[29] nor could it be moved forward to the villa of an incestuous man; After this, finally, on that journey, soon another sign shone forth. A certain man in the district of Chaumont ^h, named Cunita, was incestuous. Him, when he, reproving often, could not bring to the amendment of penance, he left in this life impenitent. It happened that in the villa of that same incestuous man there was an oratory: in which place, as they journeyed, it was fitting that a lodging be prepared; therefore especially, because the holy body ought to be honored with watches in the basilica. But coming to the confines of the land of the incestuous man, suddenly the step of the bearers is fixed; so that they had not the faculty of carrying the sacred limbs farther. And, behold, distress to the priests and to all the people, since they knew not the lodging to which they should turn, when the day had already declined to evening.

[30] [but it is carried elsewhere far off with wonderful swiftness, beer being divinely supplied to the companions.] Then duke Noddo ⁱ, who was one of those going, said: "You see that it disdains to enter the land of this incestuous man. But my villa is far off; yet night will shut us in before we can come thither. But there is also lacking to me there drink or provision by which I can refresh this multitude; except only in the bottom of a little vessel a little something of beer." Which being heard, all the people, turning back their journey, proceed with such swiftness that the bearers felt themselves carried rather than carrying; and, still having the light of day, they came to the destined place. Then Noddo said: "Now therefore let blessed Arnulphus feed us this night, since what is lacking to us can, by his intercession, be present." Immediately in such exuberance grew the smallness of that drink, that, all being abundantly satisfied, it still remained over for the morrow.

[31] But after this with great prosperity and gladness they come to the city. The body is solemnly laid up at Metz in the basilica of the Holy Apostles; And, behold, soon all the city, with crosses and tapers, and immense joy and admiration, runs to meet, and receives their Pastor, whom a little before they had lost as a fugitive, now reigning in heaven, and lays up his sacred body in the basilica of the Holy Apostles ^k with reverence and great exultation for burial. Soon indeed, being buried, he showed by miracles what he had gained with Christ in the hermitage for his citizens.

[32] For a certain woman, named Julia, once blinded in her eyes, there miracles soon followed. The blind recovers sight: came to his tomb: where, when prostrate she had prayed with faith, without delay she received the light desired for the space of many years; and, seeing the outcomes of the ways, which with an external helping hand she had been wont to tread, with her own eyes, she returned glad to her lodging.

[33] Finally, again, let me not be silent about another miracle, [A woman contracted for having violated before the religion of the Lord's day, is healed:] which recently, the religious man abbot Arengisil relating, I have learned. For a certain woman, named Cencerella [*], dwelling in the suburb of Metz, dared to work on the Lord's day. But soon, divinely beaten, she was contracted in both hands. Then, walled in by great anguishes, she came to the aforesaid abbot. But he commanded her to hasten with faith to the tomb of the holy Prelate. Where, when she had come, she found the doors closed with bolts, and immediately, prostrating herself before the folding-doors of the holy basilica, she gave herself to prayer with tears, crying out and beseeching St. Arnulphus the bishop that he would heal her. And immediately her fingers, which had long strongly clung to her palms, the rigidity being loosed, received their former remedy: and she returns to her own unharmed and glad, who had come sad and contracted.

[34] For at the same time there was a little man, a lame man is raised. named Ciaro, wickedly contracted in his feet, who, with staves helping on either side, scarcely step by step and with great injury strove to touch the path. He, with his crutches ^l, prostrated himself in prayer at the urn of the holy Man to be healed. Immediately, the contractions of his sinews being loosed, he rose sound and glad, and returns to his dwelling on his own feet, who had come to the holy tomb supported by staves, that he might be healed.

[35] These few things of the many powers or good works of this Man, Epilogue of the Author, as we were able, we have put into writing. But if, pursuing with our pen all the good things which he did, we had been zealous to insert them into the membranes, an enormous and great volume would have been present to the readers: for we chose to narrate at least some of the many, lest we should cause weariness to the ears of the hearers: God almighty helping, and Jesus Christ our redeemer, to whom is power and glory through the immortal ages of ages. Amen.

inscribing his work to St. Clodulf. Behold, most reverend Lord Chlodulf the pontiff, have written the Life and deeds of thy Begetter, which thou didst ask. Justly indeed, and perfectly, thou didst judge that thou shouldst often read again the Acts of him whose seat thou holdest.

ANNOTATIONS.

* elsewhere "read again" (relectis).

* elsewhere "your" (vestro).

* elsewhere "in one vessel" (in uno vasculo).

* elsewhere "Ceucerella."

THE OTHER LIFE, BY THE AUTHOR UMNO.

From an ancient manuscript codex of the Chancery of Vic.

Arnulphus, Bishop, at Metz in Belgica I (S.)

BHL Number: 0693

FROM THE MANUSCRIPTS.

CHAPTER I.

The deeds of St. Arnulphus up to the undertaking of the episcopate.

Arnulphus is born and foretold to be great before God and men. Blessed Arnulphus therefore, from so great a stem of nobility, rising like a golden rod, by how much more nobly he took his beginning from his progenitors, by so much more worthily he produced an example to his holy successors: for the divine dispensation, which had consecrated him to itself from eternity, deigned to glorify him, as by a noble genealogy, so also by a heavenly prophecy. A certain servant of God, named Stephen, dwelt in a place near where the boy had been born. He, coming from Italy, declining the swords of the Lombards not by fear but for the benefit of the brethren, was at leisure for his own and others' salvation. To him, therefore, when the merits of the born infant had been divinely revealed, he came to the town, and is honorably received by the progenitors and the other soldiers; he is led to the cradle of the boy, for whose sake he had come; whom, as he beheld, he soon opened to the bystanders the things which had been foreknown to him about him through the spirit, saying with a prophetic voice: "Know all, and hold in memory, that this little one who is born will be great and of much sanctity with God, great also with men by the dispensation of the highest honors; he will be a glorious stock of kings, and a precious gem of priests." Which prophecy, as it was great in the revelation, so in the disposition of the youth following was proved probable.

[2] But blessed Arnulphus was born of an Aquitanian father ^b, His homeland, parents, education, promotion in the court of king Theodebert. a Swabian mother, in the castle ^c of Lay, in the county of Chaumont, in the times of the emperor Maurice, who was the first of the race of the Greeks to reign over the Romans ^d. When therefore he had been sufficiently imbued with the scholarly disciplines, he is led into the court of king Theodebert, and is mingled with the counsels of the palatines. This Theodebert was the son of king Childebert, who presided over both the Belgic provinces, and the four-part provinces of the Lyonnese too. Under his time Cundulf was praetor, namely mayor of the palace and count palatine, who, since he went before the rest in prudence of counsels and industry of affairs, to him as patron and teacher blessed the youth Arnulphus is commended, that he who shone with the nobility of his ancestors should by no means be inferior to them in the royal administration: whom, when he had received him, proved by many trials, he established not unworthy of the dispensation of the royal affairs.

[3] But Theodebert, who presided over Neustria, being slain by his brother Theodoric, who presided over Austrasia ^e, and then in the court of Lothair and Dagobert. and the same being destroyed by Brunhild with a draught of poison ^g, the kingdoms of both passed into the power of Lothair, son of king Guntram. He tore apart queen Brunhild, on account of her manifold wickedness, bound to untamed horses ^h; and made blessed Arnulphus, venerable to all for his honesty and at the same time admirable for his warlike fortitude, count of the palace, to whom he also commended his son Dagobert to be instructed in the Christian religion; because he was both his kinsman ⁱ, Catholic in faith, and skilled in the civil law; by whose teaching he so profited, that he is approved by the historiographers as more eminent than all the kings of the Franks: for how much he cherished the Church, the gleam of gold and silver of the basilica of St. Denis of Paris ^k, we being silent, cries out; and how great he was in battles, the nation of the Saxons, subdued by him … as many as, measured to the length of his sword, all exceeding the same, he slaughtered when they rebelled ^l.

[4] Blessed Arnulphus therefore, made mayor of the palace, His deeds, especially in the service of king Lothair. by what warlike virtue, by what prudence of counsel he freed Burgundy, that is Austrasia, and also Neustria, which is from the city of Paris up to the river Garonne, from the tumult of wars; enervated the deceits and snares of Brunhild, destroyed the sons of the aforesaid Theodoric begotten of a harlot, who could relate? Hence, as Joshua the Amalekites, so he laid waste the perfidious: for although king Lothair was skilled in the arts of the disciplines, and intent on various good acts; yet, as is the custom of kings, he was dissolved by the inertia of luxury; whence nearly all the usefulness of civil providence lay upon this illustrious Man; so that he alone ruled six provinces, which then as many of his domestics administer. For he ruled the two Belgic provinces, in which are Trier and Reims, with sixteen cities adjacent to them: also the four provinces of the Lyonnese, in which the chief cities are Lyon, Rouen, Tours, Sens, with twenty-nine cities subject to them ^m.

[5] He marries Doda, of whom two sons, Clodulf and Anchisus: Beyond the decree of his own will, acquiescing in the vows of his parents and the nobles, he received as wife a girl sprung of most noble birth, named Doda, agreeing with him in all things in acts of honesty: from whom he received the joys of two sons, namely Clodulf and Anchisus. His name is derived from the Trojan Anchises, who was the progenitor of Aeneas. These again shone in the world as the splendid ornament of two gems: for Clodulf was bishop of the church of Metz; Anchisus standard-bearer ⁿ of the royal court, and the same afterward no mean martyr. For, finding once a certain exposed infant, he had nourished, cherished, and imposed on him the name Godin ^o, who, grown up, impiously slaughtered his own protector while hunting in the woods, enticed by hope of his wife and dignities: but what profit of his perfidy? He slew his lord: but soon, vexed by a demon, perished [p].

[6] He meditates a religious life with Romaricus: But although blessed Arnulphus flourished in the palace with various honors, yet he longed for an opportunity of leaving all things for Christ: wherefore to an illustrious man, named Romaricus, he opens the secret of his breast; because that man too gaped for heavenly desires: which Romaricus, because the maritime places, well suited to a stricter life and religion, were not unknown to him, persuaded blessed Arnulphus to go to the monastery of Lérins; for at that time the monastic discipline was fervent there, and the doctrine of the holy prelate Caesarius of Arles was commended [q].

[7] [He casts a ring into the Moselle, that if it should return to him, he might be secure of the pardon of his sins:] Meanwhile [r], when blessed Arnulphus was visiting the provinces committed to him, he happened to come to the city of Trier, where, when he was passing over the bridge, and considering the depth of the river Moselle, which flowed beneath; as if touched by a divine instinct, he looked up to heaven, and cast the ring which he wore on his finger into that depth of the waves, saying: "Then I shall be certain, O Lord God, of thy propitiation toward me, if I shall deserve hereafter to receive this ring." But this ring, a long time being interposed after, he recovered, found in the inmost parts of a fish.

[8] He asks the portion of his sons for pious uses; he blesses Anchisus who assents. But he himself, persevering in this purpose of devotion, asks from his sons that the portion which falls to them in his movable resources they would kindly suffer to be distributed for the uses of the poor; but the will of his sons does not wholly obey him, as he hoped. For the elder of the sons, Clodulf, refuses to fulfill this: for the firstborn in such a matter are often found more difficult. But Anchisus, the younger offspring, promises to obey his father gladly in all things, lending faith to his admonitions. The venerable begetter therefore gives thanks to his son, blessed him in all abundance of things, and foretold that the offspring to be born of him would ascend to the royal dignity; which was also done: for indeed very many riches accrued to Anchisus, and strenuous and strong men proceeded from his stock: for the kings of the Franks degenerating from their accustomed fortitude, the sublimity of the kingdom passed to his disposition, because it was ordained from heaven that the kingdom of the Franks should be carried over to his offspring.

[9] This Anchisus, by his father's counsel, married the daughter of Pippin, prince of Germania Secunda, The illustrious posterity of Anchisus and Begga, named Begga, namely the sister of St. Gertrude, whom in virginity St. Feuillen nourished [s]. From this Pippin's sister, named Waldrada, was born Gualchisus, who begot St. Wandregisil the confessor of Christ. From Begga therefore Anchisus begot Pippin, having the name of his grandfather. He was of such boldness, that, having crossed the river Rhine with one attendant, he beheaded with his men a certain adversary sitting in his chamber. He wore down the Saxons and Frisians [t]. He begot Charles Martel [u], who so pressed down the Saracens [x] that hitherto they dread the arms of the Franks; which Charles likewise begot Pippin, small indeed in stature, but great in virtue; so that by a single onset he is asserted to have torn apart a lion, like a lamb [y]. His son was Charlemagne [z], who beyond all the preceding kings of the Franks enlarged the kingdom, laid low the Lombards, associated the emperor of Constantinople to his dominion without battle, added the very Romulean city, groaning under the Lombards with all Italy, to his scepters. From him arose Louis the pious king, who ordained prebends, cloisters, and rules for the clerics and monks [aa].

[10] But, to return to what we began, the man lovable to God, The pious liberality of Arnulphus; Doda and Romaricus bid farewell to the world. blessed Arnulphus, the liberality of his son being received, distributed his own resources to the poor, widows, orphans, and the needy; to some churches also he granted ample estates, the palace which he possessed at Metz he bestowed on the church of Verdun by hereditary right; to the church of Cologne too and of Trier he granted no small part of his possessions. No less his blessed wife Doda, renouncing the vain things of the world, chose at Trier to lead a celibate life in enclosure. These things therefore being completed, he strove to fulfill the counsel of pilgrimage toward Lérins which he had had with the venerable Romaricus; but because the way of man is not in his own power, what they were deliberating for their own salvation, the Lord transferred to the benefit of many; for Lord Romaricus [bb], by the preaching of blessed Amatus, all his own things being left, and given to the needy, was made a monk at Luxeuil, and afterward founded the monastery of Remiremont: but blessed Arnulphus was chosen by divine judgment to the prelacy of Metz, as will be set down in the following page.

ANNOTATIONS.

p. Or rather, he was slain a little after by Pippin, son of Anchisus and St. Begga; as Valois teaches, Frankish Affairs, book 22, page 324.

q. For St. Caesarius wrote distinguished and very pleasing little works, necessary also for monks, according to Gennadius, chapter 86. We gave the Rule written by him on the 12th of January.

r. The things which follow up to number 10 are taken from Paul the Lombard, from the fragment which I shall subjoin to this Life; some things, however, Umno embellished.

s. See what was said on the Life of St. Gertrude, 17 March, number 594.

t. All these things of Pippin of Herstal are also taken from Paul son of Warnefrid, Deeds of the Lombards, book 6, chapter 37.

u. Commonly Martel.

x. The same the continuator of Fredegar narrates in Ruinart, chapter 108.

y. This deed the Monk of St. Gall relates, book 2, chapter 23, in Du Chesne, volume 2, page 131.

z. The Acts of St. Charlemagne the emperor we gave on the 28th of January.

aa. Go to the Council of Aachen celebrated in the year 816, volume 7 of Labbe's Councils.

bb. The Life of St. Romaricus you have in Mabillon in the Acts of the Saints of the Order of St. Benedict, century 2, from page 416. We shall treat of him on the 8th of December.

CHAPTER II.

The deeds of St. Arnulphus from the undertaking of the episcopate up to his death.

Papolus the twenty-eighth bishop of Metz, from the first blessed pontiff Clement, being taken from life, [Arnulphus is elected bishop of Metz; nor yet is he permitted to withdraw from the court:] the same people of Metz, widowed of a pastor, prayed with continual prayer that a worthy pontiff might be given them by God. Divinely therefore it is inspired to the chief men of the clergy and people that the aforesaid venerable man Arnulphus should be elected; who at last resisting, king Lothair consenting, was taken up as bishop of Metz.

In that state also he counseled the palatine dignities, though unwilling, being strong in every kind of virtue, and shining with various miracles. Meanwhile the glorious prince Lothair, son of king Guntram, the tumults of the kingdom being happily pacified, commending the administration of affairs to his son Dagobert, rejoices in royal quiet. Which Dagobert greatly embraced the familiarity of the Man of God, venerated his sanctity, as one educated by him and promoted to the eminence of civil industry: wherefore even the unwilling man he frequently detained in the palatine affairs to be moderated.

[12] But the Prelate, not seeking the things that are his own, he heals a leper by baptism: even in the royal house relieved the want of the poor: for when a certain leper, a barbarian or pagan, importunately asked from him food or clothing, he, not knowing how to be troubled by the poor man's importunity, ordered the same to be led to his own lodging, whom afterward, baptizing, he cured of leprosy.

[13] At another time thereafter the same Prelate had entered with the aforesaid king Dagobert the region of the Thuringians ^a, which is a no small part of the province of Germania Secunda, in which is Cologne the metropolis, where, when he was delaying in arranging the royal affairs, a certain one of the nobles, called Nodilo, was distressed with great grief on account of the sickness of a certain youth, a kinsman of his household, whom the blessed Prelate, prayer being poured forth, healed. he restores a dying man by prayer:

[14] The blessed pontiff Arnulphus therefore, as he was glorious for the power of signs, he recovers a dish sold for the relief of the poor: distinguished for chastity approved to the Lord, so became known to men; so also, munificent in largess, shone venerable before the prince Lothair: for when he had bestowed nearly all his treasures and those of the Church on the needy, that his justice might remain in the age following upon this age; there still happened to remain a silver dish, consecrated to St. Stephen, of the weight of seventy-two pounds; when a certain illustrious man Hugo had procured this, and in turn had given for it food to the poor, the same Hugo, present, being taken from life, the same dish was presented to king Lothair; who, when he had learned from those relating that the same had once been sold by blessed Arnulphus for the food of the poor, admiring the liberality of the Saint, and compunged by the gift of the Paraclete, ordered the dish to be carried back to St. Arnulphus at Metz, a hundred gold pieces being added. Here was fulfilled that Gospel saying: "Give, and it shall be given unto you." For both the needy were sustained, and the dish, once consecrated to the holy Protomartyr, was restored to him by the royal munificence.

[15] [he frequents the solitude; where he finds the ring, formerly cast into the river:] When therefore the Prelate lovable to God thus applied himself to the pursuits of mercy, frequently, as opportunity offered itself, he constrained himself in solitary enclosure. The heavenly journey which he had once undertaken, an untiring traveler he accomplished; for often in the villa which is called Dodoniac, situated in the parts of the Vosges; sometimes in the villa of Calciac, enclosing himself as in a certain workhouse, day and night he had leisure for God. Whence the Lord's piety, attending to his desire, deigned to console him with an evident miracle. It happened that when he was staying in the Vosges and enjoying the familiar companionship of the holy Agilus ^b, Amatus, and Romaricus, his steward presented to him a fish bought for a price, which the Prelate ordered to be prepared for his evening supper. This, when the servant according to custom had disemboweled it, he found a golden ring within the intestine of that fish: wondering at what had happened, he presents the ring to the holy Pontiff; the Prelate recognizes that it had once been his, remembers that he had cast it into the waves; therefore he gives thanks to God, now faithful of the absolution of his sins: he is not lifted up by the slothful security of elation; but, kindled with a greater fire of desire, he prepared himself more surely to make God propitious to himself for the future.

[16] [he asks a successor, and dismissal from the court, that he may go to the hermitage;] Wherefore he beat the ears of the glorious king Lothair by legates and letters, that in his presence a successor might be substituted in the episcopate, that, free from the dispensation of the royal affairs, he might more readily and more abundantly water the people of God with the word of preaching, and, as it were, form them by frequent provision; but the king, when he had learned this, is filled with no small sadness: for he grieved that he was deprived of the familiarity of so great a Man; his light of counsel being taken away, he feared that the security of the kingdom would be offended by the darknesses of perfidy: for by the solidity of his faith both the king himself and his offspring were, as it were, propped by a certain strength: whence among other things the king wrote back to him: "Nonetheless, lord and father, because you have written by your letter that in your place we ought to elect another successor, this our presumption by no reason dares to do." For the same Lothair was very deeply imbued with ecclesiastical and civil doctrine; for by his support the statutes of the canons and the decrees of the synods were celebrated and confirmed in his kingdom ^c.

[17] Lothair at first refusing, permitting the second reluctantly: Hence again among the rest he sent word to the blessed Prelate: "As much as we joyfully received concerning your devotion, which we trust is from divine admonition, that you were admonished by the Lord, so much again, grieving, we treated of it, that we did not wish to be absent from our sight. Nay, venerable father, if, compelled by any devotion, for the doing of a good work you desire to proceed anywhere, we ask that you by no means leave us without your peace or communion, for divine love." So by a friendly rescript the king tried to retain him with himself, because he loved him with faithful love: for he had already long since commended to him, with the kingdom, Dagobert his son, raised to the summit of the principality, whom he himself, as we have set forth, had instructed with the loftiest discipline.

[18] Which king Dagobert, when he perceives that the blessed Prelate could by no fatherly prayer be torn from his conceived desire of the hermitage, [Dagobert struggling against him with blandishments and threats; and at last permitting.] thought that threats should be mingled with blandishments: he therefore summons the Bishop, flatters, then threatens the slaying of his offspring, and at last intends to strike with the sword the Prelate answering fittingly. There stood by also a certain most noble one of the nobles, named Audoenus ^d, who already under the military habit was a distinguished worshiper of Christ, how great he was in sanctity is known to all; he presided over the church in the city of Rouen. He at that time was primiscrinius notary and assigner of the causes which were terminated in the palace. He therefore, casting himself into the midst, admonished the king to favor the vows of the holy Prelate; which he also did, asking pardon with the queen, his wife, from the same, prostrate on the ground.

[19] The lovable priest of the Lord Arnulphus therefore, indulgence being given to the king, Goericus, freed from blindness, is elected successor of Arnulphus. and license taken from the same, goes out from the royal court, and returns to arrange his own see. But it had happened in those days that an illustrious man, named Goericus, son of Gamard ^e, brother of the paternal grandfather of this blessed Arnulphus, had come from Aquitaine to Metz by angelic admonition ^f. He had first been king ^g of his nation by office, faithful to Christ; but, that his merit might shine more, he was deprived, as once Tobias, of the light of his eyes; who, as we said, came to Metz by an angelic guide, and gave himself and his own to blessed Arnulphus, his cousin. Him blessed Arnulphus had received honorably, had distributed his treasures in three parts, had disposed that a church be founded in honor of St. Peter the Prince of the Apostles from his resources. When therefore the king (Goericus) himself with the Prelate raise the earth from the foundations, the king recovered the light long lost; but he gives thanks to God, receives the tonsure of a cleric, more strictly devoted himself thereafter to the divine service. The church of Metz therefore chose this man as the successor of blessed Arnulphus, confirms, ordains, consecrates him: for nothing was more useful to the people than that a saint should succeed a saint.

[20] When therefore holy Arnulphus, all things being arranged, [Arnulphus at his departure frees the city from a fire, and draws a fountain from a rock:] had disposed to leave both the city and the prelacy, blessed Romaricus, the companion of that journey, came the day before; at which time, a flame bursting from the workshop of the kitchen invading the storehouse of the king, devouring it, and even seizing the top of the palace: which blessed Arnulphus, perceiving, prayer being poured forth, and the sign of the cross made, freed the city from the fire. After this, bidding farewell to the citizens, he is honorably conducted by them as far as the villa called Arey ^h, where, when he had rested, and an innumerable multitude of the people labored with thirst in the fervor of the heat, blessed Arnulphus, compassionating them, prayed to the Lord that, as once from a rock, so now he would produce for his own a fountain from the ground. The prayer being finished, when he plucks up the staff which he had fixed in the ground, a fountain of water immediately burst forth, which still endures today, by which the multitude being revived, and his blessing being asked again, they returned to their own, consoled by a twin benefit, both recently freed from the fire, and at present satisfied with drink. Behold, the tokens of two miracles are renewed to us in one person; of Aaron the priest in the calmed peril of the fire, of Moses the leader in the production of the fountain. Whence of him it can be said: "We passed through fire and water," etc.

[21] The rock softly yields to him sitting on it. To great things greater miracles succeed. It happened that he had come to the villa of Burgallio ⁱ, where, by the pleasantness of the green meadow, it pleased him to relieve the labor of his journey and of his companions; in which meadow a huge stone stood, upon which, when the Man of God had sat, wonderful to say, as if a soft cushion, the stone received him, and, he departing, like soft wax, it hitherto shows the effigy of his limbs, body, and hands; and, what is more to be revered, the animals thereafter, fed on the grass of that meadow, are endangered, except those which are enslaved to the Saint himself and to his men. This miracle seems similar to that in which Christ, driven by the Pharisees [k] that he should be cast down from the brow of the mountain, the rock, which received him cleft, hitherto shows impressed the quantity of his hands and limbs ^l. But who among the clouds shall be equal to the Lord? Christ wrought this sign by his own power; but blessed Arnulphus by the condescension of Christ.

[22] The hermitage of St. Arnulphus, where a fountain burst forth. At last, coming to the prepared place of the hermitage, it is not in our power to unfold with what continual meditation he assisted the Lord. But the mountain of this hermitage, in which the holy Man stayed, was formerly called Adventius, afterward from its inhabitant is called the mount of St. Arnulphus; in which there still stands an oratory, built by him, before which a tree delightful to see stands, planted, as is reported, by him. That mountain to that point lacked the benefit of water, but by the prayer of the Man of God, for the comfort of the labor of those staying, a fountain a cubit high burst forth, which is still seen, which although it is small, yet, as is reported, abundant for the use of all men, unfailingly perseveres.

[23] Arnulphus, furnished with the sacred Viaticum, holily dies. At last he is seized by a fever, and is urged to the last term of this life: therefore he summons Lord Romaricus with his fellow-soldiers, foretells his dissolution, and commends himself to their prayers. The Sacrament being received therefore, he bade farewell to the brethren, and, amid the frequent reading of the Gospel and prayers of those assisting him, his happy soul is loosed from the flesh, and is associated with the angelic choirs. Hence, in the ecclesiastical manner, he is delivered to burial in the Aventine mount, which is also called the castle of Habend, which is near the mount surnamed Rotundum Beccum ^m.

[24] The time of his episcopate and death. But blessed Arnulphus presided over the church of Metz fifteen years, ten days, under the Apostolic Popes Boniface, Honorius, Severinus,

John; in the reign of Heraclius with Heracleona the mother ⁿ and Constantine his son; but he died on the XVII Kalends of September in the first year of the same Constantine, son of Heraclius ^o.

[25] [He had received the habit of a monk in the hermitage; and had consecrated St. Germanus abbot.] It is established moreover that this blessed man received the habit of a monk in the hermitage; and consecrated blessed Germanus [p] abbot, and sent him into the region of Basel to preach. Which blessed Germanus gathered a congregation of religious in the place which is called Grandval; but while he reproved the vices of the inhabitants, he incurred hatred, persevering he deserved martyrdom, and in the aforesaid Grandval rests in Christ, to whom is honor and glory unto the ages of ages. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

k. Nay, the Nazarenes.

p. Of St. Germanus, abbot and Martyr, we treated on the 21st of February. Consult the Commentary above, §4.

* perhaps "who" (qui)

* Becci or Berti?

FRAGMENT I.

From the same manuscript codex of the Chancery of Vic.

Arnulphus, Bishop, at Metz in Belgica I (S.)

FROM THE MANUSCRIPTS.

Thus far the manuscript book. (The words are Father François Lahier's, added continuously to the preceding Life.) But these follow: It is to be noted that, as I have found in the deeds and Life of blessed Clodulf, who was the son of St. Arnulphus, begotten of the Swabian mother Doda, as was narrated above, it seems to those not ignorant of the histories that the Swabians are akin to the Sabaeans; and this they strive to build up by neighborhood, which Isidore testifies in the book of the Etymologies ^a. It is to be noted moreover from the same deeds, that when blessed Arnulphus had been taken up as bishop of Metz, and had left his sons, namely Anchisus and Clodulf, heirs of the honor of the palace, by royal consent, but his wife, most distinguished by birth and morals, named Doda, now aspiring to heavenly things, clothed in the sacred habit, he permitted to remain in enclosure in the diocese of Trier: to whom such an ardor of religion accrued, that even to blessed Arnulphus himself, her husband, wishing after much time to enjoy her visitation and address, she by no means assented, and did not blush to disfigure herself in face and hair, and by such a figure repelled from her the approach of her husband ^b. In which place hitherto lie open to the sight the traces of the blessed Man impressed on a stone as on soft wax, often relieving the necessity of the sick.

Blessed Arnulphus therefore, persevering in good acts, paid the debt of death in the hermitage. Blessed Goericus too, in the 21st year of his prelacy ^c, being inserted into the perennial joys, was succeeded by Godo, a useful pastor to the people of God, who administered the church eight years ^d, who is believed by many to have been the brother of the same Goericus ^e; he too, the contest being accomplished, migrated to the joy of his Lord; whom blessed Clodulf succeeded in the episcopate.

There follow (the words are again Father Lahier's) in the same manuscript, Miracles in the old Gallic idiom, which are edited in Surius and Vincent Barali.

ANNOTATIONS.

FRAGMENT II.

From the book of Paul, son of Warnefrid the Lombard, deacon of Friuli, on the bishops of the church of Metz. In Du Chesne, volume 2, page 201.

Arnulphus, Bishop, at Metz in Belgica I (S.)

BHL Number: 0694

FROM THE MANUSCRIPTS.

After these (Pappolus and the preceding) the most blessed Arnulfus was taken up to the government of the church (of Metz), St. Arnulphus casts a ring into the river; a man in all things illustrious for the light of sanctity and the splendor of his race. Who, sprung from the most noble and most brave stem of the Franks, so presided over the Church of God, that he was also the moderator of the palace under the honor of the mayoralty. He at last, both remaining in the body and after the departure of life, accomplished many admirable things. Which if anyone desires to know, let him read the little book which was written especially of his Acts. Yet I shall relate one admirable deed of his, which I have sufficiently wondered at, in what order he who wove his Life passed it over. He at last, when he was doing penance for some excesses, it happened that he crossed the bridge of the river Moselle. And when he saw the deep and not to sight penetrable whirlpools of the waters flowing beneath, bearing in his mind the confidence of no doubtful hope, he cast the ring drawn from his finger into that depth of the waters: "Then," saying, "I shall think myself absolved from the bonds of my faults, when I shall have received this ring which I cast."

[2] But after some years, when he had ascended to the office of the episcopate; which afterward he finds in a captured fish. to him on a certain day a certain fisherman brought a fish: which he ordered to be prepared for himself, because he abstained from meats, for his evening refreshment. And when the servant of his office had disemboweled it in the accustomed manner, he found the same ring within the intestine of that fish. He, wondering at the deed, but not knowing the matter, brought it to blessed Arnulfus. Which he, as he saw it, immediately recognized, and to God almighty, now faithful of the remission of his faults, gave thanks: and thereafter led his life not more remissly, but rather constrained himself with greater abstinence. Nor otherwise did this venerable Father, than once that Gideon, ask a sign from the Lord. For he wished to take an indication by the fleece placed on the threshing-floor, whether he could have victory over his enemies in war: this one, casting a ring into the deepest whirlpool of the river, desires to prove whether he had already taken victory over his enemies. Strong indeed were those whom the former had conquered; but these, whom this one had overcome, stronger. These things I learned not from any mediocre person, but from the very asserter of all truth, the most excellent king Charles ^a relating: who, descending from the stock of the same blessed Arnulfus, was to him in the line of generation a great-great-grandson.

[3] [He receives from the other son what he may give to the poor, and foretells him the future.] For this venerable Man, to return to the higher things, in the time of his youth from the bond of lawful marriage procreated two ^b sons, that is, Anchisus and Clodulf ^c. Whose name Anchisus is believed to be derived from Anchises the father of Aeneas, who had once come from Troy into Italy. For the nation of the Franks, as it is handed down by the ancients, draws its beginning from the Trojan stock ^d. When therefore the venerable Arnulfus had these two sons, of whom we have set forth before, since he was merciful and always intent on the works of piety, he began to persuade his aforesaid sons that they should lend him their assent, that he might distribute all his resources to the uses of the poor. Then one son, that is Clodulf, altogether refused that he could do this, that is, that his father ^e should bestow the portion due to him. But the younger son, that is Anchisus, trusting that by the piety of Christ more would be granted to him, promises to obey willingly in all things which his father might wish. The venerable Father gives thanks to his son, and foretells him that he would have more than he had left. Moreover he blessed him, and all his offspring to be born thereafter. And so it was done. For both more riches accrued to Anchisus than he had left, and so in him the paternal blessing was established: that from his offspring men so strenuous and strong should be born, that not undeservedly the kingdom of the Franks was carried over to his stock.

[4] The posterity of St. Arnulphus. And that thou mayest be able to recognize this, attend to a few things, I shall teach. Anchisus begot Pippin ^f, than whom nothing could ever be bolder. Pippin begot Charles, to be compared with the very strongest men, who among the other great wars which he waged, so especially wore down the Saracens, that even to this day that truculent and perfidious nation dreads the arms of the Franks. He therefore begot Pippin, no less distinguished for wisdom and fortitude: who among the rest which he accomplished, with wonderful felicity subdued and made subject the Gascons, long rebellious to the dominion of the Franks, with the prince Waifar ^g. His son therefore was Charles the great king [h], who enlarged the kingdom of the Franks, as it never before was. Finally, among the many and admirable things which he did, the nation of the Lombards, already twice conquered by his father, one of their kings, whose name was Desiderius, being captured; and the other, who was called Adelgis, being driven to Constantinople, that he might reign with his father, he subjected the whole to his dominion without grave battle, and, what rarely is wont to happen, tempered the victory with clement moderation. The Romans besides, and the very Romulean city, long since desiring his presence, which had once been the mistress of the whole world, and then, pressed down by the Lombards, groaned, delivering from hard straits, he added to his scepters, and no less obtained all Italy by mild dominion. Of which man thou wouldst not know whether thou shouldst admire more the warlike virtue in him, or the brightness of wisdom and the skill of all the liberal arts.

[5] He from his wife Hildegard procreated four sons and five daughters. The wives and children of St. Charlemagne. Yet he had before lawful wedlock, of Himiltrude, a noble girl, a son, named Pippin. But the names of his children, whom Hildegard bore him, are these: the first was called Charles, namely named with the appellation of his father and great-grandfather; the second likewise Pippin, of the same name as his brother and grandfather; the third Louis, who was begotten at one birth with Lothair, who died at two years old. Of whom now, God favoring, the younger Pippin holds the kingdom of Italy, Louis of Aquitaine. But Hildegard being dead, the most excellent king Charles took Fastrada to wife. Which Hildegard rests at the city of Metz in the oratory of blessed Arnulfus. For this reason, because the already mentioned kings drew their origin from blessed Arnulfus, they placed there the deceased bodies of their dear ones. For there are buried two daughters of king Pippin, of whom one is called Rothaid, the other Adelaid. There too likewise are entombed two daughters of the younger king Charles, namely Adelaid and Hildigard: which Hildigard, named with her mother's name, followed her dying mother rather quickly. Whose epitaphs, composed by us at the command of the glorious king Charles, that the reader might be clearly satisfied concerning them, I have taken care to note below. Then follow the epitaphs, which may be read in Du Chesne.

ANNOTATIONS.