ON SS. VICTOR, ALEXANDER, LONGINUS, FELICIANUS, MARTYRS, AND PERHAPS DEUTHERIUS OR ELEUTHERIUS.
AT MARSEILLES IN GAUL.
ABOUT THE END OF THE THIRD CENTURY, OR THE BEGINNING OF THE FOURTH.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Victor, at Marseilles in Gaul (S.) Alexander, at Marseilles in Gaul (S.) Longinus, at Marseilles in Gaul (S.) Felicianus, at Marseilles in Gaul (S.) Deutherius or Eleutherius, at Marseilles in Gaul (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR G. C.
§ I. The cult and number of the Saints.
Among the very many holy Martyrs distinguished by the name of Victor, plainly illustrious is Victor of Marseilles, whom I judge to have been thus commonly surnamed from the arena of his martyrdom: for at Marseilles (this is an ancient and celebrated city of the Gauls, Among the ancient Martyrologists St. Victor of Marseilles is known, situated between the Rhone and the Alps on the Mediterranean Sea) he attained the glorious palm of martyrdom, and there is worshiped with solemn rite on July 21 with his companions, although they did not migrate to the Heavenly Ones on the same day. Venantius Fortunatus, book 8 poem 4, among other Saints makes mention of our Victor in this pentameter: Victor the martyr comes from the city of Marseilles. All the Martyrologies, both ancient and more recent, celebrate the annual memory of these Saints on this day, of which it will suffice to have exhibited some. The Hieronymian, edited by Florentinius, have thus: And in Gaul at Marseilles the birthday of the holy ones Victor, Alexander, Dotherus, Felicianus, and Longinus. The old Roman Martyrology makes mention thus briefly of Victor alone: At Marseilles, of Victor the martyr. Usuard commemorates the same with three companions: In the Gauls, in the city of Marseilles, the birthday of holy Victor; who, being a soldier, and wishing neither to serve as a soldier nor to sacrifice to idols, was first thrust into prison, and there visited by angels, then tortured with various punishments, at last crushed in a bakers' mill, consummated his martyrdom. There suffered with him three soldiers, Alexander, Felicianus, and Longinus. The Roman Martyrology, which we use today, announces these Martyrs in almost the same words, and, following the example of Usuard, omits Deutherius, of whom we shall treat afterward at greater length.
[2] Usuard had been preceded by Ado, who on the 12th day before the Kalends of August adorns St. Victor with the following eulogy: On the same day in the Gauls, and they are recorded by Ado, in the city of Marseilles, the birthday of holy Victor, who, in the persecution of Diocletian and Maximian, being a soldier, and wishing neither to serve as a soldier nor to sacrifice to idols, was first thrust into prison by his tribune Asterius, but every night was led out by an angel to console and visit the sick. Then by command of Eutychius the prefect, his arms being twisted back, bound with fine thongs, and his feet fastened with a rope, he was dragged through the midst of the city. After this, most cruelly beaten with cudgels and hung up and tortured with ox-hide scourges, when they had produced an altar on which he should sacrifice, and, not enduring even to look at it, he had struck it with his heel from the priest's hand, the governor ordered his foot to be cut off. At the last, persisting in his confession, he was cast into a bakers' mill, in which grain scattered is wont to be ground by the turning of an animal: and so, crushed, he consummated his martyrdom. There suffered with him three soldiers, Alexander, Felicianus, and Longinus: who, while they kept guard over him in the prison in the nocturnal silence, when holy angels were visiting him, being astounded by so great a splendor of brightness, and prostrated at his knees, believing in Christ, were baptized that same night in the sea; and the following day, before the consummation of the blessed Martyr, were slain with the sword. Also the boy Deutherius, who, while he was praying at his tomb, gave up the spirit. Ado seems here to have reduced into an epitome the Acts, which we shall examine below.
[3] and Rabanus; Rabanus certainly had before his eyes another exemplar of the Acts, since he names St. Victor the martyr, whom other Acts affirm to have been a soldier, bishop of Marseilles: for thus he writes in his Martyrology at this day: On the same day is the passion of Victor, bishop of Marseilles, who under the emperors Diocletian and Maximian, on account of the faith of Christ, was slaughtered by Arterius the governor together with the soldiers Eleutherius (Peter de Natalibus calls by the same name the boy of whom above in Ado), Felicianus, and Alexander: for when the said bishop had been handed over to the aforesaid soldiers to be guarded in prison, there he was visited by an angelic vision. Whence the guards themselves, seeing there a splendid light, falling at the knees of blessed Victor, implore a remedy of him; whom, when the holy bishop had baptized, and they themselves had persevered even to the end in the confession of the name of Christ, they were crowned with martyrdom. Likewise the bishop too, by command of the emperor, was beheaded. Then he subjoins a clause about the sudden punishment of the tyrant Maximian, and his death following a little after, which learned men rightly reject. Among others Ruinart, in the preliminary Admonition to this passion, judges thus of that narration: For the rest, it is not probable, that which Rabanus records in his Martyrology, namely that Maximian after the death of Victor was tortured by the infestation of demons, and on the fifth day after, decayed by the squalor of putrefaction and boiling with worms, strangled himself. For we have surer proofs concerning the death of Maximian … but in this too Rabanus erred, that he thought Victor to have been bishop of the Marseillais.
[4] from whose and others' differing narration arises a doubt From the Martyrologies hitherto reported arises a doubt, whether three or four companions of the martyrdom, or at least of the cult, are to be joined to St. Victor: for the Hieronymian Martyrologies add to him four companions, and among them Dotherus; but Usuard and the Roman Martyrology of today recount only three; but Ado subjoins to the three soldiers Deutherius the boy, who at the tomb of St. Victor expired in prayer; Rabanus finally enumerates only three, and, Longinus being omitted, transforms the boy Deutherius into the soldier Eleutherius. Our old Molsheim codex asserts that St. Victor was a father in the grace of baptism to the three soldiers Deutherius, Felicianus, and Alexander. Behold a knot everywhere entangled: but let us see whether it cannot be untied from elsewhere. In the first place the Acts published by Bosquet and Ruinart, and the manuscripts to be published by us, which are everywhere thought more sincere and ancient, record only three soldiers as having suffered with St. Victor, and make no mention of Deutherius or Eleutherius. Of him too are silent the various Gallican Breviaries, which on July 21 celebrate the feast of St. Victor with an ecclesiastical Office; namely that of Lisieux of the year 1624, that of Rouen of the year 1627, that of Paris of the year 1680, and perhaps several others, which it is not now worth the trouble to seek more laboriously. But on the contrary the proper Offices of Marseilles, printed in the years 1633 and 1662, express St. Deutherius in the proper Lessons and the collect itself: but him whom in the year 1633 they had worshiped as a guard converted by St. Victor, in the year 1662 they venerate as a boy, holily dead in prayer. Take the words of both Breviaries. In the older Office it is thus read: Blessed Victor … is thrust into prison, where, surrounded by heavenly light, he converts his guards, Alexander, Felicianus, and Longinus, and Deuterius, to the faith of Christ. But in the other, after the martyrdom of St. Victor and the three soldiers has been narrated, these things are found: On the same day, Deutherius the boy, praying at his sepulcher, in the very impulse of prayer breathed out his innocent soul, and was buried together in body with him, whose spirit of charity the infant had manfully drawn in. Hence the collect too was changed: for the former was recited in this manner: Almighty everlasting God, creator and ruler of the world, who didst will to consecrate thy blessed martyrs Victor, Felicianus, Alexander, and Longinus, as also Deuterius, to the glory of thy name, hear thy people, supplicating thee by the patronage of thy Saints, that it may profit to the gift of peace, and be filled with the increase of faith and charity. Through, etc. The latter prayer of the year 1662 is conceived in these words: Hear, O Lord, thy people, supplicating thee by the patronage of thy holy martyrs Victor, Alexander, Felicianus, Longinus, and Deutherius the boy, thy confessor, that thou mayest both grant us to rejoice in the peace of temporal life, and to find the succor of the eternal. Through the Lord, etc.
[5] From these indeed it is established that at Marseilles a certain Deutherius is worshiped as a saint; concerning the number of companions, but on account of the differing opinion of Rabanus and Ado, and the change of the Marseilles Office, it is not yet clear what this Deutherius was, or on what occasion he met death. Let us therefore try whether from certain manuscript Acts, or other monuments, we can dig out a surer notice. Isaac Vossius, librarian of the most serene queen of Sweden, had in a parchment codex the Acts of St. Victor the martyr, of which we keep a copy, in which for our matter are read the following: Nor is that miracle altogether to be passed over in silence, that the little son of Longinus, the most blessed martyr, Deuterius by name, out of love of Christ already sprinkled with the wave of baptism, did not hesitate to commit his tender limbs to cross the sea of the harbor by the aid of swimming:
and who, by the guidance of the Spirit of God, being brought to the shore of the sea, and worn out by the pain and exhaustion of swimming, or by the weakness of the body, while he fixes himself at the monument of his father with a pious contrition of soul, gave up the spirit. Yet he is joined in martyrdom with his father, so that he became worthy of martyrdom who was most dear in piety. This swimming of the boy does not please me, undertaken I know not to what end, although our Molsheim codex, marked P. Ms. 20, the name of the father and of the swimmer being suppressed, narrates the same thus on folio 130: Nor is that miracle altogether to be passed over in silence, that a little son, from his mother's womb already sprinkled out of love of Christ with the wave of baptism, etc. Our Fulda codex Q. Ms. 6 involves the matter still more: for it has thus on folio 11 verso: Nor is that miracle altogether to be passed over in silence, that the little son of Deuterius the blessed martyr, out of love of Christ already sprinkled with the wave of baptism, by the aid of swimming, etc. Behold, whence I had hoped for some light, greater darkness is poured on.
[6] and by the martyrdom of one. Peter de Natalibus, in the Catalogue of the Saints book 6, chapter 122, calls this boy Eleutherius (Rabanus above by that name calls one of the three soldiers), and weaves such an epitome of the Acts: Victor the martyr, with his companions, under the emperor Maximian, suffered in the city of Marseilles. Which Maximian, the slaughter of the Theban martyrs being accomplished in the city of Sion, came to Marseilles, and arrested Victor the soldier, denounced to him as to his Christianity: whom, refusing to sacrifice, dragged by ropes through the whole city, he handed over to Asterius the prefect to be punished; who, having for a while afflicted him on the gibbet, ordered him to be thrust into prison, where holy Victor was strengthened by heavenly light and angelic visitation. Which when the three soldiers guarding him had seen, that is Alexander, Longinus, and Felicianus, they were converted to Christ: whom, in the confession of the faith, the emperor commanded to be beheaded. But the prefect, having suspended Victor on the rack, and beaten him with cudgels and sinews, again placed him in custody. But after three days, being led out thence, he overthrew with his foot the statue of Jupiter, offered to him that he might burn incense to it; for which that foot is straightway cut off. Then, placed under the mass of a mill, he is cruelly crushed: but after a little the machine itself being divinely shattered, while the Martyr of the Lord still palpitated a little, by the smiting sword he is made truly victor and triumpher: for at the same instant a voice was heard from heaven: You have conquered, blessed Victor. But the bodies of the holy Martyrs, cast into the sea by command of Caesar, angels ministering, were carried swimming to the opposite shore, and buried by the Christians. At whose tomb, while a boy, Eleutherius by name, a Christian fleeing the persecution, had turned aside, praying he gave up the spirit, joined in burial with the same Saints. A similar synopsis of the passion has a certain Utrecht manuscript and Vincent of Beauvais in the Historical Mirror book 12, chapter 7; but in these there is no word about Eleutherius or Deuterius. Since therefore concerning this Saint things so diverse and uncertain are handed down, I have perhaps added a mark of doubt to his name in the title. Now let me set up a discourse concerning the relics of the holy Martyrs, and especially of holy Victor.
§ II. The relics of St. Victor honored in various places.
The most ancient monastery of Marseilles, which bears its name from St. Victor, and owes its origin to the celebrated John Cassian, The testimony of Gregory of Tours preserves to this day the precious remains of our holy Martyrs, whose bones a gilded chest covers; but the head of St. Victor a silver reliquary encloses, adorned with gems, which our Guesnay in his Cassian Illustrated book 2, chapter 22, §1, number 5, thus describes: At the left side of the greater altar, in a cupboard large enough, the head of St. Victor the martyr, of gold and silver, projecting between two silver gilded angels, is kept; it has a pectoral of solid gold, elegantly set with little stones; the neck also adorned with precious necklaces; a curved silver base for it, set upon eight little lions and as many griffins gilded, with the arms of Urban V the Supreme Pontiff, and it is of so unusual a size that it easily weighs five hundred pounds. But how great a concourse of men was formerly made to these relics, and how frequent miracles were wrought, Gregory of Tours recorded in book 1 On the Glory of the Martyrs chapter 77, where in the Ruinart edition column 807 he thus speaks: There is also at the sepulcher of holy Victor, martyr of Marseilles, a wondrous power. For while very often the sick who approach him are healed, the rest, the possessed nevertheless, greatly dashing themselves about and crying out at the Martyr, the demons being cast out, are freed. But a slave of the patrician Aurelianus, seized by a demon, was tortured with a grievous issue, so that for the most part he lacerated himself with his own bites: but brought to the basilica of the Saint, when he confessed that he was being burned by his power, raging through the whole church, on the third day, cleansed, he departed. Who was so strengthened by the merit of faith that thereafter, his hair humbled, having obtained the order of abbot, he was set over one monastery.
[8] The same Gregory in the History of the Franks book 9, chapter 22, narrates concerning the Marseilles relics of St. Victor, how in the sixth century the patronage of St. Victor was implored, when at Marseilles a dire pestilence had arisen: The city of Marseilles, he says, sick with a most evil contagion, how much it endured, it has pleased to unfold more deeply. For in those days Theodore the bishop had gone away to the king, as though about to suggest something against Nicetius the patrician. But when he had by no means been heard by king Childebert concerning this cause, he arranged to return to his own place. Meanwhile a ship from Spain, together with the usual traffic, put in at his port, which wickedly carried the tinder of this disease: from which, when many of the citizens bought various wares, one house immediately, in which were eight souls, its inhabitants being killed by this contagion, was left empty. Nor at once is this conflagration of the plague scattered through the whole houses: but, an interval of a certain time being interrupted, and as it were a flame kindled in a cornfield, it burned up the whole city with the conflagration of the disease. The bishop of the city, however, came to the place, and shut himself within the enclosures of the basilica of holy Victor with a few who then remained with him, and there, through the whole ruin of the city, devoting himself to prayers and vigils, besought the mercy of the Lord, that at length, the destruction ceasing, it might be permitted the people to rest in peace. But this plague ceasing for two months, when now the people had securely returned to the city, the disease again succeeding, those who had returned died: but also many times thereafter it was afflicted by this destruction. Nay, the same city was a few years ago again afflicted by a contagious disease, on which occasion the most illustrious and most reverend Lord Henry Xavier de Belzunce, who in the year 1710 had been consecrated most worthy bishop of the Marseillais, loosed the reins to his most ardent charity toward his flock, and, exposing himself assiduously and intrepidly to the present danger of death, exercised a truly Xaverian zeal, which all posterity will extol with deserved praises, and God, the munificent rewarder of labors, will, as we surely trust, compensate with eternal glory.
[9] which he communicated to the city of Constantinople, Although Marseilles has always zealously preserved the precious relics of St. Victor, yet it was not so avaricious but that, by communicating them to others, it propagated the glory and cult of its holy Martyr through various provinces. And first indeed we learn that certain remains of this Martyr were honored at Constantinople near the golden gate in the church of St. Victor, which the emperor John Comnenus built, from a double letter which Cangius reports in his Christian Constantinople book 4, chapter 7, page 140, and which he testifies to have copied from the Martyrology of the Canons of St. Victor of Paris. Of the first this is the tenor: To the venerable brother lord Peter, Canon of St. Martin of Troyes. Brother John Pict, canon of St. Victor of Paris, greeting. With the inmost affection of my heart I supplicate your Fraternity, that you deign to communicate that certainty which you remember to have concerning the head of blessed Victor of Marseilles. But Peter, who had been on sacred duties with Garnier bishop of Troyes when he set out to the East, thus answers this letter: Brother Peter, to Brother John. This I communicate to you concerning the certainty of the head of blessed Victor, that the emperor of Constantinople, Calojohannes by name, the third before Emanuel, wishing to found a certain church in honor of blessed Victor of Marseilles, sent a certain noble man to the city of Marseilles with precious gifts and relics of very many Saints, intimating to the lord of Marseilles that, in remuneration of the aforesaid gifts, he would deign to send him something of the body of blessed Victor. Who, satisfying his petition, sent to the emperor a great part of the head of the aforesaid Martyr: and so, that part being received by the messengers, he founded a church in honor of blessed Victor in the city of Constantinople within the walls, not far from the golden gates. But the city being subjugated, the lord Garnier bishop of Troyes, whose chaplain I Peter was, came to the church of blessed Victor, in which was a convent of monks. And the same bishop took from that same church the head of blessed Victor, laid up in a precious vessel, with other relics of the Saints. But I Peter asked of the same bishop, my lord, for the service which I had rendered him, that he would deign to confer on me that part of the head of holy Victor: who, satisfying my petition, I brought back with me into Gaul letters impressed with the guarantee of his seal, and of the other bishops who were in the aforesaid city, in testimony of that part of the head and of the other relics. But at last I gave that part of the most holy head of most blessed Victor to master Peter de Corbeil, then archbishop of Sens. And the same archbishop conferred a great portion of that part of the head on the church of blessed Victor at the prayer of lord John Teutonicus, then abbot of the same church. And we received the same portion of the most holy head with procession and joy on the day before the Ides of April. Gerard du Bois, in the History of the Church of Paris volume 2, page 296, writes that these sacred remains were honorably received by the Parisian Victorines in the year 1210.
[10] The Parisian monastery of St. Victor had already before received certain relics of the same holy Martyr, and to the Parisian monastery of St. Victor namely when in the year 1115 both Hugos gave their name to the Victorine community. The praised Gerard du Bois, in book 12 of the History of the Church of Paris chapter 8, number 3, narrates this matter from the Victorine annals thus: Both (namely Hugo the elder and the younger), as I think, under the pretext of setting out for Rome, go out from their homeland; then they come to Marseilles, and, mindful of their purpose, enter the basilica of holy Victor to pay their vows to God, and obtain from the Marseilles monks relics of holy Victor the martyr, namely a tooth and a shoulder-blade, and, as though laden with rich spoils, fly to Paris, and bring the holy bones to the Victorine family, and ask that themselves and their name be inscribed in the college of the canons. Their arrival was welcome to the Victorines, and the anniversary day of the reception of the relics is worshiped among the Victorines on June 17. John Picard, a canon of St. Victor, in his commentary on the Passion of St. Victor, which we have in manuscript, confirms this narration, and testifies that in the Ritual of the same monastery at June 17 the following are prescribed: On this day the matutinal Mass is read for master Hugo, by whose zeal and
labor, God cooperating, we embrace the relics of St. Victor brought to us from the city of Marseilles. Adam, who in the twelfth century died in the same Victorine house, among other pious poems composed, for the perpetual memory of this reception, a hymn, which Picard in the commentary already cited thus exhibits: From the root of charity, from the affection of piety, let this church sing psalms. Let the family of Victor sing with the heart, sing with the mouth, and exult in Victor. A part of him is given to us, brought by the faithful from the city of Marseilles; whose presence, before spiritual, we now enjoy bodily. This is the sum of joys: let us enlarge the very inmost recesses of our minds. The relics of the Martyr are for us matter of praise and gladness. Victor, triumphal soldier, special martyr of Christ, save us from the evils of the world, lest the love of the world plunge us into disgraces. Do not permit those to be frustrated of hope whom you can support; make us to be presented to Christ, that we may be able to contemplate him with you in glory.
[11] Then in the year 1283 a new accession was made to the sacred treasure of the same church, were communicated, which Gerard du Bois, in volume 2 of the praised work page 585, thus records: In the year 1283 Charles prince of Salerno, son of Charles king of Sicily, after that monstrous slaughter of the Franks which the Palermitans had perpetrated in Sicily, came to Paris, and brought with him relics of holy Victor, which he had received from John abbot of St. Victor of Marseilles, which he handed over to the Victorine church of Paris. Then he adds that there exists among the Victorines the very letters of Charles, which were written at Paris in the month of July of the same year on this matter; but since he omitted them, we produce from Picard the authentic instrument of this donation, which has thus: Charles, first-born of the illustrious king of Jerusalem, prince of Salerno, lord of Mont-Saint-Michel, to all who shall inspect the present letters, greeting in the Lord. Know that, since on account of the devotion which we had and have toward the most sacred martyr of Christ, blessed Victor of Marseilles, we obtained from the religious men, lord John the abbot and the convent of the aforesaid monastery of St. Victor of Marseilles, that some portion of the relics of the aforesaid Martyr be given us; which relics, for greater certainty concerning the most sacred body itself, we received with our own hand. We have of the aforesaid our relics given one joint to the monastery of St. Victor of Paris, in honor of the aforesaid most blessed Martyr. In testimony of which thing we have caused our seal to be appended to the present letters. Given at Paris in the year of the Lord 1283 in the month of July. Then Picard exactly describes the seal, which still hangs from the parchment of this diploma, and is preserved in the Victorine archive.
[12] where they are solemnly honored, The proper Offices of the Parisian monastery, in which the feast of St. Victor is solemnly celebrated with an Octave, on the third day within the Octave commemorate under a double rite the memory of the notable relics in this manner: Lesson IV. With eager devotion, dearest brethren, let us commemorate this present day, on which heavenly providence signalized our church with the right foot of most blessed Victor the martyr, our patron (with which he had cast down the idol of Jupiter to the earth). For that most sacred foot the most illustrious prince John, duke of Berry, son of John the most Christian king of the Franks, gave to us, which through various hands he had had from the most holy Pope Urban V, formerly abbot of St. Victor of Marseilles, when he translated the body of the same most sacred Martyr from the old chest into a new one, about the year of Christ 1360. But in this foot violence is altogether done to nature: for although one thousand three hundred and more years have elapsed since it was cut off from the body, yet its parts are still so placed in natural order, solid, and covered with entire skin, that it is seen unharmed by corruption. Lesson V. On this day too we recall the memory of other relics of the same glorious Martyr, concerning which from our Necrology we have excerpted these things. The venerable and discreet man John of Pignu, Prior of St. Martin of the Fields, and afterward abbot of Cluny, by suppliant prayer obtained for us a part of the arm of holy Victor the martyr from the lord Pope Urban V, while he made at Marseilles the translation of the body of the same holy Victor. This relic, through bishops and trustworthy witnesses, the same lord Urban, through the same lord John, transmitted to us, for the reverent covering of which the same lord of Pignu gave us twenty gold francs. Lord Peter of Thionville too, cantor of the church of St. Anianus of Orléans, gave us in several small fragments a certain particle of the head of holy Victor the martyr, which he retained with himself especially for this purpose, when the said venerable head (which is honorably preserved in the church of St. Anianus) was translated from the old little vessel into a new silver little vessel, namely in the year of the Lord 1351 on the day of the solemnity of that holy Victor.
[13] The same proper Offices, which were most kindly communicated to me by the Antwerp nuns of St. Victor, and a miracle wrought at them is narrated in the proper Office. on the Octave day narrate a certain miracle, wrought at the Parisian relics of St. Victor, in these words: Lesson VI. Know, both present and posterity, that the Lord magnified his holy Martyr, after the ancient miracles, of which very many are read, wrought on land and sea by divine power at his invocation, making a new, illustrious, and evident miracle in the present church, founded in his honor, and specially dedicated in his name. For in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1302, a certain man, Garnerus by name, by a divine but hidden judgment, on the third day before the Ides of January, while alone he was giving his labor to the cultivation of a certain vineyard, by a sudden stroke of the right arm and right hand lost motion and sensation. Who, when he had already visited the churches of certain Saints, to seek the benefit of health, yet had brought back no remedy, at length, while anxious he kept watch on the night of Saturday, heard a voice of this kind: Fear not, go to holy Victor, and you shall be healed. He, admonished by this divine revelation, with faith and devotion undertook the journey, and on the day of the conversion of St. Paul the Apostle, which was Friday, entered our church, a certain honorable citizen of Paris, known to many, accompanying him. While the Brothers were chanting the prayers of the sixth hour, he came before the greater altar, where, prayer being poured out and the sacred relics of St. Victor the martyr kissed (which long ago the venerable Hugo our canon had brought from Marseilles), before the Brothers had chanted through the prayers begun, in the sight of many, he recovered the sensation and motion of the said arm and hand. Many other miracles an anonymous monk collected, and distributed into three books, but most trustworthy, as being in many an eyewitness, although his age I have in no way been able to discover. This history of the miracles, divided into chapters after our manner, we shall subjoin to the Acts after this preliminary Commentary.
[14] I know not whence or at what time relics of St. Victor came to the monastery Some bones of the same holy Martyr to Normandy, distinguished by the name of the same holy Martyr, which in the eleventh century was founded in the Caux district of Normandy, which the inhabitants commonly call en Caux. Arthur, in his Neustria pia page 545, writes these things concerning its origin: This place took its beginning from a church consecrated there to holy Victor the martyr, on account of certain preserved relics of the same Athlete of Christ; at whose invocation there even now God works very many great things, and the faithful obtain various benefits from heaven. Which sacred edifice a certain presbyter, born of noble stock, Tormordus by name, of whose right it was, gave to the abbey of St. Ouen of Rouen, with the assent of William the Bastard duke of the Normans, and Malger archbishop of Rouen, and Roger of Mortemer, lord of that town, in the year 1048. The diplomas of the foundation and other things about this place may be seen there. Furthermore the oft-praised Picard has these things concerning the same monastery and the relics of St. Victor honored there: In the year 1605, when I had come thither for the sake of religion, I contemplated the ancient buildings, illustrious nevertheless for these sacred relics of our Victor, namely portions of two arms and of his chin, besides a ring and a horn, whose point to remove deafness contributes much, as its genuine color, changed by very frequent touch, testifies. On the very same day on which we and the Marseillais celebrate the victory-song of holy Victor, namely July 21, they use the same formula of prayer.
[15] to Flanders, Some bones of St. Victor were brought into our Belgium, as the same Picard testifies in these words: William of Béthune, a distinguished knight, raised a convent (Meyer in the Annals of Flanders book 9, at the year of Christ 1271, calls the nuns of this monastery Victorines, of whom Sanderus in Flanders Illustrated book 3 of the affairs of Ypres chapter 2 treats more fully) in Belgium at the bridge of Rorard over the Yser in the territory of Furnes. But a heretic soldier so fiercely and impiously laid waste the place, within the memory of our fathers, that the virgins betook themselves to Ypres. Wherefore Margaret de Mailly (Sanderus surnames her de Maingni), a most prudent abbess, having sent suppliant letters to the Reverend Father and Lord Denis de Coulemp, most vigilant rector of our Canonry, entreated a particle of the arm of most holy Victor, their patron and ours, which the most select man Lord Denis Villerius, canon and chancellor of Tournai, brought this year: for a sacrilegious soldier, as I premised, had stripped the ancient relics of their gold, and barbarously profaned them thus stripped. These last relics, if I mistake not, were shown to me in the year 1725 by those Victorine nuns, now dwelling in the city of Ypres. Rayssius, in the Belgian Hierogazophylacium page 368, asserts that the sacred relics of this Martyr are preserved by the Minorites of Valenciennes. The Valenciennes people (namely the Minorites, of whom he treats, have) the body of holy Victor, he says, who at Marseilles in Gaul in the persecution of Diocletian and Maximian consummated his martyrdom, by the donation of Joanna countess of Flanders and Hainaut, wife of Ferdinand of Portugal. I think that Rayssius, deceived by the homonymy, here took one martyr for another: for Gonzaga, Minister general of the Order of St. Francis, in the work which he wrote on the origin and progress of the same Order, part 3, treating of the province of St. Andrew, in which is the Convent of Valenciennes, page 1067, thus speaks: In the year of the Lord 1233 the aforesaid Countess … caused to be brought to the newly consecrated church the body of holy martyr Victor, enclosed in a most precious and most rich coffin. This martyr of Christ was a companion of Blessed Maurice from the legion of the Thebans, who for the Christian faith under the emperor Maximian died in the territory of Sion in Gaul. The same has Wadding in the Annals of the Minorites at the year 1233 number 43.
[16] The nuns who in the thirteenth century dwelt near Antwerp, to Brabant, and now dwelling in that city are commonly called Victorines, in the last century received notable relics of their holy Patron from the Parisian monastery of St. Victor. Those sacred remains, which are exposed to public veneration, I inspected more closely and venerated, and asked for authentic documents by which their credit might be proved. But those prudent virgins, besides other instruments carefully preserved, delivered to me the testimony of the most illustrious bishop of Antwerp, which seems to me to suffice,
and it runs thus: Brother Ambrose Capello, by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See bishop of Antwerp, to all who shall see this, greeting in the Lord. Since it has been proved both by right reason and by innumerable experiences and by the sense of all ages that the bodies and other remains of the Saints reigning with Christ, left on earth, are ornaments of the churches, defenses of cities against visible and invisible enemies, incitements of public piety, therefore with a peculiar favor and benevolence we embrace those who piously preserve and cherish such a sacred treasure, or import it from elsewhere into our diocese. Wherefore, since the venerable lady Roosen, prioress of the convent of the valley of St. Margaret in this city, had supplicated us that we would deign to inspect and by our ordinary authority approve a little portion of the head of holy Victor the martyr, given her by the very Reverend Lord Prior vicar of the royal abbey of St. Victor of Paris: We, wishing to respond, as far as we can in the Lord, to the pious affection of her devotion, diligently inspected the shrine in which it was enclosed, the seals and inscription remaining safe, and in it found a particle of the head of holy Victor the martyr, which the said very Reverend Lord Prior, with the consent of the chapter, had sent to the aforesaid lady Prioress Roosen, as the adjoined legal instrument of the truth, donation, and delivery clearly testified. Which things being seen and duly examined, as also since from other letters transmitted thereupon it is established that the said relics are true and legal, we too approve them as such, and by these presents decree that they can be exposed to public veneration. In faith of which we have subscribed the present, and caused it to be corroborated with our seal and the signature of our secretary. At Antwerp in our episcopal palace on May 16, 1667. Brother Ambrose Capello, bishop of Antwerp. By command of the aforesaid most reverend lord bishop, Lord Van de Brul, secretary.
[17] That some bones of the same Martyr existed anciently in the county of Roussillon, I gather from a letter of Garsias, a monk of Cuxa, and reached other provinces, written about the year 1040 to Oliva bishop of Vic, which is reported in the most illustrious Peter de Marca in the Spanish Limit: for in it the aforesaid Garsias, enumerating very many relics of his monastery, has thus, column 1076: There are relics of blessed Victor, who at Marseilles, most cruelly beaten and hung up and tortured with ox-hide scourges, and cast into a bakers' mill, consummated his martyrdom. I do not doubt but that in other places unknown to me too the sacred bones of our Martyr are honored. Among these, however, I do not number Flaviobriga, a city of the Cantabrians, commonly called Bermeo, or according to some Bilbao, to which Tamayus feigns, on this day in the Spanish Martyrology, that the bodies of SS. Victor and Alexander swam through the waves of the sea. But since he saw that pseudo-Dexter did not clearly enough subscribe to this fable, he straightway calls to his aid the poet Aulus Halus, whom he always has ready for confirming whatever he pleases, and recites certain fictitious verses from him. And not content to have falsely attributed the chief relics of these Martyrs to Spain, he corrupts their Acts, changes the time of the martyrdom, and disturbs all things according to his own pleasure. To us the manifest fabrications of this Martyrologist, so often elsewhere refuted, it neither pleases nor is there leisure here again laboriously to refute.
[18] Rather let us return to Marseilles, the first source of all the relics, and the Marseilles relics were recognized in the year 1363. where in the year 1363 the relics of St. Victor and others were visited and recognized, as is established from a certain instrument which the Reverend Lord Fournier, a religious in the abbey of St. Victor of Marseilles, in the year 1709 sent to our Janning, from which I have excerpted the following: There were found beneath the said altar relics of St. Victor and his companions in great quantity, as is contained in the instrument drawn up concerning the said discovery. And because it seemed that in relics of this kind there were not the bones of the body of St. Victor and his companions, and in the verses painted and described on the said little chest it was contained that the body of blessed Victor was within the said little chest. Therefore the little chest was opened, in which were found, as is premised, the relics which follow with their little labels or tickets. And first there were found the bones of the bodies of blessed Victor and his companions in great quantity, as they appear, and are wrapped in four cloths or sacks placed in the said chest, and are also of great size, and the remaining bones of the bodies of the said holy Victor and his companions were found in the said altar, while it was being demolished. Then, after the relics of many other Saints have been enumerated, follow these verses, which are inscribed on the reliquary:
Keep the treasure that surpasses gems and gold, / the bodies of the Saints, O pious chest, their guardian. / The body of Victor it preserves, a pledge of love. / Victor, unconquered, because joyful he bore the blows, / with many Saints supported by the divine gift, / rejoices in heaven, is associated with the heavenly ones.
Let these things said concerning the sacred remains suffice, and now let us discuss the various Acts of our Saints.
§ III. The various Acts of these Saints are examined.
The Acts published by Bosquet, The most illustrious Bosquet was the first, if I mistake not, who published in print a double set of Acts of these Martyrs. The former indeed and more prolix, which are written in prose, he inserted in the histories of the Gallican church part 2, page 127; then follow others mutilated at the end, and bound in Leonine meter, which he published from a manuscript codex of the Vatican library. Antony Beaugendre, a Benedictine monk, ascribes the same metrical Acts to Marbod bishop of Rennes, and published them at Paris in the year 1708 from two manuscripts among his Works. Ruinart, who ordered the prose edition of Bosquet, collated with manuscripts, to be printed again at Amsterdam among the sincere Acts of the Martyrs, in the preliminary admonition page 292 thus speaks of these former Acts: The Acts of this Martyr we find everywhere in various manuscript codices, but in some indeed corrupted; but in others more sincere, which Francis Bosquet, then prefect of Narbonne, had published in the proofs to the fourth book of the Gallican ecclesiastical history; from which we produce these same, some errors being healed by the help of manuscript codices, transcribed. Furthermore these Acts, although they do not seem to be of such antiquity that they can be said to have been written by a contemporary, or even a nearly contemporary, author; yet they have seemed to learned men such as can be attributed to John Cassian, or to some one of the illustrious men who at the beginning of the fifth century flourished in those parts. Tillemont, in the Ecclesiastical Monuments volume 4, page 549, judges the same worthy to be attributed to St. Eucherius, or St. Hilary of Arles, or Cassian, or other illustrious writers of that age. Others think they should be ascribed to Honoratus bishop of Marseilles, who flourished about the end of the fifth century. But in vain shall we make a conjecture about a certain author, since the manuscripts hitherto found do not disclose his name.
[20] Our John Baptist Guesnay, in the Marseilles Annals page 131, and by Guesnay produces briefer Acts of the same Martyrs, which he testifies to have excerpted from the most ancient tables of the monastery of St. Victor. Tillemont, volume 4 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments page 755, carps in them at certain circumstances of lighter moment, which differ from the longer Acts. But we shall try to satisfy his scruples, when first from Guesnay we shall have submitted to the eyes and judgment of the reader those very Acts, which have thus: When after the passion of Christ, under Diocletian and Maximian, in the twentieth year of their empire, on the eighth day of the month of July, a cruel persecution was laying waste almost the whole world, to the city of Marseilles all the atrocity of the emperor Maximian was announced as about to come. Then, since blessed Victor could not lie hidden, at length found by ever-vigilant search, he is led to Asterius and Euticius the governors: who, when he ingenuously confessed himself a Christian, and refused to sacrifice to idols, is violently thrust into prison, where, surrounded by heavenly light, he converts his guards Alexander, Felicianus, Longinus, and Deuterius to the faith of Christ. At which Maximian, indignant, ordered him, his arms twisted back, to be bound with fine thongs, and, his feet fastened with a rope, to be dragged through the midst of the city. But after those tortures, recalled to the judge, that he might sacrifice; I do not sacrifice to demons, he says constantly. To whom the judges said with bland speech: Victor, since you are a man serving the Roman laws, you ought to love the dignity of the princes. But he: I fear and love God the creator of all, who is true and great, whom I even beseech for the safety of the emperors, and pray without intermission; but we ought to sacrifice to him who will restore for the better all the bodies of the dead in the day of judgment. To whom the governors: Behold you shall be hung on the gibbet, and we shall see what that spirit so obstinate shall profit you. I, he says, hung on the gibbet, shall pass to the true religion, and there he will receive me who fights for me; but you with your idols, wrapped in perpetual darkness, shall be tortured with eternal death among the infernal ones. And when he had long been hung on the gibbet, he began to say: Lord, hear the prayer of thy servant, permit me not to depart from thee, from whom I have never been wanting since I knew thee, and because thou art my creator, be also my redeemer.
[21] Then the governors order the holy Martyr to be taken down from the gibbet, published in print are examined, and a statue of Jupiter to be produced before him, to which he should sacrifice; which when he would not even look at, and had cast it from the priest's hand to the ground with his heel, Maximian, angry, ordered the foot with which he had given the kick to be cut off from the holy Martyr. Afterward, by command of the same tyrant, placed under a bakers' mill and whirled about by the swift turning of the stone, his neck being crushed and his brain dashed out, wonderful to see, he is ground. But while he still palpitated a little, together with the companions whom he had converted to the faith, he was beheaded on the 12th day before the Kalends of August. Then a voice was heard from heaven saying: You have conquered, blessed Victor, you have conquered: for I have snatched you from the persecutors and from the depth of the waters. Here Tillemont is displeased with the twentieth year of the empire (that is, the 304th of Christ), which those Acts and certain other manuscripts assign to their martyrdom, and it appears to him more probable that they suffered between the year 287 and 291. But since Maximian, as he himself confesses in volume 4 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments page 757, could have been at Marseilles in the month of July of the year 303 or 304, I do not see that those Acts are to be rejected on this account, or convicted of manifest falsity. Nor yet would I laboriously defend this determined year of the martyrdom, since I do not sufficiently know the antiquity and authority of the Acts. It also displeases Tillemont that in them it is said that Maximian came to Marseilles on the eighth day of the month of July. From this manner of speaking he gathers that those Acts are more recent. Yet in volume 4 of July at the 17th day of the same month page 214, in the proconsular Acts of the Scillitan martyrs we read that they were killed in the month of July on the seventeenth day. Meanwhile no one, on account of this expression, argues those Acts of novelty; nay, Tillemont himself, in volume 3 of the work just cited page 638, reverences in them their antiquity and truth.
[22] and of certain manuscripts, We have several manuscript exemplars of the same Passion, which greatly differ among themselves. Our Fulda codex, folio 10, bears this title, written in red characters: Here begins the passion of holy Victor, bishop of Marseilles, in the month of July on the 21st day. Then in the whole context no mention is made of the military profession, which nevertheless in most other manuscripts is attributed to him: for in the manuscript of Isaac Vossius, which I cited above, Asterius the prefect is introduced thus complaining to the emperor Maximian about St. Victor: This Victor the soldier has now for two months refused to receive his provision-allowance, and has cried out that he is a Christian; and moreover, when at my command he had been shut up in prison, he fled secretly from the standards. I wish therefore to know how, guarded by soldiers, he departed from the standards: for every night, as I hear, he went out. If he were not a sorcerer, he could not do this. Maximian, hearing this, said to holy Victor: Victor, why do you not receive your accustomed provisions? Holy Victor says to him: Because I will not serve the world as a soldier … Maximian said: How did you go out by night from the standards, you who were kept by the guard of soldiers? Holy Victor answered: I did not go out secretly, but publicly and with open door, not for the leisure of walking about, but for the visitation of the sick, which I have always been wont to do: for God, favoring the good work, and seeing that I had no space of going out because of the impious guard, sent every night his angel, who by his presence opened the doors, bolted by human industry, and, the guards watching, granted a free going out and the faculty of returning. These things too are read in the old Breviary of the cathedral church of Marseilles; but in several other manuscripts, which nonetheless make St. Victor a soldier, no word is made of this whole history.
[23] with the fables I scarcely understand what the governors mean, when in the manuscripts already cited they thus address St. Victor: Most wretched of men, you would deceive us by your speaking, if perchance we did not know you to be by your condition a sailor. Who would reconcile this with the Acts to be published after this commentary? where in number 4 it is said: But because he was an illustrious man, it was judged by the prefects that his cause should be referred to the audience of Caesar. Nor does St. Victor's reply, which has thus, more clearly declare this reproach of a nautical condition: I was not only a sailor, but also a helmsman, the Lord helping me. Whence he who created me, himself now governs, protects, and helps, in whom I have placed my hope, to whom I offered vows, and do not cease to offer. I remember reading something similar in the Passion of St. Phocas, bishop and martyr of Sinope, whose Acts I attempted to illustrate at July 14, where in the preliminary Commentary § IV I proposed a conjecture about the nautical profession of that Saint, which whether it can here have place, let the learned judge. In the same Fulda codex there is added at the end the following fabrication: But Maximian, now long sick in soul, stripped of body and strength, and worn out by the continual infestation of the demon, the martyrdom of the Saints being consummated, began to cry out to Asterius the governor and to say: Alas, wretch, I am cut and tortured by the holy Men, because, as I see, we too are now excluded from the light which we took away; the punishment which we gave torments us; greater is what we receive than what we are proved to have inflicted. Who, tortured even to the fourth day, on the fifth day, strangled by his own hand, decayed also with all the squalor of putrefaction, boiling with worms, in a dire judgment ended the evil of his life by a worthy death; which his corpse too declares to us, who still see the monument, by open truth, that is, that he who is proved to have been the beginning of cruelty may be a testimony of glory. The Molsheim codex, and certain other manuscripts, narrate this last little fable also. I confidently call this narration fabulous, because it is foreign to all likelihood and repugnant to the venerable monuments of antiquity, as I shall now briefly show.
[24] In the first place, who would believe that at that time it pleased or was permitted to Maximian to persecute the Christians, being detected, when about the end of his life he was in the greatest straits? Who would believe that St. Victor or other Christians were killed by his command in the year of Christ 310, in which Maximian ended his life by the noose, after he had long been deprived by Constantine of the purple and authority on account of rebellion, as Lactantius, a contemporary writer, fully narrates in the book On the Deaths of the Persecutors chapters 28, 29, and 30? But when this Maximian is here said to have ended the evil of his life by a worthy death, decayed with all the squalor of putrefaction, boiling with worms, in a dire judgment, a manifest confusion has been made with Maximian Galerius, of whom Lactantius, chapter 33 of the work already cited, expressly affirms this. But what is added about Maximian's corpse, by whose testimony the aforesaid narration is confirmed, does not sufficiently agree with what the chronicle of the monastery of Novalesa hands down concerning the body of Maximian, which is said to have been found at Marseilles in the eleventh century. A fragment of this chronicle in Duchesne volume 3, Writers of Gaul page 641, has thus: About these times, therefore, at the city of Marseilles was found the sepulcher of the same Maximian, that great persecutor of the Christians. For, as those who were present related to us, his body was wonderfully anointed within and without with balsam, and steeped with certain other kinds of aromatics. His body too was wholly entire, with dark hair, white flesh, a very great beard: but at his head were cups of refined gold full of balsam. But he himself reposed in a leaden coffin in a certain basin of the whitest marble, with golden letters written above. For by the counsel of Rainbald (in Denis de Sainte-Marthe, in the newest edition of the Gallia Christiana volume 1, column 553, he is called Rajambaldus, and is said to have ascended the see of Arles in the year 1031) archbishop of Arles, and the rest of the faithful, it was arranged that it be cast into the great sea with all its books. For by day and night the surfaces of the sea are seen always to burn there, where his body was cast. Let the credit of this history be with its author; but at least this description of the corpse does not agree with him who in the manuscripts is wrongly read to have decayed with the squalor of putrefaction, and boiling with worms, to have breathed out his impious soul. As to the marble sepulcher of Maximian, St. Ambrose, book 7, epistle 57 to the emperor Theodosius, in which he treats of the burial of Valentinian Augustus to be provided, indicates that Maximian was laid up in such a tomb, in these words: And here a most beautiful porphyry basin, and most fit for uses of this kind: for Maximian too, the colleague of Diocletian, was thus buried.
[25] The Acts and miracles to be published here are reviewed. Since therefore most of our manuscripts contain narrations either little probable or manifestly false, I forbear reviewing them, and out of all choose for publication only two, which seem more sincere. The first is a certain briefer Utrecht manuscript, which comprises in few words the things which in the Acts published by Bosquet and Ruinart are more fully set forth. The other is a certain French manuscript, transmitted by our Chifflet, of which we have three copies, written in different places, which plainly agree among themselves. But this Chiffletian copy is very like the Bosquetian and Ruinartian Acts, if you except a few discrepancies of lighter moment, which we shall note in the margin. Furthermore these Acts, as I noted above from Ruinart, are not such that they can be said to have been written by a contemporary or nearly contemporary author: for the long reasonings and other characteristics sufficiently intimate that they were composed with study, although their prudent writer kept himself within the limits of likelihood, and put forth nothing against the ancient history. Hence perhaps a doubt could arise, whether the briefer Acts are not the original, and to be preferred to the longer. But since we do not know whether these were contracted from those, or those adorned from these, we leave the judgment of this matter to the learned reader, and now from the manuscripts submit both sets of Acts to the press, after which from the Chiffletian manuscript will follow the miracles, collated with a Parisian manuscript.
Notes* perhaps "I have failed" * read Massiliam (Marseilles) * read "wholly entire" * read "obrizo" (refined gold)
BRIEFER ACTS BY AN ANONYMOUS AUTHOR
From the Utrecht Manuscript.
BHL Number: 8574
FROM THE MANUSCRIPT
St. Victor, afflicted with various wrongs and torments, Under Maximian there suffered in the City of Marseilles Victor the soldier. For when Maximian had come thither, the slaughter of the holy Thebans being accomplished, he decreed that all should sacrifice to the gods, or perish by exquisite deaths. But when by a decree of this kind the minds of the Christians were troubled, blessed Victor, thrusting himself into the midst, is straightway seized, and presented to the tribunals of the prefects, where, when with steadfast countenance and free voice he testified the faith of Christ, forthwith the clamor of the bystanders is raised; and when he had borne many wrongs from all a, the prefects decreed that his cause should be brought to the audience of Caesar. Who is straightway set before his presence, and, assailed on all sides with many accusations, is urged with the utmost terrors to the sacrifices. But he, stronger than the terror, filled with the Holy Spirit, confuted the emperor and his entreaties with wonderful prudence, doing away with the worship of idols, and confirming the faith of Christ with sure reasoning. Then Caesar is turned into rage, and at his command the Martyr of God, bound with ropes, is ordered to be dragged through the whole city, that from his ignominious punishment the gods might be avenged, and the minds of the Christians terrified. So then, the eyes of the spectators being sated with such mockery, he is again presented to the tribunals, and again more sharply urged to deny Christ and adore the gods. But holy Victor, wisely answering their several objections, overwhelmed them all with a certain weight of reasons. But nevertheless he is bidden by the accusers [*] to choose one thing, either to appease the gods, or to perish unhappily. If, he says, you propose thus what by words we have taught, you shall also see by examples: I spurn the gods, and confess Christ. Give whatever punishments you can, heap up torments. Who straightway, by the command of Asterius, is fastened to the gibbet, and tortured: but praying there, the Lord appearing to him, he is refreshed.
[2] After this he is cast into prison; but straightway he is strengthened by heavenly light and angelic visitation. the three guards being converted to the faith, he is crowned with martyrdom. And while, exulting, he chanted psalms, three soldiers, Alexander, Longinus, and Felicianus, guarding him, when they saw this, fall at his feet, and, repenting, ask to be baptized. Hearing this, the emperor condemned the soldiers indeed with a capital sentence; but Victor, the author of their conversion, again suspended and lacerated with cudgels and ox-hide sinews, he recalled to prison. But three days being passed, while the same was found in all things constant in the faith, threats, terrors, curses, and reproaches are again renewed against him; and by command of Caesar he is set before the altar of Jupiter. But the holy Man from the very hand of the priest cast down the statue to the ground, and
forthwith by command of Maximian is deprived of that same foot. But at the last, about to render his body and soul to God, by the edict of Caesar he is led to the mill [*], and presently, placed under the millstone, is cruelly crushed. But when, the machine being a little after divinely shattered, he seemed to breathe a little, his head being cut off, presently a heavenly voice is heard: You have conquered, blessed Victor, you have conquered. But by command of Caesar their bodies are plunged into the marine waves; but, angels ministering, by a most swift swimming they are carried to the opposite shore, and there, decently buried by the Christians, they bestow many benefits on those who piously ask. Blessed Victor suffered on the eighth day before the Ides of March b, our Lord Jesus Christ granting it, to whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.
NOTES.
LONGER ACTS BY AN ANONYMOUS AUTHOR
From a manuscript of a certain French library, which our Peter Francis Chifflet transmitted to us.
BHL Number: 8569
FROM THE MANUSCRIPT
CHAPTER I.
The persecution of Maximian, the arrest of holy Victor, and, after the ignominy inflicted on him, his free defense of the Christian faith.
Maximian coming to Marseilles, The ample city of Marseilles, once glorious for its wonderful structure, at once for its strength and beauty, situated on the best soil of the land, at the head of the Gauls, open by land and sea to the commerce of almost all nations, was renowned for the immense opulence of its riches, and for the frequent throngs of peoples and the terrors of arms: whence it also deserved to be, in the western parts, a certain, as it were, proper seat of the Roman power. Wherefore it was also a zealous worshiper of the Roman deities, nay, of the Roman demons, and was held the most keen and most fierce defender of sacrilegious superstitions. On which accounts, too proud and most wicked, it was hurried with such great cruelty into the punishments of Christians and the slaughters of the Saints, as though forgetful of all humanity, that the flocks of the pious gathered around it from everywhere, especially at the coming of the emperors, it snatched like wolves; but sparing not even its own citizens, whomsoever it found of the Christian name, without any pity of age or sex, as though for the triumph of its demons, afflicted with various mockeries, and tortured with unspeakable kinds of torments, it slaughtered more vilely than cattle. Among which gems of holy martyrs the most holy Victor, like a star more shining than the rest, shone gloriously, either because he was more noble, or because in our religion more instructed, more fervent and more famous; or because, fighting hand to hand with that beast more monstrous and more savage than the rest of the most wicked, namely the emperor Maximian, he triumphed signally and worthily according to his name.
[2] For when Maximian, and persecuting the Christians, made too terrible to very many of ours for the blood of the Saints, which through the whole world more cruelly than the rest, and especially throughout all the Gauls more recently, he had shed, and chiefly for the most famous slaughter of the blessed Thebans a at Agaunum b, had come to Marseilles, that, according to the Scripture, the impious might yet act impiously c; about to complete there all his crimes with a most wicked life, lest anything of wickedness be lacking to him, an insatiable tormentor of piety, as though he had hitherto done too little, with all his rage declares war, and orders the worshipers of Christ, unless they sacrifice to idols, to perish by exquisite deaths: then indeed, the minds of ours being oppressed and disturbed by so great a cloud of evils, the invincible Victor set himself in the midst, every night solicitously going about the camps of the Saints, and through the several houses kindling the hearts of the servants of God to the love of eternal life and the contempt of transitory death by comforting them.
[3] While engaged in such things, soon to be a happy victim, he is caught, holy Victor the soldier is arrested, and presented to the tribunals of the prefects. The prefects first more mildly urge the Man not to spurn the worship of the gods, nor to refuse the accustomed pay of military service and the friendships of Caesar for the worship of one long dead. He straightway, armed with the eloquence of the Holy Spirit, most effectually proves that the gods whom they named were most unclean demons; but as for the military pay and the friendships of the emperor, he answered that he, a soldier of Christ, would in no way have them to the reproach of his King. But that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the most high God, for the love of human restoration, was indeed truly a mortal man, and by the impious, himself willing it, slain, but by the power of his divine virtue on the third day raised up, ascended into the heavens, and from God the Father received a kingdom stable over all things, he protests with steadfast countenance and the full authority of a free voice. And without delay, a great clamor of the bystanders is raised to heaven, the pious Confessor of the Lord is wronged by all: but because he was an illustrious man, it was judged by the prefects that his cause should be referred to the audience of Caesar. Which done, he, with fierce mind suddenly turned to fury, impatient of delay, orders the holy Athlete to be presented to his tribunals.
[4] The most blessed Victor therefore is set before the tribunal of the raging emperor, who, for the confession of his faith ignominiously dragged through the city, and, assailed on all sides with many accusations, is again urged with all craft and the utmost terrors to the sacrifices of the demons. But the Martyr, stronger from the terror he heard, as one who would conquer the hells by a light exchange, and not fearing to be taken from the earth, who already felt the citizenship of the heavenly court, refreshed from the storehouse of the Holy Spirit, confuted the most savage emperor and all his princes with wonderful prudence and virtue of soul, doing away by clear assertions with the worship of idols, and confirming publicly by sure reason that Jesus the Lord is the true God. Then the most impious Caesar, crueler than any beast, more malign than any dragon, kindled with a diabolical torch, is turned into rage, and orders the holy Martyr, bound with ropes, to be rolled through the whole city; that from the ignominious punishment of the Man he might both avenge the injuries of his gods and at the same time terrify the minds of ours. Sentence being given, the army shouts, the multitudes of the maddened people rush from everywhere to the spectacle; and while the Athlete of Christ is dragged through the whole city with arms and feet bound, with impious hands, or at least with cursing mouth, as each was able, they add to his torments, so that he counted it to himself no small guilt who had not added something to his wrongs.
[5] is again invited to the worship of the gods; So then, when with such mockery he had more than sufficiently sated the eyes of the most nefarious rabble, the most holy Victor, lacerated and bloody, is led back again to the tribunals of the prefects; he is again more sharply harangued to deny Christ and adore the gods: for thinking that, wearied in soul by punishment and reproaches and the tumults of the people, he had broken down, and would now speak nothing further, who by cruel experience had learned that he ought rather to take counsel for himself, they gravely complain of the injuries of Caesar and of the whole commonwealth. Then next they assert that it is of supreme madness, and that nothing is more unhappy, than, the most friendly familiarity of all the gods and of the most invincible princes being set aside, to lose all the delights of the world, and glory and honor, and even the sweetest safety of the body, for the sake of one whom he has never seen; to provoke gratuitously upon himself the wrath of all gods and men: to hasten to destruction with the sorrow of all his dear ones through the utmost torments. Wherefore, even now taught by experience, he ought to choose the reason of a sounder counsel, nor to despise the gods, whose manifest majesty shone in the temples, whose benefits were felt by all, whom venerable antiquity had adored, whom the highest princes worshiped: to whom being propitious, all things rejoiced; to whom being adverse, the world itself could not endure. To that one certainly he ought as soon as possible to renounce, who both in living was always most poor, and in dying showed how powerless he was: which if he did, it would come to pass that he would both gain the imminent punishments, and be able to congratulate himself on the inmost friendship of Caesar and the highest honors themselves interceding: which if he spurned, he would forthwith be about to pass to that glory of his Christ, which no one had ever seen, in no other way than by his example, through the utmost torments and reproaches, being made the reproach and abjection of the whole people.
[6] but he, by many reasons, Since the Martyr, already fully victor from the first onset, and made an oracle of the Holy Spirit, persisting with undaunted and untiring soul, God comforting him, harangued in this manner, saying: If the matter concerns the injuries of Caesar and of the commonwealth, never, he says, have I harmed Caesar, never the commonwealth, I have detracted nothing from the honor of the empire, I have not withdrawn myself from its defense. Daily for the safety of Caesar, and of the whole empire, I zealously sacrifice: daily for the state of the commonwealth before my God I offer spiritual victims. But I judge it not to seem without reason to all most senseless, if anyone so loves some one thing that he does not set it after a hundredfold better one. But what if that one thing you can neither have as you desire, nor, if you have it, rejoice in it without fear, nor, even when you are most solicitous, avail to retain it; but that hundredfold, as soon as you will, you have at hand, and, when you hold it, rejoice secure, that with no end now, with no failing of itself or of you, by no one's violence thereafter you lose it: accordingly, by the reason of a sounder counsel, and in the judgment of all the wise, the familiarity of princes, the delight of the world, glories, honors, the safety of the body, dear kindred, and other things of this kind, and finally temporal life itself, which, it is plainly most well known to all, can neither be acquired as one wishes, nor securely had, nor even for any length of time held, are to be set after the ineffable and stable joys of eternal life, and the embraces of the highest author of all. Whom when you have loved, you may have; when you have had, you may possess all things equally with him; nor be grieved to have left in a moment these very things which you had abandoned, which by a most light exchange, incomparably better, you may rejoice to have received for eternity. But not torments, but refreshments they are rightly called, which extinguish eternal torments; nor is it to be reckoned death, but a salutary cup, through which the passage to such a life is procured.
[7] Nothing indeed more insane than he, nothing, the conscience being witness, revealing the impious crimes of the gods, more mad of all, who, this so great good being set aside without cause, zealously worships, as a god, the manifest enemy of his life. Whence also after life he acquires nothing else than the wages of eternal death, and inexplicable torments without end. For what more savage enemy of human life could appear than he who teaches men to do, and by his own example persuades, things which are both the extreme reproaches of the doer, and by the most just laws are capitally punished? But are not those things taught to be done which are ordered to be publicly recited, which are commanded to be sung in praise? For such, such are your greatest gods, at whose command their horrible crimes are not only recited, but also visibly represented, are sung in the theaters, and celebrated with the highest praises in the temples. For which of you may be permitted to be ignorant of the deadly rapines, and, as far as in him lay, the nefarious parricides of highest Jove? To whom his innumerable debaucheries and adulteries
both furtive and public, fraudulent and violent, is it permitted to be ignorant? Did the malign cruelty of the queen of the gods and sister of Jove, and her fraternal incest with him, lie hidden? Are not the ferocity of implacable Mars, and the foulness of most obscene Priapus, and of most filthy Venus, made plain? Why should I mention the goddesses Fevers d and the gods Pallors e, and flocks of gods of this kind, whom you yourselves proclaim to be malign gods, and enemies of human welfare? It is shameful to mention the dung-gods f, and the sewer-goddesses g, and a thousand portents of such gods, who afflict their wretched worshipers with such great disgrace that they are compelled to venerate sewers and dung (namely the temples of such gods).
[8] It is clear therefore how most savage and, beyond all enemies, most monstrous foes of men are these great gods of yours, and exploding their insane worship, whose wooden or stone or bronze majesty, made and established by you, is befouled by mice or birds in the temples: whose aforesaid mischiefs, but no benefits, are felt by their own: whom your wretched antiquity, having venerated, perished; whom would that your princes, by removing them, might live more happily—the gods to whom being propitious, all who are propitious to them are commanded by the most just laws to be capitally punished; to whom being adverse, throughout the world innocence, honesty, and justice flourish again. For those cannot be propitiated except by their like, for they can not by the unlike, since no contraries can agree with one another. But their like too the most just law (as we said) exterminates from the midst with the worst mark, and equity itself keeps for them, after life, nothing else than the punishments of eternal death. For no one, even mad, grants blessedness to the wicked. It remains, therefore, that whatever is rendered to such after this life is this, that, since they are never blessed, they die in everlasting misery. Since therefore your gods are indeed adverse to the unlike, but to their like are always mortally hostile, it stands by the firmest reason that no one ought to worship those whose worship makes the living always most base, and whose retribution, whether in this life or after this life, makes them most wretched; who ought not in any degree to be dreaded, since their propitiation alone is to be feared.
[9] He constantly defends the faith of Christ, Him surely it is worthy to adore [] with how great charity, with how great veneration, who, when we were enemies, first loved us, who both opened to us the frauds of the base gods, and, that he might snatch us from them, not diminishing his own deity, but clothing our humanity, remaining God among us, appeared made man; that he might enrich the most poor, he conformed himself to our poverty, though he was most rich, coming most poor: whose human converse is for us the example of all virtue and honesty. Whose undue death abolished ours, which was due, forever, and while those gods, nay most wicked demons, unjustly sought him, the innocent, veiled with our infirmity, they justly lost those whom, deceived by them, they had taken captive. O how rich that poverty which you object [], by which, when it pleased him, by a mere command he filled the little boats with fish, with five loaves satisfied five thousand [*] of the crowds! O how weak that lot, which healed all the infirmities of his own! O how life-giving that death, which raised so many dead! Which lest perhaps you esteem to be somewhat less true, behold them foretold from the beginning, confirmed by innumerable miracles with the attestation of all creation. O if you would attentively see how great is he whom the whole world obeys; of what sort is he who is wholly desirable, in whom nothing is blameworthy, in whom all is praiseworthy, whose charity receives all, whose judgment none escapes! What is holier than his life, what more right than his doctrine, what more useful than his promise, what more terrible than his threats? What is safer than his patronage, what more praiseworthy than his friendship, what more delightful than his glory?
[10] and exhorts the heathen to embrace it. Which of the gods is like to him, which comparable to him? For all the gods of the nations are demons, but our God made the heavens, and therefore they, with their worshipers, are condemned, and to be condemned, to eternal fires, as it is written in the holy Prophet: Let the gods that made not heaven and earth perish from under heaven. And in another: Let all be confounded who adore graven things: and again: Thou shalt cast them into the fire, in miseries they shall not subsist. But of this one the holy Prophet said: Our God is above all gods, all things whatsoever he would he did in heaven and in earth, in the sea and in all the deeps; whence also, the same prophet testifying [], blessed are all who fear him [], who walk in his ways: for the faithful soldiers of their King shall not lack his glory; wherefore securely for his testimony we of our own accord undertake death, and how sure our hope is, we show by the example of the passion. Wherefore, most illustrious men, most learned men, of sound mind and vigorous in reason, hatred and contention being set aside, I beseech you, for a little while, by a just examination attend to the force of both parties, lest you deliver yourselves any further to most base and most hostile demons, condemned and to be condemned [*]; nor set the honor of the divine likeness, which is in you, beneath their most obscure baseness, that you may be able to escape their condemnation. But obey the most holy, most beautiful, most just, most clement, almighty Creator, and your friend, whose humility, if you acquiesce in him, will exalt you, whose poverty will enrich, whose death will give life, whose most salutary admonitions now call you, whose rewards invite you; that a little after you may be received into his eternal glory, and be able to rejoice always in his friendship.
NOTES.
CHAPTER II.
The constancy of St. Victor in torments, the conversion of the three soldiers, their happy death, and the martyrdom of St. Victor after various punishments.
And when the Martyr had finished his harangue, the most impious governors, overwhelmed by the weight of his reasons: Do you still (Victor), they say, not cease to philosophize? While St. Victor is refreshed in torments by divine consolation, Choose one thing for yourself, either to appease the gods, or to perish with the utmost unhappiness. If, he says, you propose thus what by words we have taught, it is to be confirmed by example; I spurn the gods, I confess Christ. Give whatever punishments you can, heap up torments. Exasperated therefore by his replies, the aforesaid sacrilegious men, while in lacerating him one strives to surpass the other in cruelty, turned first upon themselves, a quarrel arising, they disagree: over which, Euticius withdrawing, the desired lots of torturing the Martyr fall to the other. Then Asterius (for so he was called) presently orders the Soldier of Christ to be fastened to the gibbet []: which done, when for a long time he was most bitterly tortured, the Saint, lifting his eyes to heaven, prayed for pious endurance from the most merciful Father God, whose gift he knew this to be: nor now any longer enduring it, the most clement Jesus appeared to his combatant in the guise of one consoling, bearing in his hands the distinguished sign of the contest and of victory, namely the cross, saying: Peace to you, our Victor: I am, he says, Jesus, who in my Saints sustain injuries and torments. Act manfully, and be strong: for I am with you, a strong helper in the battle, who am also the faithful rewarder, after the fight [] and the victory, in the kingdom. At the Savior's voice forthwith all pain and all the vain torments ceased. Then he, turned in mind and countenance eager to praises, rendered immense thanks with his whole spirit to his visitor and consoler.
[12] [and is thrust into a dark prison: a heavenly light being seen, his three guards are converted to the faith,] But the savage lictors, when now, weary, they failed, and saw that they had accomplished nothing, the Martyr rejoicing, by command of the most nefarious governor thrust him, taken down from the gibbet, under the guard of soldiers into the darkest of all prisons. And behold the most kind Jesus, not unmindful of his promise, in the middle of the night sends to his Soldier an angelic visitation. Continuously therefore, the bars of the prison being loosed, the night driven away, a heavenly light brighter than day irradiates the whole prison. The exulting Martyr sings praises to the Lord with the angels gently soothing him. The soldiers therefore, seeing the brightness of so great a splendor, fall prostrate at the feet of the Saint, beg pardon, ask baptism: whom, diligently instructed for the time, priests being summoned, that very night he led to the sea, and there, baptized, raised them with his own hands from the font. But morning being come, the conversion of the holy soldiers Alexander, Longinus, Felicianus a (for so their names were called) being divulged, that great dragon Maximian is kindled with fury, deadly edicts are set forth: all these are more harshly retorted against Victor (as being the author), but the soldiers ought either to consent to the idols, or be condemned by a capital sentence.
[13] who, roused by him, Then blessed Victor, about to send the new soldiers of Christ ahead to the battles, fortified them with a discourse of this kind, saying: O most valiant fellow-soldiers, O glorious standard-bearers of the contest, now there is need of courage, now there is need of all fortitude; the fidelity which you have now promised to your emperor [], manfully keep. For the enemy is at hand, the battle is present: for the enemy [] wishes suddenly to attack your first campaigns, that if he find you off guard, he may boast that he has in a manner snatched the palm of victory: but you, dearest ones, are not so negligently instructed, you have not so little learned Christ, you too
are not ignorant of the rewards, nor have you lost your military service, but changed it; let your King [] therefore make trial of those whom he has chosen, to whom he has committed the front line of the happy fight: and let the enemies make trial whom they attack, and let them not perceive you degenerate in anything, of whom your emperor thought so well that to the most recent recruits he committed the sum of affairs, and entrusted the first outcomes of the war to our [] fortitude: nor let wars terrify you, who have always learned wars, nor let perishing things call you away, who already have eternal things before your hands. It remains for you to seize those things bravely, it remains for you to pass through the midst of the battle-lines to those things, which if meanwhile they seem to you a little harsher, know that our King himself has even now passed through such things. Hear him, not another, saying: In the world you shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world; him, I say, confidently with mind and voice invoke against all hard things.
[14] He will not be lacking to you invoking faithfully, who truly promised to all his own, saying: to the constant confession of Christ; Behold I am with you even to the consummation of the world. Finally I propose myself to you as a faithful example of this thing. For while, hung on the gibbet, I was tortured with intolerable straits, I invoked the merciful Lord with suppliant tears; and behold, forthwith I see him bearing in his hand the glorious sign of our redemption, and saying to me: Peace to you, Victor, fear not; for I am Jesus, who in my Saints sustain injuries and torments: at whose voice so great a virtue was straightway infused into me that thenceforth I reckoned as nothing [] the punishments. Wherefore, dearest ones, mindful of your virtue, looking to the author of all, Jesus the Lord, and to the way by which he passed, whither he arrived, fear not the flighty threats of mortal men, to whom is already at hand the promised society of the immortal angels; and bear the momentary punishments, that you may be able triumphantly to overcome the eternal ones; and you who before preferred to die rather than be conquered, being about to perish forever, now suffer, I pray you, to conquer [], being about afterward to reign forever.
[15] Armed with such words, and together holy Victor, the sent apparitors hurry to the upper forum. before him they are struck with the sword. Which being heard, almost the whole city rushes eagerly to the spectacle: some the furious madness of mind was dragging, others with a now better spirit desired to see the holy Martyr fighting with the devil; the confusion of the rabble running together from everywhere resounds: all things are filled with tumult and clamor; against the holy Martyr curses and reproaches are cast from everywhere; but he, remaining stronger against all things brought upon him, when he was compelled by the impious to recall even the soldiers whom he had turned away to the worship of the gods: What I myself, he says, have built, it is not permitted me to destroy. Being asked therefore, the holy soldiers Alexander, Felicianus, and Longinus, faithfully persevere in the confession of the Lord, and presently by imperial command are struck with the sword, and, casting off their temporal bodies, obtain eternal life.
[16] But the most sacred Victor, seeing the holy soldiers given to death, Afterward St. Victor is again in vain impelled to the worship of Jupiter, prayed the Lord with tearful voice that he might deserve to be equally their companion in martyrdom and glory; of whose belief and confession, after God, he had been the author. Straightway therefore the glorious Martyr, the crowds crying out, is beaten from everywhere, and, again suspended, is most atrociously tortured with cudgels and ox-hide sinews; thence, the torturers being conquered, he is recalled to prison, where, persevering three days b in prayer, he commended his martyrdom to the Lord with great contrition of heart and many tears. Finally the deadly Caesar, having heard the constancy of the Martyr, as a tormentor reserved more insane for the last, orders him to be set before his sight. Then, an interrogation being made, the most persevering Martyr is found in all things the same as he had been in the confession of the Lord. Then indeed, as though anew, fury and rage rave against the Soldier of Christ; then threats, terrors, curses, and reproaches are again renewed. Meanwhile Maximian orders the altar of Jupiter to be brought: presently therefore the altar is set up before him, and the sacrilegious priest stands ready. Then the emperor to holy Victor: Set on incense, he says, appease Jupiter, and be our friend. This being heard, the most valiant Soldier of Christ, inflamed with the ardor of the Holy Spirit, and no longer enduring to bear it thus, as though about to sacrifice, approaches nearer, and cast the altar from the very hand of the priest to the ground with his foot, and dedicated that same foot, presently, by command of the detestable Caesar, cut off, to God and his King the Lord Jesus Christ, as it were certain sweet-smelling first-fruits meanwhile of his body.
[17] and at last, crushed under the mill, is beheaded, But at the last, now about to render his body and soul to the Lord, by the edict of Caesar he is led to the bakers' mill. But he went so swift and cheerful, as if he seemed to have suffered no inconvenience at all. Therefore the savage lictors, fulfilling the commands of the most bloody and execrable tyrant, place the glorious Martyr, to be crushed presently in his whole body by the swift rotation, under the bakers' mill; then the chosen wheat of God is ground without pity, then the happy bones of the most invincible Martyr are cruelly shattered: but when, the machine being a little after divinely shattered, he seemed still to breathe a little, for his perfect and full victory, dedicated to the Lord by so many confessions, adorned by so many and so great struggles, they cut off his head with the sword. Which done, presently a heavenly voice thundered from above, saying: You have conquered, blessed Victor, you have conquered.
[18] [and his body, cast into the sea with the others, is prodigiously rescued and honorably buried.] But the unhappy Maximian, a special temple of the demons, by whom he had hitherto been overcome, hoping to conquer even the dead, to heap up the glories of the Martyrs, all humanity of burial being forbidden, causes their bodies to be plunged, to be devoured by the fishes, in the deep arm of the sea by which on the southern side the city is girded. But the pious Lord, by a better counsel, providing both for the honor of the Saints and for the patronages of posterity, angels ministering, by a most swift swimming transfers the holy bodies unharmed to the opposite shore: and there, buried by the Christians in a crypt, laboriously and decently cut out in the native rock, they are honored with many miracles even to this day, and many benefits are conferred on those who piously ask, by their merits. Through God and our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be eternal praise, power, honor, and dominion with God the Father and the Holy Spirit through infinite ages of ages. Amen.
NOTES.
MIRACLES BY AN ANONYMOUS AUTHOR,
From the same Chiffletian manuscript, which we collated with another manuscript, copied from the Parisian archive of St. Victor.
BHL Number: 8576
FROM THE MANUSCRIPTS
CHAPTER I.
Preface, the punishment of a blasphemer, the healing of the possessed, the blind, the crippled, and other sick persons.
The miracles which the Lord Jesus Christ, to declare the glorious merit of his martyr Victor, The author, having prefaced a few things, after his venerable triumph deigned to work, to the praise of the same Lord Jesus, of whose gift they are, it is honorable to narrate and write: for they are not to be covered with unfruitful silence, which both spoken and written can be useful to many. Nevertheless my little understanding would in no way of itself presume to write these things, unless the obedience enjoined compelled me to this; but for the most part true obedience, presuming in no way on its own but on the virtue of God, undertakes a business above its strength, trusting that in that which inexperience denies, divine help is at hand. You therefore, dearest father a, who command, pray, I say, that the Holy Spirit, coming to my heart, may infuse the light of his truth, and open my mouth to pronounce worthily that which you bid.
[2] On the Lord's Day, namely that which is called Palm Sunday b, he narrates how a blasphemer was punished, when the people were going out to the church of blessed Andrew the apostle for the blessing of the flowers (as is wont to be done on that day) with a procession, and were bearing the head of holy Victor with great veneration and devotion in a wooden shrine, a certain guardian of the church, wickedly incited by a spirit of perfidy and blasphemy, began at length to pour out upon the people the poison of his envy, and by mocking to wish to dissolve their devotion: for he said it was superstitious that so great honor should be shown by men to a useless and empty piece of wood, though marked; that nothing was there which was worthy of veneration. Presently divine vengeance struck the mocker of his Soldier, and, tearing out one of his eyes, twisted also his blasphemous mouth even to his ear, and so, pain compelling, the wretch was obliged to confess and venerate as present him whom before, perfidy persuading, by sneering he had said to be absent.
[3] and then, freed by the aid of St. Victor. But presently, turned to prayer, he asks pardon, affirming and much protesting that if he should recover health by the pious intervention of the Martyr, he would undoubtedly for the future, through the whole time of his life, be suppliant and devout toward his worship. He asked, he besought; nor yet did he then obtain anything: and so through the whole year he remained in the same affliction and deformity. The space of a year being at last measured out, the aforesaid Lord's Day recurring, when the people in the accustomed manner were proceeding to the church of the aforesaid Apostle with the carrying of the relics, then he, to whom his affliction had now given understanding, began to cry out and say: O most blessed Victor, spare me wretched, spare, and for your piety remit the impiety of my sin; enlighten my blinded eye, and reform my deformed mouth; I have given enough of punishments hitherto: for I dare and confidently affirm that from now on I will be yours, if through you I shall recover the health I lost. Straightway divine mercy was present to the suppliant, which restored the confessing and penitent man to his former health: who, giving thanks for the health received, and setting a guard over his mouth for the rest, lest he should utter anything unfitting, as long as he lived afterward remained devout toward the worship of the blessed Martyr.
[4] A woman possessed by seven demons, Since therefore the fame of the miracles of the blessed Martyr grew frequent far and wide, and the glorious report struck not only the near, but also the far remote provinces, a certain woman of Gascony c, whom for ten years seven demons had possessed and by possessing afflicted, when she was led through very many places of the Saints, and was not healed, at length, having heard of Christ's
soldier Victor's powers, is brought to the church of his memory; who, bound with iron fetters, raged with rabid teeth against whomsoever she could; and behold, not bearing his power, a demon began to cry out through her mouth: Know that I in no way go out hence, unless I first receive flesh to eat. For that power, which was strongly burning that demon, had already, by the intervention of blessed Victor, expelled from that woman six other demons, his associates. But on the following day, holy Good Friday, that malign one, roaring terribly, proclaims with a horrible voice: O Victor, O Victor, deservedly you are called Victor, because through you, conquered [*], I am already held, and through you, conquered, I am compelled to go out hence; but know truly that if I go out hence compelled, I straightway enter into the daughter of a king across the sea, and there I stay a long while. These things being said, willy-nilly, the wretch is compelled to go out, and the woman long possessed is left by her malign possessor, so that from her mouth bloody saliva flowed down, and an intolerable stench proceeded from her lower part. Who, when she had rendered thanks to God and blessed Victor for the benefit obtained, rejoicing returned to her own.
[5] a crippled man, A certain man, contracted in his whole body, and miserably rolled up in the manner of a ball, implored the aid of the most kind Martyr of Christ. A certain man of pious mind, beholding his misfortune, and compassionating his misery with an affection of pity, bound himself to the blessed Martyr with this vow; that if he healed him, he would offer him one candle every year. Then divine clemency, looking down from on high both on the misery of the sufferer and on the mercy of the compassionate, by the aiding merits of his Martyr mercifully visited that cripple, and, having visited him, raised him up, so that in the same hour, the bonds of his contraction being broken, he rose, and ran most swiftly to the place where the body of the blessed Martyr lay laid up, giving thanks and saying: Thanks to you, God, who by the intervention of your Martyr have shown mercy with me, and have wholly healed the wholly weak. He also invites others to praise, rings the bells of the monastery with all his strength, and in a voice of confession [*] and profession sings the Te Deum laudamus with the brothers d: and lest anyone esteem this which we have said to be fabulous, let him attend and see this man, of whom we have spoken, still surviving, walking with free steps whither his will bears him, with the sons of his aforesaid benefactor.
[6] At a certain time, according to the custom of the land, for the confirmation of peace the glorious memory of blessed Victor was borne with other relics of the Saints. a woman laboring with elephantiasis, There was come therefore to a certain village, which is called Cararco, where a certain woman, struck with the disease of elephantiasis e, sequestered from the common intercourse of all, was dwelling, who, understanding that the relics of the glorious Martyr were present, said: I believe, most holy one, that if you will, you can cleanse me. On the following night, therefore, as though put in an ecstasy of mind, she saw a ray of immense light flow to her, and the whole house in which she lay flash with the same light: and behold, in the very approach of the light a certain divine virtue flows in, which cleansed her from all the contagion of leprosy. A certain Saturninus was afflicted with a sufficiently grievous inconvenience, afflicted with a grievous inconvenience, namely one who, frequently falling upon his face, foaming, rolled on the ground: who, as soon as with devout mind he sought the aid of the blessed Martyr, deserved to obtain a complete remedy of his sickness.
[7] When someone had entered to the memory of the Martyr, a demoniac, the outcome of the matter proved that he was not worthy to stand before the most sacred relics: for presently, seized by a demon, he was made mad. The wretch tore himself and beat himself with his fists, and, made an enemy of nature, tore out his own eyes with his own hands, and so at last, prostrate on his face, was a miserable spectacle to all. Who does not execrate the great savagery of the most impious possessor therein? Who does not entreat for the possessed the clemency of the most kind Martyr? Yet, a week being passed, overcome by the prayers of many, and especially conquered by the power of the most glorious Athlete of Christ, the demon began to chide and say: Why, Victor, do you persecute me? Why do you compel me to go out hence? If I had entered violently, I ought, compelled by law, to be violently cast out. But this man gave himself of his own accord, subjected himself to me of his own accord. It stands therefore that I suffer a wrong, if I am cast out hence compelled. If your God is just, and you his just servant, keep justice and judge a right judgment. And straightway at these words the malign one is compelled to go out with the stench familiar to him, and, not without his own disgrace, through the private parts of the sufferer, with a flux of venom, the venomous one is cast out. What more? The weak people is strengthened, rejoices, and a giving of thanks is rendered in common.
[8] A certain woman, praying for her little eyes f, while she lay prostrate in prayer at the sepulcher of the Martyr, a woman saw a certain young man of wondrous beauty, approaching near, bearing two lamps in his hands, and soothing her with consoling words: Be more equable, he says, give thanks to God, by whose power I restore to you the light you lost. These things being said, the youth who had appeared vanished, and, the lamps of her eyes being recovered, the woman departed glad.
a blind boy Someone is wont to relate that, while a certain boy was rendering service to a smith, he lost the sight of his eyes. Who, persisting a long while in prayer at the memory of the Martyr, while he is wearied neither by despair nor tedium, is granted the restoration of one eye. Then he not only conceived gladness for the eye now enlightened, but also took confidence about the other to be enlightened. Nor did the outcome deceive his pious expectation: for after some days, while he applies himself more attentively to prayer, both the loss of the other eye is repaired, and he who had been blind rejoices with a doubled service of seeing.
[9] a woman contracted in her whole body, A certain woman, contracted in her whole body, obtained from her husband that she should be presented to the relics of the blessed Man; and when she had prayed, and was not healed, she is carried back by her husband, on the ass by which she had been brought, to her own house. On the following Saturday she asks again to be carried back to the church, to which her husband, though unwilling, yet acquiesced that it be done; but not even thus did she obtain the benefit which she asked. On the third Saturday at last the devout woman again coaxes her husband, and, more solicitous about his vexation than about her own weariness, yet prays that once more she be carried back to the church. Then he, now broken by despair and tedium, answered more harshly, and, as though rebuking her presumptuous petition, chided her: he said it was foolish, after so long an infirmity, to presume of health, and by a certain vain confidence to undertake so great a labor; especially since already a second time she had been able to profit nothing by praying. But she, to calm his troubled mind, with a softer reply asserted that nothing is impossible to God, and nothing difficult, that he always regards the prayer of the humble, and especially the vows of the afflicted, willingly lends his ear to pious desires, is always at hand for just supplications, never despises a contrite and humbled heart: finally, that he who loosed the fettered, who raised the crushed, who enlightened the blind, and showed certain other powers through the merits of his Martyr, could also by his intervention dissolve the fetters of her own contraction.
[10] brought to the relics of St. Victor, When therefore they made the journey, he walking on foot, she between the hands of her husband leaning on the little ass, it came to pass that, evening now impending, they drew near to the church. Then she begs to be set down on the ground, declaring it just and befitting devotion that she too, if in any way she could, should enter the church by walking without a vehicle: especially since at that same hour it was known that the servants of God dwelling there were chanting the vesper praises before the holy Martyr of God: who, her husband being vexed, being set down, straightway as she touched the ground, the bonds of her fastening being loosed, stood on her feet, and, her limbs being recalled to their former use, performing the rest of the way together with her husband with her own steps, came to the church.
A certain blind man, his wife providing guidance, came to the church, applied himself to prayer for the restoration of his eyes, and a blind man are freed. and, profiting nothing, he who had come blind departed blind. On the following day he returns with yesterday's hope, the fresher the more devout he returns to prayer, and so in a short time is made possessed of his desire. Prayer sets forth the affection of devotion, and devotion earns the effect of prayer.
NOTES.
CHAPTER II.
The enlightening of the blind, the cleansing of lepers, and the raising of a dead boy.
A certain woman a contraction of the sinews had rendered weak and useless, to whom, for the solace of her whole body, one hand only remained sound. A woman contracted in her sinews, She therefore, by the aid of a certain son of hers, having entered the basilica, applies herself to prayer, pours out tears, sets forth her misery, implores mercy. On a certain day, evening now impending, she beseeches the doorkeeper of the church not to be expelled thence, but rather to be admitted before the holy altar, testifying that it was already promised her that she would be healed through blessed Victor. The doorkeeper, a man of mercy, acquiesces, and admits the woman where she had asked. On the following night her whole little body, as though pressed by fevers, is shaken by so sudden a trembling, the binding of the sinews is loosed, the crookedness of the limbs is straightened, and the deformity of the contraction is recalled to its former state.
[12] Nor only does the mother receive the heavenly benefit, with her son she obtains health. to the son too the exuberant mercy overflowed: for he also had lost the strength of one arm, which, contiguous to his breast, he could not move at all. But while the son renders pious service to his mother's calamity, he too obtained the advantage of health. Straightway in the tabernacle of God a voice of exultation and of salvation is sent forth, and, rendering thanks to God, the son over the mother, the mother over the son, rejoice together; and so the son, in the same place, in
the service of the Brothers resolved to remain. But the mother, now not by another's aid, but by her own strength, returned to her own; who, as soon as she had returned to conjugal union, her contraction too returned to her. Who, again coming to the church, and promising continence for the rest, obtained her former health.
[13] By the intercession of St. Victor blindness, A certain Lotharius of Tours, that he might recover his lost sight, was seeking various memorials of the Saints. At length, when he sought the oratory of blessed Antoninus a, he was sprinkled with the odor of the powers which were being wrought through blessed Victor: the power of God's Martyr is proclaimed by those making the journey, and the great number of those who had already been cured through him is intimated. And when, his journey being changed, he follows the odor with which he had been sprinkled, on that very journey he experiences the mercy meeting him: for when he had come to a certain cross erected on the way, and stayed a little in prayer for its veneration, he obtained the sight of one eye; by whose guiding he came to the church, and related to all how he had experienced the power of the Martyr before he had expected, spent the following night wholly in vigils and prayers, and straightway on the morrow felt the heavenly benefit in the restoration of the other eye.
[14] is driven away from various men of both sexes, Two women from different places had come to seek the suffrages of blessed Victor, both of whom, one by old age, the other by infirmity, had lost the light of their eyes. On a certain day she who was the elder by birth, while at the door of the monastery of the blessed Martyr she awaited Christ's aid, a youth of elegant form and dress was shown to her by a vision, who, bearing two lighted candles in his hands, as though he wished to light extinguished lamps, seemed to move those very candles to her eyes. The vision withdrawing, the effect of the vision follows, and the light which old age had dimmed [*] is, restored by the hands of the youth, kindled. The other too, when she had been enlightened, and, about to return home, had gone a little from the church, on that very journey was a second and a third time blinded, and a second and third time was enlightened at the memory of the Martyr. Then indeed, fearing lest something worse should befall her, if she should thereafter attempt to return to her own, she settled in the same place, where even until now she lives unharmed.
[15] is expelled, A certain man, directing his steps with one eye, was more frequently leading to the sepulcher of the Martyr one deprived of the light of both eyes: walking therefore with one eye, they frequently, as has been said, came to the church, and, straightway departing, brought back no benefit of health. For they could not stand long at prayer, because they had not the necessary food; a double necessity urged them, one of living, the other of seeing, and when they had come to recover sight, they straightway departed to seek food. On a certain day at last, when they had after their manner entered the church, presently he who had one eye recovered the sight of the other; he who was wholly blind remained wholly blind. Who nevertheless, having taken confidence about the cure of the other, spent the following night watchful in prayer; but in the morning, about the entrance of the Mass, his eyes being unlocked, he consummated the rest of the day in praise.
[16] The uncleanness of leprosy had rendered a certain woman singular; a leprous woman is healed, for she remained sequestered not only from the lawful bed, but also from common intercourse; who, both weighed down by the greatness of her passion, and confounded by the shame of her sequestration, when she saw herself destitute of all human solace, which is wont to follow thence, turned the intention of her heart wholly to God. At length, having heard of the Saint's powers, she came to his memorial; the prayers which necessity suggested she poured out with tears, and, she who was a contempt to men, implored that he would receive her. And when after prayer she departs with the same leprosy with which she had come, and complains that God too, or those who are his, are hard to her: straightway by a certain hidden power, in her very complaint, her whole little body, the variety of the skin being reduced to the appearance of one color, and her limbs recalled to their former vigor, her whole nature is wonderfully renewed.
[17] A certain faithful man and his devout wife, prayer being made at the sepulcher of the Martyr, a dead boy, while they return to their own, find their little son, whom they had left sound, sick: who, the infirmity increasing, on the third day died. But the parents, while for grief they cannot contain themselves, turn the words of their lamentation to blessed Victor. What is this, they say, O blessed Victor, what is this that has been done? At your sepulcher we paid our prayers and vows: we committed ourselves and ours to your protection, and behold, whence we ought to have been the more secure, thence we have incurred a greater misfortune. For while after the prayer and veneration shown to you we return home, we are deprived of the solace of the only son we had; yet by faith we embrace, and examples testify, that whatever you will you will easily obtain from almighty God. Come therefore, turn our mourning into joy, and restore to us our son. The neighbors therefore, and those who had come together, while by consoling they desire to soften the grief, from their own despair reprove the prayers which they ought to have aided: they say it is superfluous and worthy of ridicule to demand something of this kind by praying, to afflict oneself with vain hope, to lose prayers and tears. That so great a miracle was possible either to none ever of the Saints, or to very few; accordingly grief and weeping ought to be tempered, and that could be made lighter by patience which it was impossible to correct.
[18] But they nonetheless, persisting in assiduous prayers, importune the Martyr with complaints: as those whom their very necessity had made either more devout in faith or stronger in hope. is recalled to life, Then, when for the service of friends the boy was carried to the place of the sepulcher, behold suddenly he who had been dead, the boy, was seen to sit up, to call his parents, to raise himself to be loosed and carried, to declare himself wearied by a long journey, and finally testifies that he had heard a voice of this kind: For the sake of my beloved Victor, let the soul be restored to its body. All marvel and rejoice, and protest with praises the glorious merits of most holy Victor. But with how great joy the parents exulted it is not of our capacity to unfold. Presently, set down and loosed, they do not delay to present him at the sepulcher of the Martyr, and, relating to all the wonderful deed, they themselves, about to return to their own, delivered the boy to his Raiser. Of this thing those who saw and heard are witnesses.
and two women are restored to health, Two women, one blind, the other contracted, in hope of recovering health being presented at the sepulcher of the Martyr, were there cured one after the other: the first [*], for her little eyes, experiences the benefit of seeing; then the contracted one, suddenly shaken by a crash, is raised upon her feet.
[19] as also a man struck with blindness and leprosy. A certain blind and leprous man came to the church by another's guidance, and spent that day with the following night watchful in prayer. But after this, taking ill the delay of his cure, he began a miserable complaint in the ears of all. He calls himself wretched and unhappy, who has neither the Saints reigning with Christ nor men living on earth propitious to him; All, he says, my friends have forsaken me; and my acquaintances, as strangers, have departed from me. The foolish too have despised me, and she whom I loved most, my wife, has turned away from me. All my substance, reduced to nothing, has perished, and except two little vessels of bees nothing at all has remained. You therefore, blessed Victor, take wax from those very little vessels for the trimming of your lights, and restore to me the light of my body for directing my footsteps. Which the brothers, who happened to be present, then hearing, and beholding his necessity or devotion with the bowels of compassion, aid prayers with prayers, and from the inmost affection of the heart entreat that he may deserve to be heard: to whom praying divine hearing was not lacking, for suddenly that sick man obtained the benefit which he asked. The tears cease, all grief is taken away, and, the prayers being changed, a giving of thanks is rendered in common.
[20] An unchaste woman, That crypt which received the bodies of the Saints to be kept at their first coming, a certain Julia, unchaste, and now for a long time wallowing in the mire of luxury, entered presumptuously and irreverently; for that she had come neither for the sake of veneration nor for the cause of her necessity, divine vengeance, rushing upon her at once, showed. For because she had not followed that simple eye of the heart, the sight of her body being lost, she gave to all a manifest token of her presumption. But this miracle indeed (as afterward appeared) heavenly power exhibited as much for the token of its piety as for the merit of its Martyr: for compelled by such necessity, that unhappy—nay, now truly happy—woman gathers the darkness of the body into the light of the heart, while through that which outwardly she suffers, she is compelled to recall to memory with how great blindness within she had failed.
[21] from blindness of body and mind, First therefore, the blindness of the inner eye being put to flight, detesting the wantonness of her past life, and promising the continence of the future, for the recovery of her bodily sight she turned herself with all devotion of heart and prayers to the holy Martyr of God, and by vow promised that not only would she thenceforth live chastely, but also under the sacred veil would pass the remaining space of her life in the service of God. What more? Both the woman obtained the light she had lost, and did not delay to bring to effect what had been promised by vow: for, made a nun by the imposition of the sacred veil, she strove thenceforth to lead a chaste life, and, no sluggish lover of continence, made the end of her living in the perseverance of continence. It stands therefore that four miracles, so to speak, were wrought in one miracle. For while the outward sight is withdrawn on account of presumption, from the very admonition of the punishment the inner eye is opened, and the lost light is restored through prayer, and, which is more wonderful than all these, the soul, extinguished by sins, is brought back to life.
It happened among other things that a certain man labored most grievously with the disease which they call intercutaneous b, and another is freed from dropsy. so that that plague pretended a certain likeness of leprosy in his flesh; who, having heard of the Saint's powers, in nothing at all distrusting, sought his aid, and, having experienced it, taught others what the devotion of faith, what the prayer of the Saints with God could do: for as if he had never suffered any inconvenience, so he appeared cleansed rather from all the infirmity by which he was held.
NOTES.
CHAPTER III.
The deliverance of a possessed woman, the wondrous kindling of iron in place of a candle, the driving away of a most grievous disease and of blindness.
A certain woman was miserably afflicted by a most evil demon, so that she seemed to retain nothing at all of her own right in the senses of her body, A woman possessed by a demon, the most malign spirit usurping it: for the impious guest had beset her whole, destitute of all soundness, and, her ears being dulled and her sight taken away, had besides withdrawn the use of speech. So then that wretched and miserable woman, besides that she suffered most grievously within, was found blind, deaf, and dumb outwardly, who, her limbs bound with iron, testified the rage of her breast by the redness of her cheeks and the gnashing of her teeth, and, though blind, yet her grim eyes threatened the savagery of her fury: she threatened death to all, and bit and tore whomsoever approached her, or those to whom she herself could approach. At length, between the hands of those striving, she was not so much brought to the sepulcher of the Martyr as violently dragged, and there made an utterly miserable spectacle to all whom either their own necessity or her unhappiness had rendered present: for the misery of one moved the affections of all, and no one's breast was so iron that the torment of the unhappy woman did not touch it to compassion or mercy. They wept, because they believed she was the more to be wept for, the less they saw her weeping: for even those who had come to mourn themselves, forgetful of their own, and compassionating her so great miseries, poured out prayers to the Lord with tears for her welfare.
[23] and, made deaf, blind, and dumb, is freed. While therefore all wept and most devoutly supplicated God and holy Victor for the restoration of the woman, at length that most shameless invader of another's right is compelled, through the mouth of the woman whom they had believed to be his own, to cry out in the hearing of all: O Victor, O Victor, who do not cease to oppose me and my father a; you nowhere suffer us to rest; you have hitherto expelled us from many dwellings, you have often compelled us to change our seats, often our lodgings, and now, as I perceive, you would cast me out from here too, and thrust me at last into the depths of the pit. For truly I understand, will I or not, that by your prayers I shall go out; but know for certain that I shall by no means depart wholly without vengeance: for although I can do nothing else, yet at my going out I will leave to you and yours an obscene stench. And without delay after these things, while in the very testimony of his confusion, as though he were beaten with scourges, with great wailing and the stench which he himself had foretold, the unclean spirit is compelled to go out. And here too therefore it stands that four miracles magnificently proceeded in the repair of one woman: since the malign one is expelled from the beset body, deafness is brought back to hearing, and blindness is recalled to sight, and the tongue is loosed to the use of speech; which those who were present, seeing, rendered thanks to God and holy Victor so much the more abundantly, the more they perceived the veneration of the now-cured woman to be the graver.
[24] A certain poor man, admonished in sleep, Nor do I think this to be passed over, but the more diligently to be related, and the more attentively to be heard, in that what is subjoined stands to be a singular and hitherto unheard-of miracle. A certain man poor in goods and in spirit sees a man of glorious countenance and reverend dress standing by him in his sleep, and reproving his sluggishness in this manner of rebuke: Why, he says, do you act negligently? Why are you found more sluggish than the rest? Why do you not hasten with the others to visit the church of the ever-blessed Virgin, that, by offering something worthy together with your prayers, you may through our intercession make Christ her son placable to you? By which reproof, terrified, he is shaken from sleep, and with silent mind anxiously asks himself who it could have been from whom he had received such admonitions of his welfare. But that this was the most blessed Martyr of Christ, both then the man believed in the simplicity of his heart, and the outcome of the matter showed by most sure faith. But his cares being a little lightened, again he fell asleep: and behold again, in the manner of the aforesaid vision, the Saint appeared, reproved his negligence with rebuke, and commanded that he should take, in place of a wax candle, that iron, round and long, which he had hidden in his house, and so proceed to the church.
[25] that he should flee to the aid of St. Victor, Which having heard, he awoke astounded, and did not delay to bring to effect what had now a second time been commanded. The iron being taken up, he came to the church, which he then happened to find thronged with no small multitude of people: for on that same night on which he entered, the annual day of the glorious passion of the most blessed Martyr was being commemorated, and in the same church, according to the custom of the province, to his praise that night was wholly spent by the inhabitants in vigils and prayers: who, each holding lights kindled in their hands, the church seemed not so much to flash as to burn, irradiated by the splendors of so great a light. Alone among the rest that poor man appeared divided from the others by the want of light, and, not knowing what to do, at length, as though counsel were found, presented himself to one of the Brothers dwelling there, to whom, showing also that iron, he prayed that for it he would lend him even one candle, lest he pass either that night alone without light or the festal day without an offering, protesting that he had nothing else at hand which could more conveniently serve him in such a business. But that man, indignant, turned away his ear, and answered that he would not do what he asked: for he himself had the care of the church, and had already been much vexed in businesses of this kind.
[26] Then he, destitute of human solace, turns to one of the Saints, and awaits aid from on high. lacking a candle to offer, You, he says, most blessed Victor, you compelled me, resting on my little bed, to rise, you made me visit this church and the vigils of this night. You too know most well the straits of my poverty: and since, besides this iron, which you yourself commanded me to take with me, I found nothing else by which my poverty might suffer to be diminished: and now, hastening to fulfill your command, you see, O Lord, into what great anxiety I have come, so that by no reason can I find what I ought to do: for I, the reproach of men and the abjection of the people, stand alone dark among the flashing ranks, I, made a derision to all, appear alone either unlike or singular to so great a multitude. And what shall I do? But because I can do no better, I know what I will do: in the sight of all I will set forth that iron, which you yourself commanded, holding it in place of a wax candle, that I may receive whatever small solace of my disgrace.
[27] The man did what he had said, and held the iron in his hands raised in the manner of a candle; and behold, in a wonderful manner, at the top of the iron a smoke presaging fire appeared, bears iron in his hand, and, a little space intervening, that smoking cloud turned itself wholly into the splendor of fire. And so (wonderful to see), no external material of fire being applied, the iron was kindled, so that, against the nature of flames, it sent forth globes, and, in the manner of salt cast on burning coals, it threw crackling sparks from the midst of the fire. O truly the change of the right hand of the Most High! He who a little before had been to all a miserable spectacle, now, the turn being reversed, gave to all a spectacle [*]: and to those to whom before, by the want of light, he had feared to be a contempt, he was here now, by the immensity of the new light, an object of awe. For all stood terrified by the novelty of the thing, expecting to see the end of so great a miracle, and, their eyes not long bearing so great a splendor, they looked at one another, and, suspended between joy and fear, doubted not at all that this was the power of him who had made the bush burn unconsumed; but that bearer of the new light knew not what to do, whither to turn himself, yet not ignorant that this sign of divine manifestation set forth the merit of his most holy Martyr, thus remained the whole night in vigils and observances.
[28] which wonderfully burned. But morning being come, when in the same church the solemnities of the Masses were celebrated, and their lights were offered by all, he too among the others devoutly approached, and took care to offer the surviving part of the burning iron with the victim of humility. The iron therefore, offered with the other lights, is extinguished, and even to the present day, for the reproving of the unbelief of some, and the exciting of the devotion of others, is shown to many in testimony. Which being seen, God, wonderful in his Saints, is proclaimed by all, and the power and merits of his Martyr with God are declared.
A certain man afflicted with a grievous disease, A certain other man was held bound by a certain miserable sickness, so that, like a useless trunk, he seemed contracted through each of his limbs. Who, having heard of the Saint's powers, obtained to be carried to his memory, and, often carried, brought back no remedy at all of his infirmity: but not therefore broken by despair or tedium, on a certain Lord's Day he was so restored that each of the limbs of his body recovered its former vigor, and no traces at all either of contraction or of dissolution remained [*] in him.
[29] and a blind girl obtain health. A certain girl, born not far from the monastery, a certain plague of the eyes had rendered blind in a wonderful manner; for her eyelids, which to others are wont to be an aid for the covering or defense of the eyes, were to her the occasion of blindness: for, irrevocably drawn over the pupils and fastened downward toward the face, as though held by birdlime, they had covered that whole receptacle of light, and, the radiance of the sun being excluded, as though the entrance were bolted, had obstructed the way of seeing. She, brought by her mourning mother, herself also mourning, to the sepulcher of the Martyr, is set down, and there for the welfare of one an untiring prayer is poured out by both to God, and they await the suffrages of the glorious Martyr with all instancy of prayers and devotion. For frequently there was a coming to the church, frequently a praying: and when in a work of this kind they persisted with a certain womanly importunity b, at length it was brought about by the Lord that both the daughter should experience the remedy of her blindness, and the mother the solace of her daughter's repair, both together the solace of divine piety. For on a certain Saturday about the setting of the sun, while they apply themselves more attentively to prayer, the eyelids being suddenly unlocked, the barriers of the eyes are loosed, and, the veil being drawn back, the little torches of the pupils are recalled to their own use of seeing. Whence it came to pass that in the same hour both mourning was turned into joy and prayers into jubilation, and, the clamor testifying the gladness of their mind, through the mouths of the women the praises of most holy Victor were spread abroad. And so, not now the mother drawing the daughter, but on the contrary the daughter drawing the mother, taking the way with doubled light, they return to their own. But since we have judged it either laborious or tedious to comprehend in one book all the miracles of this Saint which we have either seen or heard, at the end of this miracle we have determined that this little book too should equally have its end, that to the miracles which remain to be described we may approach the fresher and the more devout.
NOTES.
CHAPTER IV.
The confirmation of the miracles of St. Victor by another miracle, and the wondrous preservation of a certain house in the common devastation.
A certain man, afflicted with a most grievous inconvenience, had failed by a certain kind of languor, and, the hinder part of his body being dead beforehand, After a certain sick man was healed, that plague had reached even to the inner parts of his belly. Who, supported by the reputation of the powers and the devotion of faith, carried by his friends, enters the church which contains the relics of the Saints, and there, persisting in prayer, awaits the remedies of divine piety and the suffrages of blessed Victor: who, on the first or second day profiting nothing, yet failing neither by distrust nor by labor, on the third day at last (and that day was Saturday) obtained the health which he asked, and, his body being revived and his strength resumed, appeared sound and whole in all his limbs, as if he had suffered nothing: and so it came to pass that he who had come carried by others' hands, being made possessed of his vow, returned to his own by his own steps.
[31] But this which is subjoined ought to be so much the more diligently both retreated and received, in that not only a miracle but also a certain proof of the miracles stands to be explained in it. some men doubting of the miracles of St. Victor, In the fortress which is commonly called Teminas a, certain friends of unbelief and men of hard neck, having heard the powers of so many signs, did not believe, but, derogating as much from the divine power as from the merits of the Saints, denied on oath that whatever fame had hitherto spread abroad concerning the working of signs was true, and, as it is written, To some the odor of life unto life, to others the odor of death unto death, to these the report of the miracles had been almost the occasion not of life, but of death. And while they persisted in an error of unbelief of this kind, and much conversed about these things, and inquired, at length the counsel of one is proposed in common: namely, that it must be tried, and learned by experiment, whether the things said of the Saint's powers were true or false. He said therefore that a certain old woman living in his estate had for a long time now lacked the benefit of seeing, so that of her blindness no one at all could doubt. That she ought to be led to the church early in the morning, and set down at the memory of blessed Victor for the putting away of her blindness. Furthermore, if it were the will of God that through the merits of his holy Martyr the woman should recover sight, it would also follow that they, laying aside their unbelief, should repent of their error, and at the same time should humbly implore his clemency, that concerning those things in which by lying they had offended against him, he might by his intercession make God placable to them.
[32] they bring a blind old woman to be enlightened for the exploring of the truth, The others acquiesce that this be done altogether as has been said: all promise, and affirm with hands as pledges that they will withdraw from unbelief, if the Saint should nevertheless bring it about that the blind woman recover the light she lost. In the morning therefore, the master commanding and the son providing guidance, the woman is brought, for her little eyes b, and, those who had made the pact coming together, all hasten together to the church; which then happened to be filled with so great a multitude of people that a place could scarcely have been found in it to receive the little woman; who nevertheless, not without great effort, is admitted behind the door and set down, and there the unbelieving crowd awaits the outcome of the matter: among whom he who had given the counsel, solicitous as much for his own as for another's blindness, thus began suppliantly: Great, O most blessed Victor, and in every way stupendous are the things which we have hitherto heard of your powers, to which nevertheless, our sins, as I think, requiring it, we have not yet been able to give faith; but now I beseech, since we have come together for this very thing, let it appear whether the things said are true, and let your power, so proclaimed, restore sight to this woman: for if it be done that, your merits aiding, the light be repaired to her outwardly, to us too without doubt the light to believe will be restored inwardly. For we, to confess the truth, are the more blinded, who have not the eyes of the heart for contemplating the truth of your signs. Let all therefore learn, who desire to know, and in one miracle let them undoubtingly acknowledge that all the other things too which we have hitherto heard, God has wrought through your holy merits, who alone does great marvels.
[33] after whose enlightenment they believe. After these things, about the space of one hour intervening, the son of the aforesaid woman, who there had either the guardianship or the care of his mother, directed his eyes toward the window which, set behind the altar, was opposite to him; and behold, reverend as much in countenance as in dress, through the same window (as it seemed to him) a youth was entering, whom a lamp, in the manner of a sphere, with an immense light of splendor, preceded above his shining cloak upon his mantle; which, resting upon the altar, that youth, as though seeking someone, seemed to go about the church, so that he was believed to doubt what to do, whither to turn himself. Presently, as though the cloud of doubt were removed, through the midst of the multitude of people he turned his step to the woman, and, approaching nearer, with his own fingers, as if for the sake of healing, opened to her both eyes. Who straightway, falling on her face, broke forth into a voice of praise; but the youth, with that same preceding light, went out through the same window by which he had entered, nor did he who deserved to see these things testify that he had seen him either before or afterward: and so, all unbelief or doubt being laid aside, those who had come together for this very thing believed, and at the same time all who were present glorified God, who is wonderful in his Saints. Whence it came to pass that, while through the merits of the most holy Martyr the eyes of one are repaired to see outwardly, the eyes of many were enlightened to believe inwardly.
[34] A certain husbandman, when after the manner of agriculture he was giving his labor, A deaf and dumb farmer, struck by a just indeed, but hidden, judgment of God, was made deaf and at the same time dumb: who, straightway falling to the ground, and understanding his labor turned into grief, his exercise into punishment, remained thus half-alive the whole day, nor could he at all move himself from that place in which he had fallen. The day being now inclined and the hour past at which he had been wont to return from the field, his wife, solicitous about the man's absence, anxiously inquired of friends and neighbors whether anywhere they had seen him: who reporting, when she had learned the miserable outcome of the matter, did not delay to go to the place pointed out to her, and, as it had been said, so she learned also by experience it had been done. Presently, raising from the ground him lying on his face, she began to question him, and admonished him to indicate to her the cause of his misfortune and its manner; but he, wholly dumb, stretched out suppliant hands toward the church in which he knew the memory of the Saint was kept, as though he wished to say or obtain this only, that his wife should lead him thither in the same hour, which also was done. In the very setting of the sun therefore they stood together at the sepulcher of the Martyr, and for the welfare of one both equally, he only with the heart, she with the heart and at once with the voice, most devoutly supplicated God and holy Victor: and behold suddenly a heavenly power appeared, which restored to that unhappy man two benefits at once, namely the efficacy of seeing and of hearing. But the unhappy man could not long be unhappy, whom the happy Soldier of Christ resolved to free from his unhappiness. In the morning therefore, in the very rising of the sun, the health begun is perfected, and, the prayers being changed to the praise of blessed Victor, the tongue before dumb is loosed.
[35] To a certain woman laboring with the long-continued trouble of blindness the Saint appeared in sleep, and a blind woman are healed. and admonished her that, going to the church of the ever-blessed Virgin, she should offer a light for the recovery of her sight. By which address the woman, troubled, straightway shook off all the drowsiness of sleep, and, the vision being set forth to her husband, sought that he would lend her aid to come thither; who, presently giving faith, spent himself both as guide of the way and as companion. And so, when after the labor of the journey she had sat down somewhere, she asks her husband to give thanks together with her to blessed Victor, by whose aiding merits she had already felt the darkness of her blindness in part to grow clear. Then, coming to the church, she gave the appointed price of her welfare, a light, and wholly recovered her sight.
[36] Certain malicious men of unbridled mind were running through a certain village, A certain house, in the common devastation, and were exercising in it an insatiable rapine or ruin with all frenzy of spirit: for from the very outset of their irruption they set fire to the roofs, strike men, distribute spoils, overturn all things. Which savagery of theirs the natives, not bearing, flee everywhere, and in whatever place each could, hide themselves from the disturbance of men and from the face of their fury: among whom one, stronger than the others not in body but in faith, lurking among the shrubs, and from his hiding-place beholding all things, thus began: O most blessed Victor, of whose powers I have heard so many and so great things, and doubt not that they are true, to you I commit my house and all that is in it to be preserved; you, I beseech, guard it, because I truly believe that you can do this; let those be confounded who persecute us, let those perish who hasten to destroy all. Amid these things the fire laid waste each and every thing, and, the house alone for which he prayed surviving, all had now been reduced to nothing.
[37] the incendiary being divinely punished, At length, of all that multitude, three, raging with greater savagery than the rest, approached that house with the swift courses of their horses; and two of them, as though by the command of one who seemed to excel either in atrocity or in authority, tried in turn to apply fire and set fire to the roof: but human presumption had no effect for overthrowing, where divine power prevailed for protecting: for those being worn out with vain labor, that house remained unharmed. Which sloth or slowness of theirs the third one reproving, flies swifter, and cries out that fire is to be applied with his own hands, and the house to be burned. And when, as he had said, he tried to apply the fire, forthwith that horse on which he sat fell headlong, and, his whole body being dashed on the ground, that boaster, struck by divine vengeance, perished. Which when the other two saw, made almost lifeless by excessive fear, they turned as quickly as possible to flight. Nor is it a wonder if against his adversaries the strong Athlete of Christ prevailed, if the triumpher over kings and princes prevailed over the ministers of iniquity
Victor conquered.
[38] and it is preserved unharmed from the fire. This the master of the house, beholding from the place in which he lay hidden, straightway rose, ran to his house with trembling and great joy, and found all his things untouched and whole: nor long after he came to the church, related the deed to all, and, giving thanks for his deliverance to his Defender, vowed from that day and thenceforth the tithe of his goods, by whose power, to be sure, he asserted it to have been done that neither had the fire harmed his house at all, nor had anything of his things perished even to the price of one coin, and who had also reduced his enemies—the others subdued by flight—to nothing; presently he offered that very tithe which he had brought with him, that is, of one calf, and nonetheless took care every year to fulfill his vow in paying the tithe.
NOTES.
CHAPTER V.
The enlightening of various blind persons, and the recall of a dead girl to life.
On the day of the Kalends of November, when the festivity of All Saints is commemorated under one celebration a, A blind woman, a certain woman is brought, for her little eyes b, and set down at the memory of the Martyr, according to her vow: for, as being set there she asserted, she had long and greatly desired that she ought to be presented at the sepulcher of the Man of God, hoping without doubt that by his aiding merits she would bring back the benefits of the desired welfare. When therefore from the inmost affection of her heart she poured out her prayer in the sight of God, and declared her tribulation, yet profiting nothing that day, she spent also the following night persisting in prayer, watchful. But morning being come, when by the hands of the priest the saving victim was handled on the altar, it came to pass that, the others being silent or praying, that woman from the place in which she lay was heard by all giving thanks for her welfare.
[40] On the same day nonetheless a certain boy, relying on no aid of his limbs, a crippled boy, was carried to the suffrages of the Martyr by the pious service of his father. For he appeared so contracted in his whole body from his mother's womb that you could recognize nothing in him which showed a man, unless you looked only at his face, or heard the voice of one speaking: these two, in that confusion of limbs, set forth something human. Him, as has been said, when his faithful and pious father was carrying to the place of the powers in hope of earning welfare, on the very journey, the name of the Martyr being invoked, the divine power was not lacking which restored that deformed heap of limbs to a fitting order and complete health. For, his limbs crackling, he is raised in his whole body, as though he had been stretched on the rack, and presently, loosed by his father, is set down on the ground with admiration, and, in a wonderful manner, he who had by no means known the gait of a man, without any support went before his father by leaping. The name of blessed Victor is extolled in common, and now not for the obtaining of health, but for the rendering of thanks, they hasten to the church. Which when they had entered, they themselves, seizing the ropes, rang the bells, and, beginning the songs of divine praise, invited others to sing.
[41] A certain malefactor, at length caught in his crime by those very ones whom he had harmed, his wife deprived of sight, was blinded, his eyes being torn out: who, when for a long time mourning and grieving he walked, himself poor, by the guidance of his poor little wife, to the accumulation of the common misery it came to pass that she too incurred the misfortune of blindness. What more? It was made plain to all that they labored with a grievous inconvenience. The blind man therefore, someone providing guidance, frequently came to the church, and, standing before the altar, said as though complaining: O holy Victor, who are proclaimed by all of such great merit, who bestow so many benefits on the necessities of others, why do you do a wrong to me, a wretched and unhappy man? You knew that I was deprived of the light of my eyes, and could not walk unless my wife provided guidance. Why then did you permit it to be done that she too should lose the light common to both, so that she should thereafter be useful neither to me nor to herself? I pray therefore, and by the Lord Jesus beseech, that you lend some solace to our necessity, and either restore to me the eyes violently taken away, or to her the eyes consumed by the wasting of the pestilence. On a certain Saturday therefore, when they stood together before the altar, and uttered these and things like these, either by chiding or by beseeching, the woman felt about her head as though a whisper of a gentle breeze, suddenly refreshing her whole body, as she herself said, with a coolness, and so, the light gradually returning, she recovered her sight, until, in the hearing of all who were present, she asserted that she saw all things clearly. Presently she brought the benefit conferred on her into common, and the office of guidance, which through the intervening blindness she had omitted, the blindness being laid aside, she did not delay to renew.
[42] a servant possessed by a demon, A certain Peter had so loved his master while living that in his death he exceeded the measure of grief, and, because through the government of discretion he disdained to be his own, through the intemperance of grief he delivered himself to the dominion of the malign spirit. Straightway he was seized by a demon, and in a short time his affliction was made plain to all. His friends therefore, roused by the reputation of the powers, set up a journey to visit the suffrages of blessed Victor, and set down that vehicle of the malign spirit, placed on a vehicle, before the most sacred bones of the Martyr. And when the demon had perceived himself constrained by the divine power to go out from the beset body, whence before he had made a calumny against the blessed Man about his ejection, thence, to be sure, because he was going out unwilling, he showed it: I perceive, he says, Victor, that there is no refuge for me in your sight, I find no place at all safe for me to hide from your face: for those whom I acquire for myself by my usual arts and no little labor, alienated by your violence I lose. And what shall I do? At least, I beseech, cast me not out hence, permit this man, whom I justly possess, to be of my right. And when in this manner the unclean spirit horribly clamored, with great wailing and his own stench he went out. But he who had been afflicted, his strength being gradually repaired, grew more and more strong, and, all health being in a short time recovered, from the day of his deliverance and thenceforth showed himself the more devout to God and blessed Victor.
[43] [and a certain poor man struck with blindness are restored to their former health.] Someone abounding in goods and in morals furnished in his house temporal food, in hope of eternal reward, to a certain poor man Avitus, and, that he might in the future be a partaker of his abundance, sustained his want from his riches. He, namely Avitus, besides the want of goods, incurred also a penury of sight, and with his sight itself had lost all hope of recovering welfare: to whom, besides the necessary food of the body, that his procurator lent also the affection of compassion: for he had gone about very many places of the Saints in the same city, had spent prayers, had afflicted his body by walking, his spirit by praying; and grieved that he had obtained no remedy at all by so great labor. At length, the powers of holy Victor being learned, that pious head of the family admonished his blind man to go to his martyrdom too and ask his suffrages; he promised also to lend aid to his journey and prayers. And when he knew that he had sweated in a work of this kind almost to despair, that he might excite his faith and devotion, he extolled the merits of blessed Victor, set forth many examples of his miracles, and asserted finally that from him, if the reward of faith were not lacking, he would bring back the desired joys of welfare: and so, the master persuading and providing guidance, at length the blind man undertook the journey, and at some time came to the place in which prayer ought to be made, and there, persisting in prayer before the relics of the Saint, did not depart before he obtained the welfare which he asked.
[44] A certain woman, destitute of the solace of her now-deceased husband, An only daughter was sustained by the service of the only daughter she had; who, herself also falling to her bed, experienced the necessity of death. The grief of the mother knows no measure, spurns consolation, admits no counsel, forgetful of her age or sex, as though made mad, she runs about, and, almost not containing herself for grief, after long-drawn sighs at last found, with a cry strains her voice; frequently invokes God, frequently calls her daughter by name, often turns to some one of the Saints, and amid these things there is a frequent running back to the corpse. At length among other names the name of blessed Victor occurs to her, and how great marvels the Lord has done through him, necessity itself brings back to memory. Presently she turns herself with all intention of heart to ask his suffrages, and, referring to him all that vehemence of her prayers, began to importune him with these words: I too know, most happy Victor, I too, a most unhappy woman, know how great is your power with the Most High; I know, I say, I too, how great benefits you confer on the wretched, how benevolent you show yourself to the vows of all. Nor is it hidden from me, that so great miracle, and in our own times almost unheard-of, how a few days ago you restored to a bereaved father his only son.
[45] The neighbors therefore, and those who had come together, keeping the custom of vigils or of the funeral obsequies, of a certain woman the miserable mother persisted in weeping, and importuned the holy Martyr of God with assiduous complaints, saying: Let my unhappy soul, I beseech, most blessed Martyr, experience your most holy merits with God: incline your ear and hear me, for I am needy and poor, for that only solace which I had of my daughter, you see me to have lost. For I know, O Lord, and hold with undoubted faith, that if only the will be present, your prayer will easily obtain this singular gift from the merciful God. The nocturnal vigils being therefore performed after custom, about the following of the funeral and the office of burying, the friends busy themselves, and to the place of burial, the mother following with that wailing of hers, and alone sufficing for the lament of the obsequies, the little body is carried. But at length, all things being consummated, when it had come to this, that it ought to be laid down in the dug-out earth by natural reciprocation, over the funeral limbs the mourning mother, herself also almost lifeless from excessive grief, prostrates herself, and, a sob frequently interrupting her voice, her daughter, called by name, as though now no longer to be seen, she addresses in this manner: Alas for me, my dearest daughter! Why so quickly do you withdraw yourself from my embraces? Why do you destitute my old age of your sweetest solace? Why, I say, do you desert me surviving? In your death I have now lost all things. I have lost the staff of my old age, the light of my eyes. To what purpose for me to live longer, to what purpose for me without you to behold this hateful light? Let it therefore suffice to have lived hitherto, nay, you being taken away, let it grieve me now to be surviving, and if I could not by dying
precede, at least, that I may follow, let it now be permitted to pay the dues of death.
[46] she is raised from death. While the mother pursued these and like things, behold, in a wonderful manner, that whole little body suddenly trembled, and, as though, the coffin being touched, she heard from the Lord, I say to you, arise, so, in the sight of all, she who had been dead, the girl, sat up, and, not ignorant of the cause of the mourning, calls her mother, exhorts her to rejoice, and to know that she has revived for this, that by her life she may destroy her grief. For she says that blessed Victor, moved by the mother's prayers, when she was being dragged to punishment, was present to her, and, the minister of death being vanquished, that she had been restored by that same glorious Man to her mother. Whom did the novelty of so great a thing not straightway turn into amazement? Who, beholding the greatness of so great a miracle, departed ungrateful to God and holy Victor? But the mother, wonderfully gladdened, together with the man who had received the same girl from the sacred font, came to the church, and, relating the deed to all, of the wrought miracle made a miracle to many: perfecting also the credit of her words by the demonstration or attestation of her daughter herself, whom she had received alive, she turned all who could hear together with herself to praise and giving of thanks.
NOTES.
CHAPTER VI.
The cure of divers infirmities, and the raising of a ten-year-old boy from death.
A certain man afflicted with a spirit of blasphemy, A certain courtier, who held the office of the vicarial power, delivered to his lord, a spirit of blasphemy drove with an altogether horrible affliction, so that he not only disdained to confess or adore his Creator, but also provoked with contumelies and injuries all who confessed or adored. Very grievous was it to him, whatever he happened to hear of God, whatever he found to be devoutly done by the faithful for his worship; the solemnities of the Masses, as well as the other sacraments of the Christian religion, he detested with all the madness of his soul. The sound of bells, if ever it came to his ears, his head being cast down, that he might not hear them, he sought a separation. And when the wasting of malice, which had infected his mind, had now consumed his very body, and had eaten his impious limbs even to extreme leanness or weakness, at length he sees in sleep the holy Martyr of God as though making a passage before his little bed, and, modestly struck with the rod which he bore in his hand, receiving from him saving commands: for he heard that, a vehicle being sought, he should without delay go to the basilica of the most blessed Mother of God, meet the monk guardian of his body, and ask that some particle of the bread of the Brothers be given him: Which, he says, being received, if you have not wavered in faith, you will wholly recover the health both of mind and of body. By which admonitions, come to himself, at early morning he mounted a vehicle, came to the church, set forth the vision, asked bread, and received it, and, made master of himself, within a few days obtained also the most entire health of his limbs.
[48] In the fortress of Burgone, the Saint appeared in sleep to a certain leper, a man, and admonished him that, for the recovery of health, he should go to his martyrdom. Morning being come, the sick man set up his journey, came with labor to the memory of the Martyr, where, devoting himself to daily supplications, he gradually grew well, and within the space of one year appeared perfectly cleansed.
A certain woman, while she is struck with the plague of leprosy, to the accumulation of her punishment is sequestered from the lawful bed: and a leprous woman are healed. who, having heard of the Saint's powers, obtained from her husband to be led to his martyrdom. Where, the graver the necessity, the more attentive was the prayer poured out by both; but praying long and much, they obtain nevertheless no effect of their desire: for the time of the cure had not yet come. They depart, each sadder than she had come, because despair heaped up the grief of the disease. Then she, turning her words to her grief, said that she was unhappy and wretched, who could neither live among men, nor by dying desert men. She complains that she is a reproach to her neighbors, and a shaking of the head among the peoples. She prays her husband that not even he should despise her sick, whom, when whole, she remembered never to have harmed in anything. Whose complaint he, being of a pious mind, strove to check with a bland reply, and to promise that he would above all condescend to her calamity. Moreover he asserted that he would make her a little dwelling near his house, and provide the necessaries from the labor of his hands. The circle of a year therefore being revolved, it again came into the mind of the aforesaid woman to visit the sepulcher of the Martyr beloved of God, and more attentively to entreat his suffrages: whither when she had come, and had offered a contrite and humbled heart together with her prayers, Either, she says, the remedy of health, or the solace of death, I will await here. And while she persevered there in prayers, on a certain night someone seemed to stand by her sleeping, and with great effort to tear off the garment with which she was clad: Allow yourself, he says, to be stripped of the old and squalid rags, and your body to be covered with much better garments. But she, while she fears to be stripped, waking rises, and, the garment of leprosy being laid aside, finds herself shining with new skin, and cleansed in her whole body; and presently, coming to her own house with rejoicing, was received into the common use of living.
[49] A ten-year-old boy, now to be buried, A certain boy of about ten years, prevented by an untimely death, was taken from the midst: whose little body from the first hour of the night to the sixth hour of the day is attended by the watchful guard of his parents and kinsmen: and so to the place of the sepulcher by his friends and by the presbyter, who had come for this very thing, it is carried: the parents mourn that in the boy they have lost the solace of their old age, and complain of the too harsh dominion of untimely death against them. Nor ignorant of the powers which the Lord deigned to work through his Martyr, with all effort of heart they turn themselves to ask his suffrages. For they had also from his infancy devoted the boy himself to God and blessed Victor, and had delivered him to his dominion or patronage. At length, between the hands of those carrying him, the little body is suddenly shaken by trembling; and, the spirit being recovered, as though from the weariness of lying, the boy turns on his side. And without delay, in the hearing of all, he calls, after the accustomed manner, his mother, and, as though wearied from a long journey, demands to be fed. Who presently, with the great admiration of all, being loosed, is refreshed with food and drink, and, his strength being recovered, is presented at the sepulcher of the Martyr by his parents, the presbyter being a witness of this thing, where, the giving of thanks being completed, the boy is handed over to the Brothers of the same church, to be instructed in sacred letters. But the parents return to their own with joy.
[50] is restored to life, But perhaps, because it is unusual, therefore it may seem to someone also frivolous, what we have said; but if he give not credit to me, at least let him give it to the parents. Finally let him question the boy himself, he is now of age, let him speak of himself: for he is wont [*] to relate simply to those who ask, that a man of great authority and reverence was present to him, when he was being dragged by the ministers of impiety b, and rebuked their audacity with an innocent severity, namely why they had presumed to deliver to their own right, without judgment, him who had been from infancy delivered and committed to him. But that they, at this voice, altogether confounded and weak, departed without any reply, and that he was by that same venerable Man, with a great light, led back to the living, and restored to his parents.
[51] and various diseases Not far from the monastery, in the fortress which is called Cardiliacus c, a certain woman is deprived of the office of walking and of touching. Who, destitute both of goods and of strength, is worn by a double affliction, is pressed on every side by the straits of her calamity, and can neither by walking on her feet demand food through the houses, nor by laboring with her hands acquire the necessaries. At length, from faithful neighbors, having received alms, she followed the odor of the powers which she heard were being wrought through the holy Man. Stronger therefore in faith than in body, she undertook the labor of the way, and, by a certain new kind of walking, dragging her rolling limbs along the ground, came to the church. Which having entered on the third feria of the Paschal solemnity, she thus remained the whole of that day and night devoting herself to supplications. But on the fourth feria, while in the same church about the first hour of the day the solemnities of the Masses are commemorated, both the woman's limbs burst forth into their former vigor, and she into new praise. The whole church is confounded with clamor; but presently, what had been done being known, together with the woman it is turned to praise.
[52] A certain rich man's servant is worn by a long-continued and very grievous infirmity: from bodies the disease being gathered to his ears, at the last he is made deaf, whom, after four years passed in the same infirmity, his master admonished to flee to the memory of the Martyr for the recovery of health, especially since either there or nowhere he was to obtain a benefit of this kind. Who, content with only one companion, while they made the journey together, began to prick up his ears at his voice, and, with thin hearing though it were, to admit the sense of his words. But in the very entrance of the church, his ears being fully unlocked, the restoration of his health is turned into matter of praise.
[53] A certain man, roused from afar by the fame of the powers, came, are driven away and set down at the place of the sepulcher his seven-year-old son, dumb from his mother's womb. He therefore, second to none of the aforesaid in faith, when the others departed, did not depart; but, as though not doubting of the benefit to be received, that whole week persisted there in prayers. Attend, he says, O most holy Victor, that by too great confidence in you I have become foolish, while in such a business I await your aid. For all with one voice try to persuade me that you never wrought such a power, nor ever restored to health one condemned from his mother's womb in any part of his body; yet I, the last of all as much in faith as in sense; I, I say, cannot doubt that he who can do all things can also work this through your most holy merits. Come therefore, O most noble Martyr of Christ, that what men believe to be either impossible or difficult for you, you may show them to be possible and easy. While he thus daily harangued these and like things, his cause was deferred to the next Lord's Day. For on this day, about the first hour, the faith present is declared in the son; and what nature had denied, prayer reforms, the office of speaking. The son therefore renders to his father the first-fruits of his words, and asks him to bring him a little water to cool his tongue,
he prayed. Which being presently received, he so purely formed his words as though hitherto he had exercised his office. With how great joy the father then exulted (though both be difficult) I judge can nevertheless more easily be esteemed than explained in words.
[54] Some therefore admiring, but others doubting, the father returns to his own with an easier step than he had come, by the intercession of St. Victor. because he now rejoices to have his son a companion not only of the journey but also of speech. Nor long after, together with the same boy and the presbyter and no small multitude of the neighbors, he returned to the church for the sake of prayer, and, that it might be established as true that his son had there begun the office of speaking, he proved by the testimony of many that from his mother's womb even to that time he had been dumb. From one miracle therefore we conjecture the other also, and consider that he received with speech the efficacy of hearing also. For almost all whom we have seen dumb, we have found deaf too. But now it seems opportune and fitting that, for the repairing of our strength and the refreshing of our spirit a little, we close this second book of the miracles, and, prayer being interposed, entreat God the author of these things, and his glorious Martyr, that of the things which follow, as we undoubtingly embrace their truth, so we may also be found worthy of the narration.
NOTES.
CHAPTER VII.
Certain prodigious healings, which the writer of the miracles saw done by the intercession of St. Victor.
The author proves the truth of his narration, Hitherto therefore, in forty-two little chapters, we have compendiously collected as many miracles which the Lord deigned to work through blessed Victor his martyr, and have left them to posterity for the profit of souls, in memory, both to be believed and to be read: for these, consummated before our coming into this country, although we by no means deserved to see them, yet from those things which we have seen with our own eyes, and subsequently subjoin, we have learned that those things too which have been mentioned above are to be faithfully embraced: for I invoke God as witness and author of these things, that of the things which follow, some, as I saw with my eyes and handled with my hands; but others, as by the most sure relation of those very ones who were cured after my coming, and by the testimony of many, I learned, so I took care to arrange by dictating, and to bind with the pen, although also of the things said above, some I deserved to hear and know from those very ones who were cured, and almost all from those who saw or handled with their hands.
[56] and narrates as an eyewitness, Whence also I much reprehend myself, that I did not straightway give credit to those relating them; but God is my witness, and my conscience, that, having heard the Saint's powers, I therefore sometimes feigned to doubt, that I might know the things which were said, the more expressly the more truly, by the more frequent the more certain relation. For since, according to the sentence of truth, of every idle word which we shall have spoken we are to render account in the day of judgment; I feared indeed lest I should be required to render account before God not only of an idle word, but even of a lie, if I had presumed to write, or persuade men, those things which I had not first found to be true by sure testimonies or probable indications. For some, while they desire to catch a favorable breeze either by speaking or by writing, impudently lying about things which can neither probably be said nor truly be believed, no little diminish the credibility of those things which are truly said. Now therefore let us recur to describing those things which, after we came hither, were done in our presence and sight a.
[57] A certain woman, when for the restoration of her eyes, with which she had already been blinded for four years, how a blind woman received the use of her eyes, had come to the sepulcher of the Martyr, and had, on the very day of her coming with the following night, watchful, endured in prayer, at early morning of the following day obtained the benefit which she asked. Whom, when I had heard exclaiming and giving thanks for the gift received, I straightway ran up, applied my hand, and began to inquire about her welfare; I found seeing her whom, by the testimony of many, I had learned to have come blind. Forthwith I broke forth into praise, and with great effort of voice and compunction of heart began the Te Deum laudamus. The praises being performed, and the giving of thanks completed, the woman returns glad; and behold, on the very journey, struck on the head by an unexpected blow, she is prostrated; who, almost lifeless with grief and fear, yet imputes this to her own sins, accuses herself of being in something guilty, though ignorant, against blessed Victor; presently, lifted by the hands of passers-by, she is carried back to the tomb, and, asking pardon for her offenses, obtained a second benefit, and so departing returned to her own, and even until now, unharmed, gives thanks to God and holy Victor.
[58] A certain head of a family and his most faithful wife, hearing so great powers to be wrought through blessed Victor, a dead infant took their son from the cradle and came to his martyrdom: to whom, making an offering of themselves also, they committed themselves to his guard and protection for the rest. Presently, made more cheerful, they return to their own, and after these things in a short time all prosperous things follow. But because it sometimes is wont to happen that adversity succeeds prosperity, not long after that little boy, whom they had as their only son, weighed down by adverse health, on the thirteenth day of his infirmity died. Therefore, after the lament and tears which are wont to be shed more abundantly either for such an age or for an only offspring, the mother, stronger in faith, addresses her husband, and exhorts him to be mindful of the powers which she knew had been wrought through blessed Victor. She said therefore that with all effort of heart his suffrages ought to be entreated, that he who received strangers and those not pertaining to him would without doubt be present to them, who had delivered themselves to his dominion or patronage. She brought forward also that, all ambiguity being removed, it ought to be believed that he who had been in a short time the magnificent raiser of three dead persons, could also restore to them their dead. The counsel of maternal piety is received by the father, and from the hour of his departure, that is, from the ninth hour of the day even to the setting of the sun, there is persistence in prayer.
[59] But amid these things, where the grief, there the eye: for while through prayer life is hoped, the corpse of the dead is frequently inspected. life, But then the father, when he felt no effect of the prayer, broken by despair and tedium, girds himself to the ministry of burial, and contrives a wooden box in which the little body ought to be laid. But the mother persisting in prayers with fuller faith and piety, behold the little boy strove to cast off the linen with which he was covered, and, as though waking from sleep, began thus to utter certain complaints of that age, and the windings of an imperfect voice: for he had not yet reached that age at which he could fully form words: straightway with admiration and joy the parents run up, find him alive, attribute the power of so great a miracle to God and holy Victor, and, the boy being taken up, come with haste to the sepulcher of the Martyr, where, most devoutly enduring for six continuous days in prayer and giving of thanks, on the seventh day at last they returned to their own. I myself saw the parents and the boy, whom I both frequently addressed, and questioned much about a deed of this kind. Finally, both from their words, and from their faith and devotion, I learned that the things which were said were true; so that I judged it would be impious if I did not give credit to their simplicity and faithful narration.
[60] and a smith A certain smith, while with only one eye he provided the necessaries for himself and his own by his accustomed labor, by a miserable chance it happened that he lost that too. For on a certain day, while over his anvil he was fitting a handle [*] by cutting, some little particle of the horn itself, by an unexpected blow, leaped into his eye, and extinguished that single light which he was spending on his work. The wretch bewails the end put to his labor, grieves that he has found a hateful solace of rest: for the leisure of his cessation he suspects to be the destruction of his destitute family; and since both be difficult, his own unhappiness afflicts him not so much as domestic necessity. And when he added grief to grief, and afflicted himself by mourning from day to day, one counsel after all remained, to implore the aid of blessed Victor. On a certain night therefore the Martyr appeared to him resting on his bed, and admonished him that he should rise at early morning, and make himself a candlestick; and added that from the very outset of his work he would gradually recover the light he had lost. He rises more swiftly, and, suspended between hope and fear, disposes to explore the truth of the matter. Presently he girds himself to the commanded work, and, to him beginning in the darkness, the light of one eye is kindled.
[61] recovered his sight. The neighbors therefore, roused by the unexpected blows of the hammers, run together with admiration, and find him, whom yesterday or the day before they had seen blind, sweating at his accustomed work. What more? The work which he had begun by touching, he consummates by seeing. Nor long after, taking up the candlestick, he came to the church, and paid the price of his recovered sight with giving of thanks. He himself therefore explained to us such a history of his event. But if to anyone these my words make no faith, let him inspect that very candlestick, in its lower part indeed rough, and distorted with a certain deformity; but in its upper part round and straight, and extended with a fitting quality. For we heard him affirming that at its beginning very little light was present to him, but, his sight gradually growing with the very work, the candlestick being finished, his light too was wholly repaired b.
NOTES.
CHAPTER VIII.
Other miracles, wrought by the aid of St. Victor, and seen by the author.
A certain woman, abounding in goods and in spirit, leading a whole and happy life with her husband, A blind woman was made sick and blinded: to whom this too was added to the accumulation of her grief, that when she labored a long while with the same blindness, to her husband a burden and a contempt
she began to be. Whence it came to pass that he afflicted her with many contumelies, provoked her with injuries, at last defrauded her of his embraces, and, what is graver than all these, frequently threatened separation. But she, using indeed a prudent counsel, opposed to injuries and reproaches the patience which she had learned in the scourge, more solicitous about the welfare of her husband than about her own, set forth many things now bland now harsh for his correction, that, rendering good for evil, she might heap coals of charity upon the head of his heart, and lest she should be the cause of his perdition, might either by coaxing mitigate or by rebuking repress his so great obstinacy. For she said it was impious to despise those scourged by God, and to cast off as mortals those whom he himself receives, to wish to aggravate his hand in the scourges, to reprove with reproaches those whom he himself wears with strokes, to provoke with injuries, and that in all these things a grievous judgment altogether threatens those who are of this kind.
[63] Amid these things she was not idle from divine colloquies and prayers: she recovers her sight, for her very abjection had rendered her nearer to God. And when her eye dripped to God, this only she demanded of God with assiduous prayers, that he would either mitigate her husband's mind, or recall to its former use her blindness, which had been the cause of his obstinacy. What more? In the eighth year at last of her blindness she is brought by others' hands to the sepulcher of the Martyr, and set down. Persisting in prayer three days and as many nights under our eyes, on the fourth day at last she is made possessed of her vow: for about the completion of the Mass, which is wont to be celebrated before the sepulcher of the Martyr, while she more attentively applied herself to prayer, she deserved to be heard, and presently, feeling the benefit conferred on her, she turned the constancy of her prayer into praise and giving of thanks. Which seeing and hearing we rejoiced, and turned into matter of praise what had been laudably done.
[64] A certain hireling, when he was giving his labor to feeding the flocks, a servant twice fallen into madness struck by a sudden infirmity, was also prostrated to the ground: who, scarcely late returning home, showed by the strange words which he uttered that he was not his own. Who, the fury increasing, was chained, and led to the place of the powers. You might see the wretch gnashing with his teeth, flashing with his eyes, terrifying with his feet, threatening death to all, and testifying the savagery of his fury both by the redness of his cheeks and by the novelty of his words. But the name of God, or whatever of God Christian devotion wished to persuade him, he detested with every kind of madness. But while he was there held bound, we compassionating and praying for him, he gradually returns to himself, nor long after, his master reproving [*] him and returning to his own, he himself remained unharmed. Who, submitting himself to another's dominion, since he was in all things acceptable to him, again incurred his madness. Which vexation of his that master of his bore ill enough, because he held the fidelity which he had experienced in him the dearer the rarer it was.
[65] returns to his mind, It happened therefore, God disposing, that on a certain day he met a certain monk with that madman of his, and, counsel being sought, received this answer from him. We know, he says, that this man, lately cured by most blessed Victor, our patron, unjustly withdrew himself from his service, and therefore, as you see, incurred his former madness: whence it is to be believed that he can never be restored to entire health, unless he wholly delivers himself to his service. Which condition he altogether refused, because unwilling he was dismissing a fit and useful minister for himself. But he, understanding that his own welfare was in question, thrusts himself into the midst, and, as though for this very thing the vexation ceasing a little, sets forth what ought to be done about him, as it had been revealed to him. For he says that a great one, standing by him in sleep, rebuked his folly with great austerity of countenance and words: namely for that, withdrawn from his dominion, he had submitted himself to another's service: nor could he otherwise be healed of his infirmity, unless he first restored himself to his service. Which it behooved to be believed of blessed Victor, because toward his service he had lately obligated himself by vow. Dismissed therefore by his master, the monk led him to the monastery, and, within a few days made whole, appointed him guardian of the church: who even until now, unharmed, gives assiduous thanks to God and blessed Victor for the benefit received, and faithfully bears the committed care of the church.
[66] and captives It happened among other things that two great men, according to the pomp of the world, and elated by their power, came to such enmities that they sought each other's lives, and acquiesced rather to die than to yield to peace with one another. Whence it came to pass that on a certain day, prepared for battle, they ran together from opposite sides, and, forces being joined, waged a great war. Many falling on both sides, at length the soldiers of one, their strength broken, turned themselves to flight. Whom those who had been victors, pressing, some they killed, others, taken alive, they delivered to the custody of the prison. There is an unequal departure, while one returns glad, the other sad, and whence one, victor, is raised, thence the other, conquered, is confounded. Who, presuming nothing further of his own strength (as one who had cast some of his own into death, others into captivity), demands strength of the Athlete of Christ, and, coming to his sepulcher, obligates himself to him by vow, that at least those of his own who survived he might, by his patronage, receive alive from the prison, lest the enemy party should be proud of his utter confusion.
[67] Presently, confidence being taken up, he returns to his own, and, a few in number being blandly addressed, are wonderfully freed, exhorts them to avenge their wrongs; to whom he most constantly promises also the suffrages of blessed Victor: but on the third day, understanding himself to be drawn by a certain hidden instinct, he goes out with them, and, running about, inquires whether he may find the enemy anywhere through the places by which they had been wont to come: and so proceeding even to the fortress in which his captives were held, he approached, and, finding the gates unexpectedly open and without a guard, hastily bursts in: nor content thus, he enters armed also the enclosures of the enemy house; he beholds his enemies, oppressed by a heavy sleep, everywhere strewn over the ground: for, elated by their victory, they had sat down to eat and drink, and, suspecting nothing less than the coming of enemies (whom, a few survivors, they had a little before repulsed), they lay buried by a certain unusual power of sleep. Presently he, his own being led out from custody, put upon the enemies, the turn being reversed, the fetters taken from them; and so departing he placed there a few of his own, who should guard both the house and the bound: but those whom he had received from captivity he commanded to go to the sepulcher of the Martyr, as freed through him: who, coming, rendered thanks to God and holy Victor for their deliverance, and some of them left their fetters there in testimony.
[68] On a certain vigil of the passion of the martyr beloved of God and our most glorious patron, [and many other benefits are conferred on those who flee to the patronage of St. Victor.] namely blessed Victor, which is commemorated on the 11th day before the Kalends of August, innumerable men and women of divers age and condition came together everywhere to ask his suffrages: among whom also no small multitude of the sick or weak were present, for the sake of recovering health; for some, brought by the hands of their own; others, carried on pallets; some, supported by a staff sustaining their weak limbs, everywhere filled the church. Some therefore of them on that same day before the setting of the sun; but many in the following night; and some also in the very solemnity of the day obtained the benefit of health: for so the divine power flashed forth upon those who were sick, that of that so great multitude of the ailing almost none was present who, if he had asked from the heart, departed void of the desired welfare. You might see men blind from their mother's womb beholding one another with mutual light, the deaf hearing the new words of the dumb, both admiring, the lame leaping like harts (as it is read), the lepers shining with fresh skin, the possessed rejoicing at the expulsion of the unclean spirits, and in all these things praises and givings of thanks resounding with the great exultation of all: of which powers, to be sure, the number his knowledge alone embraces, by whom and through whom these things are believed to have been done. But some witnesses, both monks or clerics, and faithful and laity, survive even until now, who these things together with me either saw with their eyes or handled with their hands, among whom also the venerable bishop of Cahors b, who himself too deserved to see these things, and even until now remains a faithful witness of such great powers.
NOTES.
ON THE THREE ANONYMOUS MARTYRS OF MELITENE.
Cult among the Greeks.
Perhaps under Diocletian.
CommentaryThe Three anonymous Martyrs of Melitene, among the Greeks (SS.)
J. P.
These three Wrestlers of Christ are attributed to the Mazarine Synaxarium: to whom, in the Chiffletian, after their announcement, is appended this distich:
Οἱ ἅγιοι τρεῖς Μάρτυρες, οἱ ἐν Μελιτίνῃ ὑπὸ δημίων κατὰ πετρῶν σύρομηνοι τελ.
That is: The holy three Martyrs, Those martyrs who at Melitene, dragged over the rocks by the executioners, consummated their martyrdom:
Δώσουσι φωνὴν ἐκ μέσου πετρῶν ἅμα, Τὸ τῆς Γραφῆς, τρεῖς θνήσκομην σεσυρομήνοι.
That is: They will give a voice from the midst of the rocks together, as the Scripture says: We three die, dragged along. The poet alludes to that of Psalm 103, verse 12: From the midst of the rocks they shall give voices.
[2] To whom, of the various Martyrs of Melitene, they seem chiefly to be referred. Of the most numerous band of Martyrs of Melitene in Armenia under Diocletian the Roman Martyrology treats at September 5; of whom three are mentioned by name, Eudoxius, Zeno, Macarius; but of four sacred bodies carried to Constantinople and found in the times of the emperor Justinian, who was cured by their benefit of a deadly disease, Baronius treats in his notes. Of the Armenian Martyrs who suffered under the same persecution, the praised author, treating at the year 311, recounts various ones crowned with martyrdom at Melitene, among whom are named Hiero, Nicander, Hesychius, and thirty others under Lysias the governor. Whether our three unnamed ones are extracted hither from these or the aforesaid, is not established. But no one, as I think, will gainsay, if by our three anonymous ones are rather understood three others, who are there named, who suffered under the same persecution, the kind of death not being expressed,
Polyeuctus, Victor, and Donatus … noble soldiers; although others report that their contest happened at Caesarea, as Baronius there adds.
ON THE AFRICAN MARTYRS
VICTOR, STERCORIUS, EMILIANUS, HUGAL, SAPHUS, AND MONTANUS.
From the Hieronymian Martyrologies.
CommentaryVictor, Martyr in Africa (S.) Stercorius, Martyr in Africa (S.) Emilianus, Martyr in Africa (S.) Hugal, Martyr in Africa (S.) Saphus, Martyr in Africa (S.) Montanus, Martyr in Africa (S.)
J. B. S.
On this day, if ever, there manifestly appears the supine ignorance of some unskilled copyist in disfiguring the little register of the Epternach codex, turning almost everything upside down. Thus it begins: In Africa, the birthday of Bolia, of Stercorius: At Marseilles, of Victor, of Corona. And at Rome, of Praxedes, of Emilianus, of Hugal, of Saphus, etc.; all of which are most confused. More rightly other codices vindicate six wrestlers to Africa, and refer Victor of Marseilles to the last place, not with Corona, who is more probably applied to the companions, namely Alexander, Felicianus, Longinus, and Deuterius: so that Victor and Corona are here wrongly intruded, of whom it was treated on May 14: but Praxedes is plainly accessory, as one to whom a place among the Martyrs does not belong, and so ought to be called an addition, as in the Corbie codex: And the birthday of St. Praxedes the virgin. The uniformity therefore of the Lucca, Corbie, and Blume codices sufficiently proves that the African class is here rightly distinguished from the rest of the text, provided the names aptly agree; so that we should read not "of Sophia" of Lucca, but "of Saphus"; likewise "of Stercorius" and "of Hugal" for "of Stercoris" and "Hugal." How little aid could be fetched from the smaller codices, we have said above in the Praetermissi.
ON THE MARTYRS OF CESENA
ADRIANUS, HELIUS, VICTOR, PATROCLUS, CAESARIANA, ADRIANITIS, DIMESUS, FELIX, AURELIUS, THYMOGRATES, AND PERHAPS THEODOTUS AND JULIANUS.
From the Hieronymian Martyrologies.
CommentaryAdrianus, Martyr at Cesena in Italy (S.) Helius, Martyr at Cesena in Italy (S.) Patrochus, Martyr at Cesena in Italy (S.) Cæsariana, Martyr at Cesena in Italy (S.) Adrianitis, Martyr at Cesena in Italy (S.) Dimesus, Martyr at Cesena in Italy (S.) Felix, Martyr at Cesena in Italy (S.) Aurelius, Martyr at Cesena in Italy (S.) Thymogrates, Martyr at Cesena in Italy (S.) Theodotus, Martyr at Cesena in Italy (S.) Julianus, Martyr at Cesena in Italy (S.)
J. B. S.
Among the annunciations of the Epternach codex, however confused, occur eleven martyrs ascribed to Cesena in Italy, not to Cesana in India or Arabia, as Florentinius too scrupulously doubts. The same is the number in the Lucca codices, however the names of some be dislocated. After two rowers the Corbie copy adds, to which in this part I judge that faith can be given, which nevertheless I have not presumed to assert with certainty. In forming the names the usual difference occurs. For Cæsariana there is in the Lucca codex Cæsariane, more shamefully in the Epternach Tæsianæ; just as for Dimesus or Dimelus it writes Diomedes, and Timoratis for Thymogratis, in the Corbie Typogratis: another perhaps would have it Timocratis. But in these minutiae I do not see that so much labor is to be spent. Of Victor of Marseilles and his companions it is treated in its place, as also of Praxedes, whom we have already said does not seem to be reckoned among the Hieronymian ones.