OF THE HOLY SCOTTISH HERMITS,
MARINUS AND ZIMIUS, PRIESTS; AND VIMIUS, A LAYMAN; BENEDICTINES.
AT GRIESTETTEN IN THE DIOCESE OF REGENSBURG IN BAVARIA.
11TH CENTURY.
HISTORICAL SYLLOGE.
On their arrival, cult, translation, miracles.
Marinus, Priest of the Order of St. Benedict, at Griestetten in Bavaria (St.) Zimius, Priest of the Order of St. Benedict, at Griestetten in Bavaria (St.) Vimius, layman of the Order of St. Benedict, at Griestetten in Bavaria (St.)
BY THE AUTHOR D. P.
[1] This trio of Pilgrim Saints in Bavaria was so obscure in the preceding century, that the distinguished and diligent illustrator of Bavarian piety, Matthew Rader, Bishop of Laodicea, Coadministrator of Regensburg. in undertaking those illustrious volumes, splendid with most elegant images, concerning the Saints and Blessed of the Bavarian Circle, found nowhere any trace of them. They would therefore lie hidden to us even now, placed far off in Belgium, had not the most Illustrious and most Reverend Albert Ernest, Bishop of Laodicea and Coadministrator of Regensburg, Count of Wattenberg, accustomed to have our Acts of the Saints continually by him, and to read them diligently, as he himself writes, deigned to make us more certain of their translation, celebrated by him in the year 1689 on the 12th day of June, having likewise sent the German synopsis of the life, which he had ordered to be printed with an image.
[2] That it be not necessary to render this into Latin, the Instrument of the aforesaid Translation accomplishes, whence that synopsis was taken word for word thus, described in this tenor. "In the year of the Lord one thousand six hundred eighty-nine, in 1689, on the 11th of June he sets out from the city with the Abbot on the eleventh day of June, the most Illustrious and most Reverend Lord Suffragan, having set out in the morning with the most ample Lord Placidus, Abbot of St. James of the Scots at Regensburg, turned aside for the midday meal at Hemmau, in the evening to Dietfurt; about to investigate the doubts concerning the place of burial of the holy and blessed Hermits and Confessors of the Scots, Marinus or Martinus, Zimius, and Vimius, resting there a stone's throw away in the church of the village of Griestetten, of the Deanery of Riedenburg, belonging to St. James of the Scots at Regensburg, about to seek the bodies of the Saints, there flashing with miracles, very many of which, written down in letters, are preserved. For it is received by a very ancient and constant tradition, that these Saints, six hundred and more years ago, as pilgrims and visiting holy places, which then was frequent, turned aside to the village of Griestett or Grienstett, as is found in ancient letters; admonished by night through a dream, that here they ought to lay down and pass their life. But rising in the morning, and beholding the place most fit for a solitary life, they understood that it belonged to the Scots of Regensburg, to whom they were going; and then, the leave of the Abbot of St. James having been obtained, they began to dwell in the grove nearby, whom Marinus, Prior of the same monastery, visiting by the Abbot's will; he too, by the good leave of his Prelate, also joined himself to them; where all three, renowned for miracles in life and after death, in the church of St. Martin built over them: rested in the Lord. Whose bodies the Abbot of St. James, Christian, venerably translated into a church, built in this village of Griestetten on his own ground, under the name of St. Martin, from the inconvenient place of the hermitage; where until now, cultivated with great fame of miracles by the people flocking thither, they remained buried in the earth.
[3] But by the injury of time their memory had so faded, that it was not known where, or whether they were even still buried in that place, where until now it had happened that their sepulchers were honored. Whence it came about, that the more constant ground of the ancient tradition was investigated; which having been sought, on June 12 he learns from tradition that they lie next to the altar, on the next day, to those approaching the said place, it was learned that formerly, in the farthest part of the choir, above the step toward the dome of the church, the names of these Saints had been inscribed on the wall: on the right, the Gospel side, that of St. Marinus; on the left, the Epistle side, those of the Saints Zimius and Vimius; whence occasion was taken by others, that in a more recent time, outside above the door of the church, the same Saints were so depicted, that Marinus occupied the first place, Zimius the second, Vimius the third; which had been obliterated by the whitewashing of the wall, or had fallen off; in which order also the same Saints, on a new altar in the choir, made at the expense of the sister of the most Serene Maximilian Emmanuel Elector of Bavaria, now Grand Duchess of Tuscany, divinely snatched from present danger of life and from disease, are seen so sculpted. To these, moreover, the present Lord Charles Widdman, in those places where the earth repeatedly subsided warden of the place commonly called Supra-murum Über-Mauer, Steward of the Lady Baroness de Muggenthall, in the presence also of the venerable Master John Dobbler the Parish-priest, and his predecessor John Bauwr now Parish-priest at Jachenhausen, and the Registrar of the city of Dietfurt John Fackler, and other honest men; under oath deposed that not only for fifty years that place at the step of the Choir, by the name of the burial of St. Marinus, is indicated at the Gospel horn, gravely bearing the form of the size of a true sepulcher, with its sides broken in of their own accord and to the standard was seen; to the measure of a sepulcher. but also from the other horn, the Epistle side, two great contiguous cavities, suggesting sepulchers, more than once (as the accounts of the church would testify), but also by himself, ordered to be leveled and by his zeal repaired; newly again to the former forms thus mentioned, inspected by us in person, of their own accord and spontaneously thus broken in at the sides, had subsided, and made the Choir dangerous for slipping to those approaching, in the throng of the people, and very inconvenient.
[4] A beginning therefore was given to the work from the right horn of the Gospel, Thus at the Gospel horn the body of St. Marinus is found, where that prominent form of a sepulcher stood out, fashioned of its own accord and contrary to nature, called by the name of St. Marinus. Nor was there much going into the earth and digging out, but that a sarcophagus was uncovered of thick boards with a finished lid, the other parts somehow standing out; and in it a body arranged in its order, mixed with earth, but in all things once venerably composed. (For both the habit of the Order of St. Benedict was recognized, and a Rosary or decade of Granadilla passion-flower wood of wondrous and fresh fragrance; then a Priestly [Alb] of silk and the best linen was seen to exist: which, reverently taken up into the tomb, with letters as witnesses to whose it was, was laid apart, until the others too should be sought. The greater part of the tomb, on which the body had lain, was preserved for the piety of the people, eager outside, approaching the Saints, to draw something of holy virtue by its touch. It was judged thence, not without reason, that the others too were to be found in that region, since the first, so found, answered to the most ancient tradition. But although others alleged many things, nonetheless the other two cavities at the Epistle horn began to be dug out, at the Epistle horn the bodies of SS. Zimius and Vimius, and immediately sepulchers were discovered.
[5] Now the wall betrayed itself, which separated the two contiguous sepulchers, in which first St. Zimius, and as the inscription formerly on the wall above reported, a Presbyter, and likewise of the Order of St. Benedict, with his head toward the altar: but the other, St. Vimius, with his head toward the people, a layman, were found becomingly buried. Of these, however, besides the bones of the body and the heads, which, likewise raised, are placed behind the altar. nothing was found except a very small part of the Benedictine habit, and the leather of a pilgrim's little cloak. Both bodies therefore being taken up, in the same tomb with that of St. Marinus, each reverently laid apart with letters as witnesses, with great joy of the bystanders, they were placed behind the greater altar of the church, and enclosed in the wall; that they might worthily stand for the veneration of the faithful peoples, and also that every impediment and doubt of their presence, as well as the irreverence of those treading with their feet, and of those approaching the choir and the sacred Synaxis Eucharist, might be removed, the pavement being firmly leveled.
[6] All these things were done on the 12th day of June, on that year a Sunday, as the most Illustrious one answered, being questioned thereon by letters. But not long after there happened the following miracle, A man crippled and an epileptic is healed. plainly remarkable, as the aforesaid most Illustrious one calls it in his letter to us; and which, recorded in public letters, he transmitted in this tenor. "In the year of the Lord one thousand six hundred eighty-nine, there appeared Andreas Piller, before the Parish-priest at Eggersberg and the whole gathered Parish of men, while they were hastening to leave the church, from the Parish of Parsberg; protesting how for three years he had been crippled in all his limbs, and weakened by epilepsy: after he vowed himself to these three Saints, with the offering of some wax gift; he began daily to be better, and without any human help, in the same year was restored to entire health, and left there his crutches: which his Parishioners likewise testify, that he had been so disposed." The day of the attested miracle is not expressed, but it is probable that some months passed from the day of the vow made to full health, and hence to the aforenoted declaration. Meanwhile from the mouth of the most Illustrious one, recovering from a fatal disease, John Federer, Rector of our College of Regensburg, received it, and wrote in the year 1694 on the 10th day of March, that when the most Serene Violante, daughter-in-law of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Sister of the most Serene Elector of Bavaria Maximilian Emmanuel, was given up by the physicians for an incurable ulcer on the cheeks, a vow having been made by her most Serene mother Adelheid, she was healed without any other medicine: whence also a new altar was erected in the place, with the arms of the same Princess for perpetual memory.
[7] In the German, the Holy Pilgrims are said to have settled in a certain empty rustic estate near Altmühl. This is a river, flowing into the Danube at Kelheim, six hours' leagues above Regensburg; and the town of Dietfurt situated on it, Description of the place. is as far distant from the aforesaid confluence as from Regensburg itself; whence one goes thither by land through Hemmau, situated in the middle of the way, at an interval of four or five leagues on either side. A few leagues above Dietfurt, into the Altmühl is poured back the stream Saltz, augmented by the rivulet Griesa, whence Griesbach and Griestetten, places situated by it, have their name. The topographical maps name Griesbach, but are silent on Griestetten: but from what has been said it is easy to understand that this place is at most one league or one and a half from Dietfurt: but the very many miracles which happened there, and are preserved written in letters, as is said at the beginning of the Instrument already produced, these, when I shall have received them, I will faithfully give. Meanwhile receive the formula, approved by the aforesaid most Illustrious one and permitted to be printed in German, or even composed by him.
[8] Antiphon: "The Lord loved them and adorned them: ℞. He clothed them with the stole of glory, and crowned them at the gates of paradise." PRAYER. "Almighty eternal God, Prayer who so wondrously loved thy servants and Confessors of the Scots, Zimius and Vimius, and showed them the place in which they should henceforth serve thee; and associated with them in the same spirit Marinus their fellow-countryman; that in holy conduct and the zeal of solitude and austerity they might illuminate that hermitage; whose life well-pleasing to thee wins thy divine grace for all the faithful of Christ visiting them; we suppliantly beseech thee, with inmost grief for our sins, that thou wouldst be willing in this place to receive the intercession of these thy servants for us; and that to those who strive to honor thee in thy Saints, and who flee to their patronage, thou wouldst make the fountain of thy mercy flow abundantly; through which, strengthened in every adversity, we may be able to fulfill thy divine will, and after this life to be partakers of eternal joy and blessedness. Amen."
[9] At what time the Abbot Christian lived I have not yet ascertained; the age uncertain. nor do I sufficiently discern whether he, immediately after their death, carried the Saints, taken up from the place in which they had lived, to the church of St. Martin to be buried; or whether, after the spaces of some years, moved by the miracles done there, he ordered the bodies to be translated. But neither does any memory survive of the days on which they, their pilgrimage finished, arrived at the celestial fatherland: but that the concourse to them happens chiefly on the feast of St. Martin, is ascribed to no other cause, than that he is the Patron of the church in which they rest. Therefore we prefer this 12th day to the others, as memorable for the finding of the sacred bodies, with the judgment and assent of the most Illustrious one; until something else be determined.