ON SAINT GUDWALUS
BISHOP OF BRITAIN, AT GHENT IN FLANDERS.
7TH CENTURY.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
On the Acts of his Life and miracles, and the Saint's age.
Gudwalus, Bishop of Britain, at Ghent in Flanders (St.)
BY THE AUTHOR G. H.
Ghent, a most noble city of the Flemings, to be counted by its size among the greatest of Europe, Cult at Ghent on account of the body brought there in the year 959. now contains within its walls a monastery illustrious for its antiquity and magnificence, raised by S. Amandus on the Blandinian mount to the honor of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and from the first of them, S. Peter, commonly called, and enriched with the bodies of several Saints, translated there in the time of the Normans. Among these were, in the year 959, SS. Gudwalus and Bertulphus, there honorably deposited. Hence the feast of the former there, on the 6th of June, is celebrated as of a Bishop and Confessor, under the great rite with an Octave, as they call it, and the Lessons are taken from the prior part of the Acts. Laurentius Surius, for the sake of avoiding prolixity, professes that this Life of S. Gudwalus was written by him more compendiously. We, mindful of our institute, that the learned Reader may bear a more certain judgment concerning the truth of the matter, give it itself in its original phrasing from the Manuscript of Thosan; The Life is given from Manuscripts: where indeed it was had without a Prologue, and without the history of the miracles which happened in Flanders: but these and that we found in the year 1662 at Rouen, in the illustrious Library of the most noble and most learned man, Lord Aimericus Bigotius, and there transcribed them ourselves from a codex, bearing the letter D and the sign of the number 8.
[2] In the Life of S. Bertulphus the Abbot, illustrated by us on the 5th day of February, some things cited in the Life of S. Bertulphus, there exists concerning S. Gudwalus and his written Life this testimony: "Blessed Gudwalus was a Confessor equally and Pontiff, sprung from the high stock of the Britons, noble indeed by the title of lineage, but by life and morals much more noble. How he, the loftiness of his parents and the amplitude of his hereditary right being scorned, served God either in a monastery or in a Bishopric, and after very many and unheard-of-for-ages miracles passed from this world to the Lord, the book, which concerning his life and virtues was most fully written, clearly sets forth." Thus far that. But whether the Life which we give is understood, is not
sufficiently established: because this from the beginning was distributed into three books, to which afterward a fourth accrued concerning the miracles, it seems to be more ancient wrought afterward by his intercession. Moreover, the author of the Life of S. Bertulphus asserts in the Prologue, that he ran through with new study of writing the Life, formerly described in an old style: which can be said also of the Life of S. Gudwalus, we gather from number 10, where this Author writes that thus it is read in the more ancient copies of his Deeds; and in the Prologue he says, that he hands over his memorable Life to the offices of his style, and that incited by the unusual marks of miracles, perhaps of those which happened while he was present in the temple. Thus in number 74 he says, "Let us set forth what we have seen done with our eyes": and a little after, "what we have seen with many still surviving." Thus he says he knew a mute and a blind woman healed in numbers 63 and 64. But who he himself was, he indicates in the said number 47 in these words: "At Matins we set the Antiphon, or Invitatory, 'Behold, the most blessed Gudwalus is wholly in miracles, the bond of the mute woman's tongue having been broken.'" The Author was a Blandinian monk of the 12th century. We therefore reckon the Author a Blandinian monk, who in number 57 clearly asserts that he lived under Gislebertus the Abbot, whom Sanderus, in Book 4 of the Affairs of Ghent, chapter 2, says was ordained the 24th Abbot in the year 1122, and exchanged life by death in the year 1138; and the same is read in the Manuscript Monasteriology of Francis la Barre, Prior of Anchin, volume 8, part 2. A Compendium of this Life John Capgrave published in the Legend of England, adding also some miracles done at Ghent. Another compendium from the prior books is contained in the Manuscript of Utrecht, of St. Salvator: others who contracted theirs from Surius, there is no reason to mention.
[3] Mention of S. Gudwalus is made in the Manuscript Martyrology of Utrecht, of the Church of S. Mary, augmented in England, and produced around the year 1150, and also in the Manuscripts of Trier of St. Martin, of Tournai, and of Liessies, in these words: "At Blandinium, of S. Guthwalus, Bishop and Confessor." Memory in the Calendars. To which, in the Manuscript of Brussels of St. Gudula, these things are added: "Whose shrine, when after a procession it was being carried back at Ghent, the image of the Cross, with bowed face venerating him, remained immovable, nor did it turn itself back." Which things are taken from the latter part of the Life. More things described from the Acts are had in the Martyrology published in English by Richard Whitford around the year 1526 at London, and the later Martyrologists everywhere followed it. Likewise the Church of Saint-Malo in Armorica; in whose old Calendar Gudwalus is found inscribed, and indeed as Bishop of Saint-Malo: which title is also ascribed to him for the 6th of January by Claude Chenu, Robert, the Sammarthani, Saussay; and on the 22nd of February in several is noted the Translation of Gudwalus the Archbishop, as said among Those Omitted of those days: and again on the 20th of May, by Molanus, Saussay, and others, the Translation of SS. Gudwalus, Bertulfus, and Amelberga. Whether Camerarius in the Scottish Menology, on the 8th day of January, treats of him, there is no need to ask, on account of the known levity of the author.
[4] He lived in Britain in the 7th century, The time and place, in which the Saint lived, are expressed in his Life. Namely, not far from Cornuvia (which we interpret as Cornwall) he is said to have built a monastery, and we judge that this was done in Devon: for here he could put in by ship with his own, coming from Wales sufficiently near to it, where he had been Bishop. But these things we explain more conveniently in the Acts, to which also we note, not the 4th: that Gudwalus lived in the seventh century, when Anglo-Saxonia had received the yoke of Christ. Meanwhile, carried away by I know not what desire of antiquity, some wish to transfer him to the times of Diocletian, and the fourth century of Christ. Thus, following the English Martyrology of Wilson, Michael Alford reports in the Annals of the Church of Britain under the year 340, and James Malbrancus in Book 2 On the Morini, chapter 14.
D. P.
[5] he died in Britain, not in Flanders, The same, because in Surius for the place Cornuvia is read Corminia, thus think they find the place Cormon, a league and a half distant from Montreuil, and made a Morinian of Mevus, concerning whom below, according to our division, more is treated in the third chapter. But did they think that these words too, placed near the end, would be expunged from Surius? "The brothers of the aforesaid monastery, the sacred body being carried off, crossing the sea which separates Britain from the Gauls, came into France; and traversing it … at last came to the fortress of Monasteriolum." Which things below in number 40 are reported somewhat more accurately. We do not wish to detain the learned reader in refuting such things, desiring to be taught if anyone can produce more accurate ones from monuments. From France we learn from Claude Castellan, though translated to it, Canon of Paris, that in the district of Gâtinais it is held by tradition; that the Body, brought there from Britain, was first deposited at Ebrida, commonly Yèvre-le-Châtel; where his old box is still shown; and at Pithiviers, commonly Pluviers en Gâtinais, one bone was left; and therefore in both places the feast is kept with the office of the Common of a Confessor Pontiff: thence it is believed the bones were carried to Ghent. Which things being remitted for further proof, we give here those monuments concerning the Saint which we have written, some relics being left in France. at least five centuries after the age of S. Gudwalus; but perhaps augmented with traditions not sufficiently firm; we shall nevertheless give them as we received them, content to have premised this, no word being changed, but distinguished in our manner into longer Chapters. The old division into several Books and shorter Chapters it pleases nevertheless to note in the margin, and to subjoin the old titles of the Chapters to the Prologue.
[6] In number 51 it is said that the solemn deposition of SS. Gudwalus and Bertulfus among the Blandinians was celebrated on the 3rd day before the Nones of December, which some Martyrologies follow, alleged by us at the Life of S. Bertulphus: in which the same is also read in chapter 7, which is wholly concerning the aforesaid Translation, taken from the little book which was written concerning their coming, as is said near the end of number 30. This little book Bollandus sought in vain, illustrating that Life in the Annotations, letter c: I believed I had found it in the Monastic History of Francis la Barre, Prior of Anchin, whose copy, digested near the end of the 16th century into 13 volumes, is with us, having been caused to be written by Rosweyde. For in Volume 8, part 2, page 463, is read this title: concerning which matter the proper little book is sought; "Here begins the glorious coming of SS. Gudwalus and Bertulphus, into the territory of Ghent on the mount duly called Blandinium." But, comparing both texts with each other, I detected that I have nothing else than a Sermon, to be read on the festival of the anniversary of the aforesaid Translation; and so another compendium of the same little book; which, however, I thought should be thence transcribed, and placed between Chapter V and VI under the title of an Embolism; for the one will be able to serve for illustrating the other for the time being, until the desired little book is found; which not only in words, but also in the very matters, is ampler than either compendium, the circumstances demonstrate, omitted in both places, and from the one or the other in turn to be supplied; all of which together must be found in the original context. The year of the aforesaid Translation, not yet found in the Manuscripts, is noted by Arnold Rayssius, in the Belgian Hierogazophylacium page 116, from the Annals of Flanders of James Meyer, as 859. an epitome is given from a Manuscript. But how could Meyer have not seen, that S. Gerardus, the reformer of Blandinium and of several monasteries in Flanders, who died at Brogne on the 3rd of October of that very year (as is had at the end of his Life and he himself asserts), could not on the 3rd of December have taken care of and been present at such a Translation? Bollandus therefore choosing better, says it was made in the year 955, if (as such translations are wont) it was accomplished on a Sunday, to summon a more celebrated concourse of people.
LIFE
Polished by a Blandinian Monk. From the Manuscripts of Thosan and Bigotius.
Gudwalus, Bishop of Britain, at Ghent in Flanders (St.)
BHL Number: 3687, 3688, 3689
FROM THE BLANDINIAN MANUSCRIPTS.
PROLOGUE.
[1] By the angelic testimony approving it, it is pious to confess to the Lord before all the living, and very honorable to preach his works among the people. Tob. 12:7 For the sake of which word, from that innumerable host of Saints, it pleases to take up Gudwalus, the Priest of Christ, as a certain ornament of celestial glory, to lead into the midst; and in him, as in a most clear mirror, to consider thy mighty works, O Christ: The Author, incited by miracles, writes the Life of S. Gudwalus who once glorious among men, but now among Angels, in his time was destined by God to the world for the salvation of many, and in his time was more gloriously translated from the world to God. This man therefore, great before God in the heights, wonderful from God on earth, through the unusual marks of miracles, through prodigies most celebrated in all ages, as a certain Prophet or Apostle, the pious Church of the faithful commends to herself. Whose glory because I desire to extol, his memorable life, divinely sprinkled with the fragrance of virtues, I hand over to the offices of my style: to which I cross over not as an arrogant presumer, but as a devout propagator of divine praise: namely that the joy of my heart may have an increase from the glory of God, and a continual jubilation from the higher reverence of so great a Patron. Nor does the shame of neglected elegance to be undergone much terrify, or the grace of another's eloquence to be preferred: because more profusely will matter for glory grow for him who, the persuasion of rhetorical amplitude being set aside, will, like an inundating torrent, of itself belch forth the affluence of divine praise. For He who opened the closed mouths of the Prophets; and what do I say, of the Prophets? He who opened the brute mouth of an ass, and informed it with the measures of human speech; is he weak, for his own glory, to powerfully rouse my silence? And He who, as is sung, makes the tongues of infants eloquent, is he ignorant how to raise a festive harmony from the silent organ of my heart?
[2] It also gives confidence, that for the work to be dedicated to him the pious Gudwalus will be at hand, trusting in his patronage. and will obtain efficacy of prayers with God: who, as is read of him, loosed the tongue of one mute from birth by the sole word of authority, and by the sole command of his voice distinguished the organ into words. But now, because it is time to undertake the holy work of the precious pearls of Christ; I fear lest perhaps, in the most filthy manner of swine, I rather trample and scatter them, than gather them with due honor, and propose them to the sons of light. Whence by humble prayer the wisdom of God is to be invited, lest in so great a necessity, always superfluous to all, his grace be lacking. Hear, O God, the wisdom of God, who didst order Aaron to be the mouth of Moses, who didst cleanse the mouth of the Prophet with a coal taken from the fire of the altar; and pour into my mouth and heart, pardon of my offenses being given, that grace, by which both to thee and to thine, in the praise of thy Gudwalus, now and in perpetuity I may please; who with God the Father and the Holy Spirit, livest and reignest, through the ages of ages. Amen.
OLD DIVISION.
CHAPTER I.
The Life of the Saint in his homeland and on a nearby rock, before and after the Episcopate; and some miracles.
Book I
Chap. I
Chap. II
[3] In those days therefore, when the majesty of the Christian Empire prevailed over the whole world, and Christ everywhere made his glory known among the nations; Gudwalus, lovable to God and to all the pious, was nobly born on earth, Born in Britain destined to be more nobly born to heaven. He arose indeed within the bounds of Britain, exceedingly adorned with the renown of his parents and kinsmen: whose time of birth, in which the sword of the Lord's fury withdrew itself from that land, which until then with sword, famine, and pestilence it had afflicted, sounded, as if by some organ of presage, concerning the future son of peace. Rejoice therefore, illustrious Church of the Britons, resounding in divine praise, because salvation regarded you, when his mother's womb poured forth Gudwalus. Then the boy of fostering disposition, purified by water and the Spirit, through the moments of the ages and the increments of times, instructed in letters and morals, augmented by pious deeds the grace of God which he received; whom as an infant mother wisdom hung as it were at her breasts, and educated with divine milk; nor did she leave him as a youth, but with the solid food of celestial doctrines raised him on high. And the time of his novitiate being completed, when he now passed into manly strength, when he appeared to all as a column of light to be erected in the temple of God; the Church, by God's inspiration, turned its eyes upon him, consecrated a Priest, whom into the grades of the Levitical and Sacerdotal office it elegantly assumed. Then, having treasured up from his tenderest years, he opened the treasures of wisdom; and for the immortal gain of his Emperor, he stirred up the effect of his spirit. To some he resolved the arguments of human knowledge, to others he more deeply unlocked the mysteries of divine wisdom. From the deep abyss of the Evangelical fountain, to thirsting sinners he poured the draught of salvation: he instructs others. thus therefore, as it were lamps to be set upon the candlestick of Christ; he kindled approved persons, whom by the ray of the true sun he renders flame-vomiting.
[4] By these therefore and similar things the Lord, allured, deigned to repay to the holy man a recompense worthy of such excellent studies; for whom, a prize being laid up, to be possessed with the Angels in the heavens, he promoted him in the Ecclesiastical principate, he is ordained Bishop: and benignly handed over to him the Pontifical throne. By which glory exalted, the higher he raised his head among the people of God, the more diffusely he spread the odor of pious conversation. In the days of this Priest the Holy Spirit magnificently extolled the work of his grace, and the joy of all the Clergy to the gladness of the whole Lord's flock. He was, moreover, a honeyed Prelate, lofty by the title of nobility, and illustrious by the power of hereditary right: but with the Episcopal care set aside; but abhorring these things in all ways, whatever of worldly ambition smiled upon him, he converted to the glory of God: the ample turf of his hereditary right he offered to Christ, and through Christ confirmed the Church. Seeing also himself, by the Pastoral care, as by certain chains, bound to the world; from these he strove to be absolved, and by these, through the grace of God, the more quickly to be unburdened. Whence, commending the Church to the supreme Pastor and to a suitable successor chosen by himself, he sought a certain monastery of his diocese, in which he shone forth as a model of Angelic life, and an excellent example of monastic conversation. Here he gave his effort to the quiet of the soul, here to divine contemplation; hoping that a place, agreeable to his vows, would the more quickly be revealed to him by divine grace; he lives in the monastery: by those vows, I say, by which he wished to abandon his native homeland, and to enter voluntary poverty; where, from those things which he hoped to receive by divine gift, he bore the desire of building a monastery. But these things in their place. Him therefore, powerful with these lamps of virtues, the Lord began to glorify for his own praise with signs, and to make wonderful with miracles and prodigies: of which let us scatter some, in the manner of roses and lilies, into the midst for an odor of sweetness, that the fragrance divinely sprinkled may breathe upon the souls of the faithful.
[5] While therefore the Priest of God was tarrying in the aforesaid monastery, and excellently after his manner handling celestial things; behold, on a certain day there is present a band of certain deadly satellites, with a bloody company of robbers: who in barbarous manner, executing what belongs to their impiety, raged with rapacious claw upon the property of the monastery. Whom, when reason could not persuade to admit reason; and the enemies rushing in upon it, at least from fear of the celestial judgment to abstain from so great a crime; the impudent report went forth, and stained the very air with nefarious clamor. At last it came to the notice of the man of God, who, rising up against the enemy of the Church, Christ being author, brought forth the dart of malediction from the Gospel, saying: "Let them alone, they are accursed, not knowing how to work a good work." John 7:49 And presently prophetically he subjoined the Lord's sentence, by his malediction suited to the divine animadversion now imminent upon them: "Blind," he says, "are their leaders: but if a blind man gives leadership to a blind man, do not both fall into the pit?" Then he prostrates himself in prayer, he girds himself with the arms which Moses used against Amalek, he poured out silent prayers, and as a war-trumpet terrified the enemy: he sent forth the sighs of his heart, and by prayers, and with these triumphantly brandished the sword of the Holy Spirit. When behold, amid these things the office goes forth, that he might restrain the tyranny of the malignant: he is armed with the zeal of God, but, the war of the Lord preceding, the hostile cohort is conquered. For the sword of the Lord being unsheathed against them with fury, divinely terrified, and divinely they were terribly put to flight: of whom one, turned into satan, sedition being stirred up, is turned into a pertinacious homicide at the throat of his own brother. Whence rage arising, they so raged into mutual slaughter; he forces them to rage into mutual slaughter. that with none surviving in this battle-line, all alike were absorbed by the edge of the sword: and it came to pass that this execrable phalanx, God being judge and avenger, falling there together, as by way of a sepulchre, secretly obtained one pit of a horrible cavern. Because, according to what is written, "blood touched blood; and while from rapine they did not draw back the assault of their proud spirit, to the disgrace of internecine homicide, by the just judgment of God they slipped." Hos. 4:2 What then in this deed? what, I say, else do we discern, except here the piety of God to be embraced, there his severity to be feared? For it is of piety, that he had compassion on the injury of his servant; of severity, that the iniquity of the impious was permitted to overflow upon their own head.
[6] But the Prelate of the Lord was tarrying in the aforesaid monastery, in that (as has been said) longing, by which he hoped to find more quickly a place agreeable to his vows. Nor were prayers and sighs lacking, poured out to the Lord for the sake of this matter. He migrates to a rock of the sea with a single companion: Whence by the wonderful dispensation of God it happened, that the sea, which was near, from the midst of its bosom showed a vast rock projecting, after the manner namely of a habitable island. This therefore, leaning on marble solidity, when the sea encloses it in a circle, with no whirlwind of conflicting waves does it shake. This therefore being learned, the Saint, "Praise to thee, O Christ," he says, "Alleluia," sweetly resounded, and joyfully proclaimed the place agreeable to his vows: where, thinking he would have a familiar secret of divine worship, and be able to merit the frequent company of the holy Angels; breathed upon by the Spirit of God, and armed with the sign of the Crucified, content with a single companion, he hastens thither in haste: and at last it was reached thither, God being companion. Here in the manner of the ancient hermits, in the manner of the holy anchorites, hiding in caves, dwelling in caverns of the earth, he cut for himself a little dwelling in it, he cut out for himself a narrow little dwelling in the rock. Then the disciples, formed by his sacred institution, overcome by the piety of charity, going out of the monastery, with pious solicitude searched all around that temple of God, that exorcized dwelling of God. Whom, hidden in the manner of a dove in the cleft of the rock; and (to speak more deeply) finding founded in the manner of a son of the dove of God, on the rock, which is Christ; they too, converted into dove-like innocence, he receives several companions, who also build dwellings for themselves. strive with joy to participate in his holy simplicity and life-giving mortification. But while the narrowness of the place presses them, they cleave the cave with iron mattocks, and build dwellings sufficient enough for those serving Christ. Let the purpled tyrants attend to these things, given immensely to secular pomp. Let them attend to these dwellings of the poor of Christ: let them attend, I say, and thus, at least pricked by divine trembling, let them weigh, what these towers of Babylon, what spacious palaces, what walls raised to heaven will profit, when the narrow urn of the sepulchre shall enclose the scant clod of flesh. Behold, the poor of Christ, from these caverns of the earth and caves of the rocks, like great Kings, renowned Kings, laureled and crowned ascend the hall of the celestial Jerusalem: but the rich of the world, from the fabric of precious marble soon to be dissolved, fall into the gehennal pit, naked, guilty, and bent with the burden of sins. These things being said by way of digression, let us run the begun course of the happy history.
VII
[7] There was therefore a retreat, contiguous to the aforesaid cave, deprived by the interposition of crags here and there seeking the air: To the fearsome surge of the sea and when the sea at certain hours boiled with natural fervor, or sometimes at uncertain ones roused the force of storms with a stirred whirlwind; the salty volumes of waves, threateningly approaching through that same retreat, were wont to threaten desolation to those same seats, with frequent assault and importunate din. But the man of the Lord was stricken with grave anxiety, on the one hand by the loss of his household property, on the other by the peril of life. Therefore in mind he descended to every counsel, if perchance any useful, if any salutary one might breathe upon him: to whom the great grace of God granted to be destitute of all the prudence of human argumentation, that the escape from so great a calamity might be ascribed to the Angel of great counsel alone. For truly and wisely he understood that force could not be done to the sea, even if it should happen for all the Kings of the earth to gather for this. Therefore, placing his heart in the hand of the Lord, and lifting his eyes to heaven; the mercy of the Lord, animated both by hope and by faith, he invited; and, that we may draw within some likeness from external things, he fitted celestial music in his mind, with a spiritual plectrum he sent forth his voice, and in the ears of the Lord resounded with the measures of pious prayers. Nor did the most pious Lord defer the prayers of the just man, who in his wisdom found a novelty of wonderful piety, which he wonderfully fulfilled. I shall tell wonders, I shall report the glory of God: for I shall report a miracle illustrious and much celebrated, rousing the heavens with praise and the earth with astonishment.
[8] he obtains a mass of sand to be set up by the fishes, When therefore Gudwalus, lovable to God, had prayed, a wonderful edict went forth from the heavenly citadel, which ordered the sea to bring forth its living creatures for the service of the Saint. Which, roused by the celestial command, brought up a certain machine of exceedingly strong solidity, provided by God and found by them, above those very foaming waves of the deep, wonderful to say and to hear: by the opposition of which they both repelled the threats of the sea, and rendered the holy man, by the grace of God, possessed of safety. Which from that time even to the present day so remains, the creature obeying the Creator God, and magnificently serving his most omnipotent command. Who therefore would not wonder at the mind of the Lord in these things? O wisdom, O prudence of God! how excellent in mercies, how supereminent in all dispositions! Where, I ask, didst thou hide from the beginning the counsel of so great profundity, which now at last, for the sake of thy Gudwalus, thou hast opened to an astonished age? A wonderful thing, and full of the grace of God! To irrational living creatures reason
is divinely admitted, and a celestial service is committed. The faithful charge, glory to thee O Christ, they faithfully execute, and to the divine command in all things they yield: for they bring the machine, they obstruct the access of the sea, nor do they recede before they render the dwellings of the servants of God most fortified. Let there be therefore to the superexcellent God great glory, in this so ineffable token of his piety.
VIII
[9] In the aforementioned seclusion nature denied water, and wearied the servants of God with the discomfort of thirst. But behold, while the flesh fails, faith advances; while faith advances, the mind is raised, the spirit is strengthened; whereby the illustrious Priest of God, animated by the Holy Spirit, for redeeming the discomfort of the parched thirst, offered to the supernal King the gems of prayers, and water to drip from the rock. he weighed out the gold of pious prayer. At whose prayers the most abundant blessing of God, poured out abundantly, both drove away the discomfort of thirst, and poured forth a copious gift of overflowing grace. For just as once in the desert of Sinai Moses struck the rock, and produced water; so here too he converted the dry rock into a fountain, who ordered the chamber of that same rock to sweat out a most limpid drop; which, dripping down most abundantly, and by natural erosion hollowing out the marble surface; dug a certain receptacle round in the manner of a cask; and a hollow, in which that salubrious liquor being collected, served the uses of the servants of God. Behold the rock, which when struck emits fire, by the nod of God produced water: just as on the contrary water, solidified into crystal by the mediation of frost, emits fire, nature being astonished. For God is the Lord of natures, and therefore he uses them as he wills, as truly God. For all these things, behold, praise to thee, O Christ, who hast deigned to glorify thy Gudwalus with so special a prerogative of signs; whose peril guarding against and compassionating, when thou didst remove in thy wisdom the assault of the approaching deep, then also didst take away the lack of water by the gracious gift of supernal dew. Wonderful in these heights is the Lord, wonderful equally in these excellences: for to great things, if it can be said, greater, and to wonderful things more to be admired, succeed.
ANNOTATIONS OF G. H.
CHAPTER II.
A boundary set to the sea, the ministry of Angels at Mass. The departure into another dominion, strengthened by miracles.
[10] That sacred cave therefore, once horrid with the distinguished solitude of the Father, becomes by the grace of God a house of prayer, a faithful church, a place to be honored as much by Angelic reverence as to be venerated by the frequency of Monks. There solemn vigils were kept, in honor of God: He has 188 Monks under him, there celestial oracles resounded, in praise of Christ. For so in the more ancient copies of his deeds it is read: "A multitude of disciples, nearly one hundred and eighty-eight, gathered together, both of old men wearing out their long age in the service of Christ, and of recruits conspiring in the praise of God, as a most well-ordered battle-line of the camps of God, labored in readiness for the war of the Lord." When therefore the narrowness of the place enclosed the assembly of this holy multitude in an unfair space; that renowned worker of signs, in his excellent manner, that he might procure a dwelling for them. began to handle with God the mysteries of his counsel concerning these things: from whom taking wonderful confidence and praiseworthy constancy, with no prayer sent ahead according to his wonted custom, but girded with the great power of God, as if from authority alone he did this praiseworthily. When therefore the sea on a certain day according to custom withdrew into its bosom, and uncovered by its own recess a vast surface of the sands; the man of God, he prescribes a boundary to the sea. knowing no delays, quickly approached; and tracing the dust of the earth with the point of his pastoral staff, with great constancy said: "In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, receive the interdict, by which the same Lord forbids you the transgression of this boundary; by his authority I prescribe to you a law, which by way of a testament I establish as ratified, that your swelling waves, having glided thus far, may from there leap back, and in returning into you may utterly perish." He spoke, and presently the insensible element obeyed the divine command. You would see the untamable deep mitigated, restrain its power, hold back its assaults, lay down its swellings. And this not without the greatest admiration, that so great a part of God's creature, its natural commotion calmed, obeyed the word of one man, a servant of God, with such facility, that even to the present day it does not presume to transgress the boundary appointed for it. And as once through its living creatures it provided for the safety of the soldier of Christ, so now it does violence to itself, that it may serve his will. Great are these things, and not inferior to the deeds of the ancients. Behold, the miracles of the old Law glorify our times: for the pious Father Gudwalus, like another Moses, worked the work of the Lord in the sea. For just as he divided the sea, so this one bridled it. Great is the Lord, exalted above all praise, who magnifies his Saints with so great glory, and exalts them with power! To him be praise and honor for ever.
[11] It was the custom of the holy Prelate, as was fitting, to frequent the sacred solemnities of the Masses: to which office with how great purity he devoted himself, it pleased God, the inspector of that purity, to reveal. Celebrating Mass, The sacred victims of fastings and vigils therefore being premised by that same holy Pontiff, and the incenses of pious prayers being burned to God and the Angels for an odor of sweetness; when at the holy altars, whitened with the fine linen of virginity, he stood purpled with the royal purple of charity; behold, the heavens are opened, and a spectacle of new joy is offered to him from heaven. For it was to see glory, and such glory, to which on earth all other glory yields. Hear, O Church of Christ; hear, and be raised into joy, by the gift of so great an example. When therefore, as has been said, he stood at the altars, as if fixed to the cross, and suspended toward the celestial; behold, that celestial Jerusalem sends down a choir of Angels, directs the supernal citizens, to visit the servant of God with consolation, and to glorify the victim most pleasing to God in the immolation of the Lamb of God. He has Angels assisting: You would discern the ministers assisting God, descending from heaven, surrounding the holy Man, and standing by him in place of mortals: and just as the Christian people devoted to God, flocking to the temple of the Lord, attends to the ministry of its Priest, applauds the office, communicates in the blessings; so you would marvel that that celestial throng, in that intelligible nature in which it is wont to appear to men, visited the holy Man, was present at the dread mysteries of the holy Eucharist, and glorified the name of the Lord with so great a Pontiff in great reverence: whom also they soothe with the organs of celestial joys, and cherish with pious consolations: and just as a man treats a friend with a friend, so that Angelic choir treats the holy man; nor as a friend only to himself, but as to God the King, immortally associated by the pact of an eternal covenant.
[12] O spectacle most celebrated in all ages! On one side stands, like a splendid column of light, the Pontiff, celebrating the holy of holies, immolating the Lamb of God, tasting the celestial libation; on the other side the choirs of Angels, reverent amid so great solemnities of mysteries; celestial things are joined to earthly, and earthly to celestial; the immortal are associated with the mortal, and for so great grace of God granted to mortals they congratulate the mortals. Among these the holy Prelate inebriates the souls thirsting for the fountain of life with Evangelical streams, and fortifies them with sacred blessings; and thus, cheered both by Angelic and also by human grace, with joy he completed the most holy solemnities of the Masses. But lest there remain doubtful to anyone what we say, both by the example of this wonderful spectacle, and by the judgment of the authority of the Scriptures it is proved, that never without the presence and reverence of Angels are the sacred secrets of the Mysteries of Christ celebrated. But to set forth in the eyes of the sun the merit of this his servant, it pleased the wisdom of God concerning him to do visibly, what it is established that the Holy Spirit daily invisibly celebrates in the Church, by his own authorship, whose kingdom with the Father and the same Spirit remains for ever. When therefore these and similar things were divinely done toward Blessed Gudwalus, more and more he began to be excited by the heat of the Holy Spirit, with what responses of thanksgiving he might meet such evident benefits of God. But the man, to be praised with all praise, what more could he do in deed? Should he change with divine love the love of the world, to which, himself crucified, he was already crucified? Should he decree now first the kingdom of God to be sought, for which he had not only renounced all things, but had even held his soul in hatred?
[13] about to migrate elsewhere, But this alone remained, that the seats which he had begun to inhabit for the name of the Lord, the same equally for his name he should desert: namely, that as much as in these he was exiled from his native homeland, so much, made a pilgrim from them for the love of Christ, he should seek a dwelling lying under another sun, as if a stranger and unknown. For example, just as one walking between twin fires, the more he recedes from one fire to approach another fire, the more he grows cold by this, grows warm by that. So this venerable Father, placed between flesh and spirit, the world and God, the more he absolves himself from carnal impediments, and puts the world behind his back; he places his own in seven ships: the more robust he rises in spirit, and the more ardently bends his face into the love of Christ. Counsel therefore being taken with the Brethren, filled with the sevenfold grace of the Holy Spirit, a sevenfold vessel is built in the port of that very island: where coming, accompanied by a most holy flock of disciples, who had grown beyond the sum of the hundred-and-eighty number, as has been said; he entered the sea with all, the Spirit of God being his guide. Which by divine and not human dispensation he enters, that the creature of another element also may share with the earth, in the sacred blessing of his miracles. The Angelic throng indeed, embracing the bosom of the ships, soothing souls amid the nautical clamors with melody, filled the magnificent and spacious sea with the sonorous chant of celestial hymns, the deep re-echoing with a pleasing response, and resounding with divine jubilations in the glory of God.
[14] Among which the holy Man, confident both in the presence of God and of the Angels, and secure in their aid, goes out of the ship; where by the very waves, as if commended by God, he is received. he himself walking upon the sea, Among whom, held by the invincible right hand of Christ, by the novelty of so great a miracle he merited to be governed, so that it is more pleasing for these things to wonder with mixed astonishment, than to utter anything in unpolished speech. For he who made the waves solid for his Peter, and again extended his hand to the one sinking; who for Paul amid shipwrecks was a port of salvation; he himself, by what art and wisdom he alone knows, raised up his servant, and protected him from the imminent peril of the waves to such a degree, that with all the substance of his body unharmed, with all the surrounding of his garments also untouched by the spray of the waves, wholly unhurt and lively he remained by the gift of God. Meanwhile, rejoicing, he hears the voice of the Lord governing him, and remaining with him, saying to him;
he is confirmed by a celestial voice: "Be constant, O my Gudwalus; be constant, my chosen one; fear not, because I, your God, am with you." For the Brethren attested that they truly heard these things, and that the Man was made more even-minded by this congratulation of the Lord. What did this voice of the Lord, a voice incomparable to the utterances of the Angels; what, I ask, else did it sound, except (to recur to Peter) what was said to him as he sank: "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?" Matt. 14:31 Now therefore, because we labor as it were in the sea, it is permitted to cry out: O Gudwalus, pious Father, benign Father, attend from heaven, and to your servants laboring in the midst of the deep be clemently present; lest we be absorbed by the waves, and become prey to the marine creatures: offer a plank, stretch forth your right hand: behold, Jesus walks with you upon the sea, by whose leading you, amid the waves, and your sacred army, hasten to the lands. Through him we ask, through him we beseech, that we may not, suffering shipwreck, run upon the rocks, but cheerful through you may reach with you the solidity of the shore.
XII
[15] But since the flowers of his miracles have begun to bloom, and have already brought forth fruits; let them be taken and eaten, that by their taste the throat may be seasoned. Let us taste therefore, and judge, for the Lord is sweet. There happened therefore in that very place something excellent, something illustrious, and to be extolled with the most celebrated herald of praises. For when amid the waves, secure of himself from the presence of God, as has been said, he was occupied, he bent the tenor of the fervent spirit in him more amply to divine praises. Whence, as he was singing psalms at the hours appointed by the authority of Christ and the Apostles, when after his Pontifical manner the assembly of the Brethren did not stand by; for in the ship, as if weighed down by the grave burden of the flesh, they were carried; behold, the Angels are present, and perform the office of a Clergy devoted to God. And when, after the Ecclesiastical usage, the Prelate set the verse, singing and saying, "O God, come to my aid"; he sings psalms with the Angels: the Angels on this side and that raise a solemn harmony, saying: "O Lord, make haste to help me." They persevere also with him, blessing the name of the Lord, alternating hymns and praises with so great a Pontiff in reciprocal modulation. What amid these unusual miracles of divinity more delightful? What more celebrated? He embraces Christ in the sea, he has Christ as companion, Christ as consoler, Christ as governor. He discerns the holy Angels assisting him in the praise of God, obeying him, and persevering with him.
[16] And where is that which is sung, "In the sight of the Angels I will sing psalms to thee"? behold, in his sight the Angels sing to God. Psalm 137:1 But what wonder if he uses the fellowship of the Angels in the praise of God, to whom the King of the Angels himself is a protection in the midst of the deep, as the pupil of his eye. He was indeed carried to the lands, by a happy course and prosperous navigation, all that army of the Lord: and just as through the column of cloud and fire, in the hand of Moses and Aaron, Israel passed through the Red Sea; so through the man, to whom the power of the sea was subjected, in the hand of Gudwalus these Angelic camps were conveyed through the midst of the abyss. he happily reaches the port with his own. Thanks to thee, O God, who never desertest those hoping in thee, but always fulfillest in them thy mercy, which all who love thee enjoy. Behold, you have, pious reader and auditor devoted to God, the sacred marks of his deeds set in order, by which holy Gudwalus both gladdened the marine church, and the homeland of his own birth; by which also he magnificently roused the depth of the abyss, to the ineffable glory of God. Let us distinguish these from the following ones, which afterward shone with great brilliance on the shores across the sea; that just as the sea lying between separates homeland from homeland, and divides kingdom from kingdom; so we too, with distinct books, may distinguish also the works of the kingdoms.
CHAPTER III.
A monastery constructed. An inheritance obtained, and a son given to the proprietor. Other miracles.
BOOK II.
CHAP. I.
[17] And it came to pass that to the man of God, having gone out of the bounds of his own pilgrimage, both by the flowing benignity of God and by the great kindness of the whole region he was met. For the favor of so great a guest Christ presently diffused through every homeland, whom also, with Christ, the mighty works and greatest wonders commended; by which already, the aforesaid little work attesting, to earth and sea, to Angels and men he had clearly become known. And when there he had begun to work like things, (hence to thee, O Christ, be praise and honor for ever) the whole land drew to itself the spirit of his love. Kindly received by the inhabitants, And first indeed, though with difficulty, a place fit for building a monastery is sought out. But the man of the Lord, not weakened by that very difficulty, had a firm hope as it were fixed with a bronze nail in the Lord: for the preceding benefits of God raised up his spirit. For how would God desert the merit of so weighty a faith, who to those hoping in him and presuming upon him is always present as a most pious rewarder? When therefore, as has been said, for building a monastery through deserts and pathless places a place is sought out; behold, a little field, not sufficiently agreeable to his purpose, but which to the newcomers and rude inhabitants seemed as if sufficient out of necessity, presents itself. Here in the name of the Lord they began to labor and to build a monastery. he chooses a place for the monastery; But God, compassionating their pious affections, but striving in vain, decreed in this manner counsel by counsel, and the place to be changed by a place.
[18] On a certain day therefore, when in the place of this pious labor they were celebrating with festive light the ninth hour, in which Christ about to suffer ascended the cross; behold, a certain powerful man of that land, surrounded by a military band, coming up, to this assembly of the Saints, full of joy and astonishment, reverently admitted himself. This man, armed with the zeal of justice, had raised his lance against the powerless slaughter of robbers and cruel plunderers, and had rescued Christian innocence from their infestation: who, seeing the holy man in the midst of the assembly of the Brethren, but by the counsel of a prudent man, like an Angel of God standing, singing psalms, and at the several little chapters of the verses bending his knees to God, pricked in heart, with bowed head adored him three times: and approaching with trembling and reverence, sought a blessing from the holy man. Which received, as if by way of recompense for the benefit and consolation he cherished him, and animated him with counsel of profit. He said therefore to him: "The homeland from which you are sprung, renowned athlete of God, I know, the most noble lineage of your stock I recognize, and concerning the labor of voluntary poverty and pilgrimage undertaken for the sake of God I greatly rejoice. But because in the construction of this place you are consumed with vain labor, which agrees neither with your regular purpose, nor with this so great a multitude; receive the counsel of God, and not mine, about to profit you and yours, God being propitious. There is therefore nearby a place, where if you spend such effort with pious zeal, you will obtain manifold joy of fruitful labor. Whence, taking with you a few of the Brethren, direct your step thither for the sake of exploring. For truly I trust, that there you will attain the gladness of your heart, the desire of your soul, and will with joy find a place agreeable both to God and to those serving him." These things heard, the venerable Hero, taking up the plectrum of the Holy Spirit, sang praise to God and a hymn to Christ. Then, having his admonisher as guide, the grace of God going before and following him, he came more quickly to explore the quality of the place; whose pleasantness and convenience he embraced, he offered to God a sacrifice of praise, and with all the joy of his heart proclaimed, "Glory to God in the highest."
[19] This place therefore he dedicated as the place of his dwelling to the glory of God, and invited from all sides the fellow-servants of God to dwell with him. he constructs it in a more convenient place. And it was commanded by a celebrated messenger, that the most sacred throng of the Brethren, with all the revenues of the ecclesiastical apparatus, ought to hasten thither as quickly as possible. Who arriving, decree to establish a perpetual seat there, and set up a monastery with a cloister of the convent; where from a rustic place, from a dwelling of beasts, becomes a place of prayer, a place of divine contemplation. But because it is too long to attempt one by one the studies of the servants of God, for the sake of brevity I tell a likeness, that you would discern the holy family, like a prudent swarm of bees, fervent in divine studies. This comparison is taken from the least, but compared to the greatest, which if anyone should calumniate as if incongruous, let him, I ask, attend to the physical inspector of natures: in which if he shall diligently inspect and strenuously understand the prudence, nature, laws, morals, exercises of labors, and quiet leisures, and the other studies of this least but admirable bee; he will have, as I suppose, by a congruous comparison a reason answering to something. These things being briefly interspersed, let us repeat the course of the happy history, aided by the supports and intercessions of the blessed man.
[20] Blessed Gudwalus therefore, like one of the living creatures of heaven, eyed before and behind, Understanding that the place was a certain Mevorus's, weighing present things and foreseeing future ones, began to seek with himself and to treat with others; whether a place of so pleasant a delight rejoiced in a hereditary possessor, or why the presence of the legitimate Lord had been so long neglected. And it was said that a certain worshipper of Christ, Mevorus by name, had his paternal seats there; but, not bearing the hostile rage of the citizens, had gone to a homeland lying under another sun, and had transferred himself and his house to Cornuvia for the sake of peace. These things heard, the venerable Hero said: "If it is so, my Brethren, it is to be considered what we ought to do concerning these things. For as in all things, so most of all in a matter of this kind, it is fitting to handle what is holy and just. For what is great, if in this dwelling of exile the love of God has made us reign, if the love of neighbor be offended? Wherefore let the rule of reason be held, and let the Lord of this turf be approached concerning this by a friendly embassy: for I hope in the Lord, that the grace of the Holy Spirit will prevent his heart, which will move in him the bowels of his piety: by which through this patrimony, both to the salvation of his soul, and also to our utility, he may look to his crown. Concerning which matter I judge that an embassy of four Brethren should be sent, to handle our solicitude with prudent counsel, and to accomplish this celebrated business with faithful effect." For this counsel all favoring salubriously, chosen ones from the Brethren are sent, and, certain of the fruit of obedience, enter the way, walking through him and having him as companion, who in the Gospel says: "I am the way, the truth, and the life." John 14:6 And the labor of the long journey now measured out, they come to Cornuvia, he sends four Monks to him, they approach the illustrious Mevorus, they give greeting, they unfold the embassy, they open the praiseworthy presumption of the renowned Father, by which from divine confidence he had entered the bounds of his estate. "He entered," they say, "not, as a violent invader, to possess your property; but, to obtain these for the King God for your crown. Now Christ," they say, "has inherited your seats; now he has provided a temple for his worship, and gathered his own camps there."
[21] These things heard, the illustrious Mevorus, as one prevented by the grace of the Holy Spirit, gave great thanks to God; soothing his mind with pious sweetness, because neither the power of a public exactor, nor the violent lot of enemies, was the invader of this illustrious inheritance: and on account of this most of all, that Christ dedicated it to himself,
and he obtains the inheritance as where he had already affixed the titles of his right, and, as it were under his wings, gathered the celestial soldiery. In this deed indeed, that we may ascribe to the man of God something of old history, he held Abraham the Patriarch and David the Prophet for an imitable example: each of whom, what he was able to possess by power, preferred to obtain by grace; the former namely, because he was a Prince of God among his own, the double cave for a possession of a sepulchre; the latter, the threshing-floor of Areuna for the building of a temple. Yet the love of God and of neighbor overcame the power of empire, whence also their seed remains for ever and ever. Then, the Brethren being received with hospitality, the illustrious Mevorus alacriously exhibited all kindness. But neither was he frustrated of the reward of holy hospitality; for he himself who at the end is about to say to his own, "I was a guest and you received me," reserving for this man the deposit of eternal recompense, did not suffer him at present to remain inexperienced of the purpose of his grace. Let them hear and be delighted, whom the grace delights, which works in the servants of God.
III
[22] Therefore the illustrious man, of whom is the discourse, and his renowned wife, were dwelling together in Christ, joined namely by charity, but separated by the carnal bond. to whom in turn they themselves and his barren wife promising offspring, For now nine years had flowed by, in which neither knew the fellowship of the common bedchamber: but they were aged and worn out with old age, whom nature had deprived of the delight of dear offspring, from whom all the gladness of kinship had flowed away. But the guests received, as if repaying a turn for the charity bestowed upon them, when they remembered all the mighty works which God did through Blessed Gudwalus; before they went to bed, honorably in secret thus address them. "We know," they say, "for certain, that the Lord has directed our way; and by the merits of our Father, whose embassy we perform, both here and also in the future, you will inherit the blessing of Abraham. Acquiescing therefore in our counsels, in the name of Gudwalus, this night enjoy the chaste embraces of legitimate wedlock; and there will be given to you a joy, whence your charity may bless God for ever. For by the merits of our Father we will associate our prayers, and, as we trust in the Lord, the grace of dear offspring will be given to you from on high." But while they pleaded old age, but nourished in the Lord a hope to profit, they propose the examples of the holy Patriarchs, they excuse the incitements of desire, and approve the sweet increases of offspring to be received.
[23] At length, they acquiescing, they are received into the bed, soon to be honored with supernal consolation. [Gudwalus appears to the woman, indicating a son conceived and to be called Simeon.] For in the silence of the dead of night, while pleasant sleep cherishes all things, suddenly a celestial visitation is present. For behold, the holy Pontiff Gudwalus, in a vision standing by the woman; "Rejoice," he says, "woman, rejoice, I say, and be glad: because you have conceived a son, whom in his time you shall bear. Him you shall call Simeon, whom to be consecrated to the Lord, but to me you shall hand over to be nourished." But morning being made, when the servants of God, the authors of this counsel by supernal inspiration, had now begun to set out; this same woman, giving thanks, ran to meet them, and unfolded in order the vision of salvation. All congratulating, and blessing God thereupon, the old man too ran up, and he himself blessed God. He promises that he will come, and that the son to be born from the promise, with all the integrity of the inheritance, he will hand over to God and Blessed Gudwalus by ratified laws: and blessing them, he dismissed them in peace. Who, praising the Lord over all the good things which they had experienced, come to Father Gudwalus: whom they render cheerful by the mystery of so great an embassy, and together with him alike bless God the bestower of this gift. God therefore visited the woman, who according to the oracle of the divine presage bore a son, and his name was called Simeon; and the joy denied to the flowering age, to old age (praise to thee, O Christ) they rejoice to be granted. Indeed, the Book of Judges and the sacred Gospels attesting, it is of Angels to bear a divine oracle to old and infertile parents, for the hope of dear offspring: to which ministry we write this pious Father of ours destined, as a true Angel of God and a truthful seer of celestial presage.
[24] But some course of years having rolled by, Blessed Gudwalus, mindful of the faithful promise of Mevorus, approached the same by chosen Brethren with a friendly embassy: how the grace of God, He sends his own back to Mevorus, how the supports of the holy man accompanied whom, hence the reader is given the faculty of knowing. For when they were set on the journey, it happened that they had a passage through a most vast forest: and behold, unexpectedly they run into a certain band of robbers, whom, snared in the chain of satan, a nefarious deed attested. For gathered in the manner of vultures, around the corpse of a certain dead man, they distributed among themselves the snatched spoils; neither fearing to offend the Lord by the enormity of so detestable a disgrace, nor revering the modest nakedness of noble nature in their neighbor. these on the way are freed from robbers, Who, seeing the servants of God coming along the way, in the assault of an unclean spirit rush to meet them, as if soon to drink their blood which they thirsted for, or to find precious substance in them. But, as it is written, "in vain is the net cast before the eyes of the winged." Prov. 1:17 Nothing in this conspiracy of the malignant did the cunning craftiness of the devil profit. For the servants of God, mindful of the Scripture saying, "No one fearing God ought to fear a creature"; undaunted pursue the begun way. While they, amid the melody of psalms, amid the words of prayers, invited the Lord through the merit of Gudwalus to their aid; the hostile phalanx, as if driven backward by the whirlwind of the wind, put to flight, made blind and wounded in the forehead, in malignant confusion slipped into flight. And because, as night generates blindness, so confusion generates baseness; with the ignominy of flight, by the just judgment of God they were punished with blindness of the eyes: whom also the terror of the Holy Spirit invading, sprinkled them in a circle with so great confusion, that while they sought the protection of flight, they dashed their heads against the opposing thicket with horrible disgrace.
[25] Behold a triple miracle in one, flight, blindness, the forehead bruised. There is added, moreover, augmenting the calamity, the noise of disordered clamor and the madness of mind. For while in flight, as has been said, they were thrown into confusion; with confused clamor, re-echoing to themselves from the density of the thicket, they strike heaven and fill the air, saying: "O terrible name of the Lord! O admirable merit of Gudwalus, by whose invocation we are punished with blindness, dispersed by flight, but by their prayers given light: and moreover we hold death suspect, while we feel the capital sentence in the dashing of our bruised foreheads." But the disciples of the venerable Father, pouring out prayers after the example of the Crucified Lord, they were turned from madness to sobriety: who also, making a vow to the God of heaven, in the recovery of their sight merited the clemency of God. Why do you strive in vain, O envy of the devil? You desire to destroy the counsel of the Most High and of our holy Father, to be disposed through these messengers of peace; while you contrive to sharpen the teeth of your beasts upon their blood: but the inevitable counsel of the Lord remains for ever; but your contrivances are immediately frustrated, and the weapons of your ambushes are turned back upon you. For executing the demonstration of your art, they gave their hand to their Emperor, to whom they made a vow, and acquired his grace. Glory to the Lamb of God, who on the Cross, falling asleep with blood poured out, so broke the powers of the savage lion, that now, prostrated with groaning beneath the feet of the Saints, contrite he bewails the victory of his ancient tyranny.
[26] Such marks of God's works carrying about with them the aforesaid servants of God, and extolling these in praise of the Creator, they come to Cornuvia; they seek Mevorus devoted to God, and his renowned wife, they approach those sought, and, greetings being given, unfold the embassy. "Be mindful," they say, "best of men, of your faithful promise, and concordant with the vows of our holy Father; for he supremely desires the joy of your coming, lest sudden death bursting in should impede, so that you become less master of the good will, they are kindly received by Mevorus, which Christ inspires." But Mevorus answering, said; "To the vows of your Father, my vows also respond: and to fulfill these his grace kindles. Whence, about to go tomorrow, and to consummate the work of the Lord, today let us feast together, and for the charity of your coming let us be glad with festive joy." While they feasted in the Lord, and frequently wove discourse concerning the glory of Gudwalus, no small matter of so great glory. Little Simeon is set in the midst, and the name of the Lord is the more blessed. But the night being passed, when now the light of dawn broke forth into the morning, Mevorus undertook the long-desired journey with the servants of God. And behold, the sky suddenly began to grow black, to threaten the horrors of storms and the inundations of rains. returning with him But the travelers, taught by their Master to cry to the Lord in tribulation, and not to despair of God's mercy, once, a second time, and a third bend the knee, pour out prayers, and demand that the holy Trinity, through the merit of Gudwalus, be present to them in necessity. And because God does not desert those hoping in him; according to that prophetic saying he became a covering of pious shadowing and protection, in security and concealment, from the whirlwind and from the rain. Isa. 4:6 For with rain rushing down from heaven all around, but with them intending toward the heavens with hope and prayer, and untouched by the rain falling all around. there appeared the glory of the Lord in a most illustrious showing of a miracle. For just as in the days of Gideon it came to pass, that, with all the earth moistened by the dew of heaven, the fleece alone remained dry; and again, the fleece alone being drenched, all the earth was dry: so at this time, when the whole morning and all the fields and all the thickets round about the hostile rain wearied; only the public way, directing these servants of God, remained unharmed by the inundation of the storm. The royal way, I say, the name of Christ being invoked through the merits of Gudwalus, was untouched; while the rainy horror held possessed all things set on this side and that beneath the open sky. For by an invisible power there was for his servants from above a covering, but on the right and left an obstacle: who once dried the wonderful way amid the waves, and on each side solidified the streams of the deep in the manner of walls. There indeed the water preserved its nature, that it might flow; but changed it, that it might not flow: but here the rain obeyed nature, that it might flow around; but by the merits of Gudwalus resisted, that it might not wet the way.
[27] But the grace of God perseveres with them in a miracle of this kind, until they reached the presence of the venerable Father. To whom the illustrious Mevorus approaching with reverence, Christ remaining in so great a Father, prostrate on the earth, devoutly adores: they lead Mevorus to S. Gudwalus, by whom most obligingly received, he merited to be relieved by the consolation of the long-desired blessing and address. The holy man himself also abundantly rejoiced in the Lord, hearing the prodigy of pious memory, shown from heaven on the way to the Brethren returning to him. Amid these things, with spiritual gladness increasing, they alternate to one another the services of holy humility, and confer the divinely inspired addresses of charity. The pious Father indeed embraces Mevorus, as if a received Angel of God; but the illustrious Mevorus venerates Gudwalus, as if Christ receiving him. Mevorus therefore completed all things, to the accomplishing of which the grace of God and of so great a Father had excited him. Simeon, a boy of fostering disposition, is offered to God;
and that whole inheritance is conveyed by the ratified sanction of the laws, under an eternal testament, in the presence of witnesses. Rightly indeed could that Mevorus say to God: to whom, together with his son Simeon, the inheritance is handed over. Thou art my hope, my portion in the land of the living. And likewise: Thou, O Lord, art he who shall restore my inheritance to me. For Christ is set forth as the inheritance, in the land of the living, of those by whom, in this land of the dying, he himself is chosen as their heir: that inheritance, I say, which does not pass away with the successions of times, but which, enduring, remains forever.
NOTES OF G. H.
a Sailed from Wales across the Irish Sea, to a province—Devonshire, as it seems—which lies upon the same sea, and is not far distant from Wales.
CHAPTER IV.
The miracles of St. Gudwal, performed on a dead man raised to life, on a madman and a mute who were healed; likewise on a sheep, on wolves, and on a horse.
[28] Now that estate of the Church of God was confirmed throughout the surrounding regions—the estate which this illustrious bishop, the venerable leader of anchorites and cenobites, founded here during his pilgrimage with God as his helper; and, enriched with the inexhaustible treasures of heaven, he raised it up honorably. St. Gudwal living there In it he chose to serve God until the end of his life, and to wage war for the crown predestined for him before the foundation of the world. Placed there, he shone illustriously by the examples of his virtues, as everywhere: by which he so gleamed conspicuously, as though a royal diadem set with precious gems, or a garland wreathed with lilies and roses, showed itself to those present like a gem-flowing diadem set before the eyes, but to those absent appeared like a rose-bedecked garland by the fragrance of its sweetness: as though in the diadem the splendor of his character was seen, and as though in the garland the sweet fragrance of his love was perceived; he furnishes for all the examples of his virtues, to the Church indeed as if from drops of purest balsam; and to the whole homeland, as from a paradise of delights, he raised up the fragrance of life: thus to some he shone by his example, to others he was fragrant by his repute. But in himself, that is in the hidden recess of his mind—oh, how great he was to God! For he was wholly aflame in the Holy Spirit with the fire of pious love, by which he burned himself inwardly as a kind of rich and marrow-filled holocaust to God. Whence, wholly melted by the divine fire, he comes forth as from a furnace of temptations, purest and refined gold, fit for no other use than the glory and honor of the supreme King. But while we keep silent about these things, the miracles proclaim them more clearly, consonant in like measure in what precedes and what follows: whose majesty is so great, and he shines with miracles: whose brilliance is so great, that they cannot be made to yield to the signs and wonders of the earlier Saints, called the pillars of the Church; among which we count it pleasant to linger, because both the material for divine praise is infinite, and they furnish the greatest incitements for following and imitating the footsteps of the Father.
VII
[29] Therefore the blessed Gudwal, aided by the help of God and of many, persevered untiringly in completing the building of the sacred basilica; when it was also nearly finished, he provided only skilled carpenters for the architectural work, while the Lord daily increased the inexhaustible resources, to profit the uses of the holy building. On the contrary, the envious tempter of all good men, foreseeing that losses were coming to him in that very place, in the manner nearest to his malignity, wove together the calumnies of his ancient deceit, and stretched out snares to hinder the holy work: nor did he rest from his wicked cunning, until he should contrive the falling of one of the workmen from the pinnacle of the temple; procuring this for himself for a moment of joy, but for perpetual loss; while for the man of God it brought a moment of grief, but a perpetual triumph. Indeed that workman, cast down to his death, the workman fallen from the pinnacle of the temple and dead, was dashed against the stones of the pavement, irremediably crushed and shattered: but the hands of his companions, wounded by so great a misfortune of their friend, ceased from their work, anxious that help might come from the man of God. The pious Father, struck by the uproar of those running together from every side and, as usually happens, tumultuously clamoring, and himself wounded with grievous sorrow, hastened to come; but sudden death had so suddenly seized the wretched man, that nothing of remedy or incantation, except by the art of this heavenly enchanter, could avail. The holy man, understanding him to be deprived of life, entered the oratory and poured out before the divine altar a prayer of this sort: O Lord, almighty Father, who hast punished the human race, by the just deserts of disobedience, with a twofold death; one of which thou hast destroyed in the elect by the precious death of thy Only-begotten; pouring out prayers to God until thou shalt have abolished the other, swallowed up by the victory of the resurrection, in the glory of thy coming: condescend, I beseech, to my sighs, and have compassion on my tears: let thy grace, O Lord, favor this dead man; the bowels of thy mercy, with a certain pious affection, open up as they were poured out upon the now stinking Lazarus; that one resurrection of one man may become the manifold raising up of many souls. And so, the sacrifice of pious prayers going before, he returned to the place of mourning, to the sad funeral rites already prepared.
[30] Then, ordering all who stood around to withdraw, he alone remained with the dead man. Here, prostrating himself amid words of prayer, and lying wholly upon the corpse, he placed mouth upon mouth, hands upon hands, feet upon feet, and each several limb upon each, filled indeed with that spirit by which the great Elisha shone in a like deed. And as flesh mingled with flesh seems to conceive warmth from the flesh, so you would think that lifeless corpse received vital fire from the most sacred body lying upon it. The soul therefore returns, he raises him. enters the dwelling of its own body; and the man, living, is restored by the grace of God to his former state: whom the holy man assigns back to his grieving friends as living again, and unharmed, with no signs of his deadly fall remaining visible, anticipating by this miracle the great glory of the future resurrection; when, apart from the marks of the triumphant Martyrs, there will be no wounds of scars in the rising Saints. Seeing this, the disciples and the peoples streaming together from here and there pour out pious tears, raised up by joy and wonder. Hence, prostrate in throngs at his feet, they raise great voices to heaven, saying: Truly thou art a holy man of God, truly thou art a friend of God. And so it came to pass that the matter of so great a miracle became a vast proof of the power of God, and likewise a vast manifestation of the merits of blessed Gudwal, both to the confusion of the devil and to the increase of the work of God. Through this so great grace, therefore, by which, O most blessed Father Gudwal, thou didst recall the soul into the limbs of the dead man, recall, we beseech, by an ampler grace, the souls carried off into diabolical captivity; quicken unto life those dying, by Christ; and to death make dead those living to the world; through him who is the true life of souls, and lives and remains forever.
VIII
[31] When, therefore, the rule of monastic discipline, established by the authority of the Fathers and the arrangement of blessed Gudwal, was holding its course in happy progress; the reckoning of necessary needs required that, at the ninth hour, the solemnities of the Sacraments of Christ being performed, the Brothers should come together in one place for the sake of refreshment. But the venerable Father, making himself an immaculate victim to God by a stricter fast, was, while they ate, persisting in prayers in the oratory. Now, by the instigation of the devil, a certain man, having found a fitting time for his malice, was accustomed at that same hour to violate the garden of the monastery; foreseeing, as it were, by the sacrilege of detestable theft, some remedy for his own want. a thief accustomed to steal the vegetables of the garden, For, plucking the vegetables and all the choicest of the greenery, he was unwilling to set any limit to this daily wickedness. But the Brother who had charge of the garden, while he patiently bore the daily losses of his labors, that by the palm of patience he might correct the one guilty of theft by changing him; whereas the man daily took an increase of his madness; approached Gudwal concerning these matters; he inquired what ought to be done. But he, as one ever wholly abounding in the bowels of pity, said: Unless the utmost necessity compelled this guilty man, he would not enter into a pact with death in a deed of this sort. But wait upon the Lord, and tomorrow you shall marvel concerning this at the glory of God. And it came to pass that on the next day, but by his prayers while the Brothers were sharing the common table, but the holy Father, in his customary way, was devoting himself in the oratory to psalms and prayers; the thief, not unmindful of himself, not unmindful of his perverse habit, set about to repeat the calamity of his accustomed scheming. And when, amid the dense vegetables, he was preparing his snares by stealth, and rejoiced to lie hidden in his own darkness; a divine scourge hanging over him from above in vengeance for God's servant, he was made public by a marvelous revelation. To him, while engaged in his wicked work, the hiss of a faintest wind, or the rustle of a flying leaf, easily inspired terror; and fallen into madness by a scourge, there appeared to stand by him a certain terrible figure of priestly reverence; and amid words of harsh rebuke, it brandished against him in a blow a rod of the pastoral staff held in its hand. By which blow he was made so insensibly mad with pain, that while he sought the safeguard of flight, he betrayed himself by the enormity of confused shouting. And when he attempted a leap across the hedge, held by an invisible chain, he remained like an immovable image.
discussing certain things useful to himself; the aforesaid woman, about to ask on behalf of her son, ran up; and full of faith said: Man of God, I know that whatsoever thou shalt ask of God, God will give thee; wherefore loose, I beseech, the bonds of the silent tongue for this my son, whom long silences from the womb oppress; that he may bless and venerate the Creator of all, whom he confesses with his heart, also by the common use of speech. Then the holy man said: All things whatsoever the Lord willed he hath done in heaven and on earth, in the sea and in all the deeps. Ask him faithfully, vow thy vows to him, pour out thy prayers to him; for he alone is able to save thy son, and to loosen the bonds of his tongue.
[34] The holy man said these things, not because he distrusted that he could perform such things by the finger of God (since indeed he knew that he had already accomplished greater things) but because, exalting himself in the art of humility, he was transferring all the glory of his miracles to the Lord their author. But she, whom the affection of piety for her dear offspring moved, whom the goad of maternal love pricked, began to cry out more and more, and poured forth more widely the balsams of precious faith. The servant of God, attending to the weighty merit of her faith, and condescending to her prayers, by touch and prayers restores speech to him, with hand stretched out placed his finger in the boy's mouth, and touched the cord of his tongue, saying: They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak. He spoke: and the one born mute immediately received speech. For just as a material instrument lies of itself silent, but, tuned by human skill and filled with breath, renders distinct strains of harmonies: so the mouth of the mute, before indeed silent, but at the touch and word of the Man of God, expressing the Majesty of the Holy Spirit, you would marvel to see suddenly opened: as though the same Holy Spirit reigning in so great a Father, by the power of his breathing, penetrated the pipe of the mute voice. Who therefore would refrain from the praise of the Creator? There arose joy mingled with astonishment, and a long-lasting proclamation of divine praise.
[35] Let us speak yet more of the mighty works of God, renowned in the miracles of his Gudwal, which are not only to be admired in the very elements, not only to be embraced in human souls and bodies, but are even most delightful in animals and beasts. Among these, what we have learned concerning a sheep, concerning wolves tamed and as it were changed into human reason, let us bring forth into the midst for the praise of God. There were sheepfolds for the uses of the monastery, against which the ambushes of wolves were exceedingly hostile. Whence it also happened that one day the shepherd laid before the feet of the holy man one of the little ewes, a ewe slain by a wolf, snatched dead from the very jaws of the wolf. But the man of the Lord, recalling in the dead beast Christ led like a sheep to the sacrifice, and meek like a lamb before the shearer in his passion, turning to the Lord said: Let my prayer enter into thy sight, incline thine ear to my prayer, O Lord. Thou! O Lord, in the figure of David thy servant who scattered the mouths of lions and broke the arms of bears, didst rescue the lost sheep from the hand of death; he raises it by prayers: which the same good shepherd, leaving the ninety-nine in the wilderness, seeking, didst find, and laying it upon thy shoulders didst bring back to the flock; mindful of these mercies, favorer of our prayers, look kindly upon this sheep; that in its raising up thy greatest power may be declared, which thy power works through us in the rest of creatures. Thou knowest therefore, O Lord, that we are moved to these prayers more by the praise and glory of thy name than by any desire of mortal gain. He prayed: and with the tip of the pastoral staff he touched the sheep, which by a light touch he raised up: which soon, all glorifying God, stood upon its feet, and returned to its flock, not without the wonder of many.
[36] Again, turning to the Lord, he said: Command, O Lord, that the bloody invader of our flock be present; and he tames the wolf coming to him that in him also we may work what is of thy grace. At which word, behold, a wolf, gentler than a peaceable dog, still stained with fresh prey, is present; as though conscious of his offense, making satisfaction to the blessed man, and prostrating himself to the ground at his feet. Seeing this, all who were present praise God, and with thanksgiving lift their hands to heaven. But the holy Bishop, made cheerful in the Lord, said: Withdraw, bloody beast; withdraw, and presume henceforth by no injury to disturb thy sheep. Wherefore, withdrawing at once with meekness at the command of the Saint, he changes his disposition, while he alienates from the aforesaid sheep all the cruelty which his nature sharpens more fiercely than wild beasts. And it came to pass that after these things, as if discharging the office of a shepherd, he attended the flocks with such care of provision, that he, not slothful, drove off wolves and fierce beasts coming upon them with thirst for blood, by the onset of his attack, raging with mouth and gnashing with teeth.
[37] At another time likewise, he saw a wolf in the open country, feeble both in walking and in running, dragging rather than carrying the burden of its sickly bulk, pitying another that was limping, than carrying it. Compassionate at its trouble, he cried out with voice raised on high: O dweller of the woods, lying in wait against the innocence of simple flocks, what ill has befallen thee? what hardship has happened, that thy natural swiftness should depart from thee, and an unnatural slowness succeed? At which speech of the holy man, reasoning suited to it came upon the brute beast, because it understood that something was to be wrought in it by divine power, whence among the Christian people the name of the Lord should be proclaimed. Therefore it approached with what strength it could, showing reverence with bowed head, offering affection with bent neck: then, displaying the hoof of its foot pierced by a thorn, by such gesture as it could it as it were poured forth prayers, by which it sought the remedies of its recovery. But the man of the Lord, weighing such reason in an insensible breast, heals its foot of the thorn. gave praise to God, gave thanks to God: and stretching out the ray of the pastoral staff, with which he had roused the dead sheep, touching with a light touch the lame foot of the beast, said to the Lord: Men and beasts thou wilt save, O Lord. Ps. 35. 7 At this voice the heavenly remedy, placed in the hand of the man of God, the same that was in the divine, was sent down as through a dry rod to the limping limb, with which long ago in Egypt the rod of Moses, for performing signs and wonders, was suffused.
[38] O wondrous power! O mighty might of the servants of God! how mighty in miracles, how efficacious in cures! Then the holy man said to the healed beast: Never injure any creature, but all the days of thy life browse hay like an ox: use hay, I say, be filled with husks, and thus, preserving the nature of innocence, hasten toward the paying of the common debt of death. Nor were there lacking very many who saw the beast thereafter tamed, which, thereafter forbidden to harm, ate hay. and bore witness to the obedience shown to the command of the holy Father. There are tears for things, and mortal matters touch the mind. Behold, man, capable of reason, fights against reason; beasts, devoid of reason, share in reason. Beasts, naturally without understanding, venerate God in his Saints by the gesture of the body and the affection of the mind; but men, naturally wise by the draught of the divine mind, with stiff neck and untamable heart do not fear God, and detest his Saints. Attend, O kind Jesus, from the heavens, and those resisting obedience to thee like a harsh crag, make them resplendent at least by the examples of beasts, at least by the tokens of these miracles, by thy unspeakable benefits. It is now a fitting time to commend to the pen the glorious passing of the blessed man, and to note down also the most celebrated divine revelations concerning him: toward which it is worth the effort to proceed, with the clear testimony of a miracle interposed, by which it has been proved before God that the holy eucharist of his almsgiving stood acceptable to God, and was pleasing to God.
XII
[39] At a certain time beggars, about to seek a public dole, he gives a horse to the beggars approach the monastery, and seek out Father Gudwal. Having found him, they offer the prayers of mendicancy, weave together complaints of their want, and sway the pious Father by their cries. When the venerable Master was swayed, inquiry is made whether any remnants of alms, any blessed gifts of piety, remained. It was said by the officer that there was nothing left over of the relief for the poor: for the grace of the pious dispenser had now poured out everything for the use of piety. But the athlete of God, poor indeed in the world, but rich in heaven, rather orders a horse devoted to farm work to be brought into his presence. Led into the midst it is set down, and is bestowed upon the poor with great grace; the poor receive the blessing of the man of God, with lowered countenance render thanks, and pay the gifts of praise to God, the author and bestower of all good things. Then, received into the guest house, they were gladdened with all humanity, at the expenses of the public administration: they are received with couches, and rest is granted them through the deep silences of the night. Day is restored to the earth, and divinely receives a like one. the use of the farmer's labor breaks off the morning sleep, and restores to its accustomed work their deeds refreshed by nocturnal rest; they confer with one another about the horse, assigned to the labors of oxen, given the day after to the beggars, and that there was not a like one to be had as a help in agriculture. Amid these things, as they lifted their eyes, the horse appears, grazing in the open fields; which the most similar shape of limbs and of its whole bulk represented as the same one that was the day after received by Christ through the hands of the poor; and though it was truly another in essence, yet it seemed to be the very same in appearance: the same figure of limbs deceived the keenness of the eyes; a miracle becomes celebrated in the monastery, seen in the field. The guest house is approached, where the beggars are lodged, and inquiry is made about the loss of the lost beast. The animal, they say, given to us, in testimony of his extraordinary power, stands present before our eyes: in this we rejoice that our needs are succored, in this may the pious Father Gudwal rejoice that it has been transferred to himself into the heavenly treasures.
[40] The report of the deed emerges, the rumor of the miracle is spread abroad, the mouths of the crowd are filled, it becomes celebrated among the people of God: the novelty of the thing stirs the hearers, rejoicing to hasten to the spectacle: the monks go out, the fame of the miracle is spread abroad with the astonishment of all. the laity gather, all are filled with astonishment and ecstasy. To the majesty of such power diverse praises are celebrated in the church of God. Whence, they say, is an animal so like an animal? From what flock did it emerge? Who reared it in the stables from a tender age? Who saw the foal or dedicated it to his own riding? Who directed this in service to the man of God? Who substituted it in the place of another? Unless perhaps, just as by the command of the Creator mother earth in the beginning of the world produced every species of animal, and assigned it to the servitude of men; so also it brought forth this one from his will, and provided a help for the agriculture of the servants of God. Truly he is no other than the chosen friend of the Lord, than the precious servant of the Lord, whom he so glorifies with signs, exalts with virtues. Indeed the farmers receive the horse as a substitute for the horse, and for the help divinely bestowed upon their labors they lift up their spirits. These are thy mighty works, O Christ, these the wonders of thy Spirit, which thy greatest power wrought wondrously in thy beloved Gudwal. Thine therefore, thine it is, what thy chosen ones work through thee: to whom thou wilt more fully perfect, in the kingdom of thy Father, the grace which here thou beginnest to impart: where thou thyself art made an everlasting crown, who wast made the palm of momentary labor. All these things therefore having been prudently examined by a prudent man, let him weigh, if he is able,
how great a glory the man of God merited, in the homeland of his exile, both to glorify God and to be glorified by God.
But because it is now time that, the door of this life being closed to him, he should pass from the world and ascend to the heavenly things; we too, by his example, close the door of this little book also, through which we as it were pass hence with him, if perchance in the following little work we may be able, with him as our leader, to follow him to the heavens.
CHAPTER V.
The time of his death divinely indicated. His pious passing. The translations.
BOOK III
CHAP. I
[41] Finally, having accomplished the marks of his miracles, having performed the wonders of his flashing signs, by which he ennobled the seas, sanctified the lands, exalted the holy Church, he came to know, as a gift, by God revealing it to him, the most longed-for time of his blessed consummation: concerning which indeed he merited to be divinely consoled and gladdened by both an Angelic and an Apostolic justification. And first indeed, when on a certain day of the sacred Lenten fast, the victim of our redemption being now offered upon the table of the altar, understanding in Lent from an Angel that the time of death was at hand: he was as a suppliant visiting the sign of the Cross-bearing Lord; and as a suppliant was both cultivating in his mind and celebrating with praise the most holy passion of Christ, and the death now experienced in the mortification of himself; he too, for the natal day of death now drawing near to him, merited to be sublimely honored by an embassy sent from heaven by God. For behold, an Angel, descending from the heavens with joyful aspect, brought forth to him with joyful mouth these words of gladness: O illustrious athlete of God, may the joy of the Lord ever increase to thee, and may his peace remain with thee. Since therefore eternal salvation is acquired by the palm of perseverance, for the crowns prepared for thy labors, triumph daily before God with the trophy of the most victorious contest. Let not the constancy pleasing to God fail in thee, because after a little while, by divine calling and invitation, thou art to pass hence, and thou shalt go to meet thy King with the palm of victory.
[42] And that messenger of the heavenly King, having tarried long with him, poured forth honey-sweet words with a sweetness known to God alone; whom, as he returned to the heavenly things, the man of God followed both with the joyful light of his eyes and with the eagerness of his mind: from the sacred blessing of whose presence so great a sweetness of divine nectar is left behind, so great a vapor of heavenly fragrance is sprinkled about, he is suffused with a wondrous inward sweetness: as the odor of incense and spices, the odor of balsam and of all the powders of the perfumer, do not breathe forth. Refreshed by which, that happy soul, recreated by which, that body—sanctified by the fast of the whole week, worn out by the long maceration of fasting—said a psalm to God, and devoutly paid the vows of thanksgiving. In which benefit of God, when he had drawn the multitude of the sweetness of the Lord into all the marrows of his soul, then also he merited to foretaste the delight of that immortal banquet for which he panted. But the man of the Lord, for the solemn fast of the whole week, having received the spiritual satiety of divine reward, more and more provoked within himself eternal desires, more amply incited the pleasures of his soul for coming to Christ; the day of his most holy passing, being dead to the world that was dead to him, he awaited more ardently; inasmuch as, invited by the heavenly embassy, he was bidden to the feasts which in the kingdom of his Father the most rich kindness of God prepares for those who love him.
[43] A yet higher glory, and, so to speak, a certain summit near to the Divinity, crowns the holy man: for on a certain day, the tenth before his most holy passing, before the most sacred altar he was intent upon the heavenly things, and was more ardently raising the face of his mind into the contemplation of the Holy Spirit. on the tenth day before his death Nor did the most pious Divinity, with a pleasing reciprocation, abandon him, which to his so burning ardor of desire soon appointed the supreme Prince of the heavenly host, in whom also it mercifully showed the longed-for presence of its piety. he is forewarned by St. Michael, And the Archangel of the Lord, descending upon the table of the Lord's banquet, at which the man of the Lord stood, peacefully showed the glory of his countenance with these words. I, he said, Michael, having performed the embassy of my Lord, by his command make known to thee the things that are shortly to come upon thee. Behold, I foretell the hour of thy passing, because from now, the solar orbit revolving ten times upon itself, thou shalt joyfully leap forth from the prison-house of the flesh, and free shalt escape the dungeon of this world, and shalt advance to meet thy King who will come to meet thee, with inestimable joy; who will receive thee, borne up by our help, with glory, and will enroll thee as a court-citizen for himself in his kingdom. While he was yet speaking, glory increases upon glory, and grace coalesces with grace divinely. For Peter, the Key-bearer of the kingdom of God, Paul too, the Key-bearer of the treasures of the knowledge of God, joining the Apostolic to the Angelic visitation, gloriously appear to the same holy man; and gently caress him, wearied with the desire of immortality: and likewise by Saints Peter and Paul, who, having entered through the sacred basilica with a ray of light, join themselves to the holy Archangel at the Lord's table. Amid words of exhortations also they attest that they are the Apostles of Christ, and that they have come for the sake of his consolation: according to the word of the Archangel, they foretell the near day of his holy departure, and multiply joys concerning the obtaining of the reward of the kingdom. By that number of days, they say, by which Christ, ascending to the right hand of the Father, deferred the descent of his Spirit, he also defers to thee the ascent of his kingdom. Therefore anticipate this day with thy distinguished solemnities of hymns, with sacrifices of prayers, and with the festivals of fasts: for by these thou shalt obtain the crown of the kingdom.
[44] But while the man of God was as it were led out of himself at these heavenly oracles, and as if rapt in ecstasy, the messengers of the supreme King were received into heaven. In remarkable testimony also of the Angelic and Apostolic presence, as from the garden of the delights of God, after their departure refreshed with a sweet fragrance: an insatiable sweetness of fragrance came forth: and filled that temple with a dewy odor: refreshed by whose delight the holy mind, refreshed the chaste flesh, kindled, offered more ardently before the sight of God. Blessed art thou, O Gudwal dear to God, whom the Lord honored with the special prerogative of graces. For just as concerning the Only-begotten of God his venerable Forerunner relates in the Gospel, that God does not give the Spirit by measure; so I confidently say of thee, just as of a righteous man, that the grace of God has been given to thee as it were without measure. For that an Angel of light descended from the citadel of light, and that the supreme Archangel followed as it were after a messenger sent before, that the Princes of the Church also appeared to thee with glory, who of moderate measure will reckon? And what is greater than these, that the very King of Angels and Apostles is truly believed to have been present in them, and through them to have uttered the pious words of consoling grace. Concerning all these things, even if it be not granted to speak worthily, would that it might suffice to admire worthily!
III
[45] Now it came to pass that on the next day the venerable Father ordered the whole congregation to be gathered to him; and the sacred company of Brothers being collected into one, he indicates to the Monks his impending death: amid the excellence of the teachings by which he was strengthening the state of souls, for the course of the present life now completed for him, he waters the flow of his discourse with tears: and disclosing that he was gladdened concerning this by the Angelic and Apostolic vision, and strengthened also by divine consolation, he changes the tears of lamentation into tears of joy; and so much the more, that, the sacred revelations of the previous day being unfolded in order, a joyful discourse is produced concerning the meeting with the Savior promised to him by the Archangel, while the Brothers exulted among themselves on the one hand at his so great glory in the Lord, and on the other mourned abundantly at his bodily departure, the man of God added: Do not, dearly beloved, weep, but rather rejoice, because he has now promised that the reward is faithfully at hand for me, his servant. Pay the debt of charity to the departure of my frailty, and protect me with your prayers: whose coming the oracle of heavenly presage declared to be within these ten days. And while the disciples were obeying his wholesome admonitions, he suddenly began to be loosed by a final faintness, and to be wearied by a most salutary sickness. And when the hour of his most holy passing drew near, a lamentable assembly of disciples surrounds him, soothing with melodies befitting the departing soul the beloved one going forth from the bedchamber of the immortal Bridegroom. But he, rejoicing in the Lord, and after his last admonitions he expires. was pouring forth to them words of exhortation, and proposing examples of edification to be imitated, concerning contempt of the world: urging concerning the longing for the kingdom of heaven, he strengthened his spirit, about to go, with the divine Mysteries: and thus saying his last farewell, he fell asleep joyful in the Lord. He fell asleep indeed plainly: because by a precious death he rested in peace.
[46] Without delay, the door of eternal life is opened to him, the gate of the heavenly Jerusalem is unbarred, Angels and Archangels come to meet him, the messengers of God advance to meet him, the Apostles rush to embrace him, he is crowned in the heavens, and bear him before the sight of the Most High. To the soldier who has served his time the very majesty places the crowns, and enrolls him within the walls of the city as a court-citizen forever. But who will be astonished that honor is bestowed by the meeting of Angels and Apostles upon this servant of God, especially as he ascends to the palace of the heavenly court; he who so often enjoyed their visitation, while still remaining in the pilgrimage of this exile? Who that the Savior himself bestowed a seat upon him among the Chief Men of his kingdom, whom the supreme Archangel promised would come forth to meet him with glory? But as proof of the faith, of his holy innocence, seen ascending in the form of a dove: and of his harmless simplicity, his most holy soul, in the form of a dove, was seen by the disciples to ascend, and, received into the bosom of Abraham, to rest with joy. There he possesses the joy of Angels, clings to the embraces of the Saints: what here he hoped for by faith, possessed by hope, there he merited to obtain in very fact and truth, where he beholds God face to face; where he contemplates his glory, not through a glass and in a riddle, but as it substantially is: which, as no mortal can fully perceive, so likewise no one will be able to tell in words or letters as it is.
[47] The venerable Bishop therefore passed away on the eighth of the Ides of June: commending his glorious passing to the Church of God by the prerogative of signs. through the whole night he is honored by a wondrous light For amid the very funeral rites of the venerable burial, around the memorable remains of that fragrant clod, a wondrous glory of God shone forth, and likewise great grace of his appeared: where the throng of holy Angels, and also the reverence of the heavenly citizens, was not lacking; from whose glorious and wondrous presence, a light like the shining sun glowed through the whole night, so that the divine light put to flight the nocturnal blindness, and dispersed the natural darkness by the ray of its brightness. Indeed the whole cell shone like the sun in its strength, which needed not the light of candles, not the brightness of flaming lamps: because, in testimony of the eternal light illuminating the soul, that splendor shone around the clod of the precious corpse. O man glorious with so great a proclamation of praises! whose spirit, translated among the intelligible beings, stands crowned before the divine gazes, whose body radiates with the golden flashings of miracles.
[48] There was present at this his sacred passing, among the rest of the faithful, a his own venerable mother, exceedingly cheerful at her son's so great glory: [his mother and sisters contend that he should be buried in the Episcopal Cathedral.] there were present also his sisters, with joy sharing in the sacred vigils: who, led by pious love of the deceased, descend to all manner of prayers, that they might be held worthy of the sacred remains, to be carried to the gladness of their own people into the land of his birth. Let, they say, the pious grace of all you fellow-servants of God grant, that at least, dead, he be
received in the Cathedral of his own See, and that the Church may be honored Pontifically by the mausoleum of her bridegroom. For the assembly of the Clergy awaits him, the people of God sigh after him; and that they may receive the body of their longed-for one, they raise heart and hands to the heavens. But while the disciples for a long time indeed resisted, yet by the will of God, as is plainly evident, being unable to prevail; they at last return to concord with peace, and agree with the affections of the pious parents. For abominable discord does not know how to be present at this holy assembly; because he who was present, the son of peace, rouses the spirit of unanimity. Therefore, both sides committing to God what is pleasing to him, oxen carrying off the body, they place on both sides in the hand of the Lord the decision of the work to be undertaken. That body with great eagerness they both cover, and likewise place in a bier, lift upon their shoulders, and set upon a cart bound to oxen. As these go on their way, there is a concourse and a meeting of the peoples, eager to solemnize with great devotion the funeral of so great a Bishop. The choir of Monks comes forth, the Clergy devoted to God advances, and the bright bands of Christians led the patronage of so great a protector: the sacred flock, they halt on a hill, called St. Gudwal's: instructed by his examples and teachings, devoutly clung to the service of the venerable funeral. With these hymn-singing bands, therefore, encompassing the precious body, they come as far as the mound of a certain hill: to which, on account of a memorable wonder wrought there by God glorifying his servant, the inhabitants gave the name Hill of Gudwal. Here therefore the beasts, assigned to the office of the pious burden, suddenly grew stiff like an immovable image, so that they compelled the whole company of that venerable assembly to fix its step with them. There are added still six yokes and twelve bodies of oxen, which, like the former, drew on the insensibility of flint.
[49] Then, turning to themselves, they said to one another: Since to obey the will of God in all things is of great salvation, and to resist it is evident damnation; by whose nod, since in these animals nature seems to be changed, and through this to resist our endeavors, why do we vainly fight against his disposition? whence two untamed bullocks should carry it to the island Plecit; Not our will concerning the body of this Just one, but the will of the Most High be done. And taking counsel, by equal consent it was determined that, the aforesaid herd of cattle being freed of harness and yokes, the servitude of that burden should most happily be entrusted to a young pair of untamed bullocks. Still ignorant of the ways, they say, wherever the special grace shall have impelled them, let them set their free steps. And it came to pass that the bullocks, left to their own choice, suspending their steps from the former journey, directed their face by a straight path toward the place of the island whose name is Plecit, with the grace of God as both leader and companion. This therefore, if I am not mistaken, is that island in which, as was said in the first part of this little work, the same holy Bishop, from being an excellent Cenobite, shone illustriously as an Anchorite: where among other marks of miracles he brought forth water from a dry rock, and in the name of the Lord curbed the approach of the sea; where it is detained, where also, amid the celebrated mysteries of Christ, he merited to be honored by the throng of the heavenly citizens. To this place therefore the most sacred body, carried with the vast devotion of the faithful, took its tomb; not without the wonder of many, that amid the glorious services of the holy funeral the marks of signs were not lacking. For when, amid great reverence of the Priests, the little coffer of the precious treasure was being carried to the place of the sepulcher; a certain man lacking sight, and a blind man is enlightened. and lamenting the darkness of long-lasting blindness, as often happens by chance, unwittingly touched the bier: which being touched he received sight, began to use the sense of his eyes; and seeing himself seeing, stood forth as a glorious occasion of divine praise.
[50] Here therefore the glorious body of that same illustrious Bishop, through long spaces of time, rested in peace and honor; and to the glory of God roused up many joys of miracles for those who believed. On account of an incursion of barbarians, At length, the courses of many years being accomplished, on account of the harassment of barbarians b and pagans, the British nation was for the most part dispersed here and there; and, the ancestral seats being abandoned, was scattered through diverse regions of the world. Hence also the Brothers of the aforesaid monastery, carrying with them the treasure of the most sacred body, crossing the sea that divides the borders of the English and the Franks, sought a homeland on this side of the sea. And it came to pass that, like a lion asleep with open eyes, the now departed one did through his dead bones what once, animated by the spirit of life, he had done alive. For just as then, leaving his father's home, an exile he sought across the sea a seat lying under another sun; so also now, deserting the coffer of his hidden body, he sought a foreign rest, not without God's permission. It was indeed fitting that he who shone with so great a radiance of heavenly flashings should, like the sun, going from the rising to the setting, from the South to the North, traverse the diverse regions of the world through seas and lands, and thus show to God the Church, neither separated by the sea from unity, he is carried into France, joined by the pious communication of miracles and the receiving of pledges. And when the aforesaid Brothers, seeking, as has been said, a homeland on this side of the sea, had landed at the borders of Gaul, with the pious burden they were carrying; thee among the rest of the kingdoms, O illustrious France, they approach, that thy renowned nation, among the rest of the patronages of the Saints in which it glories, might also remain more nobly proud by the blessing of so great a Bishop: traversing it from here and from there, wherever, in place of the worms boiling up from a corpse, to the castle Monasteriolum, they scattered precious balsams breathing life, and the spices of Christ sweetly fragrant with healing. At length they came to the c castle of Monasterium, for some time made equal to heaven by the presence and grace of so great a Patron; where, because fitting reverence was not paid to him, the grace of the Holy Spirit touched the heart of the great and illustrious Marquis d Arnulf, destined for the salvation of many: by which he understood that it had been disposed from eternity in the wisdom of God, that those human remains of his Saint should not be reserved any longer, but should be revealed at e Blandinium by their justification, should be glorified by their reception.
[51] Whence, the Venerable Abbot f Gerard being summoned, eminent in the industry of ecclesiastical religion and the monastic order, thence to Ghent, with the authority of the Bishop of that same g diocese, he enjoined an office of this sort, to which the great grace of God incited his affection: but the venerable Abbot, paying to God the vows of thanksgiving, faithfully undertook the faithful business, and more faithfully accomplished it; and having received with faith and great trembling the treasure of the precious body, with the treasures of the limbs—not to be compared to any price—of the excellent Confessor of the Lord h Berthulph, accompanied by a great cohort of Clerics and Monks, he carried it into the monastery of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, which is situated on a bright hill, and it is laid in the monastery of Blandinium: called by the name of Blandinium. There gathered an innumerable people of both sexes, clapping their hands, and blessing God with the voice of exultation; who destined these twin pearls of two gems from the inestimable treasure of his piety, and placed them as an ornament of his church with so great splendor. Which it is agreed was done on the third of the Nones of December i, while Lothair the King held royal right in the scepter of the Franks, but our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ governed the monarchy of the Angels and of the whole world together with the Father and the Holy Spirit. In this place therefore the blessed Gudwal, glorious before God in the heavens, wonderful from God on earth, joined to the illustrious Priest of Christ Wandregisel k and his companions—all to be duly venerated with every kind of praise—affords the abundant suffrages of his intercessions, and obtains the copious benefits of the mercies of Christ for those who seek him with faith and devotion, by his bestowal who in perfect Trinity and Unity lives and reigns through the immortal ages of ages. Amen.
NOTES OF G. H.
a This approach of the mother and sisters, and the translation of the body to its own Cathedral that was sought, indicate the nearness of the places; and most of all the conjecture of the author, concerning the situation of the island Plerit, here appended.
or Count of Flanders from the year 918 until the year 964. That he at one time held Montreuil, William of Jumièges in book 3 of the History of the Normans chapter 10, and others, teach.
g Ghent was indeed under the diocese of Tournai, from the very beginning of the faith preached there: but since that diocese lacked its own Bishop for 400 years, being united to Noyon; it is credible that the Flemings obeyed rather the Archbishop of Utrecht; and this at that time was Baldric from the year 917 to 977.
of the monastery of Fontenelle, is venerated on the 22nd of July, whose body, together with the bodies of Saints Ansbert Bishop of Rouen and Wulfran Bishop of Sens, Sigebert says was translated in the year 944, as was said in their Lives on the 9th of February §4, and on the 20th of March §1 concerning the Translation. Add to these the bodies of Saints Winwaloe and Conded.
INSERTION OF D. P.
A Sermon on the Translation of St. Gudwal and St. Bertulph, Transcribed from the Blandinian Chronologer, by Francis la Bar, Prior of Anchin, tome 8 part 2.
[52] Whoever keeps the memory of the Saints, gives praise to the Creator of all good things; whence the Psalmist also says: Praise ye the Lord in his Saints. Ps. 150 Therefore, keeping the present day as a feast of the glorification of the Blessed Gudwal and Bertulph, The exordium from the praise of the Saints whatever is done for their veneration is ascribed to the praise of the Creator: because the victory of the Soldier is the glory of the Prince. For I would call them soldiers eminently trained, who with the shield of faith and the sword of the Holy Spirit rose up against the prince of this world, and contended most victoriously. These two most holy Fathers, therefore, shining like the greatest luminaries, proceeding from diverse parts of the world; of whom one came together from the borders of a Pannonia in the East, the other from the borders of Britain in the West, and from their invocation: and chose in one place the seat of their rest. Relying therefore on the patronage of such great Saints, we strive with great hope; since they are of such merit before God, that at their nod he opens and closes the heavens. Keeping the present day as a feast of their solemn translation, as the Lord shall grant, we faithfully undertake to narrate.
[53] the body translated from Britain to Montreuil, Saint Gudwal therefore, most worthy Archbishop to God, whose memory is most delightful for us to recall, after the manifold labors of this world, by which he tirelessly strove for the prize of the everlasting life, gloriously consummated the course of his contest in the borders of Britain, in the place Cornuvia: and translated into the village which is called Plecit b, and there buried
was: whoever shall wish to know his life adorned with virtues, let him read the little book which has been written most fully concerning his virtues. But while through the courses of many years their relics were venerated in the aforesaid place, the nation of all Britain, harassed on every side by the rovers, who are also pirates, and driven out of its own seats, was compelled to seek a land lying under another sun. Thence indeed it came to pass that the body of the most holy Father, more worthy than every precious pearl, was translated by the Brothers of that same place into the borders of Gaul, there it is joined to the body of St. Bertulph: into the castle which is called Monasteriolum. In these days also the limbs of the blessed Confessor Bertulph were dug up and translated from the place of the sepulcher, which it had in a place of his own right called Rentica c, by a certain Count Erchengar, with a throng of both Monks and Clerics, and a mixed crowd of either sex, with reverence into the city of Boulogne. Now these things were done in the time when the glorious King of the Franks Charles, whom Count Heribert afterward seized by deceit and held bound, was honorably ruling in the scepter d.
[54] After these things a certain thief, Electus by name, a Briton by race, these too being secretly carried off, instigated by a malignant spirit, undertaking robbery, stole the bodies of Saints Gudwal and Bertulph, desiring from the aforesaid places to begin a flight across the sea; that he might sell the patronages of such great Saints for the sake of gain to Athelstan e, King of the English. At which time the glorious Marquis Arnulph was ruling in the said castle Monasteriolum, or in the city of Boulogne, where he was also then staying. On a certain day, the evening hymns being finished in the aforesaid city of Boulogne, he said to the venerable Wifred, Bishop of the aforesaid city: Let it not be irksome, most holy Father, for Your Holiness to visit the places of the Saints, that you may know in what places we have the relics of the Saints, and whether the seals are safe. To this the Bishop said: This is not the business of the present hour. But while the Marquis, by the nod of God, persisted in his opinion, and the crime being detected, the Bishop proceeded to go to visit the places of the Saints: and detected the body of St. Bertulph carried off, along with the other relics of the Saints. He, bursting into tears, and beating his breast with his fists, for the loss of so great a Patron, both he himself and all who were present descended into many tears: and a strong inquiry being made, the aforesaid Electus the Briton was detected, guilty of theft: for he had already carried off the body to the village called f Oditigahem, and there had hidden it secretly.
[55] But the venerable Wifred, with a strong band of Soldiers, by blocking the exits of the ways, pursues him g, and in the aforesaid little village detected him with the body of St. Bertulph. And, as the Prophet testifies, Blood touched blood; it did not seem enough to him to set his hand once to crime, unless by sinning he added sin to sin. Hos. 4. 2. For the body of the most holy Father Gudwal, the treasure recovered; nobler than every precious stone, drawing it away by stealth from the aforesaid castle Monasteriolum, he had hidden it together with the body of St. Bertulph. And it came to pass that, while they were making complaint about the loss of this one, their joy doubled by the finding of both, they exulted more abundantly in the Lord. Now that venomous serpent and insatiable murderer, the devil, had acted, through a friendly satellite of his wickedness—yet I call him a robber—that the bodies of the aforesaid Saints might be carried off, and that he might blot out the knowledge of them from men; taking care lest at any time, being put to the test by divine power, he should be led to their memorial, where he would be compelled both to go out of the bodies of those possessed by him. But since this is the dragon whom the Lord formed to mock him; what he was disposing for deceit, Christ provided for the glory of his Saints; or, so to speak, God provided that those resting in a too-neglected place might, by such an occasion, have their bodies transferred to another place, where they should be both venerated with higher reverence, and worshiped with greater devotion.
[56] Arnulph the Marquis But Arnulph, the Provosts of the monasteries of St. Bertin and St. Audomar being summoned, ordered the bodies of the Saints, with a throng of Brothers and peoples of either sex, to be carried into his church, into an estate of his own right, whose name is Harlebeck, which then the priest Theodrad, worthy of God, governed, and there to await his presence. Obeying his command, on the second of the Kalends of December h they arrived there. By the order of the Marquis, the Lord Gerard of holy memory, Abbot of the Blandinian monastery, is present to meet them, that this business might by his industry be administered more honorably and more religiously. On the fourth day at last, he places them at Blandinium. the third of the Nones of December, he himself, arriving, in hymns and canticles and the devotion of all jubilation, translated the bodies of Saints Gudwal and Bertulph, with the Relics of Saints Audomar and Bertin, into the Basilica of Peter the Prince of the Apostles, situated in the territory of Ghent, in the place called Blandinium.
NOTES OF D. P.
the Life says. The comparison instituted in num. 1 with St. Martin, born likewise of Gentile parents in Pannonia, may have deceived the author, as also Bertulph.
d Therefore between the year 898 and 923, as the same teaches num. 6. But in the Notes, to chapter 6 of the Life, see the things illustrated, which you might here require.
g In the Life of St. Bertulph it is said that the thief was seized at Boulogne, and cleverly induced by Arnulph to confess the theft, and the place where he had it hidden; and that thus the Bishop was sent there.
CHAPTER VI.
More recent miracles, performed at Ghent and in the neighborhood.
Book IV.
[57] Blessed be God, who alone does wonders, who does not cease to glorify his beloved Gudwal, deservedly praiseworthy for all ages, in the eyes of men, nor by a daily and ordinary miracle, but by an unusual and (that I may truly confess) a rare or never-experienced proclamation of his power: with the most precious odor of whose holiness; odor, I say, like that of a full field, The prologue. which the Lord has blessed, since now not only the earth, but also the whole sea is filled; in a certain way thou art happy beyond others, O holy Blandinian Church, who retainest, keepest, and possessest near thee so great a treasure of the divine majesty, predestined to thee before all ages, and committed to thee at the end of the ages. Beautiful indeed art thou made, and sweet in thy delights: thy height like a palm, in sufficient fullness of charity; of which fullness we bring forth into the midst a true and deservedly praiseworthy miracle of the Lord Jesus, of which there yet survive witnesses, not only the sons of this one Church, but almost all the peoples of the surrounding province.
[58] In the one thousand forty-third year of the incarnate Word, on the eighth of the Ides of June a, on the second feria, the celebrated passing of the most blessed Gudwal was being commemorated, as precious to the Angels in the heavens, so glorious to men on earth. In the year 1043 Now it was agreed among the Brothers that the most precious body of this Saint of God should, at the humble entreaty of the supplicating people, be carried out to the mountain which by the usual name they call b St. Quentin's: from pious devotion, indeed, not presumption; so that it might be permitted to set their shoulders beneath so pious a burden, and as it were to draw a kind of yoke faithfully with the faithful. And now, when the bier of the most holy man was being set down from the place of its rest by the Priests and Ministers, prepared for this very work, with deep reverence; the image of the Crucified seen to bow to the body of St. Gudwal, the dutiful multitude of the people awaited the pious burden; when behold, wonderful to tell! the image of the crucified Lord, which had been raised in the midst of the church on the altar of St. John the Baptist, with a vast crash, the fastening of the nails yielding, and its hands lifted from the cross, wholly turned toward the eastern quarter, was seen with its body as it were in homage to its Gudwal to set itself down, and three times humbly to bow. Now this appeared, not to one, nor of the lesser; but to many, and of the better. The better I call those whose precious faith, known to God, obtained this, that they should be refreshed by such and so unusual a miracle of the Lord Jesus. How many tears, how much joy that day had, how much the devotion of the faithful people profited, the prudent reader will be able to perceive, while I keep silent. And lest the sons should doubt the fathers announcing concerning the glory of this Saint of God, the same miracle was repeated, for the salvation not only of those present, but of all those to come and believing.
[59] At length, after the course of forty-one years, when again the feast of the most blessed Gudwal was impending, again in the year 1084. and again according to that praiseworthy custom the most holy body was being carried out; behold, again the hand of the Lord and the glory of God appeared from his holy place. For as they were going out of the church the same image, the same humility of the crucified God, with hands stretched out bowed itself to its Gudwal as he passed by: as if for the profit of those who were present, it seemed to say: Because thou hast fought for the Crucified, because thou hast borne my cross, because thou hast not blushed at the glory of the cross, I the Crucified render thanks, I stretch out myself the Crucified in homage to thee. Yet it did not appear to all, but, as in the former miracle, to many, and to those whose faith merited this from God. Who would not be astonished, who would not marvel? We faint at the hearing, we grow dull at the thought; and because we have heard the report of the Lord, and have considered his works, there is now no more spirit in us. These are thy works, O humble Christ; these are thy inestimable mighty deeds; which, though we, uncircumcised in lips, cannot worthily proclaim, let it at least be permitted, by the prayers of thy Gudwal, humbly and with worthy reverence to admire them.
[60] It is a small thing if I relate the cured troubles of corrupted air, the calmed tempests of a disturbed sea, the suppressed avengings of a languishing earth, which even today so obey at the invocation of this Senator of the heavenly court, that in his name, faith alone being added, we have seen very many command either the elements or deaths. A dying man is healed: I will relate what was recently done, which, with the whole neighborhood as witness, is not kept silent. You know Stomarus the Priest, an excellent witness of the miracles of blessed Gudwal, and the same skilled in telling them. A fellow-villager of his a final plague so vexed, that, by an example of dire calamity, he sought death alone as the only remedy of a scarcely breathing life
his eyes were closing in death, his loosened limbs required nothing but funeral things. The Priest of whom I spoke is called to visit him: he came, sat down, gave a blessing in the customary manner: when by some occasion a discourse of exhortation was carried on as far as the memory of blessed Gudwal, since it pricked the sick man himself wholly to tears, the Priest, pitying the man, said: If thou believest, all things are possible to him that believeth. When he answered, Yea, Lord. Seizing then his right hand, he said: In the name of Gudwal, arise and walk. Wonderful to tell! As if health were derived at the same time from that same mouth, the man immediately rose, went out to do his business; so that the things I have told, heard from his own mouth, may be believed.
III
[61] What of that which, done not differently, you also all heard with me. A certain widow was bewailing the loss of a dying ox, which alone either poverty or an unjust Lord had left to her. a dying ox is raised up: By chance the same Priest of whom I spoke came up, and having examined the cause of the complaint, pities the poor woman. Then indeed, relying on his powerful faith, applying the staff on which he leaned, he said: The Lord commands thee, in his Gudwal. The beast at once rose up most sound, and, restored to its herd, soothed its mistress's loss. To the whole village the sweet profit of a most delightful miracle yields. Both things were done in the c village of Truncinum. So indeed it is a small thing that our Gudwal shone forth by himself before the kind Lord Jesus with frequent and those most rare miracles; believe me, many in his name, with presumed authority of faith, his patronage in Britain toward orphans and widows, did many things. Britain, the happy mother of this precious offspring, knows this, who, although she, who valiantly subdued the prince of this world, by the nod of God destined to us entirely the bones of so great a soldier; yet it cannot be told with how great munificence of his merits she is illustrated; and most of all in that place where, after so many of his exhausting contests, he laid aside the garments of the flesh, to be refreshed by the most abundant breeze of the Holy Spirit: for neither there do the rods of Kings or any tribunals of Dukes rule, nor the Praetorian cohort, or the power they call Prefectural; Gudwal alone exercises the care of the city and the monarchy of his homeland. He himself is the helper of the orphan and the defender of the widow: his name, invoked, always decides in every doubtful matter; an evident sign of how greatly he commends to almighty God by his intercession the souls of those whose bodies he here guards with so commanding authority.
[62] But to be silent about foreign things, lest I seem to build my argument as from things far off; which of those whom either the loss of household property has constrained, and at Ghent toward the possessed: or the chains of jailers have bound, which one, fearing judgment for a deed, does not still make familiar refuge with this Patron. I pass over those who fight with demons, of whom, on account of a levity or rather a fierceness naturally implanted, the experience is more frequent among these Western peoples; who, placed in the last extremity, as soon as they have called upon this Advocate, immediately wondered that they were equal or superior: in the dissimilarity of which fight, although no just judgment can be defended by reason, yet the benefit of divine mercy is most frequently wont to be experienced. But what of this, that, on account of new miracles, by a customary expression they are wont to call him the new Saint? where on account of new miracles he is called the new Saint. For what has grown old in him from ancient piety, he does not cease daily to renew by his merciful goodness: so that it may be thought said of him, that mercy grew up with me, and came forth with me from my mother's womb. Job 31. 18 But I should esteem myself to sin, if of this illustrious novelty, with which almighty God has inebriated us, I did not mix the cup, while you are still thirsting; inasmuch as I see you attentive, nor is anything more delightful than to speak of Gudwal. To enumerate the multitude of whose deeds, even if the streams of Tullian eloquence should be dried up; yet it will be sweet to taste certain things from the full abundance, because the memory of the just is in benediction.
[63] By the annual revolution in its circuit, the always most longed-for solemnity of this so great Patron being proclaimed, a frequent crowd, as is wont, had gathered, either from zeal of devotion or from devotion to seeing some miracle. A woman condemned to long silence, whom we too, having frequently pitied before, knew, mingled herself with the faithful throng, and obtained by powerful faith a place of prayer beneath the body of the Saint of God. The miserable creature lay there, and, her tongue ceasing, yet with frequent sobbing, provoked the benefit of the Divinity: meanwhile faith also spoke for her; and while the Apostles asked, a mute woman receives speech: Dismiss her, Lord, for she crieth after us, a miracle was being prepared from the treasures of God, and that it might become more desirable, meanwhile it was deferred. The night also was beginning, which was to grow bright into the light of a miracle, and the Matins being begun in a frequent assembly, we were striking up the Antiphon d; Let us rejoice with the Angels to Christ the King, who shines wonderful in his Gudwal. As soon as it was sung; Wonderful; behold the most blessed Gudwal wholly in miracles; and, the chain on the muteness of her tongue being broken, she relaxed it wholly with us in speaking jubilation. She stretched out her hands, prepared all her limbs to the praise of God and of his Gudwal, and with the easiest talkativeness the talkative woman surpassed the song of men. Questioned, she answered nothing but praise; and, as if it still irked her of long silence, she continued thanks to the divine medicine. The devotion of the people also profited not a little: and what was done in the tongue of one, the words of many proclaimed even to the fruit of good work.
[64] To this was added another illustrious miracle, performed on the same day by the merits of the same most holy Patron. A woman from the town of Ghent (the name does not occur to me, the person we knew), enclosed in blindness of seven years, resolved that the contention of this her long-standing trouble should be settled with the piety of so great a physician. a blind woman is enlightened: She added too that this was persuaded to her in dreams, that from this divine propitiatory she should demand her former light. In which what else is signified but the piety of almighty God, which to this end chastises that it may heal, to this end admonishes that it may be propitious? With a guide directing her steps, with hope going before, she is admitted to another, but a far more curative pool of Siloam. With her whole body she is cast down beneath the bier of her physician: she offers the prayers of orations, weighs out the gold of faith, with clamorous tears demands that the gates of her tears be unbarred. While meanwhile the solemnities of the Masses are performed, in the place where the heavenly things are joined to the earthly by invisible mysteries, the water of divine mercy is moved and distills itself; and, pouring upon the eyes which it had created for her as an infant, now upon an almost old woman, it enlightened her. She marvels at her reviving pupil, is astonished at her movable eyelid; her sight restored, she recognizes men with her eyes, God with her enlightened heart. A known person, a frequent assembly, a celebrated miracle, made the glad day excellently more glad.
[65] The accustomed annual revolution of this Saint's holy deposition was at hand, which, the tumults of secular business being lulled, was to be solemnized by the common joy of the peoples. But because the urgency of doing business could not easily be torn away, the appointed anniversary of so great a festivity did not restrain the common multitude, ill-accustomed either to poverty or to greed: which the exaggeration of divine wrath did not pass over. those neglecting to pay the due worship to St. Gudwal For the day of the market fairs was at hand for the people of Ghent: which moneyed greed changed for them, I do not say from celebrated, but from a celebrated day into a mournful one: on which, while they gaped after public gains, they showed less of reverence and devotion to St. Gudwal than was fitting. Whence it came to pass that, to confirm the prerogative of so great a Bishop, they felt the useful rod by a divine scourge. Now therefore it had come, that, which is sufficiently approvable for the devotion of the faithful, the clod of the most holy body should be solemnly conducted by the people, and carried out to the mountain of Quentin with a celebrated harmony and worship of reverence. Where, while the aforesaid Priest Stomarus with eloquent mouth preached the word of salvation among the people, he complained that very many had been absent from the holy obsequies; and that—what seemed sufficiently unbecoming—they had toiled at their own commerce: and finding the people of Ghent gaping after the gains of avarice, not putting Gudwal out at interest by a spiritual office; as Elisha inflicted the wound of a curse on the mocking boys; so this man signified that the vengeance of divine animadversion threatened those who held the Saint of God in neglect; a coming calamity is foretold: and adding such things, he said: Since this people has refused to visit the Saint of God; without doubt, before the impending day closes into evening, the Saint will not fail to visit them. He spoke, nor did the deed deceive the speaker.
[66] For, the solar circuit of that day not yet fully passed, a fire went forth from the Lord; and gradually growing up, with flame-haired enormity it seized beforehand whatever lay in its way. But the people of Ghent began to make noise with confused running together and running about, against the spreading fire and throwing themselves with their whole effort to extinguish it, they profited altogether with difficulty: for by the hand of the Lord the fire prevailed, against which it was neither of strength nor of constancy to struggle further. Now therefore, as became known to all by easy conjecture, that the burning of the fire had prevailed there on account of the neglect of the Saint; at last, every human ingenuity failing, all by unanimous counsel betook themselves for refuge to him whom they had offended: whose bones, so to say, by the prerogative of dignity more precious than all treasures, snatching up hastily with the coffer, by an example not unlike that of Aaron they set against the raging fire. You might discern, even if not visibly, the sacred body is set against it, the supreme Pontiff standing before the Holy of Holies on behalf of the people, and from the most sacred censer of breast-borne charity burning the incense of prayers to the most high King; the libations of which the heavenly clemency admitting as a most sweet odor, no longer kept its mercies in wrath, but, that it might become more well-pleased, applied the hand of mercy; And now it is enough, cease, it said to the flagrant fire. Presently in a wondrous manner, that it might declare it an undoubted thing that the heartfelt friend of God was heard in the court of the heavenly senate, at the sight of so great a barrier the whole devouring madness of the flames boiled down, and a thing then happened most worthy of the admiration of all. For a house nearby was being burned in its middle part, the other half still remaining untouched: but when the Saint's relic began to be contiguous to the half-burned house, suddenly, wonderful to tell! in that part which it had breathed upon, the fire so wasted away, and it is suddenly stopped. that to the unharmed part it claimed for itself no access. Nor was that unlike this, by which this Saint triumphed in a not unlike crisis. For, the faults of the inhabitants of Ghent meriting it, while by divine judgment their houses were being devastated by the destruction of fire, an embassy was deputed by the faith of those in peril to reconcile them to God: and while the pious burden of the sacred body, taken up on the shoulders of those carrying it, was being transported through the house of a certain person, which the flame had invaded in the greatest part; presently at the so swift passing of the Saint the fire, failing in itself, gave way; and what it had already seized of the house, it suddenly left half-consumed; and what it had not yet touched, it presumed not to touch thereafter. But let us now put an end to speaking of the things said, lest by being too tedious we delay over the things to be said.
NOTES OF G. H.
CHAPTER VII.
Other miracles of the same time.
VII
[67] The rain of showers being withheld from the lands, at a certain season the labor of the farmers is endangered by excessive dryness, In a great drought and the hope of an abundance of crops was being taken from the eyes of those beholding by the thinness of the seed. In which peril, the spirits of the people being cast down, a most salutary counsel was not lacking; namely that with all urgency of prayers they should bend to condescension toward them St. Gudwal, the friend of true piety. A public assembly therefore being announced, every age, sex, and order came together at the appointed time, that, the exchange of faith and hope being given, they might be gladdened by the benefit of so great a Bishop. Whom, preceding and following in a long column, the holy Bishop himself accompanies, the body of St. Gudwal carried about and truly the Consul of that supernal Court. At last, as they came with the most sacred body up to the neighboring castle, called a by the common name Alst, it pleased them to halt for a little while in the pleasant plain lying below it, and to rest with eager ears upon the word of salvation. The whole people sat down, with one left standing, who should declaim among the people the triumphal victories of thy soldier, O Christ, thine and his, soon to be approved by the wondrous token of divine miracles. Therefore when the divine Orator had fixed the faces of all by the weight of his words; suddenly, wonderful to tell! in the high citadel of the heavens, over against the sacred coffer, a crown shone forth with three-colored beauty: in the middle of which the sign of the Cross appeared, gleaming in between, it is honored by a heavenly circle: which suspended both the eyes and the minds of the beholders alike with admiration of itself: while they were astonished also at this vision, a torch as if of fire fallen from heaven brought in more of joy and astonishment.
[68] Meanwhile the abundance of miracles increases upon miracles: for almighty God showed himself generous in commending the grace of his friend, who made his people drunk with the cup of such great sweetness, with the greatest glory of miracles. For the sacred body being taken up from that same place, that it might be brought into the church by the faithful service of those carrying it; you might discern that triumphal sign, by indescribable power, carried along likewise over the stretched-out space of the way as far as the church. There, while the cemetery was being illustrated by the sacred carrying-in of the body, the people following; it was a marvel to behold, namely that the heavenly circle was carried about inseparably even to the doors of the church. 2 sick persons are healed. At last, the sacred limbs being received within the church, heaven obeying, he restored to two b sick persons the state of their lost soundness. How delightful, good Jesus! how pious, how celebrated it was then to behold thy victorious soldier, crowned with an ethereal diadem, carried into thy church with such applause of the popular throng! He flashes with the divine lamp, he triumphs by the cross, he resounds with the crown, he heals by his power. But let us say a few things of his justice, that we may consequently add concerning his mercy also.
VIII
[69] An estate of the hereditary possession of St. Peter was lying close nearby, usurping an estate of the monastery, upon which at that time a certain invader, like an adulterous partridge, had brooded. Admonished to give his right hand to justice, he descended into contumacy: excommunicated, he fortifies the fault of his contumacy by defense. This man, lest his evil conscience should seem to be burned, approached the place of the Saint with feigned innocence; but repelled by the Brothers, he withdrew with obstinate mind. A certain terrible threat is held over him by his own people, unless sooner than said he repent of what he had begun. But he, for whom it was easier to defend his fault than to look upon it; he becomes blind and deaf, heaps fault upon fault, while he neglects to consult his own salvation. He sets out for his own home, to be punished by penalty, because he unjustly lords it over another's property. When behold, in the middle of the way he is divinely seized, and stripped at once of the use of seeing and of hearing. He indicates what he feels, takes counsel what he should do. Led back by his own people, he is set forth before the Saint, willing or unwilling he confesses concerning his crime: and rendering back what is not his own to its owners, absolved from penalty, he is restored more amended. restitution being made, he is healed. Thus, thus, good Peter, thou hast prudently enough watched over thy security, while thou hast set Gudwal thy comrade beneath the avenging of thy injuries, who should both strike thy enemy with penalty, thou taking notice, and mercifully absolve him, thou pitying.
[70] A certain man, for the keeping of his sheep, had offered to St. Gudwal a sheep as a service-offering for use, a wolf seizing a sheep offered to St. Gudwal, sure that no pestiferous disease could prevail in the flocks which he had assigned to the vigilance of so great a Shepherd to be guarded from oncoming evils. As proof therefore of the sheep received and the guardianship applied, while the flock was standing in the pastures, a beast, ever hostile to sheep, a wolf rushed in with savage onset: and discerning nothing, as though the Saint had nothing in common concerning it, he chose its little ewe out of all, and dividing it ill under his own lot, reduced the whole; and seeking again the woodland lairs, he exults at the captured prey, who would not even share with the Saint the spoils of the skin. The Saint yielded inwardly, that afterward he might rescue the carried-off sheep more delightfully and more powerfully enough. But the shepherd, or, as I rather conjecture, the hireling, soon becomes the messenger of the sacred loss to the bailiff: the bailiff, when he heard it, said: What does it matter to me to watch over Gudwal's affairs? Let him guard his own beast: to whose guarding his holiness and merit easily aspires. He spoke, and sooner than said, the Saint resisting, it brings it back of its own accord. flight is forbidden to the wolf: and driven backward as if a captive, with the captured beast it returns, and lays down the prey brought back unharmed, not indeed without like interest, but with ill omen for another ewe c: for assailing another ewe of I know not whom, and seeking the wood as quickly as possible, with bloody teeth it appeases the tyranny of its famished belly. By the providence of God the body of the Saint with an innumerable multitude of people had then halted nearby, to whose sight the shepherd had presented the beast newly freed; and it was sweet enough to those admiring this very thing, that the patronage of the Saint was not lacking in things so small or cheap: who, although he is angry at some of the more negligent with fatherly severity, yet does not condemn altogether; but, as will be clear from the following example, relieves the corrected with motherly piety.
[71] A certain woman from the neighboring settlement of the people of Ghent, very well known to her own by name and face, while on the vigil violating the feast, which precedes the solemnities of this Saint's sacred deposition, she was plucking in the garden, out of season, the green of the vegetables; so great an affluence of blood suddenly distilled thence, as if for natural juice an inborn gore had stained everything. She, astonished at the novelty of the thing, vehemently shuddered at the event; punished by the contraction of her hands, and the adhesion of the knife and divinely struck by the contraction of the hand with which she had held the knife, it grew wholly stiff: the joints too being bent back upon themselves to the nail, the handle of the iron clung to her hand with such tenacity, that the hand could more easily be disjoined to the bone from the arm, than the fingers from the handle. The matter, for its magnitude, could not, nor ought to be, concealed; and the rumor being spread in every direction, the mournful deed became known to nearly all. But the guilty woman, a wretched spectacle to the beholders, with the very torment by which she was tortured, is presented to the memorial of St. Gudwal; and as if by Davidic humility her soul had cleaved to the pavement, she is leveled to the earth before the Saint of God; and yielding to prayers, with a shower of tears she confesses the guilt of her fault; and although she pays the penalty, yet she is advanced by hope toward pardon. Meanwhile the obtaining of restored health was deferred, and by the delay of the miracle, for the correction of many, the penal avenging upon the guilty woman is prolonged. Meanwhile some attempted whether in any way, the iron being torn away, they could restore the hand to its former vigor; but in vain: for, as was said before, the hand and the handle so cleaved to one another mutually, that the one could not be disjoined from the other by human aid. Lifeless therefore with immense and continuous pains through the whole night. When she was seen to have given enough of punishments, the Lord from his holy height looked upon her; and hearing the groan of his fettered one, the penitent woman is healed: to sacrifice to himself a victim of praise, he broke her bonds: the finger-joints of the rounded hand are extended, and restored entirely to their former use and state: the iron fell, the woman by the grace of God rose up unharmed; the people resound praises, the woman gives more of praises. But perhaps faith will fail the reader sooner, and time and day will fail the writer too, than true matter for writing about our Gudwal. Let us yet briefly set forth one thing into the midst; a very useful lesson of circumspection against incautious rashness. For terrified by this example, let those whom a cauterized conscience burns, not by foolish boldness bring themselves to handling and carrying the most sacred relics. Certainly Uzzah the Levite, while, what was not of his office, he irreverently supported the Ark, somewhat inclined by the wanton unruliness of the oxen, was struck by the Lord: whose so easy death, what else does it intimate to us, but that they suffer more perilously in soul who touch holy things with a polluted conscience: which the wonderful God in his Saint Gudwal deigned to prove by an evident sign.
[72] Therefore the aforesaid Saint of God, while on his feast he was being carried abroad, a sacrilegious man presuming to carry the sacred body becomes blind, a certain young man, by name Sewalo, mingled with the number of those carrying the body; while he had set himself beneath the sacred burden, he fell down on the spot, and cleaving to the pavement, is stripped of the beauty of sight and of joy: and he who wished unworthily to support the Saint, fell down salutarily by the Saint casting him down: because it became known to himself and to the rest by his fall, what about him had displeased the divine gazes. A spectacle to be marveled at by the beholders, at last it brought a salutary counsel: by whose carrying, set forth before the coffer of the Saint, by their prayer he revives for the better, and the faculty of speaking being granted, he is questioned concerning his conscience. He confesses concerning his crime, and recalls that in Frisia, with a band of scoundrels, he had profaned the temple of God, and there perpetrated sacrilege: yet he promises with the whole obligation of his mind, that he would henceforth in all things be of more corrected life, if by the indulgence of the Saint he had merited to be freed from the blindness inflicted. And when the evening synaxis was being completed, the penitent is healed. God glorifying his Saint, his mouth and nostrils bloodied with much blood, he received light; he gave thanks to God; he returned home; and what he had snatched by sacrilege, as he promised, returning again before St. Gudwal, he presented. As a monument therefore of so great a miracle, since he was free, under the patronage of St. Peter and St. Gudwal, he confirmed himself by an annual tribute in the Blandinian monastery.
XII
[73] There is a village, by name Axla d, almost four miles continuous with the settlement of Ghent: in this a woman, Ouda by name, joined by marital bond and heavy with child, was contracted by an affliction which the Physicians call spasm, Contracted, with her arms to her breast, and her fingers to her palm, so sudden, that with her arms together with her hands cleaving on either side to her breast, and her fingers fixed in the middle of her palm to the nail, she displayed to the beholders a spectacle most worthy of compassion. By what judgment of God this came to pass, whether for the washing away of fault, or for the proclaiming of his glory; I know not, God knows. Yet it was possible to see misery in the wretched woman, when, deprived of the service of her hands, she was fed by the aid of another like a little child: to whom there was added still, to the heaping up of calamity and misery, that she grieved more for her offspring than for herself. For she said: Alas wretched me! and heavy with offspring, me anxious with a twofold anguish! I myself am deprived of myself, I cannot help myself; and who will succor the woman about to give birth, who the offspring once born? All the aids of maidservants and matrons and kinswomen are lacking: all the bargains of hire for engaging attendants are lacking. Who will receive the little one once born? who will compose its tender limbs? who will bind it with swaddling? who will soothe it crying in the cradle with nursery songs? who will bring it to the breasts to be suckled? who will remove it once suckled? who will furnish the rest of the necessaries? Woe to the wretched mother, when she shall see the misery of her offspring! By the torment therefore of this evil she was tortured for the course of about forty days. But when it pleased the counsel of the supreme majesty to absolve his guilty one from this trouble
trouble, and to amplify the name of his holiness among the people through blessed Gudwal; it came into the woman's mind to visit, along with her husband as companion, a certain man of approved repute, at that time staying in the church of St. Peter; not, however, in hope or for the sake of a future good outcome, but for the sake of conversing with the aforesaid man. Arriving there, while she was beheld by those streaming together in so great a calamity, not without great compassion, a certain one of the bystanders advised her to seek the suffrages of St. Gudwal; sure of relief, if she humbled herself to him with faithful devotion of mind. Nor did she delay, she enters the church, with the whole devotion of her mind is prostrated before the Saint. Scarcely had she uttered these three words of prayer, St. Gudwal, help; when suddenly the supernal grace is present, she recovers her health: which by the merits of his soldier restored to his suppliant her health entirely. The joints of her hands with a crash are raised up from the middle of the palm, her arms being restored to their former use. If you doubt about the miracle, the witness is then the whole multitude of bystanders: whose hearts the lost but recovered health of this woman stirred to render thanks to God.
XIII
[74] What with our eyes we saw done in a woman through him, let us bring forth into the sun for the praise of God. It was the custom of this our Church in days past, that the shrine of St. Gudwal be carried to Alst, and that this carrying be repeated as the years returned; and (lest the labor or vexation of this carrying should be without profit) that by a frequency of miracles God should be glorified in this Saint, and the Saint in God, there. under Abbot Gislebert, When therefore Abbot Gislebert e of reverend memory presided there, by the instinct of God, by which he was also frequently illustrated, urging him on, the aforesaid custom, not however long to endure, nor restored by one long to live, began to be repeated, and at the same time the marvels familiar and accustomed to this custom to be renewed. On the first occasion therefore of this custom restored under Father Gislebert, when the open performance of his signs had long been as it were lulled to sleep, he sleeping; that which we subjoin we saw, with many still surviving. A certain woman, Berta by name, in the neighborhood, was cherished by the bountiful beneficence of a certain good and pious mother of a family well enough known to us, [contracted by reason of her heels drawn to her buttocks and her arms to her breast] with a view to eternal recompense, having been bound by a calamity of this kind for many years. For her heels, by perpetual indissolubility as if naturally compacted, clung to her buttocks; her arms too by a similar binding hung over her breast. The wretched and miserable woman lay there without the office of going and acting, like a trunk and useless wood, dead to every function of human usefulness, dragging out a dead life, nay one more bitter than death. She, carried to Alst, is offered to the heavenly physician to be cured: where for some time she was set beneath the shrine of the Saint. For the most part unusual increases of accustomed adversity are the beginnings of an unusual prosperity that follows, so that from the increased infirmity the power of the miracle too might shine forth. Her pain, now drawing near its end, began to grow more grievous than usual; when, for those things which the final hour requires to be bestowed on the scarcely breathing woman, a Priest was summoned. Meanwhile the branches of that trunk, folded and curved, are extended into the straightness of natural use: and while she attempts an unaccustomed raising into the columns of the body, not yet well firmed, she slips back to the ground: but, the true physician not failing, the remedy advancing, again she strives upward, she is healed. her hands and arms being loosed; holding the supports of the shrine, which they call Scragas f, little by little she crept upward; until, raised with the whole mass of her body, she set both hands upon the coffer of the Saint; thence joy, nay as it were a certain inebriation, arose among the peoples.
NOTES OF G. H.
When they were carrying the holy body to the church, and traversing the cemetery, the sign followed as far as the door of the church, and heaven immediately gave most abundant rains.