ON ST. SAMSON, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR,
AT DOL IN ARMORICAN BRITAIN,
ABOUT THE YEAR 565.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Samson, bishop and confessor, at Dol in Armorican Britain (St.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
§ I. The fatherland, family, age, and profession of St. Samson.
There is not one, if we believe the British writers, St. Samson, (for thus it is everywhere written), not one bishop of that name in Greater Britain, at least if the archbishop of York is admitted, then a bishop of Menevia, finally in Armorica two prelates of Dol, As many things concerning the British Saints are obscure, and these all indeed celebrated in histories, of which how great the credit in these matters is, was long ago not obscurely declared by Bolland and Henschen in this work, and repeated by others more than once, so that it is somewhat to recook cabbage, to complain or dispute further at length concerning these. In few but true words said Bolland, treating of St. Gildas at the 29th of January, page 959, that there are many things in the deeds of the British Saints obscure, and not connected by suitable chronology, and beyond belief. In the Commentary on St. Paul of Léon at the 12th of March Henschen adduced no fewer, from which we are already well taught to select only those monuments which, if they do not remove all fog, at least can in some way be exacted to the received histories and the right chronological order.
[2] Concerning that St. Samson here is our discourse, whose origin that we may in few words preface, we describe it from Pits: thus concerning the origin of St. Samson it is disputed, "Samson, a Briton by nation, by fatherland a Demetian, born of good parents in the province of Glamorgan, a most worthy disciple of the signal teacher Iltutus; from whom he accurately learned good letters, integrity of life, and the monastic institute in the monastery which a little before Iltutus had founded there." And these things in few clearly explain what the anonymous author of the Life, which we judge is to be preferred to the rest, and concerning which and several others, both edited and manuscript, treatment will have to be made below, deduces in longer speech. Add to these the beginning of the Life in Capgrave: "St. Samson, of Greater Britain, having his origin from most noble parents, was a blood-relation of blessed Maglorius. But his mother Anna, when she was thought sterile, the offspring being now despaired of, together with her husband Amon, applied herself to fasts and frequent almsgivings." You hear here Greater Britain, which in the other Lives too is everywhere and constantly expressed.
[3] Of no moment, therefore, are to be judged the things which that Armorican Legendist, Albert the Great of Landévennec, dared roundly to sell, in his manner, concerning St. Samson, who was born not in Armorica but in Britain. namely that he was born in Armorica itself or Lesser Britain, the very place of his nativity and other things being studiously designated, whence at five years old the boy was carried by his father into Greater Britain; so that therefore he migrated more than once from Gaul into Britain, and thence again into Gaul, all which things diametrically conflict with the more approved Acts of the Saint, where nevertheless we know these were written by a nearly contemporary and credible author. The Life edited from the library of Fleury by the Celestine Jean du Bois, whether it be of Baldric of Dol, or of another; thus likewise seems to arrange all things as if St. Samson were Armorican by origin, and all his deeds therefore are to be restricted to Gaul alone; into which pit Cointe too fell at the year 529, number 7: but these things, which of themselves fall from what has already been said and is further to be said, do not deserve to be refuted here separately.
[4] The age to be gathered from the years of Iltutus and Dubricius; You have the fatherland and family of the Saint; in defining the age there is a huge Rhodes and a leap, which no one has hitherto surmounted, still less has anyone undertaken to clear away the thorns and briars. Who, since with the Albertine Life and the Boscian Life to St. Samson by round reckoning an age
of 120 years is attributed, open for themselves a broad field in which they may reconcile several things by no means admitted by others, nor to be swallowed by us. A more exact chronology today judges the conversion of St. Iltutus (for thus we think it should be written) to have been made while the 5th century was still running, especially on that hypothesis, if he was a disciple of St. Germanus of Auxerre, which however cannot be admitted, unless we feign him already then an old man, when he first opened his school. But indeed those who have spoken of Iltutus, Hildutus, or Hidultus seem to have attended little to the chronological reckonings. Further, that St. Samson was instructed under his discipline all the Lives proclaim, and the consensus of the writers is unanimous; nor less undoubted, that he was educated by the same discipline for several years, until by Iltutus himself he was set over another monastery about the year 513.
[5] so that he can be said to have been born about the year 490, Hence it is clear, I think, that in the Life of St. Dubricius in Ussher, page 445, it is wrongly asserted that St. Samson was his disciple in a most numerous school, embracing nearly all the saints and more illustrious men of that century, already from the year 469, when he was not yet born, still less at that time archbishop of York according to the vaticination of Merlin, which see exploded in Alford at the year 492, number 6. Here, if I mistake not, the beginnings of St. Samson would be better fixed, so that he be judged to have been brought forth into light about the year 490, at five years old handed to St. Iltutus for discipline, under which he grew up most holily, so exercised and mature that about the year 512 he departed from his master, and was joined to Piro the Briton in the island monastery constructed by him, and, on his death, was substituted for him, which you have in the Life at number 21, as Alford rightly observed at the year 513, that at that time Samson began to become known. But after he had spent three years and more in the monastery of Piro, it happened in the year 516 (which you have in the Life at number 37) that there came to him certain most skilled Scots from Rome, etc., with whom he set out into Ireland. Thence, returning to another monastery, he did the things which are described more at length in the Life; we here try only to arrange the chronology.
[6] To pass over the side-issues which from his obscure historians Ussher mixes in at the year 520, concerning Samson expelled, in the year 521 ordained bishop who with seven bishops, nay six his brothers, crossed into Armorica, and set up for himself a metropolitan chair in the city of Dol, and other things of the kind; that, I say, I may pass over these things, and say at least something tolerable; our Samson, disciple of Iltutus, already before initiated into the priesthood, seems to have received the grade of the episcopate from St. Dubricius in the year 521, certainly he could not have received it much later, since by a sufficiently received reckoning Dubricius did not prolong his life beyond the year 522. What marvelous and stupendous things happened in that ordination, what was seen at the time of Mass, from the Acts, in this place prodigious beyond measure, you will easily understand, where also the rest of the life of St. Samson passed in Britain is described. But of what church he was ordained bishop, whether of York or of Menevia, is a knot entangled with others, but which you would easily solve by cutting. That he was an apostolic or regionary bishop, this is far more probable, if not certain, since neither in the Catalogues of the bishops of York, nor in those of the bishops of Menevia, could any Samson, at least for that time, hitherto be found.
[7] Nor indeed that he was affixed to any British church, not of any British church, but regionary. or indeed could have been affixed, is manifestly proved even from this, that not long after his consecration, say about the year 522, he girded himself for the Armorican mission, as you have in the Life at number 45 and more briefly in the Register of Llandaff in Ussher, page 1131: "St. Samson, after receiving the blessing of his father Dubricius, and of the abbot Iltutus, and of all the clergy and people, the office of the Paschal solemnity being consummated, and a vessel prepared, having taken with him certain brethren, crossed the sea of Abrinum, or the Severn strait, visited his land and his mother, and consecrated a church built by her: then with his kinsman Maglorius (whom, instructed by Iltutus, he himself had ordained deacon) and some other clerics and laymen, crossed into Lesser Britain for the sake of preaching." For the rest, concerning the things which regard the dignity of the Saint, more will have to be said in the following §, where we shall shake out the ruinous arguments by which some contend that Samson passed from the see of Menevia to that of Dol in the year 566, others only in 588, wrongly.
[8] The things which up to this point have been said, as it were gropingly, concerning the age of the Saint, obtain thence some certainty, that all the Lives everywhere record that he migrated into Armorica or Lesser Britain in the time of King Childebert, He could scarcely have been an octogenarian, not 120 years old; to whom that part of Gaul had fallen in the partition after the death of his father Clovis, and which he certainly possessed when St. Samson arrived there about the year 522 or 523. What further he did there, what he wrought by miracle, the Life itself abundantly exhibits from number 48; plainly neglecting that which is the sole certain vestige of the Saint's age, namely that his name is found subscribed in the penultimate place at the synod of Paris (whether it was the second or the third) of the year 557, in Labbe, vol. 5, col. 818: "Samson, a sinner, bishop, I consented and subscribed." Where I would have you observe that no see or chair is there designated in which he sat, so that they most rightly judge who pronounce that he was a bishop of uncertain see, or regionary and apostolic, whatever Alford thinks to the contrary, whom in the following § we shall meet. How long the Saint lived after that synod, I would not dare indeed to define certainly; that he extended his age to the end of the century, nay to the year 604, as with others Wilson notes in his Martyrology, or to 607, nay to 615, as you have in Albert, I shall never be induced to believe. Grant that he survived the year 560, and, as Mabillon judges, reached 565, so that he was not much younger than an octogenarian, I shall not much oppose; and all to whom true things please rather than marvelous will judge that his age was this, and not 120 years.
[9] He professed the institute which he had learned in Britain. And these reckonings of St. Samson's age have been most probably worked out. What rule further he professed before the episcopate, what he then held throughout the whole course of his life, or prescribed to his disciples in his monasteries, whether that of Dol or of Pental, is given to be understood from his Acts; namely that which he had drawn in Britain under the discipline of St. Iltutus. Whether therefore St. Samson can be said to be of the Benedictine institute, you will gather from what concerning St. Gildas at the 29th of January, in an altogether equal question, Bolland noted in his Commentary, §5, number 45. This at all events is certain, that the monastery of St. Iltutus neither was, nor could have been, of the Order of St. Benedict, while in it St. Samson was educated to piety, toward the end of the fifth and beginning of the sixth century, when that Order was not yet founded, nor before the year 540 propagated into Gaul, still less into Cambria. But that he changed in Gaul itself the institute of life assumed from tender years, so as, already an old man, to profess another most recent one, I seek a suitable witness who might persuade it. These things being thus posited, let us now weigh the cult of the Saint and his dignity.
§ II. The cult and dignity of the Saint.
First noted by Usuard These two we join, because in the eulogies of the Saint his episcopal dignity is especially proclaimed, and other things which are connected with it, concerning which already above cursorily here and there we began to treat. And concerning the cult indeed, to begin hence, it was celebrated in the Church at least from the 9th century, in which it is certain that he was marked by Usuard in his Martyrology, whom his whole progeny followed in emulation, through all the churches of the whole Catholic world. Behold Usuard's words: "In Lesser Britain, at the monastery of Dol, of St. Samson (for thus the name is emulously formed) bishop and confessor," which is a simple and clear announcement, not taken, I think, from the Hieronymian copy of Lucca or Fontanelle, into which alone the name of Samson is inserted, but first expressed by Usuard himself: for this is certain, that no one of the classical Martyrologists, such as we judge the author of the Little Roman, Bede, Florus, Wandelbert, Ado, Rabanus, Notker, and if there are any of the kind, made any mention of Samson anywhere, so that what I once left somewhat doubtful in my observations, I now judge undoubted. Nor here are to be regarded the things which are found added in some little Hieronymian Martyrologies, whose age is not easily distinguished.
[11] Nor indeed is it necessary to weave here a longer series of the Martyrologies of that class or of others more recent, since the text of the Roman alone suffices, in the Roman and others everywhere he is celebrated. conceived in almost the words of Usuard: "In Lesser Britain, of St. Samson, bishop and confessor," where even the very name of Dol seems studiously passed over, lest he should be judged to be called bishop of that place. In the Lübeck-Cologne edition you have it noted "whose body was translated to Orleans." I would not here touch the little fable which the Brussels codex furnishes, of six brothers of Samson, brought forth by their mother into light with him at one birth, whom I remember reading elsewhere were all bishops. Nor do I delay over the Scots or Irish, ineptly claiming Samson for themselves; nor does Wilson's announcement contribute anything at all. More elegant and truer is the added eulogy of Ado of Thérouanne: "In Lesser Britain, at the monastery of Dol, of St. Samson, bishop and confessor, whose blessedness the glory of miracles testifies; for since he shines with innumerable virtues, yet specially he led three dead to life before his death, but one after, which last miracle became known to the people of Orleans." I omit the supplement of Florus, equally with the ancient Breviaries of various churches recounted by Albert, which certainly by their lections will add no light here to the sun, so to speak, at noon.
[12] To the monastic Fasti he is emulously ascribed, whose phrase is almost this: The eulogy of Bucelin does not please "In Lesser Britain, at the monastery of Dol, the deposition of St. Samson, bishop and confessor, who restored the wife of his host Privatus from leprosy, and his daughter, vexed by a demon, to desired health." But all these Bucelin left far behind him by a longer eulogy, part of which it will be enough here to have transcribed: "Made abbot of the monastery of Dol, on account of the illustrious fame of all his virtues, the very fame of his sanctity won for him such honor in that place, that not only by the favor of all the people, but besides by the unanimous consent and authority of the Fathers of the Council of Paris, he was ordered to be the first metropolitan of Dol of that name, and was solemnly consecrated with the utmost congratulation of all, so that to so great a man are owed the eternally most celebrated beginnings of the archbishopric." To whom Bucelin thought he was writing these things, I indeed do not sufficiently perceive; certainly here he not only emulated Saussay, but left him far behind. Thus that one in his Gallican Martyrology perorated:
[13] "Likewise in Lesser Britain, in the city of Dol, of St. Samson, bishop and glorious confessor, nor what Saussay composed. who, illustrious by royal blood in England, born of a sterile mother, with a divine forewarning of his sanctity, was handed from boyhood to St. Hildutus for discipline; who at first glance foreknew his future greatness. But so much did Samson profit under his mastership, that he soon shone with admirable virtues and even the greatest signs. A severe castigator of vices, and a most keen avenger of piety, he thence began to be harassed by various persecutions, and, fleeing the dire tyranny of the Saxons, drew back his foot toward Lesser Britain, that he might more safely serve Christ; where, a monastery being established, by the license and gift of King Childebert, he instituted there a life wholly given to divine things, and directed the disciples he had taken in the same path by most holy admonitions and examples. Nor is it a wonder if he bent minds to vows, who liquefied a rock into flowing waves by the touch of his staff. When the Man of God shone forth with these marvelous endowments, being declared by divine judgment and indication worthy to hold the prelacy of the whole province, he was consecrated first prelate of Dol, but with the dignity of metropolitan, by the co-provincial bishops of Armorica, and from Pope Pelagius, for the excellence of his merits, received the pallium, and thus with great honor sat among the Fathers of the Council of Paris in the year 559. And at last, his pontificate being adorned with excellent acts, he exchanged a life full of sanctity by a most happy death. Whose body, on account of the ferocity of the Danes, carried to Orleans, was received with such reverence that a proper church was constructed for its custody and cult; which even now is strong in his glorious patronage, although destitute of the sacred pledges, which the impious saint-fighters, occupying the city in the previous century, among very many other venerable bodies of Blesseds, burned, their hands being cut off first."
[14] Neither of York, nor of Menevia, Many things here elegantly, many things hyperbolically, equally as Bucelin, Saussay declares concerning St. Samson: false are the things which concerning the ordination, whether in the synod of Paris, or in the assembly of Armorica, I know not whence they could devise: nor better is it feigned that the pallium was transmitted by Pope Pelagius; in this I subscribe to both, that for the most celebrated cult they pronounced a fair opinion. There remains concerning the dignity of the Saint a somewhat more entangled disputation. Already in few words above I intimated that I judge this most probable, that not in Gaul, but in Britain, St. Samson was ordained by St. Dubricius, of uncertain or no see, an apostolic bishop, so that in vain plainly do the people of York and of Menevia contend among themselves, to claim this our Samson for themselves; concerning which matter, when from various writers Ussher had scraped together many things from page 72, what at last he prefers, what he asserts, you would not easily understand. Nor is that a wonder; for such things generally occur as destroy one another. Geoffrey's British history makes Samson bishop of York, whose election, with the Dubrician one itself, is to be referred to the year of salvation 490: and this Samson was the seventh archbishop of York, perhaps from the insipid vaticination of Merlin, for which see there Alan, page 73, patching together things equally ridiculous concerning seven brother bishops; not far unlike those which from the Brussels Usuardine codex we very recently exploded.
[15] nor was he bishop of Dol; The other chorus is led by Giraldus Cambrensis, in his Dialogues, equally building up paradoxes liberally, as one who namely draws back St. Samson's crossing from Cambria into Lesser Britain to the times of St. Gregory the Great; whence Matthew of Westminster had to place two Samsons in the see of Dol before the pontificate of Gregory, so that if he speaks consistently enough, he must admit three Samsons. But it was enough for him, in the history of the year 561, to write thus: "Through the same time Samson, archbishop of Dol, and successor of St. Samson, who passed from Greater Britain to Lesser, shone forth by doctrine and sanctity." Our Samson could indeed shine forth up to those very times, but neither archbishop of Dol, nor probably bishop of that place, still less successor in that see of another, at least a synchronous, Samson, who from any tolerable indications has hitherto become known, so that after the reconciliation of the incoherent writers has been attempted in vain, one only Samson of that time is at last to be called the one of Dol, translated into Armorica neither from the see of York nor from that of Menevia.
[16] nor do the other things ascribed to him cohere: Giraldus, however, proceeds, prefacing I know not what Sequence of this kind: "But the prelate of Menevia (there is treatment of St. Samson) is transferred to the summit of the dignity of Dol." Away with the detours, into which I wonder that even our Alford fell, so far indeed that he descended to the Hebrew root of the name Teliai, to confuse this one with Samson. Superfluous here are the far-fetched reasonings, unless something certain be fixed whence the reckoning of times may be discerned. In few words I shall say: either the chief Lives of St. Samson are false and null, or he himself was ordained bishop by St. Dubricius a little before the year 522; but most certainly he landed in Gaul in the time of King Childebert about the year 524; and that he was present at the synod of Paris is established in the year 557. And these epochs are deduced not from the fallacious reckonings of Giraldus or Geoffrey, but from the Acts themselves. Now seek Samson in the Catalogue of the bishops of Menevia, and you will find no other than one who sat after St. David, 25th in order, so that therefore it is necessary that he belong to the tenth century. So monstrous an anachronism must, namely, be swallowed for the sake of the Sequence, that "the prelate of Menevia was transferred to the summit of the dignity of Dol."
[17] Another history Giraldus forges for us concerning the yellow plague or jaundice-affection, no more than the yellow plague so named from the yellow color with which those affected by that disease were tinged. Hear, I pray, Giraldus himself in Ussher, page 74: "In the time of this Samson (while, namely, he held the chair of Menevia) the Pallium was transferred in this manner. A certain plague breaking in through Cambria, he presiding, by which the people fell in troops, which they called the yellow plague, and which the physicians too call the jaundice-affection, the Prelate, although holy, and intrepid unto death, yet at the instance of his people, boarding a ship, the north wind blowing, received himself with his people unharmed in Armorican Britain: where also, the see of Dol being then by chance vacant, he was at once there assumed bishop. Whence it happened that, on account of the grace of the Pallium, which Samson had brought with him from thence hither, the bishops succeeding there, up to nearly these our times, in which, the archprelate of Tours prevailing, the adventitious dignity vanished, always obtained Palliums."
[18] Here Giraldus exhibits to us a new and most plain anachronism, or the crossing into Gaul in the year 588 which you would easily observe, if you attend that that yellow or jaundice plague is recalled by Ussher himself in his chronological index to the year 588, so that here again you may most openly perceive that the things which are circulated concerning the times of St. Samson are most disconnected, nay most basely confused. It is a clear demonstration, unless I am deceived. For if St. Samson was bishop of Menevia up to the year 588, by what reason, I pray, did he come into Gaul in the times of King Childebert? How did he from that time found the monasteries of Dol and Pental? How did he, bishop of no place, sit in the synod of Paris in the year 557? not to mention that it cannot be made probable that St. Samson prolonged his life to that year 588, which the more received opinion scarcely dares to extend beyond the year 565. Inconsistent are all these things, on which it does not please [me] to dwell longer.
[19] But the things which are so confidently sold by Giraldus and so many others concerning the Pallium brought from the see of Menevia by St. Samson, or the Pallium translated from England. and the metropolitan right therefore asserted for the church of Dol, were long ago so discussed and shaken out, that concerning that prerogative the people of Dol today keep deep silence, judging that they have proved much, if to the age of St. Samson they can bring the beginnings of their episcopal chair, concerning which matter it is not for us here to dispute; thus I find the series of the bishops of Dol deduced in the Catalogues, and I allow it to be held just and ratified: thus concerning the episcopal sees, one or two, occupied in England by St. Samson, I think it better in future to be silent than to struggle further with the almost Cimmerian shadows. We acknowledge St. Samson a bishop, we judge him rightly given that title in the Martyrologies, and we add with Baronius at the year 559, in which namely he contends the Council of Paris was held: "But who is placed in the last (with us penultimate) place, Samson the bishop, this same shone forth in Lesser Britain, a holy priest of God, whose perpetual memory flourishes in the Church, which celebrates his birthday on the 28th of July." And let these things concerning the cult and dignity of St. Samson be said sufficiently; now let us try to dispel other shadows, which involve his deeds or Acts not a little.
§ III. The Acts of the Saint written by various authors.
[20] The briefer Life of Capgrave pleases well enough, Among Saints so various whose deeds have hitherto occurred to be illustrated, I scarcely remember to find any of whom so many Lives, whether edited or manuscript, are recounted in our sacred store, furnishing, in appearance, ample material by a huge mass of papers. But all those, when they were discussed, had to be recalled to one single Legend, concerning which here especially, nay solely, treatment will have to be made. In that unusual abundance of Lives of St. Samson, that one cannot so far displease which was published by John Capgrave, its author or rather abridger being I know not what anonymous one, to whom that most ancient manuscript Legend certainly gave light; for it so embraces its whole narration, that it seems to differ from the prototype only in this, that it runs through its several chapters, none, at least so far as I know, being omitted, in briefer and clearer speech; and so is far to be preferred to the manifold other compendia. Whence Peter de Natalibus took his material, it is scarcely worth the effort to inquire; nor are the things which are read in him digested sufficiently entirely or sufficiently elegantly.
[21] Another way likewise entered upon he who compiled the Life edited by Vincent of Beauvais in book 21 of his Mirror, from chapter 105 to 112, in which, several things being omitted, not likewise that by Vincent of Beauvais only certain articles, as it were studiously selected, are exhibited, as it will be easy to understand from the titles. First, then, there is treatment of St. Samson of Dol and his origin, and his master Echutus (for Iltutus or Eltutus). Chapter 2, Of the good disposition of the same Samson. 3, Of his ordination to deacon with a miracle. 4, Of the poison offered to him. 5, Of his journey to his father, and the deacon stupefied on account of the theomacha demon-woman. 6, Of the response of the same diabolical old woman and the healing of the deacon, and the conversion of Samson's parents. 7, Of his return to the monastery, and his election as abbot. 8, Of his ordination as bishop. 9, Of his crossing into Lesser Britain and the monastery of Dol: add also of his death. All which if you compare with the Life to be edited by us,
you will manifestly perceive that nothing here is proclaimed which is not described more at length in it; but that very many things are omitted, especially those which are narrated as done in Gaul.
[22] nor that which was edited by Du Bois: Into the opposite part sins the Legend of Du Bois, which Surius adopted, and which also exists in manuscript among us from the codex of the queen of Sweden, somewhat more augmented and arranged in another order. This I wonder at most, that whereas all the other Lives and whatever historical monuments most expressly assert St. Samson to have been born in Cambria, today Wales, and there long a monk and abbot, there promoted to holy orders and even to the infulae by St. Dubricius; the author of this Life, whoever he was, in the first three chapters, in a manner deliberately, so involves his material, that you would think all those things were done in Gaul itself, inasmuch as in chapter 4 he leads the Saint to the king of the Franks, where he restores sight to a blind man, then puts a serpent to flight; dissipates poison by the sign of the cross, tames a ferocious horse and slays a lion, which so far do not much differ from the primitive Life, and can therefore in some way be tolerated on the credit of the old writer; but the following five chapters are so prodigiously adorned, that unless they be propped by grave authority, no prudent man would dare to judge them straightway to be approved, especially if from the first specimen a determination be made concerning the rest.
[23] For the things which it devises concerning the horrendous death of the queen at chapter 8 these certainly embrace various false things. are altogether torn up by the approved monuments of Gallic history; but the other miracles—concerning the ludicrous din of geese repressed, concerning a fountain for washing the hands drawn from a rock, concerning the exchange of wax and wine with St. Germanus, concerning pigs transmuted into he-goats and she-goats, finally concerning a wicked countess castigated by the Saint—let him who wishes admit them; I indeed did not judge they should be inserted into our Acts; the admirers of that kind of thing have the very Life edited by Du Bois, as I said, which, since it wholly exists in Surius, will patiently enough suffer these few things to be passed over by us. Prodigies of this kind could easily be transferred hither from other Legends, especially British and Armorican, which, beyond belief, would be joined to the other marvelous deeds of St. Samson, as to those skilled in these matters is too well known. But all these being prefaced, at last in chapter 13 he describes the ordination of the Saint, namely in the monastery of Dol, adding his own paradox, that it was there the custom for three bishops to be ordained by three bishops. Finally in chapter 14 and the last he would have the Saint to have completed a hundred and twenty years, which has already been sufficiently refuted.
[24] And these indeed are the more celebrated Lives and better known and everywhere wont to be cited, More faithful is the ancient Legend, whose chief font we shall give from our two manuscripts, the one Acinctine, of the Valley of Light and of Charneux, which Chifflet described, the other of Belfort, compared with that published by Mabillon, vol. 1 of the Acts of the Order of St. Benedict, from page 165, which he rightly judged is to be preferred to all the others, and so alone the praised Mabillon edited, referring to it in his Annals too in more than one place. To recount here several manuscript compendia would be as much as to abuse the leisure of the readers, which Albert did, scraping together a long series of writers, in most of whom, unless I am much deceived, St. Samson can for the most part scarcely be said to be known by name, except for Baldric, bishop of Dol, more often adduced by him, concerning whom I have not what to say, since the Life written by him is neither found in our Museum, nor has become known to me from elsewhere than from the citations of the aforesaid Albert and Mabillon. For the rest, the loss is easy, where the praised Acts are at hand, composed by a nearly contemporary monk, which I do not think Albert saw, concerning whose huge volume the opinion, I will say, and most just censure, both of our elders and ours, is long since most well known.
[25] Further, what is to be judged concerning that Life the most ancient of all, what concerning its writer, if it be permitted to speak openly; although not sufficiently ordered, it is not so much a history of the life and deeds of St. Samson arranged to a norm, as a collection of miracles and prodigies, as are most British Legends, tending more to astonishment than to imitation, heaped together in a style for the most part contorted, obscure, and often barbarous, so that if you should wish to illustrate or explain the several things by appended annotations, it would be necessary to undergo almost as much labor as if you should undertake to construct and compose the whole from the egg. Nevertheless on this title it far excels all the rest, that beyond all doubt it is most ancient, composed namely by a writer almost contemporary or nearly synchronous, as one who speaks as if all the things he narrates he received from eyewitnesses, sometimes so far advanced that he intimates that he himself lived almost at the very time in which the matter recorded by him happened: and this you will find annotated at number 45, since his genuine words are there reported.
[26] And these things indeed win great authority for the writer, but this I confess is most to be lamented, excelling all the rest in age, that in so fecund and abundant a harvest of most distinguished matters, an apt sickle was not at hand which might accurately reap, collect, dispose, and order all things, the writer, uneloquent, testifying again and again that he in a manner represses his pen, lest by recording matters so great he should bring on nausea, while meanwhile, often occupied with minutiae, he so entangles his speech that it produces tedium rather than delight for the readers, intent especially on this, that they may follow the series of the deeds, where here one must stick at nearly every period, that what the writer means may be sufficiently understood. Some torch will be furnished by the sufficiently elegant compendium of the Life, which, woven together by Mabillon in his Annals, I shall here opportunely subjoin, which will be of use also for this, that sometimes doubtful things may be separated from certain, false from true; a key, say, most useful for unlocking many more obscure things. It is taken from vol. 1 of the Annals, book 6, number 20, page 151, where, treating of the institution of various monasteries, he thus speaks of the chief ones founded by St. Samson.
[27] whose here is prefaced The origin of the monasteries of Dol and Pental, likewise in Armorica, is to be referred to St. Samson the bishop. His fatherland was Demetia, which is a province of Wales in Greater Britain, his parents most noble. As a boy instructed in the monastery of Eltutus with Gildas, then ordained deacon and presbyter by Dubricius, bishop of the Legions Caerleon, he held the office of abbot in the monastery of the abbot Pyro, whom the abbot Guibert vehemently complains is called a Saint. At last consecrated bishop by the same Dubricius, he came likewise into Armorica, where the monastery of Dol is constructed by him. Then another, by the founding of King Childebert, was raised up in a cave, from which the holy Man had expelled a serpent, at the river Sigo or Seine, by the name Pental or Pentale. Its situation more markedly expresses the booklet on the life of St. Geremarus the abbot, who in the seventh century ruled the monastery of Pental in the district of Rouen upon the river Lirizinus, namely where the Lirizinus * flows into the Seine.
[28] Up to this [day] that place, situated below Pont-Audemer, The elegant compendium of Mabillon. retains the appellation of Saint Samson. Samson the bishop, without any designation of see, in the year fifty-seven [557] subscribed to the third Council of Paris, who did not long survive. After his death he is buried in the monastery of Dol, which was converted into an episcopal church not before the ninth century, namely when Nomenoius, duke of Lesser Britain, from the four bishoprics of that region constituted eight. In the time of Lent, according to the custom of the pious men of that time, wont to withdraw to a more remote place, he carried with him only three oblations, that is, loaves prepared for the sacrifice; and he sharply pursued the profane rites of the Kalends of January. The things done by him an anonymous contemporary author wrote in two books, which he dedicated to the bishop Tigerinomalus, doubtless of Léon, who in the Acts of St. Paul, prelate of that see, is called Tiernomalus, omitted in the common indices. This author is to be preferred to the other writers of his Life: among whom Baldric, prelate of Dol in the eleventh century, is the chief.
Annotations* la Lizaine
LIFE
By an anonymous nearly-contemporary author,
From vol. 1 of the Acts of the Saints of the Order of St. Benedict, from page 165, compared with our manuscripts and emended.
Samson, bishop and confessor, at Dol in Armorican Britain (St.)
BHL Number: 7478, 7479
By an anonymous nearly-contemporary author.
PREFACE.
To Bishop Tigerinomalus.
[1] Compelled by the memory of the religious, and from the marrow beholding very many of the Fathers in their life both active and theoretical, in a manner shining forth by the keen edge of a perspicacious intention, The author's excuse, as luminaries of heaven shining by mutual support, with intellectual senses (so to speak) I beheld their whole image in body and soul, that is according to God and man a. And while I perceived the smallness of my littleness, being, as it were, an unlettered man of this most recent time, understanding little and less ascertained concerning the most vast compositions of the holy Scriptures, on that account trembling, as one unworthy for that which, illuminated from heaven by your special sense, you asked me to perform the work, O most blessed bishop of the Apostolic see Tigerinomalus; that I may excuse myself, unworthy and incongruous, before the testimony of my little conscience in the presence of Almighty God: because (as it is the manner of human infirmity to boast and be lifted up on the noddings of pride) many act arrogantly and imprudently, and in the waves of this world, hither and thither, by the wandering instability of the mind, incautiously strive to swim across to that which they cannot; but, hidden b in their own depravities, they return to that which they can. And therefore those winged animals which we read of in the first vision of the holy priest Ezekiel, having four wings, lifting up two of them upward, and covering their bodies with the others, signify namely all the Saints: who, although they be extolled by human (as is the custom) usages, yet, knowing their own infirmities, before the most imminent c majesty of Almighty God, cover the virtues they have with a veil of modesty and humility. But I, kindled by the promise of the Holy Spirit and a spark of illuminated knowledge, although unworthy of this office, and provoked by your exhortations, will offer my littleness ready to your dilection. And so you bid, O most sweet [one], that I treat a few words in catholic and true styles concerning the mention and oracles of St. Samson, and, fearful in the labor and profundity of this work, guarding against the lapse of disobedience, that I may approach, by the inspiration of Almighty God, that to which by your holy words I am invited.
[2] But first of all I would have you believe that not according to the temerity of my own invention, and its credit from the ancient Acts of St. Samson, nor according to disordered and ill-composed hearsay, were these words collected; but according to this which a certain religious and venerable old man—in whose house, which beyond the sea Samson himself alone had founded, that man, leading for nearly eighty years a catholic and religious life, and in the times most near to that same aforesaid holy Samson, affirmed that his mother had handed these things to his uncle, a most holy deacon (who himself, a deacon, was cousin to St. Samson)—truthfully affirmed to me: and, mercifully relating to me many things of his admirable deeds,
and not only this, but also very many and delicate words concerning his more prodigious acts, which on this side of the sea in Britain and Romana d he marvelously did, the aforesaid holy deacon, Henocus by name, polished in fitting styles, brought across the sea, and that venerable old man of whom we just before spoke, always dwelling before me in this monastery, piously and diligently caused them to be read: and therefore he thought it not worthy that I should have wished to hand over to oblivion the immensity of this fortitude wrought by the Almighty through the holy, excellent, and most holy man Samson.
[3] wont to be read by the brethren. For from two causes (had not your holy and provident exhortation been present to my littleness) I did not dare to give to memory these so holy, nay so beautiful and immense miracles wrought by God's authorship through the aforesaid man. The first, because I had judged myself very unworthy, being, as it were, kept back by my sins, and incongruous for so great a narration: because (as I am the least) I wished to avoid the detractions of other brethren thinking differently: lest, what is wont to be done by certain [men] as skilled as also (which is more often the case) even by the unskilled, presumptuous and rash, I should be judged in this so great, unheard-of, nay, by them also, uncomprehended speech. But the other, because in the short space of this most recent time I feared to enter upon this work as arduous as (as I already said) incredible to some, by believing. But at your suggestion, O most blessed Pope, and indeed for the profit thence of those reading and hearing, willing [it], this which concerning that excellent and holy Man I held for certain in my memory, I could not deny.
[4] The author's protestation concerning the truth of this history. And lest to some those things which I have handed to this style come into doubt, I have Christ the Savior and witness of us all, that not for any human, or fallacious conjecture, but for these things which among most holy and thoroughly ascertained men, and also for the most sedulous and most beautiful letters, which catholicly and undoubtingly, written by the aforesaid deacon, I found in the same monastery, I have tried to hand these very few words to the recorded letters, gathering few of many, so that they might not be fastidious for reading, but be prepared, God helping, expedited for profit. But at the beginning of our work we pray that the help of our Lord Jesus Christ be present to us, whose virtues and magnificent works throughout the whole world of the earth in his Saints are held clear and stupendous, that he may deign to furnish to me, wretched, unworthy, and enough of a sinner, a grateful and prosperous journey to that which I wish to approach, not for my merit, but for a Man of so great a name.
ANNOTATIONS.
* If Tigerinomalus here is not other, as Mabillon judges, than Tirnomalus, whom Paul, bishop of Léon, after Jehovius, imposed on the see of Léon not as his successor, but in his own place, as is read in the Life of the same St. Paul, chapter 17; it will be consequent that he was not only nearly contemporary with St. Samson, but synchronous, at least on that hypothesis that St. Paul died in the year 573; inasmuch as the aforesaid Tirnomalus preceded him in death. But from his manner of speaking it is sufficiently plain that he never knew St. Samson himself, so that he probably prolonged his life to the end of the sixth century, and so also St. Paul himself.
BOOK ONE.
CHAPTER I.
St. Samson, obtained from God by prayers, is piously educated and at five years old is committed to St. Iltutus to be taught.
Therefore holy Samson was nourished in his Demetian a fatherland by noble and excellent parents according to the dignity of the world. Samson's fatherland and parents. But that miracle which concerning him, before his conception, in the womb of his mother, the Lord Almighty deigned to show, namely for the glorification of a Priest of God about to profit the peoples, I judge not to be passed over in silence. For this was the first, though before him, yet marvelous, favor concerning him. For the father of the same holy Samson (as I already said), of Demetian stock, Ammon by name, and his mother, of the province nearest to the same Demetia, Anna by name. And so, the united counsels of the equal fathers agreeing, according to the dispensation of Almighty God, they were nobly joined; but the parents of those same spouses we know for certain were nurses of the kings of each province, since also in the other more emended deeds of the same holy Samson, and there in more proximate sources, we undoubtingly found it thus written, and among the names of those offering I have very many times heard read, beside the altar of St. Samson, at the singing of Mass, the several names of both parents. For to this Ammon, father of the same holy Samson, there was a brother Umbrafel, and to this mother of the same Saint, Anna, there was a sister, Afrella by name, both good brothers, both good sisters, born as of good parents. But the younger brother of Ammon, Umbrafel, admonished and by the commands of his parents, took to himself as wife the sister of the aforesaid Anna, Afrella; but that Afrella too was younger than her aforesaid sister.
[2] But after not much time, they coming together according to their dignity in peace, The mother being sterile, both parents devote themselves to pious works. that Afrella conceived, and bore a son. But what need is there to prolong the matter? she had three sons before her sister: but that Anna was now already by all her neighbors and acquaintances thought as it were barren and sterile. And so, the offspring of the female womb being despaired of, the parents being saddened with her sister not for inequality of age, but of nature, consolation from Almighty God is present to the weeping and greatly mourning mother. For with frequent almsgivings and most frequent b fasts that Anna with her husband always applied herself. But it happened that on a feast day they came together to the church, and there heard among many a discourse concerning a certain librarius c dwelling in a distant land of the North, and sought d by many provinces, because all who had been accustomed to come to him held for certain what he had said to them. And so, many determining in emulation from the church on the same day to accompany others to question him, that Ammon, hearing these things, with glad mind together with his wife Anna made them direct their journey with them to that same master.
[3] Both go to consult the seer concerning future offspring. But it happened that, the labor of so great a journey being finished, at last after the third day they arrived at the place where the master and librarius dwelt, and there found that master sitting with many peoples, and disputing much concerning the several matters. Then indeed Ammon, offering gifts, and prostrated on his knees before him together with his wife, suppliantly prayed that he would diligently apply his mind to their cause. Then, when that master had made silence from the other matters gravely arranging themselves around him e, and, inquiring sedulously for good persons and long travels and always smiling, "O," he said, "little sons, for so long a journey narrate to me the cause of your labor." And so, Ammon opening his mouth, with great gladness the master restrained him, saying: "I know the cause of your coming, because your wife has hitherto been sterile, and now I believe that divine mercy will be present. But do you make a silver staff equal to your wife, and give it for her soul, and then Almighty God will raise up for you seed according to his will, and according to the pleasure of your desire." Which heard, he joyfully said: "I will give three silver staffs equal to her."
[4] [With whom they lodge and are made more certain concerning the offspring by an angel.] But the master, seeing the understanding and prudence of the man, made them stay with him in lodging, until, after the weariness of the way, the night following, they had given their little bodies to sleep, and so, the woman Anna resting, the Lord deigned to show through a vision; "O," saying, "woman firm in faith and stable in the love of God, and persevering in prayer, happy are you, and happy your womb, more happy the fruit of your womb. Behold, God commanding, worthy of the priestly office has been made the first offspring which you shall bring forth: for your womb shall conceive, and be pregnant, and bear a son, and his first offspring shall be seven times whiter than that silver which your husband gave for you to God." And so the woman, made trembling, and also glad for the excess of the vision, and for the splendor of the angel of God standing by her and speaking with her, and for the longing for the hoped-for offspring, and for modesty (as is the custom of good women), could answer nothing at all. To whom the angel gently speaks: "Fear not," he says, "woman, nor distrust, for the Lord will deign to comfort your sorrow, and your tears shall be turned for you into joy; behold you shall have offspring, and your first son you shall call Samson; he shall be before Almighty God holy and a high priest, and the faith of this matter you shall have in the morning through that master to whom you have come."
[5] The woman, awakened from sleep, repeated to her husband in order all that she had seen and heard. They depart from the seer with joy at the auspicious forewarning. But they rejoicing, and treating with each other, the reciprocal light of day was present; then they, on account of the length of the journey, rising in the morning, prepared themselves with garments, and the master, before they took the journey, was present to them, exulting and rejoicing. "Blessed," he says, "are you, O woman, and blessed your womb, and more blessed the fruit of your belly: for to me this night the Lord deigned to reveal concerning you and concerning your offspring. For your first offspring has been destined by God as a high priest; and when you shall have borne him, you shall call [him] Samson, and afterward at the legitimate time you shall hand [him] over with disciplines to be learned. Of the race of the Britons, therefore, there has not been, nor will be, such a one, namely a priest
about to profit many." And they being blessed, they went home glad and peaceful.
[6] Without delay, God's promise is present. And so the mother with joy conceives, Samson is solicitously instructed by his mother. with gladness is pregnant, with prosperity bears her firstborn Son, beloved of God. Then all their neighbors, when they heard this, a great joy invaded, giving thanks to God, because the Lord had made marvelous his mercy with them. And so, the Son being nobly nourished, according to the nobility of his fathers, by a noble rite, he is baptized, they imposing on him the name according to that which had been allotted in the promise; and the happy mother greatly caring for the purity of his infancy and play, day and night she busied herself much and always, lest in any even the smallest point the part destined to God, and about to profit many, should be polluted, divine providence embracing and preserving him whole: for his play f, by the coaxing and sedulity of his happy mother, was made into meditating the Scriptures and reading assiduously, or writing something useful, which afterward the truth of the matter proved. For when he was about five years old, he alone, with all the affection of a boyish mind, greatly wished to go to the school of Christ: but his father, the case being changed and the order perverse against the will and word of God, and especially his malevolent counselors and friends being ignorant of all that hidden miracle which had before been done, contradicted his Son becoming a cleric: judging the office of the clericate very unworthy, his neighbors dissuading, as one who had always been a minister of an earthly king, and who ought to nourish kings: so that an unceasing conflict arose between both parents day and night, the mother wishing the better part for her Son according to the protestation of the angel or the priest.
[7] But while they revolved other things, on a certain night a heavenly rebuke is present to Ammon through a dream, threatening much, [The father tries to draw him back, but corrected from heaven changes his opinion.] if he should dare to prohibit the part destined for him. But a great fear invaded Ammon, awakened from sleep by the wonder of so great a vision, and, rising from bed, and prostrating himself on the ground, he did penance for however little the fault, though small, and with all faith promised that he would do nothing more against the will of God concerning his Son. And forthwith, the light breaking, Ammon without any delay compelled his Son to be led to the school, saying: "Let us not delay, O wife, to lead our Son, nay rather the son of God, to the school. For God is with him, and we ought to do nothing against God": and all that he had seen that night concerning him he repeated to his wife. Then she, rejoicing, and now pregnant and rising from bed, with all the affection of her heart magnified the Lord in all his benefits which he mercifully bestowed on them, and, at one and the same hour, unanimous and equally rising, with equal mind they proceeded to lead their Son to the school of the excellent master of the Britons, Eltutus by name. Who himself, Eltutus, was of the disciples of St. Germanus, and Germanus himself had ordained him a presbyter g in his youth. But that Eltutus was the most skilled of all the Britons in all the Scriptures, namely of the Old and New Testament, Samson is committed to the discipline of Eltutus. and of every kind of philosophy, namely geometry and rhetoric, grammar and arithmetic, and all the arts of philosophy, and by descent a most sagacious magician h, and foreknowing of future things: in whose magnificent monastery I was, and whose marvelous deeds if we should distinguish one by one, we should be led to a digression from the subject begun: yet one, for confirming our matter, the catholic brethren who were in this place relating it to us, we publish in the midst.
[8] Eltutus foretells his own death and that of two Abbots. For when he was pressed by the sickness of the death of the flesh, he made two other abbots come to visit him, one was called Isannus, the other Atoclius. For when he saw them, greeting each according to custom, he thus began: "I rejoice," he said, "dearest Brothers, at your coming, since the time of my passing and my sleeping in Christ is at hand, and you will furnish me the due service. But be comforted, Brothers, since likewise for you too now already it is near, after me, to go from the body, sent from heaven, by one passage indeed, but by a diverse outcome of passing. I indeed this night, you being present, about the middle of the night, shall be received by the hands of the angels, so that in the likeness of an eagle having two golden wings my brother Isannus will see my soul fly with the holy angels to heaven: and afterward on the fifteenth day our brother Atoclius will go from the body, and my brother Isannus will see his soul likewise, in the type of an eagle indeed, but having two leaden i wings, fly heavily: and after forty days again brother Isannus, he too, equally with him by that exit, with that type, shall happily arrive at Christ. But you, brother Atoclius, have much coveted the things which are of the world, and therefore the type of the winged animal is that of the world, but you have not the purity of gold in your wings on account of your avarice: but you are clean on account of your ancient sanctity, kept from your infancy up to now, but you are heavy in your wings on account of the leaden weight of avarice. But may Almighty God deign to pluck these wings from you." Saying these and many things like these, recording much through day and night, as he himself had said, about the middle of the night, bidding farewell to the brethren, from this flesh with hymns and choirs and the accustomed venerations he happily went forth, and his soul, through the imaginary appearance which he himself had said, blessed Isannus saw, and the soul of the other brother likewise, as the old man had said, he discerns, and scarcely by his suggestion and the prayers of the Saints and many Masses sung was it redeemed, so that he alone saw it repaired for the better, and absolved from the worst bonds of its sins, and all these things he indicated to the brethren, and to all of them it was a wonder, and that one nonetheless, on the appointed day and by a similar exit, according to the old man's promise, happily arrived at Christ. But let me return to that from which I digressed.
[9] Eltutus foretells Samson's future sanctity. This holy Eltutus, then, when he had seen with his eyes the boy chosen of God, holy Samson, and receiving him from the hand of his mother with the gifts which his parents had brought with him, according to custom lovingly kissed him, looking to heaven and blessing him, thus began: "We give thanks to God, who has deigned to kindle for us unworthy ones this luminary from our own nation on earth. Behold the august head of us all, behold the high pontiff about to profit many on this side and beyond the sea, behold the excellent priest of all the Britons, behold the most skilled founder of all churches after the Apostles." His parents hearing these things wished to hear more of him; but holy Eltutus thus gave answer: "It is not for me to say this to you, nor is it yours to inquire of me, for there is a time of being silent, and a time of speaking; but hand over that boy to me to learn."
[10] But his parents departing, he himself remained with the aforesaid master, Samson quickly learns the elements of letters. not (as is the custom of infants) moved by any weeping after mother or father: but as if he were nourished there from his first cradle *, immovably and delightfully he remained. In a marvelous manner in one and the same day he learned the twenty letters k and all the tokens, nor was there need to show him more, and (what is more marvelous than all these) within the days of a week he could know, God revealing, the distinctions of these letters through the conjunctions of words. For in reading his mind was so subtle, that as much as the human sense is capable, he passed through the whole Psalms in a short time. He observes fasting. For when he was about fifteen years old, with most frequent fasts and longer vigils he exercised himself more than all the brethren dwelling there, so that he strove to make "superpositions" l, and sometimes even three-day fasts, the most prudent master prohibiting him and saying to him: "It is not fitting, little son, that a little body still flourishing in youthful age be broken by excessive and intemperate fasts."
[11] In the higher understandings of the Scriptures his sense was so acute, He devotes himself to investigating the sacred Scriptures. that he inquired more into spiritual theories than what was intimated to him by the aforesaid master. But on a certain day both, he and his master, ran into a doubt in a certain lofty question: which question I know, but I forbear to intimate, lest we dwell longer on this. For diligently searching through all the treatises of the Old and New Testament, they could by no means find its explanation. Which done, holy Samson determined within himself to apply himself to fasts and vigils, until God should deign to show him the explanation of this question. But while on the third night, about the middle of the night, he prayed, he saw a light sent from heaven stand by him, and heard a desirable voice from the light sweetly saying to him: "Be no longer wearied, chosen of God; for behold not only this question for which you labor shall you obtain, but whatever you shall ask of God through prayer and fasting, your good merits requiring it, you shall obtain." Then holy Samson, giving thanks to Almighty God, greatly glad, returned to his cell, and to his master, quietly, repeated all that he had seen and heard.
[12] But on a certain day, when the brethren went in the morning in summer time to purge the evil weeds from the crop; He heals a monk bitten by a serpent. a certain adder m, leaping out of a certain bramble, bit a certain brother in the groin, and, falling to the ground, he remained half-alive. The brethren, weeping and praying around him, hoped nothing else than that he would die. Then the steward said: "Let us announce this to our old man." And so, one being sent, he narrated the matter, Samson the master being present; but he weeping, holy Samson, touched by the Holy Spirit, thus said: "Master, bid me go to him, for my Father is ascertained and skilled, and can free the man from the death of this pain." Then holy Eltutus, drawing the discourse as it were in derision, thus said: "By the art of Python n you were at your beginning forearmed, and afterward, coming to the school, do you wish to cultivate it under the discipline of Christ? for it is not fitting to exercise worldly mathematics with heavenly wisdom." But holy Samson, thus smiling, gave answer: "Are you ignorant, chosen master, that I have no father except him of whom it is said through the Prophet: 'Your hands have made me and fashioned me'?" Job 10:8. And so the master, this being heard, stupefied and wondering and daring to say nothing else: "Go," he said, "chosen of God." And so Samson, going, and running, found the Brother now drawing nearly his last breath, and, all the brethren being cast out by him, he chose one only most approved presbyter to stand by him, and imposed on the serpentine bite the sign of the Cross,
feeling by God's grace that virtue was present: and prolonging his prayers through three hours, that is from the third hour up to the sixth hour, and blessing water mixed with oil, he rendered the nearly-dead brother, all the brethren being present, unharmed and sound by the admirable work of God; and by this he was not, as is the custom of the human race, lifted up in vain glory of boasting, as it were in the favor of the crowd, but, giving thanks to God, he always and more frequently exercised an untiring and keener abstinence.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER II.
Ordained deacon and presbyter, not without marvelous signs, he enters a straiter way of virtue day by day; he patiently tolerates the machinations of the envious, and passes from the monastery of St. Iltutus to Piro.
[13] But his humility was so great, his affability, gentleness, and marvelous charity beyond (so to speak) the human measure, He is ordained deacon: What miracle happened at his ordination. that by all his brethren he was loved with a marvelous affection. But the master, seeing his diligence toward the worship of God, and by the spirit venerating in his breast Christ, whom he saw as it were through enigmas glittering concerning him, caused the ministry of the diaconate to be handed to him. Pope Dubricius a coming to his house on a Sunday, all the brethren consenting and rejoicing together and God willing, he was ordained deacon by that Pope. Nor would this need to be treated, had not a great miracle intervened. Three brethren were there ordained, two in the office of the presbyterate, that third in the office of the diaconate: but when the brethren were compelled to bend for pardon according to custom, the holy Pope, together with the master Eltutus, saw a dove sent from heaven through a window opened above, and over holy Samson stand immovably—not (as is the custom of a bird) fluttering or flying, but always without any motion of the little wing, the ministers running about everywhere through the church. And not only this, but also, the bishop lifting his hand over him to confirm him deacon, that dove (which is more marvelous) sent from heaven (as I already said) descended onto his right shoulder and there constantly remained so long until the whole office was consummated by the bishop. This was a wonder to no one in the church, since it was visible to no one but only the bishop and the aforesaid master, and one deacon who held the chalice and had sung the Gospel at the prayer: and always the aforesaid admirable dove stood thus immovably over him, those three seeing it, until he received the communion of the Eucharist. Finally the bishop and the master came into such a state of amazement, they conversing with each other, that they undoubtingly judged holy Samson now not earthly, but heavenly. But holy Samson had so grown up admirable and, so to speak, ineffable in the work of God, that from day to day, as it were by a spiritual ladder namely, ascending higher and higher on the topmost summit of religion, his daily practice being renewed for the better, he was seen to emerge.
[14] But this Eltutus had in his monastery an alumnus, and nephew and presbyter, He bears the envy of certain [men patiently.] and to this presbyter there was a brother without grade, disjoined from the brethren in whatever degree toward the love of holy Samson, the ancient enemy of the human race undoubtedly instigating them through an inept trophy of envy, wickedly fearing lest, on account of him whom they knew to be better than they, they be deprived of their worldly inheritance. Nor could they furnish him any evil, nor peacefully and lovingly cleave to him, ignorant of the deeper counsel of God, they were gravely plunged into the depths. But he, knowing all and nothing of it lying hidden from him, prayed the Lord for them the more, pouring tears with prayers, suppliantly asking the Lord that on account of him they should not incur the lapse of a most evil crime, always intent on fasts, and exercised with unceasing prayers, in searching and understanding the holy Scriptures too vehemently sensible, almost without intermission, according to the commendation of the Apostle Paul, he prayed in cold and nakedness, spending the night in the wintry ices, neither by the brumal blasts, nor by the graver heats of summer was he loosened, mindful of the Apostolic saying where he says: "For the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared to the coming glory which shall be revealed in us." Rom. 8:18.
[15] He is ordained presbyter, a prodigy accompanying. For not long after b the Order of the presbyterate from the same bishop who had ordained that deacon, the master asking and God willing, as he was worthy, worthily he received. But why do we delay longer? Such a sign as was seen from heaven when he received the office of the diaconate, such also when he received the presbyterate to be discharged: the same appeared only to the three to whom it had before been seen, God showing him worthy. But by how much in the greater grade, God willing, but he unwilling and not ineptly refusing, but gratefully receiving what God had promised, he had cleaved to it, by so much also in the straiter path of abstinence, according to the saying of the holy Scriptures, he inserted himself by voluntary surrender. For he studied to be more humble and more benign than the rest. His virtues. But what shall I say of the exercise of his chastity and continence, when, most happily conquering altogether the incentives of lust from the first flower of his adolescence up to his blessed end, both in the male and even in the female sex, he had the voluntary purity of the flesh for [his] nature? So was virginity in his body, that never did charity and humility depart from his heart. Therefore he applied himself to assiduous fasts and prayers. He never tasted flesh. But in all the time of his life he never in his whole life tasted the flesh of any animal or bird, never did anyone see him drunk, never with a changed mind, or unstable wavering, nor did any kind of drink in the least injure him in anything. He never utterly forbade himself any drink, but daily with the other brethren, when they were not fasting, communicating for the sake of charity, according to the word of the Gospel he thirsted for justice.
[16] The custom of the monks of drinking after Terce. But these two aforesaid brethren, filled as it were with diabolical poisons, always envied him, and especially that evil presbyter, whose evil deed I know, but whose name I could not know: himself fearing lest on account of holy Samson he be deprived and destitute of his hereditary monastery, which after his uncle he hoped to possess, equally with his brother, by the counsel of his art they sought evil for him: but finding no cause of guilt in him, as it were drunk and mad, they were turned hither and thither. But the brother of the same presbyter, the other monks taking turns c in order, was made the baker of this monastery. For it was a custom in the law of this monastery to rub garden herbs fitting for health through a drink, and to divide them to the several brethren in their little vessels, in a not large little cup, particularly for health: so that when they came from celebrating Terce, they might find the drink already prepared, mixed with garden herbs. But the baker, the counsel of the evil brother being received, mixed poison for holy Samson through his antidote in the drink, rubbing a certain "tillum" d he gave it to him to drink, and, in order that it might be proved deadly, he first gave a little of it to a cat e. But the cat, when it drank, gave a headlong leap and at once died. But the baker, when he saw this, greatly rejoiced, Poison is offered to Samson. hoping nothing else but that holy Samson, this drink being drunk up, would forthwith depart from this world. But to holy Samson, praying, forthwith the spirit of the Lord is present, showing him the evil recently done. He nonetheless, faithful in the Lord's promise, mindful of the Gospel saying, where Christ says of his faithful trusting in him: "If they drink," he says, "any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them," and the rest; greatly glad entered the refectory, because he himself was the steward of this monastery, and, blessing the drinks for the brethren, and imposing on his own the holy little sign of the Cross, without any hesitation of mind drank the whole, nor ever felt from this any even the smallest pain of heart. Mark 16:10 (18).
[17] But while they were dining thus on one and the same day, we have heard that holy Samson had a sweet and most glad conversation with the baker: By a gentle address he converts a monk hostile to him. "Great sweetness," he said, "to my jaws, and great health to my heart, O most loving brother, did that drink furnish which as the first you gave me today: may God heal you from every sickness whatever you have." Which heard, the brother within himself was touched by penitence for the evil committed, promising before Almighty God that he would no more carry out any evil counsel with his brother against this Servant of God: since indeed he had known him conscious of all, and saw him patiently tolerating all things. Coming afterward to his brother with rebuke, he said: "We have sinned, brother, nothing against any man but against Christ, and against his beloved Samson: and you, brother, have been suffused in your soul by the venomous incentive of envy, with that one as author and instigator of whom it is said through the Prophet: 'By the envy of the devil death entered into the world; they imitate him therefore who are of his part.'" Wis. 2:24. But his brother, persevering in the obstinacy of his evil opinion, gave no assent to the good counsel, but a swift vengeance was given him from heaven.
[18] For the next Sunday coming, when he had received the Communion of the altar from the hand of holy Samson,
Another monk hostile to Samson is seized by a demon; at one hour, when together with the morsel it had passed into his mouth, at that same hour he was seized by a demon, so that, pale and trembling and giving much a crackling noise, and tearing himself, and unbecomingly falling to the ground, and shamelessly denuding himself of his garments, he first began to bite his two lips with his teeth, and to babble at the other brethren without any providence of modesty, and to provoke their hearts to anger, and to say: "Why do you stand here idle, able to do nothing? for I have no care of you all, if one among you is not presented: if that one be present, he has dominion over the whole of me." But the most wise old man, when he heard these things, orders him to be restrained, and, bound by the strong brethren, to be led outside. Which seen, his brother, weeping and sobbing, and suppliantly prostrating himself on the ground, all the brethren being present, showed the whole fault of both, that it might be straight, and submissively and tearfully demanded pardon for his fault, promising that he would do penance f in his whole life, and always serve God and holy Samson.
[19] Which heard, the brethren together with their abbot greatly wondered at these things that were happening, especially fearing lest in these poisonous evils recently ineptly burst forth holy Samson be offended, he is freed by Samson. and besides lest he depart from them, which they judged would be done for the greatest injury and by ill desert; and suppliantly they asked the chosen of God that he would not disdain to go to the dwelling in which the demoniac brother was vexed by the evil spirit. But holy Samson, weeping and wailing bitterly, thus gave answer, saying openly to all the brethren: "Alas for me! for what did you do this to me, Lord God Almighty? why did you permit my most loving brother to be injured on account of me? for I fear to present myself at the sight of him unjustly hating me, and especially of the devil inflaming him against me with the torches of hatred. Yet I grieve that he suffered injury from the beginning; but now if I have grace before your Divinity, through the prayers of the other brethren, me unworthy interceding, let him receive health, and give him a penitent heart, that his spirit may be saved": and blessing oil, and mixing water, he ordered [it] to be given him to taste. Which tasted, those holding him by the hands, he slipped down onto his back, and made as it were dead, the brethren thought nothing else than that he would die; and lying in one place for about three hours' space, at last not long after Nones he returned alive as if from death, and received his former health from the diabolical assault, and doing penance for his evil committed and acknowledged, God inspiring him, he acknowledged [it] before all the brethren: and thus by the just judgment of God it came to pass, that the primacy which he enviously and unjustly usurped, in his whole life he never had.
[20] Samson meditates going forth from the monastery of Eltutus. But holy Samson inserted himself into keener and straiter fasts, reckoning that monastery very grave to himself, since it was already tumultuous and spread abroad h through the fatherland. But he, always desiring to take that narrow Gospel way which leads to heaven, devised how he could escape from the congregation of the monastery without offense to his master. But there was, not far from this monastery, a certain island recently founded by a certain excellent man and holy presbyter, Piro i by name (in which island I too was), with whom, I say, holy Samson wished to cohabit; but he greatly feared, as I already said, lest he offend his old man.
[21] With Eltutus permitting, he withdraws to Piro. Therefore, revolving such things within himself, and asking God that he would give help to his will, behold a messenger of the Lord appeared to holy Eltutus through a dream, saying: "Rising in the morning, do you inquire the will of holy Samson, that wherever he wishes (God guiding in all things) to go, you may help him, and know that God is always with him." That Saint awaking, and retaining in memory with himself what had been said to him through the dream, rising in the early morning, orders holy Samson to be summoned to him, saying: "Relate to me, chosen of God, what documents are in your will, God inspiring: I this night had a messenger of God concerning you, whereby I may help what is yours, because God is with you." Which heard, holy Samson groaned, and said that he had done nothing good before God: yet he humbly revealed his will to his old man. But the old man, hearing these things, thus gave answer: "It is necessary for you to do all things for Christ, and to suffer poverty by will. Nevertheless, altogether in our stock none will be greater than you." And, restraining his tongue and beating his breast, he fulfilled all things according to holy Samson's will, and caused him to be led to the Island whither he tended in peace, and there by the aforesaid presbyter Piro, of advanced age, already an old man, he was received as if a heavenly messenger of God seemed to be present, leading an admirable and eremitic, nay even heavenly, life untiringly, neither by day nor by night ceasing from prayers and colloquies with God. Spending the whole day in the works of the hands and in prayers, but the whole night in the mystical understandings of the holy Scriptures, carrying a lamp to his dwelling, so that, intent on reading, he might either write something, or meditate on spiritual theories. But if, as a man, he had need, on account of carnal fragility, of resting, leaning himself against the wall, or the support of some hard thing, he never slept in a bed.
[22] And so on a certain winter, when the father of the same St. Samson, seized by a sudden pain, was compelled to pay the debt of death, He never slept in a bed. he is compelled by his neighbors to receive the sacrifice of communion, according to custom, before the death of the flesh. But he vehemently k affirmed that he would never taste death, never receive health, never receive the sacrifice, unless he saw his firstborn Samson, the chosen of God, and said that through him he would receive the health alike of body and soul. The men who heard, wondering at these words, and at the same time diligently examining what these things might be, at once direct messengers riding, asking that it should not grieve him to visit his father, now lying in the borders of death, and especially desiring to receive from him the health of body and soul.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER III.
Called by his sick father, he goes to him only at Piro's bidding; a marvelous encounter with a theomacha demon-woman on the way; he wins the whole household to God, and on his return slays a serpent.
[23] Samson's father, endangered by disease, summons his son to him. Those messengers came up to the place where holy Samson dwelt, and, received into lodging at night, the brethren going in the morning to exercise their work, they found them knocking at the gate, asking how they might easily have a colloquy with holy Samson. But holy Samson, spiritually jesting with them, they not knowing him, thus said: "Relate to me the cause of the inquiry after him, for which you wish to have a colloquy with him, and I will expound." And they answered, saying to him: "We wish to see him and speak with him, for his father and mother and all his neighbors sent us to converse with him." And he too, answering with cheerful face, said to them: "Amen I say to you, unless in my presence you say all your business for which you came here, the Samson whom you seek you will never see." But they mourning, and distrusting toward each other, holy Piro, thus greatly glad, said: "Behold Samson, whom with so great labor of the journey you sought, now say to me what you have." Then they fell on their face, and, announcing the greeting of his parents, indeed narrated the cause for which they had come.
[24] [Samson denies that it is permitted him to return to his paternal home, but assents to Piro bidding.] But holy Samson, when he heard, first groaned within himself, thinking it superfluous for him to return to the home in which he had been carnally born. And to those answering him he said: "Go back to our house, for now, unless I am deceived, I have left Egypt, for it is not mine to return again into it; for God is able to heal the sick." And thus, stretching his step at a rapid course before the brethren, he proceeded further to do the work. But holy Piro, moved by mercy, nay rather the Holy Spirit ordaining help for the virtue shown, gently recalling him to himself, said to him: "Why do you speak thus, chosen of God? for you ought not to do the work of God negligently, for you must have care for the profit of souls: for your reward will be great with God, when, where carnal things have grown, spiritual things are sown through you." But holy Samson, gazing at him and being silent a little, thus said: "Would that the will of God might be done, I am ready for all things for God and for the gains of souls." And those who had been sent asked him that he would make the journey together with them. Who said to them: "Go forward, and we expeditiously will follow." Holding for certain that he would follow them, having received a blessing, they went.
[25] But he remained after them day and night in the monastery, and on the morrow he said: Samson makes for his father with a companion. "If I am invited by the cause of the profit of souls and of charity, is there among you a brother ready to suffer injury with me?" There was a certain deacon, he too still flourishing in youthful age, to whom the Abbot said: "You are stronger than those old men, for the sake of charity go with your brother." But holy Samson, foreseeing in spirit that he would not be one trusting in faith, greatly glad said to him by word: "Trust, brother, and act manfully."
[26] And so, having received a blessing and a conveyance being placed on a horse, What happened to them on the way. they began to make the journey: and it happened, while they went praying through a most vast forest, they heard a most dire voice from a certain very horrible being on the right side beside them terribly clattering, and, at the hearing of this voice, the aforesaid deacon growing afraid, and first of all growing pale, quickly letting go the horse which he had held in his hand, and casting off the cloak with which he was clad, gave himself to swift flight, holy Samson crying out after his back and saying: "Trust, O brother, I pray, trust, fear not, nor forget the Gospel precept in which you were nourished from your adolescence." But him not heeding and always fleeing, holy Samson now from afar looking with tearful eyes, and firmly holding the accustomed spiritual arms and the shield of faith, and encircling himself always with the holy little sign of the Cross, saw a theomacha demon-woman a, shaggy and grey-haired, already an old crone, in her garments "bribetha" and gilded, holding a hunting-spear in her hand, and flitting through the vast forests with swift course and fleeing, pursuing in a straight line. But holy Samson, stable in faith as if he had not seen her *, remained intrepid, and with swift course holding the horse in his hand, and placing the fleeing man's cloak on the horse, faithfully followed the fleeing and pursuing woman, and proceeding not far found the fleeing brother half-dead, and gazing at him a little, saw from afar the theomacha crone running, and discerning her now descending into a valley, cried out after her saying: "Why do you flee, woman? Behold I am a man like him whom you laid low, my equal: if I am given into your power, behold I am present: do not therefore flee, expecting me to come to you." But she not heeding these things and always striving to flee, holy Samson cried out after her, saying: "I command you in the name of Jesus Christ, from that place where you now stand, that you move not your foot further until I come and address you."
[27] So she standing in one and the same place, and trembling and letting the hunting-spear go on the ground, holy Samson came, Samson gives the hag over to death. and hardly with difficulty addresses her: "What," saying, "are you of evil form, or what sort are you?" But she with great trembling said: "I am a theomacha, for my kindred too up to now have been transgressors against you, and now none of my race has remained in this forest, except I alone. For I have eight sisters, and my mother still lives, and these are not here, but dwell in the further forest, and I was handed over to a husband in this wilderness, and my husband is dead, and on account of this I cannot depart from this forest." But holy Samson said: "Can you render alive again the brother whom you struck, or at least be solicitous for the profit of your soul?" But she answering said: "I will not, nor can I be repaired for the better, for I can do no good. From my infancy up to now I have always been trained to evil." But holy Samson thus fittingly said: "I implore Almighty God that you no more do injury to others, but, since you are irremediable, that in this hour you die." And, the prayer being completed, that malefic woman, giving a headlong leap on her left side, fell to the ground, and was dead.
[28] Then holy Samson, returning to his brother left half-dead in the place of the disaster, found him lying nearly dead, and diligently searching, found that only in his breast the vital breath had remained. He strengthens and heals his companion Then indeed, according to the authority of Elisha, placing mouth to mouth and the other members to the several members, and weeping, he suppliantly asked God that he would deign to restore that brother to health, lest on his account he suffer injury of conscience, being one obedient with him in the office of charity: and, God working virtue through him, in not more than an hour and a half the half-dead brother rose as if from sleep, unharmed.
[29] and coming to his father consoles him, etc. Finally the greatest grace in him was, that on account of holy Samson the three-forked lance of the malefic woman did not pierce through his body, and, comforting the brother not to fear, and blessing God, they accomplished the journey begun together, and to the place whither they tended, at last on the third day they arrived, and found Ammon, holy Samson's father, surrounded by his neighbors, lying sick in bed. But Ammon, when he saw them coming from the door, greatly rejoiced, saying: "Behold the help of my body and soul, which the Lord deigned to show me through a dream." And soon, all being cast outside, only his mother remained with those three, that Samson and his deacon and his father and mother: and at once that Ammon published in the midst a capital crime unto death, with the demanding of pardon and suppliant imploring, those three aforesaid being present, which he had concealed in himself, and with his whole heart vowed to serve God from that same day up to his end, his wife especially suggesting it, and at that same hour caused his head to be shorn by force, his wife (as I already said) especially instigating him, saying to him: "Not only let I and you, as is fitting and proper, serve God, but let us also join all our offspring in the service of God, and let all our things become wholly God's." Then that Ammon said: "According to your word let us do. All things, therefore, whatever the Lord, nay rather you, have given me up to now, I today b voluntarily offer to him wholly." And so, his five brothers being presented to holy Samson together with their sister the sixth, still quite little, he thus, being silent a little, gave answer: "My brothers indeed are good and given to God, but that little one, whom you see and have, is given to worldly pleasures: yet nourish her, because she is human." Which heard, the men who were there greatly wondered, and dared to ask nothing concerning this miracle.
[30] And so, Ammon's head being shorn, and his wife receiving the order of widowhood long since desired, He wins his uncle with his whole household to God. and all their substances being divided, and the greatest portions being given for the use of the poor, and the lesser left for their own uses (for they were possessors of many resources), the brother of the same Ammon, seeing this, together with his wife and his three sons, by such a lot and such a victory on one and the same day were won for Christ and for him; for his mother too very gladly received the blessing of widowhood. And so, all these being confirmed in good works, and it being suggested that monasteries be founded, holy Samson, together with his father and his uncle c, in one happy company of four, began to accomplish the journey in peace.
[31] But when they had begun the journey, his mother is said to have called him separately and said to him: What his mother asked of him. "The monasteries which you suggest to us to be founded and the churches to be constructed, not only do I desire, but also lovingly embrace. But since the time of the promise destined concerning you is to come, we hope, God helping, our churches to be consecrated by you." Then he, as it were modestly smiling, and assenting indeed with his hand, and dismissing her with a blessing, went off to his companions, returning by another way than that by which they had come. He, always in admonishing and exhorting those novices among whom he made the journey, sweetly and spiritually interpreted the parables of the Old and New Testament.
[32] But while they made the journey, Ammon, preceding them, saw a path, and around the path fields as if burnt by fire, Samson slays a serpent meeting him. and a certain track as if a beam were dragged through the burnt grasses; and at first indeed he trembled, and showed [it] to his brother following him, saying: "Behold, brother, that serpent which we heard from our parents to be in this forest precedes us, and, unless I am deceived, is not far from us." And his brother, with very glad face, answered, saying: "Do not fear, brother, for now all our arms are safe with God." But holy Samson, prudently observing the words of both, thus began his discourse: "Whence has a conversation arisen between you?" Ammon answered: "You see, chosen of God, behold a serpent creeps before us." But holy Samson, thus with quiet mind consoling them not to fear, sweetly said: "Be trusting in him who said: 'If you have faith as a grain of mustard, you shall say to this mountain, pass hence, and it will pass, and nothing shall be impossible to you.' Matt. 17:19 (20). And so do you too be stable, awaiting me here until I return to you, praying and silent about whatever you shall hear of it." But they sitting, and he proceeding further, his uncle began to follow him, saying to him: "Chosen of God, it is better that you not go alone. Permit me therefore to go with you." Who, answering, said to him: "For I do not go alone, but God is with me: but you, as I already said, sit here until I return to you with victory": but he, holding his course d hastily, saw from afar a serpent with flame-vomiting crest erect creeping through the vast deserts; and he, first raising his voice through the singing of a Psalm, "The Lord," he said, "is my light," and the rest. Ps. 26 (27). The serpent, hearing his voice and likewise his scent, where the tail was, turned its head with a hiss and fury. Then he, as if he saw a little snake, ran up to it. That serpent nonetheless, seizing a clod of earth with its bite, hardly with difficulty threw [it] into the face of the [man] approaching, and then, when it saw the man coming trustfully, and especially the virtue of God hedging him about e, it sends forth a huge hiss of a dire voice as if it were struck with a sword, and afterward, trembling, quickly gathers itself into a coil, gnawing its tail with rabid teeth. But holy Samson, chanting the accustomed and chosen Psalm with himself, whose beginning is, "Confess to the God of gods," trustfully making the sign of the circle, hedging himself about, and imposing the sign of the Cross, said: "Go now as far as you are permitted." Ps. 135 (136). Then, his companions being called, he said: "Come,
brethren, and see the works of God, that the faith thence may be firmer." But they, coming, saw the serpent from its coil rolling itself sluggishly enough over the earth, creeping slowly, and up to the place of the Saint's fixed staff wheeling in a circle, again and again doing the same, by no means able to raise its head beyond the boundary. But holy Samson meanwhile consoled them through the sweet Gospel words, comforting them in faith, and saying: "Believing the Creator with true faith, you ought not to fear the creature," and exhorting them with many other words of this kind, he taught them through the whole day the words of edification. Then holy Samson, seeing the day near ended, cried out to the serpent, saying: "Long is our journey, but you have no more life, and therefore I command you in the name of Jesus Christ, that in this hour, we being present, you die." Without delay, the serpent, standing upon its tail, and raising its head upward, and making an arch of itself ineptly, vomited out all its poison, and was dead.
[33] The custom of withdrawing into monasteries at the time of Lent. Then all these, in common giving thanks to Almighty God, attempted to make the journey, and to the monastery with prosperity on the third day, the Lord accompanying, they arrived, where too the aforesaid bishop Dubricius—since he dwelt in his house, Lent of Easter now beginning—hearing of holy Samson and his companions, greatly rejoiced: (for it was the custom for that bishop to spend nearly the whole Lent of Easter in that same island) and he furnished him humanely and lovingly consolation concerning his father and his uncle.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER IV.
Made abbot in Piro's place, he sets out into Ireland, and returning with his father and others withdraws into the solitude; and, fleeing in vain, is compelled to preside over another monastery.
[34] But on a certain day that deacon who had made the way with holy Samson, Samson is made baker by Bishop Dubricius. holy Pope Dubricius, calling apart, diligently inquired of him all their events on the journey. So the holy deacon, repeating all in order, and disclosing all concerning his cowardice, which befell him on the way, concealed nothing at all from the bishop questioning him, but said all to him humbly. But to holy Pope Dubricius all these things were a wonder, he himself knowing that holy Samson was full of God; he enjoined on him at that hour the office of baker a, saying to him: "All the good things which in this cell, God granting, abound, I bid you to dispense, and especially I wish them to be imparted through you to the Lord." But he, doing all things according to the old man's precept for the sake of obedience, acted in all things according to God. For he seemed at every moment to distribute all things to the name of the Lord and to charity.
[35] But the devil, who never ceases to infest the human race, He dissipates a calumny brought against him. kindled a certain brother, who before him had been baker, with envious torches, disparaging holy Samson and saying that Samson had squandered in profusion all that they had, and especially had unbecomingly emptied the lanterns full of honey. This malicious complaint came to the bishop. But the bishop, wishing secretly to burst into the cells *, at that hour before he came, sent a boy to holy Samson to bid him come into the cell. But holy Samson, the spirit revealing [it], knew the cause, and, at once entering into the cell, imposed the sign of the Cross on the lanterns: and when the bishop came, all were found full and complete. But the bishop, wondering at these things, undoubtingly believed Samson to be full of God, and judged him worthy to preside over the rest in a more sublime office.
[36] For not long after, in the same monastery an unexpected thing happened. Samson is made abbot in Piro's place. The same Piro, on a dark night, and what is graver, as they say, through inept drunkenness, walking in the cloisters of the monastery, alone hurled himself into a very vast well, and, sending forth one shout of a howl, was drawn from the pool by the brethren nearly dead, and on account of this died that night. And it happened that, when the bishop heard this, he made all the brethren dwelling there pass the night, and then, counsel being taken after Matins, all unanimously wished holy Samson to be abbot of this monastery. He obeying b not voluntarily, sweetly instructed his brethren according to the right rule, and, holding the primacy in this place not more than a year and a half, the brethren judged him a hermit more than a cenobite monk. And so he strove, amid abundant feasts and overflowing drinks, always to be fasting and thirsting. But of his vigils there is no need to say anything else, since (as I already said) he never granted his body to any little bed.
[37] But it happened that there came to him certain most skilled Scots coming from Rome, and diligently searching them and finding that they were philosophers, He sets out into Scotland or Ireland. he accompanies them to their fatherland, the bishop permitting: and there, not tarrying much, and doing many virtues by God's authorship, he was venerated by all the religious of that province as an angel of God, and through him the Lord in that province, illuminating many blind and cleansing many lepers, and putting demoniacs to flight, saved very many from the way of error. Nay rather all miracles, as they say, in this fatherland the Lord worked through him; yet let us bring one of many into the midst.
[38] For when he was staying in the citadel of Ætris c, hoping for a voyage of returning to Britain, on a certain day, a straight wind coming from the North, He frees a demoniac. and the ship now prepared, the nautical men hastening the journey and compelling him at once to board the ship, holy Samson answered: "We have first a work permitted by God to be done before we sail." But the nautical men, provoked to offense, not expecting him to come, and now raising the sail, he himself thus gently said: "Go in peace, and today, God willing, returning, on the morrow we shall sail together." But they going, behold a certain man sent from a nearby monastery asked him to go with him to the monastery, saying: "The devil has invaded our abbot, and I left him bound, always inquiring concerning you, whether you have already gone forth to your fatherland." But holy Samson, now knowing by divine revelation, went with him, and found the demoniac brother bound. And when the demoniac had seen him approaching the door of the house in which the demoniac was, he cried out with a great voice, saying: "Behold him whom always up to today I have sought, behold him whom I feared, behold him against whom I cannot stand." When he had said these things, as if breathed out, he fell onto the bed, and, holy Samson praying, the demoniac returned to his sense and his reason, the Lord working, and, winning alike the health of body and soul through that chosen [man], and committing his monastery with all its substance to Samson, and vowing to serve God, he followed holy Samson across the sea, and was always his companion: whose good acts indeed, and good manner of life after his ruin, I know, but the name I do not know. But by the letters transmitted across the sea concerning him, already marked above, I hold for certain that he rested in the monastery of Pental d, and there led an excellent and arduous life. But let us follow the things begun.
[39] Samson returns to his own monastery. The brethren in the monastery being blessed and confirmed, until he should send them an abbot according to the will of God, holy Samson, illuminated by God, went off to meet the ship. And it happened that, while he went to the harbor with his companions, he found the ship at that hour holding the harbor, and returning from the voyage, the wind being turned. Then, greatly glad, clinging to each other, relating from both sides the matter that had happened, they remained there that night, hoping for a voyage on the morrow, which afterward the truth of the matter proved. For, the light bursting forth after the night, with a straight wind, on a prosperous journey, God steering, they proceeded, and on the next day made for that island in which he had before dwelt, and he found his father and his uncle in that monastery to be, than nearly all and before the rest living regularly there, more preeminent and more praiseworthy in the commandment of God, and from this he gave thanks to Almighty God.
[40] And the brethren wishing that he would again live with them, he did not acquiesce, Afterward he withdraws into the solitude with his father and two others. but wished to make for the desired desert. The aforesaid two brothers asking him that they might always dwell with him—both indeed were good, but Umbrafel seemed to excel even a little—Samson said to them that it was not permitted for them to follow carnal affections toward him. For his uncle said: "You know, chosen of God, that at your suggestion we left all carnal affections, and therefore, because you are spiritual, we ought to follow you not carnally, but spiritually." Then holy Samson with provident spirit said to them: "You indeed, brother Umbrafel, must be a pilgrim." And Umbrafel said, "Thanks be to God." And afterward holy Samson, foreseeing in spirit that his uncle would now maturely discharge the office of the presbyterate, sent [him] with his blessing as abbot to the monastery which, by the gift of the aforesaid brother to him, he had left in Ireland, and made Ammon, together with the brother of the envious presbyter, and with the aforesaid Scottish brother, four together, go to the most vast desert, and, finding a quite delightful little fort near the river Abrinus e, and finding in it a most sweet fountain, he thought to make a dwelling for his brethren in it, asking that the Lord would deign to show him some underground cave: which most devout prayer of his the Lord placidly fulfilled.
[41] For on a certain day, walking through the forest, he found a most level and most secret cave, and its door situated toward the East, and there, as if it had been given by God, he lovingly embraced [it] to dwell, and after the days of a week, fasting and thirsting, he had indeed one dry loaf, but water whence he might amend his thirst he had not at all. But it happened that, when on the seventh day at last about the third hour he was praying, fasting and thirsting, and his face touched the earth in the bending of pardon, he felt the clod sweating, and, fixing the shaft of his staff,
a fountain of sweet water flowed forth, and there by his brethren the whole loaf was brought to him after a full month, and the place in which the three aforesaid brethren were, up to the time when I was in Britain, was always venerated with great cult, and an oratory is built there, where holy Samson through all the Lord's days came to sing Mass and to the Communion of Christ.
[42] And so, a synod being held, and the greater [men] inquiring where holy Samson lay hidden, He is called into a synod, there was present a certain man who said that he had ascertained the way to that cave in which holy Samson was leading a heavenly life, and also to that little fort to which holy Samson came on all the Lord's days with these three brethren, who kept there a rule pleasing to God, to sing Mass. Then all these, counsel being taken, direct a little letter (which little letter I heard read) saying that he ought not to labor for himself alone: since indeed they foreknew that he would altogether profit many, and sharply and lovingly compelled him to come to the synod. And so, that little letter being read through, not by a spontaneous course with them, with only one companion of the three he came to the synod. But the greater [men], seeing him with very glad face, as if they saw an angel of God, received holy Samson with honorable service, and made him, unwilling, abbot in the monastery which (as they say) had been constructed by St. Germanus, having their accustomed day, when they should convene in that same place to ordain bishops, that is, the Chair of blessed Peter the Apostle. f
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER V.
A miraculous episcopal ordination; angels assist him celebrating Mass: hastening into Armorica, by his miracles he first converts many pagans to the faith.
Samson is consecrated bishop from heaven. But it happened that, that annual feast approaching, and the bishops being awaited at the accustomed assembly, holy Samson saw an admirable vision. On a certain night he sees himself hedged about by delicate and most dense throngs of white-robed beings, and three excellent bishops, adorned on the head with golden diadems, and clad in all-silk and most beautiful garments, standing before his face, and compelling him to enter the church together with them for the sake of prayer. And so, having entered the church, as he himself afterward reported, he sedulously and humbly inquires the names of these three, and received this answer from them, that they were Peter, and James the brother of the Lord, and John the Evangelist; but the cause of their coming, that they had been sent by the Lord Jesus Christ to confirm him, especially, as the pre-chosen Priest of the Lord. And so, the office of a bishop being entirely discharged by them according to custom, and their blessings being received by him, they went away, and he, awaking, felt through the spirit that he was now made a high priest. But those bishops coming on the appointed and accustomed day, bringing two to them to be ordained, and wishing to ordain the third according to the custom anciently handed down, but not yet knowing who he might be, the following night there is present an angel of God to holy Pope Dubricius (as he himself afterward reported) in a dream, affirming that holy Samson would be the high priest, and saying that it was pleasing to God. Holy Dubricius, for the joy of this angelic colloquy, made all the best counselors of the congregation awake and convene into one, joyfully explaining to them what he had seen and heard, and what he now held in his mind, to ordain him a priest, since indeed he best knew his magnificent virtues, which the Lord had now already worked.
[44] He is placed on the episcopal Chair. Then all the counselors, without any disjunction, acceptably affirmed him to be made bishop. Which known, holy Samson entirely published his vision to Pope Dubricius, as he himself had seen [it]. The wise men conferring with each other, and undoubtingly believing him already entirely made a bishop through this miracle now done, determined that he should sit on the episcopal Chair a, and confirm [it] with the other two for the firmness of the faith. And so, he sitting on the fitting Chair, all standing there saw a dove sent from heaven give its accustomed voice, and stand immovably over him so long until he was perfectly finished being ordained, and, being ordained bishop, was not (as is the custom of birds) moved from its place by the tumult of the bystanders and by the ministers running about everywhere through the church. But he singing Mass on that same day, all being present, it seemed to Pope Dubricius and to the two excellent monks He sees angels present at the time of the sacrifice. as if fire burst from his mouth and nostrils, and (what is greater than all these) from that day when he was a presbyter, up to his happy end, when he sang Mass, the angels, holy ministers of God of the altar and of the sacrifice, were always seen by him, and frequently broke the oblation with their hands, he alone seeing [it].
[45] And so more marvelous things succeed the marvelous, and earthly things are marvelously coupled with heavenly. [At God's admonition preparing to cross into Armorica, on the journey he visits his blood-relations.] For when on a certain night of Easter he was singing Mass, and, according to his custom, after the eulogy only, he alone stood at the altar, nay God too with him, in sleep he had destined b for the whole day, he praying, forthwith went out into an ecstasy of mind, and saw a great man shining with great brightness stand by him, who himself too, as we afterward heard his father narrate, c at first trembled at the enormity of this vision, and heard from him a voice of consolation, not to fear, saying to him: "Be comforted, Holy [one] of God, and act manfully: for you are beloved and devout to God. Therefore, undismayed, listen to my words, for I am sent to you by my Lord. For you ought not to tarry longer in this fatherland, for you have been destined a pilgrim, and beyond the sea you are to be the greatest in the church, worthy of the greatest priestly honor." Recording these and many things like these and bidding farewell, the brethren coming to the matutinal synaxis, the angel went out from him by a peaceful withdrawal, and he, receiving the vision with all the alacrity of faith, and retaining [it] by memory in his mind, the office of the Paschal solemnity being consummated, without delay directed his journey across the Severn sea, all the congregations being unwilling and weeping, and on the way visiting his mother and his aunt, and consecrating their churches now built, and finding his sister, now departed from his mother by adulterous intercourse, nay defiled, and excommunicating [her], and gladly rejoicing over his brothers and cousins leading a noble and catholic life with their mothers, and instructing much good in those places for the edification of spiritual virtues, and freeing many sick there alike from the plague of body and soul, and freely giving the virtue of his blessing to all those, by a prosperous voyage he proceeded to the monastery which is called Docto, the aforesaid three and many others following him, by a happy journey.
[46] But the brethren who were in this place, hearing of his coming, and especially he demanding of them that some wise man be summoned, He turns aside to a certain monastery. at once direct to him the wisest of them to converse with him, Juniavus d by name, who himself too in the British tongue was called with them "Lux" (Light). For he was divinely inspired and much conscious of future things. But when he had come to the place where St. Samson was, he adored him with an honorable greeting, and, giving thanks to Almighty God for his coming, and sitting together with him, humbly inquired of him whither he tended. But holy Samson telling the cause of that journey, and asking that he might rest even a little space with them, holy Juniavus, foreseeing in spirit, gave this teachable answer: "Desirable," he said, "O most loving Pope, is the journey by which you go for a servant of God, God praising in the Gospel that one becoming a pilgrim on his account. Nevertheless, what you ask, that you should rest with us, is not fitting, lest you, being far better than we, being inferiors, be condemned, and we (which is more just) be condemned concerning you, our merits requiring it. For this we wish you to know, that we are now relaxed in our former institutes, but you, accomplishing your journey in peace, ought at least once, before you cross, to be made manifest in Europe e, that through you, still before you depart from us in body, the virtue of the Lord may be made manifest in that province."
[47] He crosses the sea. But holy Samson, hearing these things, was stupefied at his doctrine, foreseeing the Holy Spirit speaking through him, and so, leaving his ship in that same place, ordaining a cart to carry his spiritual utensils and volumes, and placing his chariot, which he had brought with him from Ireland, on two horses, passing through the fatherland, the Lord accompanying, he ordered his journey. The long-lived traveler desirably made for the sea which they call Austejum f, whatever leads to Europe, choirs of brethren preceding him, others nonetheless following behind, he himself alone in the middle, as was fitting, incessantly prayed God day and night.
[48] He rebukes pagans worshiping an idol. But on a certain day, when he was walking through a certain district which they call Tricurium, he heard (as it was true) on the left side men adoring an idol after the manner of bacchanals in a certain shrine through a mimetic play: and he, nodding to the brethren to stand and be silent, and himself descending from the chariot to the ground and standing on his feet, and attending to those who worshiped the idol, saw before them, on the summit of a certain mountain, an abominable image standing (on which mountain I too was, and the sign of the Cross which holy Samson with his own hand carved with a certain iron on the standing stone, I adored and with my own hand touched); which holy Samson, when he saw, hastened swiftly to them, choosing only two brethren with him, and lest they worship the idol, the one God who created
leaving all things behind, they ought sweetly to worship; while their count Guediana stood before them, and while they made excuse that it was no evil to keep by mathematical art g their offspring in the game, some raging, some mocking, and yet others, whose mind was sounder, urging that he should depart, straightway the power of God was publicly displayed. For a certain boy, guiding horses in their course, fell to the earth from a certain swift horse, and, his neck being folded under him, his body remained lying nearly lifeless upon the ground.
[49] He converts them by raising a dead boy. But while his neighbors wept around him, holy Samson said: Do you see that your idol cannot give any help to this dead one? But if you promise to destroy this idol utterly and to worship it no more, I, God working in me, will raise him alive again. And when they consented, he ordered them to withdraw a little farther off, and, having prayed over the lifeless one for nearly two hours, he restored him who had expired, alive again and unharmed, openly before all. And they, seeing this, all with one accord together with the aforesaid Count fell down at the feet of holy Samson and utterly destroyed the idol.
[50] Likewise he kills a serpent, and founds a monastery in the cave. Then the prudent Count made all come to holy Samson to confirm their baptisms; and he, coming together with them, praising God and saying: Behold, an angel of God sent from heaven has come to snatch us from our error! But still, holy one, we have a great scruple of mind. Holy Samson said: What is this? The Count answered: We have a certain excellent field occupied by a certain venomous and most evil serpent; and this serpent dwells in a certain impenetrable cave, destroying nearly two villages, and no man is permitted to dwell there. Hearing this, holy Samson said fearlessly: In the name of the Lord, let us go, doubting nothing; and if indeed you believe, you shall see with your own eyes in this serpent the mighty works of God. So, having taken counsel without hesitation, they went with holy Samson. But the young man who had lately been raised, promising to enter the clerical life, followed him. And so holy Samson went before the company, and that boy who had lately been raised offered him guidance, until on the next day, after the night had grown light, they saw with their own eyes that horrible cave where the serpent was. Then the boy said: Chosen one of God, do you see the cave beyond the river in which the serpent is? But he, trusting in the Lord, bidding both the company and his monks remain there, alone—nay rather, God with him—crossed beyond the river, his boy following him, and they came together to the mouth of the terrible cave. And holy Samson, looking upon the boy who followed him and smiling, spoke thus: Be strengthened, brother, and act manfully. And he added: Whom shall I fear, chosen one of God? God is with you. Then, commanding him to stand a little way off, he boldly entered the cave; but the serpent, when it saw him, trembled greatly, wishing to coil round in order to gnaw furiously at its own tail; but he at once seized the linen belt with which he was girded and straightway placed it on the serpent's neck, and, dragging it beside himself, cast it down from a certain great height, commanding, in the name of Jesus Christ, that it should live no longer. But the boy, seeing these things, ran with swift course to the company and to the Count, relating to them in order all that he had seen; and they, scarcely hearing it, at once all came peaceably to him, wishing to receive him with apostolic homage. But he was unwilling to accept anything great from them, but for the honor of the power displayed he commanded that they should found a monastery for his monks near the cave; while he meanwhile led a heavenly life in the cave, ever devoting himself to fasts and prayers.
[51] But that miracle which the Lord showed on his account in this same cave He obtains a spring there by his prayers. I think should not be left in silence. For when on a certain day, by reason of thirst, that the Lord might deign to grant him some consolation of water after the excessive weariness of fasting and thirst, without delay the Almighty, satisfying his will, as he prayed he felt from the stone lintel of that cave a most frequent drop of water, as though from a rain-cloud, flow and descend near the cave upon a certain rock in a swift course. Then, when he saw this, he was greatly moved thereby, and through this he perceived by the Spirit that God had given aid to his prayer; and to this day it ceases not to flow, neither by day nor by night.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER VI.
He becomes renowned among the Gauls by many prodigies; he obtains Judual from King Childebert, and likewise a monastery, after the serpent had been cast headlong into the sea. The most pious death of St. Samson.
[His father set over his own, he sails to Armorica, where he heals a leprous woman and a demoniac.] Having therefore received back his cousin, already mentioned at the beginning of our work, and having received him into the office of the diaconate, and having appointed his father to the presidency of that monastery now perfectly constructed, and the virtues being accomplished which God wrought through him in that region, he determined, according to his promise, a voyage across the sea, God leading; and, many monks accompanying him, and especially that deacon of whom we have already said enough, with a prosperous course they reached the desired harbor in Europe. But as they descended from the ship, they saw a small hut, not large, situated near the harbor; and holy Samson, drawing near to it, saw at the door of the little dwelling Privatus weeping and ever gazing toward the sea. And holy Samson, fixing his attention upon him, inquired of him what this might be. And Privatus said to him: There are now three days and as many nights during which I have hoped in this harbor for a helper whom God promised should come to me from across the sea. Holy Samson said to him: What is your grief? He said: I have a wife in this dwelling who is leprous, and also a daughter who is a demoniac, and I had a promise that they should be healed in this harbor. And holy Samson, entering without delay into that dwelling and pouring out a prayer over both the sick women, dismissed them whole and sound, God being the author, in the sight of all; He builds the monastery of Dol and others, and going out thence, God leading, he found there a most fitting place, and founded an honorable monastery, which to this day is called by its proper name Dol a. Sowing thence many works of wonders, he also founded many monasteries throughout nearly the whole province: which, if they were all written down one by one, we should be led into excess concerning our undertakings b.
[53] He approaches King Childebert. Yet one very great and most wonderful work, which the Lord wrought through him in Europe, I think should not be passed over in silence. For when he found all the regions in the greatest grief, and had diligently inquired the cause of them, they told him that an unjust, violent, and foreign judge c had come upon them, and had put to death their prelate, Jonas by name, who held their land by hereditary right, through iniquitous bribes wickedly placed in the hand of the king, and especially of his evil queen d, and had also delivered his son Judual to captivity and to death—but they affirmed that he was still living. And holy Samson, hearing these things, moved by mercy through God's dispensation, set out in haste to approach King Childebert on Judual's behalf, Christ ever accompanying him in all things.
[54] And it came to pass that, when he had entered into the palace, God, as it were, working power on his behalf, he found a certain very great Count vexed with the torment of a demoniac. He frees a demoniac. On learning this, holy Samson came to him, and, taking oil, blessed it, and anointed him on the crown of his head and on his face and breast, while many looked on. God being the author, he who had been sick was made entirely whole; and it was at once announced to the king concerning him and concerning the wonder which God had wrought through him.
[55] While he wished to speak with the king, and to converse concerning that same Judual, He seeks back Judual from the king, that he should be released to him, a shameless denial arose: so that they said they would never see him alive. But holy Samson, holding on very gently and persistently to the speech he had begun, kept entreating; they denied all the more detestably. And holy Samson, seeing that they brought his speech to nothing, angry, wished to depart from them, threatening that they should degenerate from their seed if they were unwilling to grant him the one he asked for, going out furiously, while that Count from whom the demon had been cast out cried out with him, and while many urged the king that the holy one of God should not be offended. Then the king, having taken counsel with his Counts, wished to appease Samson, his evil queen persisting in her wickedness, and shamelessly crying out against the holy one with a base name which it is unlawful to utter e, and by the device of an evil machination she asks that he communicate with the king before he should be appeased. Then holy Samson, not by a voluntary but by a necessary rite, submitted to communion; but the evil queen, the devil instigating her, caused poison to be mixed for herself in a glass, and, while holy Samson sat beside the king, ordered it to be brought to her by her servant. And so, as the king took his own vessel, holy Samson placed the sign of the Cross upon it, while the servant brought the glass with the poison before him. He foreknows the poison offered by the queen. Then he, doubtless divinely inspired, having placed the sign of the Cross upon the hand of him who held it, the glass in which the evil was joined into four parts, and, the wine being poured out, the hand of him who held it burst even to the bones, while many looked on. And holy Samson, wondering greatly, [*] said: This cup is not fit for a man to drink. And, the accustomed sign being placed upon the hand of the injured man, he was made whole before all.
[56] The king therefore being troubled and all offended, the queen ever persisted evilly in her evil: He subdues an untamed horse. and it came to pass that, the king granting it, holy Samson wished to go to the place where Judual was. Then that queen ordered an untamed and impetuous horse to be brought from the herd to
carry him. On seeing it, holy Samson placed the sign of the Cross upon the rebellious horse, and, a saddle being set upon it, he himself sat upon the horse. So gentle and trembling was the horse that it scarcely dared to move a foot or to advance, even very slowly, Christ soothing it under His chosen one.
[57] The queen, ever herself persisting in an evil thought, and wishing to overcome and destroy Samson the holy one of God, She puts a lion to flight and slays it by a word, ordered her keepers to provoke a fierce lion to wrath, and to bring it, loosed and furious, into the harbor to meet him, as though without their knowledge, while holy Samson went forward with his accustomed weapons before his companions. But when the fierce and raging lion saw him directing his course straight toward it, fearless, its ferocity being changed—God fighting for His chosen one—as though it had received a blow in its eyes, it gave itself to hasty flight. Then that holy one, moved with very great disturbance, casting his accustomed darts after the beast under the invocation of the name of Christ, as though with a spiritual sling, spoke thus: I command you in the name of Jesus Christ, who gave us power to tread upon you and upon your like, that from this day your terror may never grow among the human race, but that in the presence of all these you may swiftly expire, so that they may know and understand that I, the servant of Christ, have been sent here into this province. And when the prayer was completed, while many looked on, the lion cast itself down and became lifeless in that very hour. Then all these, together with the queen, seeing these things, struck with fear, fell at the feet of holy Samson, and everything according to the good pleasure of his will was granted to him; and, that he might suffer no injury, they delivered to him the aforesaid Judual.
[58] He banishes a serpent. Then the king, wishing to please holy Samson in all things, and receiving him with apostolic honor, and promising good concerning the aforesaid Judual, said humbly: We have, chosen one of God, a great scruple of mind, for there is an evil serpent much destroying and laying waste our land. We have heard that you were already victor in a similar case, and therefore we would wish, if it were not an injury to you, that you drive it away from us. And holy Samson said without hesitation: Give me one who is well-informed on the road and trusting in God, and I, coming in the power of God, will cast it out. Then indeed one well-informed and trusting offered himself to accompany him. Leaving therefore his companions in the palace with the aforesaid Judual, and choosing to go with him only two of his own, he hastened on his way in haste, Christ accompanying him. And it came to pass that at length they came to that dreadful cave in which the serpent was. On learning this, holy Samson said to his men: Be steadfast and await me here, until I return to you. And while they remained, he himself, fearlessly, God as it were his companion, went out to the mouth of the dreadful cave, and there, fasting and passing the night and praying, at length in the name of Jesus Christ he commanded the serpent to come to him; and, it coming tremblingly, holy Samson, seizing his little cloak, placed it on the serpent's neck, and, dragging it beside himself, singing the aforesaid accustomed Psalm, ordered it to go beyond a certain river which is called the Sigona g, commanding that it should remain under a certain stone.
[59] Childebert, for Samson's sake, founds a monastery. Returning therefore with his companions, and coming back to the palace, his companions related to the king with all his people all that they had seen concerning the serpent. Then great fear and astonishment seized them all, so that no one dared any longer to offend him even in the smallest matter. And so, holy Samson wishing to return to Brittany with Judual, and the king willingly granting it, and disposing to build for him, by the king's help, a magnificent monastery h in the place whence he had cast out the serpent, and sending the brethren there, at the king's exhortation, to carry on the work of God, they sought with a prosperous voyage the sea-islands Legia and Angia i; and many men well known to holy Samson, at his exhortation, God gave to be with him and with Judual, so that with one blow he laid low the Commorus who was unjustly doing violence, and he himself afterward reigned in all Domnonia [*] with his offspring. Finally, that holy Samson was so honorably received by the aforesaid King Childebert that whatever he wished the king gave him not only liberally but even willingly and without any delay, bestowing families and possessions and prerogatives.
[60] Samson drives the serpent into the sea. For at a certain time, when he was in his house Romania, he heard an infamous report concerning the serpent, that it was doing no less evil than before. Then he, struck in conscience, went to it, and, dragging it again, cast it headlong into the sea, commanding in the name of Jesus Christ that it should die, that it might injure no one anymore. For how great virtues the Lord wrought through him, beyond and this side of the sea, and how much envy and blasphemy, especially from wicked priests, he endured, truly exceed number, nor is it a work to search these out one by one.
[61] All the virtues therefore being accomplished, both in Britain and in Romania, which God wrought through him, He dies, and catholic churches being built and fortified after the example of his manner of life, his life and age being now complete, and the good being consummated according to the Apostle, and in an incomprehensible course, adorned as it were fully and perfectly with all good morals, with a happy departure in the monastery of Dol, his little body being embalmed with unguents, laid in his sacred tomb in the hope of eternal resurrection, his happy soul, with hymns and angelic choirs at that hour when he passed—heard by the brethren k—happily went on to Christ; and we have a sign of his blessedness among us, namely in these signs which God daily works through him. Amen.
ANNOTATIONS.
THE SECOND BOOK
The author asks the prayers of Tigerinomalus. While our Lord Jesus Christ reigns everlastingly, near as it were to the end of the age, we—an ignorant enough and most sluggish person, yet in great part on account of him of whom the discourse is, the most holy Samson—running through the immense and most profound deep of a certain great sea near the end of an ornate and polished work, in the very shallow and tiny little skiff of my inexperience, though with a hollowed heart, yet with prosperous God as guide, for the sake of the voyage, and traversing it with the heavenly, so to speak, illumination of a slender and unpolished tongue, we give thanks to Almighty God, that He has at last deigned to hand down so great a work concerning so holy and excellent a Man, through me a sinner and in all things unworthy, in a catholic and true style. Thence, hoping for future edification for myself—nay, also for the hearers and readers—and with firm faith imploring it, aid me, I beg, by your holy intercessions with God on my behalf, O most blessed pope Tigerinomalus; for Almighty God is wont piously to remit to one who returns from the heart. For the rest, pope, I wish it to be believed by you, as I have already said, that I have not wished to hand down in style all that has been retained memorably in my mind concerning holy Samson, but I thought it sufficient to gather a few things out of many, so that from that which we hold for certain among us, a fruitful edification may be, both in the minds of the hearers and in those of the readers. For what need have we to prolong further concerning his fasts and abstinences, we who know and have heard many more? For it suffices, as I think: but we ask, whoever you are who read this little book, that you hold my inexperience excused.
[2] St. Samson's annual festival. Come now, dearest brothers, having through as much smallness as we could—so I think—set forth the far-famed manner of life of so great and such a Man, Samson, holding from the beginning of that same chosen one to his blessed end, you willing and suggesting it, O most blessed pope Tigerinomalus, having by most true tokens an undoubted certainty, God granting it to us though in some way unworthy, we have explained it; but now also that magnificent and holy annual solemnity, in whose worthy and wondrous honor it is wont to be celebrated year by year, is at hand, and prompts us to give an increase to this little work of the matter, and, in the joy of this very festival, to enlarge our hearts unto the greater advancement of souls. For just as we have advancement from it, howsoever it has become clear, that the inestimable virtues of so great a Man are by no means hidden, and that, for the aid of Christ's churches, or as an example and rule of doing well, and by apostolic example, we may prolong in style the memory of this most excellent Man as an example of advancement for many who ardently strive toward the summit of virtue; so also, in the repetition of this festival, reason demands that, mingling somewhat of admiration with apostolic and spiritual joy, we unfold something worthy on account of this wondrous and yearly day of this festival among us, or in so far as the power of our capacity suffices. And although concerning the virtues of the same holy one something has been said, as much as availed anything, yet not as much as suffices, there remains nevertheless to recall by enumerating and giving thanks something concerning the daily and present virtues of the same one—not inconveniently agreeing with the past ones already written above—and especially those which the Lord unceasingly works, through the intercession of the same holy one, in the yearly solemnity of this day; so that from this light it may more clearly appear to all who catholically observe this yearly day, that this holy one has been devoutly received into the heavenly places, through whom we discern God accomplishing all things among us in earthly matters.
[3] For who even in our times could sufficiently enumerate Miracles. how many weak, how many blind, how many lame, how many epileptics, and how many demoniacs, who were held bound by diverse kinds of sicknesses, have been freed from their infirmities by the intercession of our prelate Samson with the Lord, whose solemnity is welcome today? For innumerable are those dismissed from their sickbeds and pallets by the sick. O how many, detained by sicknesses of body and soul, have through this same day and this same holy one, the Lord working, been made whole! And what else is it to make mention of the same holy one, except (as it seems to me) to recall with immense delight the apostolic power of old, by a certain reciprocal return to us and by God's condescension, at last shining forth again? As is read in the Acts of the Apostles, when the Apostles were gathered together into one, that is, in the porch of Solomon (which we can figuratively understand as a sign of peace and true unity), innumerable crowds coming, even through their shadows, each one of them was healed of all the diseases which they had. But even to this day, throughout the whole world, wherever they are spread abroad and laid to rest, through the yearly feasts on which Christians honor them in the honors of each, the Lord unceasingly works magnificent virtues. In like manner, also on this yearly and solemn day, through this holy Samson, of whom mention has arisen for us, God inspiring, we consequently discern, by most true testimonies and by no lesser comparison, the mighty works of God fulfilled, so that concerning his perpetuity, and concerning his wonderful security, and (so to speak) the inestimable beatitude of the heavenly kingdom and spiritual joy, our mind grows glad. And thence it is that we seem, God illuminating, to discern and embrace the other life as though with certain clear glances of intention, and not so much through riddles as (that I may speak more surely) through the very true and visible thing which we see God Himself working among us, He being the author. For (as I have said) we undoubtedly believe that another, better and everlasting life exists among the saints of God, whom we behold shining forth alive, mighty and strong in the work of God among us.
[4] How the feasts of the saints are to be celebrated. And therefore, with undoubted faith and hope, not as though uncertain but by a most upright rule, dearly beloved brothers, God favoring, let us strive from our inmost and utmost effort, that, suitably composing our doubtful life co-essentially—that is, by faith with help step by step—to that of this holy Man Samson, and, in the reading of this little work, though slight, diligently lending our hearing with all our understanding poured out: so that the things which profited him unto a crown may be able to profit us unto salvation. For it is not fitting that whoever disposes himself to honor holy Samson by his virtues and by yearly festivals in turn should defile his own life with a filthy staining through wandering and empty or foolish—nay, even wicked—works: because it is too unseemly and hateful to Almighty God, that one who venerates this solemn and holy day with the service of his tongue and with the accustomed observance, should, before Almighty God, be polluted in his own soul, and that vices and sins should reign in him. For thus a certain wise man says, when he disputed concerning the day of judgment, for he says: To what Apostles, to what other saints shall we flee, whose examples and words we have despised together? Truly the examples of this holy one displease him who, celebrating only with the mouth as it were by solemn custom, scatters them by iniquitous and evil morals. For what does it profit, if anyone about to approach some beloved one of a certain prince, that he may be intercessor and petitioner for him, himself in his own iniquitous assaults provoke that same intercessor to wrath? Would not that one's mind be kindled the worse, if through some mockery he should as it were unwillingly be tossed about on his account by the intercessor, and—what is graver—the mind of the one presiding be inflamed to worse, if he should invite the mind of his beloved by baseness rather to defense than to good pleasure? For thus in the Old Testament we read, when the Lord showed His complaint against a rebellious people, and as though rejecting it from His entreaty, and duly detesting its abominable supplications, the best men being meanwhile interspersed and led forth by name into the midst, was forbidden that they should pray for that same people, for He says: If Moses and Samuel shall stand before me, my soul is not toward this people. Jeremiah 15, 1. Whence also not inconsonantly He received this testimony of the Gospel, which, Christ being the author, says: What is it that you call me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?
[5] namely by imitation of virtues, To honor therefore, my brothers, the feasts of the saints is nothing else than lovingly to compose our mind by their good things with which they are adorned, and toward that ineffable and heavenly kingdom to which they happily arrived—not by making ourselves equal to them in virtues, but that we may, by imitating with a most upright line, follow the same, God leading, their august works, which by immense abstinence and incredible (so to speak) endurance—to the inexperienced, who do not think all things possible to one believing, they are held not to be believed—they exercised even to the blessed end of this life. For the rest, as Scripture says, it profits nothing to be present at the feasts of men, if it should happen that one be absent from the feasts of the angels. What does it profit, as I have said, if we seem to rejoice with those rejoicing in this world, and, on account of disordered and wicked works by which God is offended, we should be exiles from and separated from the fellowships of the saints, that is, from the heavenly kingdom, which is everlastingly with God? Behold, we have kept feasts on earth; therefore it is most greatly to be taken care of by us, that, appointed to the heavenly and everlasting feasts among the societies of the angels, we may deserve to be present without stain. Let us therefore hasten utterly to cut off the transitory and the things contrary to those works by which God is appeased, and let us keenly attend, not to the acts in which we were, but to those in which we are to be: because Almighty God has promised piously to remit to one converting from the heart, Ezekiel 33, 12 and following, who, promising through the Prophet, says: On whatever day, or in whatever hour the sinner shall be converted to me, I will forget all his iniquities.
[6] Let no one therefore trust, dearest brothers, if he obey to be present at this sacred feast to human sight only in body, lest we harm ourselves otherwise, and before the eyes of the hidden and inward judge, who is truly witness and judge, exist in his morals corrupt and a gainsayer. But since I remember that in the beginning and end of another little epistle I interwove by no means all the things which we came to know pertaining to our memory concerning the virtues of holy Samson, some things—even a few—concerning his affirmation are still to be repeated, even in the repetition of this second little work, for aiding the example of this matter, so that thence it may better and more firmly appear to all, that it profits nothing to give among the saints a show of sanctity, and to separate oneself from those same saints, in the sight of Almighty God alone, by evil and squalid morals.
[7] For at a certain time this same Samson, to visit pope Dubricius already mentioned in the former epistle, Samson discerns the evil morals of a certain deacon, who was vexed by a certain sickness of body—and this same pope Dubricius entreated that a certain boy very familiar to himself, a deacon, Morinus by name, should dwell with him, Samson—St. Samson, as he was full of the Holy Spirit, gazing upon him and placing the sign of the Cross (as was his custom) upon his forehead, and lovingly receiving him with his own hands and kissing him, and thereafter being silent a little while, at length gave this answer very gladly: The net, my pope, receives all the fish that it can catch in the sea, but when at last it is drawn to land, the good fishermen distinguish the good from the bad. Hearing this, pope Dubricius (since that deacon was very dear to him), groaning within himself, hid his offense with him by silence; yet in his countenance he could by no means conceal it. But holy Samson, searching this out within himself by subtle examination, as though he discerned nothing else, gladly ordered his chrism (by which he might the more easily appease the pope), whereby he fulfilled the office of the episcopate, to be given to that same deacon, commanding his men that (the pope indeed being aware) they should make him foremost in the service, and not only this, but he even admitted him to a greater administration, and, above all, a most illustrious one, so that no one should be seen to precede him in any carnal or spiritual service whatsoever. Yet holy Samson foreknew by the Spirit, God as it were revealing, what that one would be, which afterward the truth of the matter proved.
[8] For when on a certain night both stood together to pray, The deacon, having used a demon as master, dies after making confession, (as men well-informed and religious, and most approved, to whom it had been most truly made known, have handed down to me by their account) with one simulation indeed, but a diverse use of mind, holy Samson, gazing upon that same deacon, saw a certain Ethiopian in the form of a little child sitting on his left shoulder, and ever directing his mouth to his ear, so that holy Samson understood that the devil held converse with the man. On seeing this, holy Samson first, by the impression
of the saving sign, arms his face, and at once commands the brother, though scarcely and with difficulty, to depart. He alone, persisting in prayer, kept praying to the Lord more and more, that the Lord would deign to reveal to him that evil wholly, as it was. And without delay, as the other went and fell upon his little bed, straightway a great fever seized him, so that he trembled and grew pale and gnashed and tore with his teeth, so that all who were present cried out that he was a demoniac. When word was brought to holy Samson as he prayed, he came in haste; but the sick man, when he saw him from afar, lifted up his voice with dire wailing, saying: Come, come, chosen one of God, I beg, entreat your God for me, that I may not at last perish; for on account of your power to be magnified, and on account of my evil deserts now to be laid bare, I have been shown to you to be unworthy of your holy services, since I from infancy up to now have been ever exercised toward evil by the machination of philosophy. For the Ethiopian whom you beheld I ever had as teacher unto those things which are hateful to God, so that no one should be seen to precede me in these. But now I am no longer permitted to live in wickednesses, and therefore I beseech that you pray to God the Savior for the redemption of my soul, even after torments; and thus, pouring out all his confession (since he was full of every iniquity and evildoing) openly before all with weeping, he at once fell mute, and from that hour was able to speak nothing at all. But on the following night, at midnight, all the brethren standing around him, and unceasingly praying to God for the salvation of his soul, he breathed out that impure soul from his body.
[9] Samson employs Masses and prayers for his salvation. And when morning came, holy Samson ordered that little body to be carried outside the gate of the monastery and buried; he, persisting in his accustomed prayers, remained fasting and sleepless through three whole days and as many nights, ardently and with weeping imploring God, that He would deign to grant pardon to the soul of this most wretched man, even after dire and just penance. At length, he being lulled a little to sleep after immense weariness of body, the consolation of the Lord is present, which sweetly discoursed all things concerning the absolution of the brother's soul at the last, and concerning the return of his body to the monastery, and after some time suggested, by the Lord's grant, that Masses be sung for him through the same Samson. This was so done, and he himself performed Masses for that same brother so long, until by heavenly announcement he knew the felicity of that soul, and its liberty. And thence is the saying, since it indicates that nothing evil or good can ever at any time be hidden from the saints. And that we may feel this more firmly, we wish to affirm it by another matter, though after the death of the same holy one, which we know undoubtedly to have been done.
[10] But some little time after he had happily fallen asleep, of whom our mention is, A thief who stole gold from the Cross is punished, having set out to the Lord his God, after his death, some interval after, the image of the Cross which was ever wont to be carried before him, and which he had blessed, and which finally had been overlaid round about with the beauties of gold and silver and gems, was secretly uncovered and dishonored by a certain malicious and most evil man; but this thing done silently and secretly, the holy Spirit of God, ever abiding with the same Samson, not silently heard. For as that man in the same hour was snatching away those aforesaid moneys, horror seized him, so that, made anxious by the enormity of that unwonted terror, he fell to the ground as though half-dead. Nor could this suffice as a warning to the desperate and lost man, for thence, going on his way persuadably and obstinately, he found on a certain night a certain bath obstructed by waters frozen by the winter's cold, which suddenly broke apart under his feet, and he, his deserts as it were demanding it, the dire ice binding the wretch, died on that same night, and the linen cloth in which the aforesaid moneys had been placed slipped from his hands against his will. It came to pass that, the brethren who were in this place standing around, on account of the loss of the moneys, [*] a certain one walking about on the next day found the linen cloth in which the aforesaid moneys were hidden, remaining despised upon the ice; and then, looking around himself, he saw a stiff corpse standing motionless amid the ice. On seeing this, the brother, astonished and wondering, related all that he had seen in order to the rest. Seeing these things, the brethren then knew for certain that the money had been snatched from the image of the Cross. On account of this, therefore, who would doubt that holy Samson displayed this power, from whom, dying in the flesh—nay, ever living with his God—no good or evil thing can at any time lie hidden? but whatever, and however, or whenever He wills, God openly manifests and shows forth through His saints, so that we ignorant and sluggish ones, placed as it were in this squalid mire, may undoubtedly know that they are present in these deeds, whether good or evil, whatever we do: since they, with their God—though not perfectly, yet as far as can be done—are now blessedly glorified.
[11] But while we call this holy one to mind, and while we wish to recall all that good report has spread abroad concerning him, Concerning the patronage of the saints, in these things the words of our conscience alone gnaw at us, because we have known ourselves to be sufficiently unworthy and unequal to this so arduous and so wondrous a work. But the mercy of Almighty God, which is never absent from those trusting in it, has at last strengthened us to weave out this work through us ignorant and tongue-tied and unskilled and very unworthy ones, unto the advancement of others to profit in the end of the ages, so that both by reading it others might strive after the example of good working, and, by following the examples of the Apostles and of all the other saints, unto the testimony of their merits, might discern no lesser glory of that one of God shining forth among us by God's condescension; for that excellent holy one of whom our mention is, and whose festival among many of the Britons and Romans, beyond and this side of the sea, and (so to speak) in heaven and on earth, today happily shines forth to us who greatly desire it, was so perfect and whole in exercising all the works of justice, that, making him equal to the aforesaid Apostles and other saints, he is held less in nothing whatsoever, even the smallest, even in signs and prodigies to be shown; which finally to this day all use who suppliantly, with the whole striving of faith, pray to the Lord for health of body through this same holy one. For what else through this, dearest brothers, except the perpetuity of holy Samson and his felicity in the heavenly places do we behold to be proclaimed—he who, though absent from us in body, yet by some majesty which he happily uses with God among the heavenly goods, is without any hesitation ever ready at hand for us, if with a simple and pure heart, if with a secure and clean conscience, if with a suppliant and humble repentance of what has been committed, celebrating his day of feast, we desire the aid of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ through him. For thence it is that we are truly judged by our very selves, and by that measure, that is, by that act by which we are beheld according to the showing of the Gospel, behold, we are repaid. Do not, I beg, my brothers, count our foolish and grievous inexpertness as a burden among you, especially since you yourselves know very well that Almighty God is a most keen examiner not of words but of deeds. Let no one therefore presume for himself, if he can be present at this gracious solemnity only in body with those who celebrate it irreproachably according to the catholic rule of the holy Fathers our predecessors, if still in his soul, where God alone is the knower, he is engaged viciously and corruptibly with his evil acts staining him. But whoever fittingly desires to be present at these festivals, let him most greatly strive that in that eternal solemnity of the heavenly ones he may deserve to have a place of refreshment and rest: because this holy one of whom our discourse is, though as it were full of the Spirit of God, before all who lived in this land in his time, shone in signs and prodigies and powers of God, yet surpassed them all by the labor of vigils and fasts and of nearly all abstinence.
[12] For as those said of him who in his life were sufficiently well-informed, Samson's fasts, he performed most frequent superpositions (extra fasts), and also two-day ones, and sometimes even whole weeks—that is, seven whole days—and only on the seventh day was he refreshed: but the longest nights he was very often wont to pass standing, from light unto the return of light, nor standing was he at all wearied. What more? Neither by day nor by night did he cease from prayers and from converse with God. And the time of Lent up to Easter we have heard that he so passed, Vigils, retirement in Lent, that at the beginning, separated from human places in a certain more remote place, carrying with him three oblations, he used from these alone even up to the joy of the Easter solemnity, God comforting him in all things, ardently having in his breast zeal for God and for His churches, and by subtle providence tempering his discourse, seasoned with divine salt, according to the qualities of sinners; to all, as it were full of God, he was affable and dear, and this the discourse brings back to memory for us to confirm our matter concerning his deeds.
[13] For when at a certain time he was preaching on the island of Resia, He roots out the profane rites of the Kalends of January, the Kalends of January coming round through the yearly revolution, on which the men of the aforesaid island had been wont, before others indeed, to celebrate this wicked solemn day ineptly, according to the abominable custom of their fathers, he, provident in spirit, in order to soften their hardness, made them all come together into one, and, God revealing, a discourse was made to detest such grievous evils. Then all these, loving the truth concerning him, anathematized the wicked rites, and promised to receive the truth according to the commandments unto the end. He nonetheless, rejoicing in the Lord according to the Apostles, called to himself all the little children who were running about through that island on account of this nefarious day, and gave to each of them, by a sober voice, the reward of a little coin of gold, which is a measure, commanding in the name of the Lord that this sacrilegious custom should no longer be kept by them. This was so done, God working, that up to this day there in that same place his spiritual games have remained solidly and catholically.
[14] But concerning the innumerable virtues which God wrought through the same holy Samson, The author's exhortation, now, if you bid it, let these few little words gathered from many suffice; let us return inwardly to our very selves, unto the imitation of the same holy one. Let us love the acts in which we know him to have pleased God. Let our acts accord with his best merits, in which we undoubtedly know him to have gone before others. For if in the Old Testament we read, when concerning the eating of the lamb it was figuratively said, the Lord commanding Moses: Thus, he says, shall you eat it, you shall gird your loins and have shoes on your feet, and the rest. Exodus 12, 11. For when
we are prompted to celebrate the feasts of the saints by the yearly revolution, it is needful that before all things we strive to have our loins girded, that is, that we exhibit chastity of body and purity of mind as a sacrifice before Almighty God: but we are commanded to have shoes on our feet, because, by cleaving to the footsteps of the holy Fathers, the departed who went before, we protect the feet of our soul with spiritual shoes. And thence it is that, by imitating and loving their acts—not by preaching them with the voice, but by imitating them in deed—we direct for our very selves the right way which leads to heaven. For the petitions which are asked of Christ through the saints are not to be mingled with evil morals, but by the faithful petition of those praying they are granted, according to the foreknowledge of the Lord who hears and knows all things. But this we ought to search out with us with a trembling conscience in our petitions, of which the Lord Himself in the Gospel terribly complains, saying: Not everyone who says to me, Lord, who prays lawfully, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 7, 21. Whoever therefore asks only with words and gainsays in deed, begets for himself the Lord derided and even offended rather than appeased. They therefore are wont to be heard by the Lord, who follow up with good morals what they ask in prayers. For a matter very notable and to be referred to as an example is at hand, which, dearly beloved brothers, many of you have known, and which I learned from a certain excellent brother who testified that he had been present.
[15] For at a certain time in that most eminent and best place, A fire extinguished, in which holy Samson rests in peace, a sudden and dire fire attacked a house, which the brethren had prepared around the furnace for continually baking bread: so that a huge flame, raising itself to the top, seemed about to burn the house. But as soon as the servants of God who had gathered in the church to celebrate None learned this, rushing forth together with the holy and venerable bishop Leucherus, the cross of holy Samson and his staff were carried outside the church, and when they drew as quickly as possible near to the house of the fire, suppliantly and with the whole constancy of faith they called upon Samson for their help, saying: Chosen one of God, holy Samson, defend, we beseech, your houses, that they be not consumed by this burning. And without delay, at the first cry of those praying, a great cloud of rain broke forth, so that the fire which had swelled so direly was seen to be extinguished under the eyes of all, nor did it appear anymore to do harm.
[16] Take care therefore, dearest brothers, that you who honor the saints in their solemnities by honoring them, may also honor in your morals, by imitating, the good which they themselves did. Epilogue. Take care, I say, that you who have deserved to be present on earth at the feasts of the holy men, may also deserve to be present in that beatitude which they enjoy in the heavenly feasts of the angels: so that, if you desire to follow the hard words which they taught, and their works, in which they labored perseveringly unto the end, you may be able, God leading, and by their interceding, to travel with a prosperous course, without the obstacle of any worldly impediment, along that same way which led them to eternal beatitude, our Lord Jesus Christ reigning forever, to whom is glory and everlasting honor with the Father and with the Holy Spirit unto ages of ages. Amen.
From the codex of Sacraments of Ratold, abbot of Corbie, executed by his command about the year 980, on the feast of St. Samson, on the fifth day before the Kalends of August.
COLLECT AT MASS.
Almighty and everlasting God, who art praised chiefly and wondrously proclaimed in the saints, grant us, we beseech, worthily to celebrate this present day in honor of St. Samson, your confessor and bishop, on which, stripped of the members of the body, he deserved to exult in the heavenly mysteries. Through, etc.
OVER THE OFFERINGS.
This victim, we beseech, O Lord our God, which we bring to be offered to you in honor of St. Samson, your confessor and bishop, may grant us to rejoice in the fellowship of your saints. Through, etc.
PREFACE.
It is truly meet and just, etc., eternal God, with hearts lifted up on high, to celebrate this holy day, on which the blessed Samson, your confessor, loosed from the bonds of the flesh, ended the carnal fight, and, joyful with the angels, was translated to perpetual glory. To whom such power was granted by God, that whatever he wished God to work through him, he obtained with swiftest effect. Who, leaving his father [*] alone, having crossed the ocean, was borne to our fatherland, in which he shone by many miracles. Who through a whole week without any bodily food was sustained by angelic converse. Who, his staff being laid on the ground, and no other support taken up, on the sacrosanct night of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and on the Lord's Easter, kept all night at prayer; who slew three deadly serpents by God's nod, and led back as many men from death to life by God's help. Even still also those who, guided by faith, shall have been brought to his threshold, seized by whatever disease, are restored to their former health. Through Christ, etc.
POSTCOMMUNION.
O God, who hast made us to venerate this day in honor of St. Samson, your confessor and bishop; grant, we beseech, that we may be protected by his prayers and petitions, whom we venerate with glad services.
Annotations* read "not."
* add "troubled."
* read "of the fatherland."
APPENDIX
Concerning the relics of St. Samson and their translations.
Samson, bishop, confessor, at Dol in Armorican Brittany (St.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
It is an involved question. As concerning St. Samson we have weighed the many hitherto doubtful, obscure, and involved matters, and have endeavored to reduce them to the right rule of history, so now another intricate controversy would present itself concerning the translation of the relics first to Orleans, whence they are nowhere read to have been carried back, then concerning another later removal to Paris; concerning the division made there, and other things of the kind; were it not that it plainly wearies us to linger so often over these odious disquisitions, which torment us in a wonderful manner, where for the most part there underlies more of pious contention than of sincere truth. The matter is here entangled by a fragment of French history reported in Du Chesne, vol. 3, p. 344, in the volume for March 1, p. 248, no. 12, and elsewhere, from which Castellanus disputed much in his hagiological Vocabulary, and after him a more recent Legend-writer disputed much, concerning which no question can remain, if those things are true which Mabillon noted on the aforesaid Life of St. Samson in these words: The body of St. Samson was carried by Mayno, bishop of Dol, in the year 878 to Orleans, for fear of the Normans, and is believed to lie hidden even today, deposited in the church of the monastery of St. Symphorian, afterward distinguished by his name, which now belongs to the Fathers of the Society of Jesus.
[2] If these things are so, all must fall which Castellanus, Baillet, and others have endeavored to build upon the already-mentioned Chesnian fragment: whether at Orleans or at Paris, for if in the year 878 the sacred body of St. Samson was translated from its first burial at Dol to Orleans, where from that time it was venerated, and afterward lay hidden, and lies hidden even now—unless perhaps the Calvinist iconoclasts raged with their accustomed madness against some part of the sacred remains—if, I say, there hitherto lie hidden those parts which have survived, what, I beseech, could Salvator of Aleth, in that fragment the leader of the whole expedition, carry to Paris concerning the body of St. Samson, deposited so many years before at Orleans, nearly a whole century afterward, namely in the year 966, in the reign of Hugh Capet; and what could be divided there, what kept, what carried back to Armorica or elsewhere? Here is the hinge of the matter, this is the chief sum of the odious lawsuit between the most celebrated cities, to neither of which does it please us to be favorable nor opposed, so that we prefer that the pious venerators of the holy one agree among themselves, rather than by our judgment settle the ambiguous contest, while it is otherwise more entangled with other snares and difficulties. Hear the rest.
[3] In our Alford, in the Annals of England, at the year 934, is reported the testimony of the Malmesbury writer concerning the bones of St. Samson translated from Lesser Britain to the Greater and there at that time deposited. Whether the saint's relics are in England; There is no reason, that I may candidly confess, why one ought at once to assent to these; but they certainly much weaken, if they do not plainly enervate, the opinion of the Parisians concerning the relics existing there, since these are asserted to have been carried off in the year 934, a full thirty and more years before Salvator of Aleth thought about placing them in safety; nay, which a whole century before writers testify to have been already translated to Orleans, and there honorably venerated in a church of his own name. What of this? That the body of St. Samson is also said to have been at Trinorchium, in Chifflet in the history of that monastery, p. 308, which certainly cannot be thought to have been carried there except on account of the infestations of Norman or other wars. Behold, in all, four bodies of St. Samson at least once exposed for veneration in their places, so that in these straits, whatever plank you seize, you will by no means escape, unless you feign several synonymous saints. But I sincerely profess that I acknowledge only one, the one of Dol, whatever some English monuments, plainly apocryphal to me, may sell us.
[4] I have already often said, and shall never say enough, that I greatly shrink from the arbitration or judgment of controversies of this kind, which no one will easily settle, being wont to report those arguments which are produced on both sides, and then to use such a composition that individuals may possess as they possess, whether meanwhile they venerate the true, proper, and genuine relics of such a saint, or of any other whatsoever, provided they be the undoubted relics of some saint. I had almost found another way by which the parties most contending over their sacred deposits might somehow be brought to a friendly composition, namely while it was supposed that Mayno, bishop of Dol, did not carry off absolutely all the sacred remains of St. Samson thus to Orleans, but that easily some remained in the first tomb, which afterward that Salvator, prelate of Aleth, carried to Paris with the bodies of other saints. But the more recent notices seem to stand in the way, which the distinguished admirer of our work and tireless helper, our most learned man Fr. Stephen Chamillart, procured for me, whom I lastly consulted, if perchance, his studious industry being otherwise known, some wedge might be suggested by which the most intricate knot could be happily loosed.
[5] At my request Chamillart deigned even to travel as far as Orleans, nor will he reconcile the Parisians with those of Dol: and himself to survey with his own eyes the monuments that survive there, both published and manuscript, from which, most rightly, in a letter given to me on July 21, 1728, he judged with Mabillon that there is nothing at all which forbids believing that all the precious relics of St. Samson lie hidden there even today, carried thither so many centuries ago; certainly this is plainly undoubted, that none were ever thence translated either to Paris or elsewhere; but that the reliquary itself entire, such as up to the year 1540 and beyond it was wont to be carried about in processions, as is shown from the yearly accounts of the city, remained there and was exposed to public veneration, until, for fear of the Calvinists raging against all sacred things, it was so hidden with all the more precious furnishing, that their
nothing at all of all these could hitherto be found, although frequent inquiries were made by our Fathers, as often as any foundations had to be dug up again. These things may seem sufficient to vindicate the ancient possession of the men of Orleans: Chamillart did not equally favor that concord between the Parisians and the men of Dol which I had prepared to reconcile.
[6] nor indeed do they seem able to have been transferred thence to Paris. In another letter given on August 14, with equal zeal and benevolence he indicated that he had also had recourse to the men of Dol, whence he received an instrument which I here subjoin: In the year of the Lord 1579, on the 24th day of the month of December, on the festivities and solemnities of the Nativity of our Lord and Redeemer Jesus Christ, the most illustrious and most reverend Charles Depinai, most vigilant bishop of Dol, moved by piety and singular charity, and led by zeal for God and His Church His bride and all the saints, but especially the holy Samson, formerly first archbishop of Dol and now our patron, devoutly visited the little reliquary anciently dedicated to the same holy Samson, in this cathedral church of Dol, in the assembly of his clergy: in which were found many relics of the most holy body of the said holy Samson, namely two shin-bones and one arm, and several small particles of the bones, hands, feet, and neck of the same holy one; which reliquary or small chest he honorably and religiously placed within a larger chest; and this larger chest, constructed at his own expense and beautifully gilded, moved by his accustomed liberality, he gave as a gift, and dedicated it to God in honor of the holy Samson, and consecrated it with his own mouth. In testimony of which matter and for the perpetual memory of the thing, the secretary of the venerable chapter of the said cathedral church of Dol subscribed on the said day in the presence of those there, and inserted these things in the registers of the chapter of the aforesaid church of Dol.
[7] Nor is there here room for the objection that the due legalizations are lacking to this instrument: The possession of the men of Orleans seems the stronger. for these can more easily be obtained than the case itself be decided unto the desired concord of the parties. Moreover, if these things are so, and those portions of the sacred body remained in the church of Dol up to the year 1579, let those see to it who contend for the Parisian relics, what the bishop of Aleth, now more than once mentioned, could carry there of the sacred remains of St. Samson; especially since all the other bones, as seems certain enough, had been deposited at Orleans by Mayno, bishop of Dol, so long a time before. Nor thence would another contention arise between the men of Dol and those of Orleans: for it is easily understood that some portions of the sacred body could have been hidden at Dol, while by far the greatest part was placed in safety. The matter, as is plain, being plainly thorny, I flee to discuss it further; let it here suffice to have reviewed the diverse and plainly opposed opinions of writers concerning the sacred remains of St. Samson of Dol, which, since it is neither ready nor obvious for me to compose them in another way, I leave most freely to others to determine what they shall judge fitting. Now I begin another web, as odious as the rest.
[8] There is that little Italian history, found among our papers, It can less be admitted which, being overturned—as it truly deserves to be overturned—it must be said that a cult is exhibited in Italy to the bodies of the saints, namely of Samson, Magloire, and Paschasius, which, in what manner they arrived there, cannot be sufficiently understood from the narration of the translation sent to us. The title of the writing is: Information concerning the sacred bodies of the three holy bishops and confessors Magloire, Paschasius, and Samson. From the mere opening, anyone even a little skilled in history will perceive things so disparate joined together, that, willing or unwilling, he must necessarily convict the whole matter of the highest ignorance. Let the writer be heard, whose words I turn from Italian into Latin: A certain Father, Dom Germanus by name, English by nation, a Camaldolese monk of the abbey of St. Mary of Urano in the city of Bertinoro, of the same Camaldolese congregation, had for many years not seen his own people; but, power to travel being at length given by the Father General of that order at that time, he set out for Lesser Britain, to see his own carnal brothers there, rich and powerful.
[9] But while he lingered in his fatherland for some years, that lamentable event occurred, that King Henry VIII, fallen into shameful apostasy, despoiled the temples and impiously scattered the relics of the saints; the translation into Italy so that in that kingdom all things were turned upside down, so cruel a persecution and violation of sacred things raging. This monk therefore, Dom Germanus, using the patronage of his brothers, obtained by a singular favor the said three bodies of the saints, that they might not be consumed with the others there in the flames. Laden with this booty, he departed promptly, making again for Bertinoro; and, having landed at Ravenna, he turned aside to Classe, whence he informed his abbot of his return, who soon coming to Ravenna and thence to Classe to meet the sacred treasure, obtained from the abbot of this monastery a most elegant marble chest, in which the three bodies of those saints were deposited, and soon carried to Bertinoro with the highest veneration, etc. So the wretched writer ineptly mixes Britain with Armorica; and subjoining the fire of that monastery, in which no doubt, among other things, the authentic papers concerning the said translation perished—read of old, as he says, by Dom Gerard of Verona, a monk there in the years 1561, 1562, and 1563.
[10] from a relation laboring under many faults. Whatever this good Gerard read, he certainly did not read that those three bodies of the saints could be transferred from Lesser Britain into Italy in the sixteenth century, where the body of St. Paschasius, bishop of Vienne, who is honored on February 22, never was, while the other two had been carried off many centuries before. He did not read that Henry VIII had any jurisdiction in Lesser Britain, much less that he raged there against temples or the relics of the saints. But perhaps he wished to write not Lesser but Greater Britain, into which that Dom Germanus withdrew, as being an Englishman. But you prove just as much, if you contend that three sacred bodies were carried away thence where it is certain enough that they never were. Turn all these things however you will, from the credit of such an instrument you will never persuade anyone that the bodies of those three holy bishops were carried at that time either to Ravenna, or to Bertinoro, or into other parts of Italy. But there, in more than one place, the relics of those same saints are exposed for veneration: as far as I am concerned, let their pious venerators go on venerating them: we have already said it six hundred times, and in this volume, where St. James is treated, we have repeated it, that the relics of the saints are rightly and well venerated, even though often they are not those of those who are honored in those places even as their special patrons; let this proverb be deeply impressed upon the minds of pious Catholics: Let piety remain, the truth will be revealed.