Deodatus

ON SAINT DEODATUS, FIRST BISHOP OF NEVERS,

THEN ABBOT OF THE VALLEY OF GALILEE IN THE VOSGES.

IN THE YEAR 729.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

On the Saint's cult, life, age, and monastery.

Deodatus, Bishop of Nevers, then Abbot of the Valley of Galilee in the Vosges (St.)

BY THE AUTHOR G. H.

The Vosges, a mountain, a forest-pass, a wood, a wilderness, extends through the borders of Alsace, Burgundy, and especially Lorraine; Among the other monasteries of the Vosges and once furnished to various Saints, both Hermits and Cenobites, dwellings or monasteries. Among these, five chief ones were reckoned, spread out in the form of a Cross: of which at the head, toward the North, was the monastery of Bodo, built by St. Bodo Bishop of Toul, of whom fuller mention is made below, now ruined. Thence to the East is the Monastery of Senones, founded by St. Gumbert or Gundobert Archbishop of Sens, as is more fully related at his Life on the 21st of February, which now exists under the Benedictine Congregation of St. Vitonus. Opposite, to the West, is seen the monastery of Stinagium, commonly Étival, on the river Meurthe, which afterward was transferred to the Premonstratensian Order. There too is found the Middle or Median monastery, erected by St. Hildulph, the Archbishopric of Trier being relinquished, is the Valley of Galilee, built by St. Deodatus: of whom and his founder very much will be said below. It is now, with that of Senones, aggregated to the Benedictine Congregation of St. Vitonus. Finally the monastery of the Valley of Galilee, which they had called "the Junctures," to the South, as if at the foot of the Cross which those monasteries form, was founded and adorned by St. Deodatus, whose Acts we here illustrate; and famous for his death, and burial, and miracles: whence from him long ago the town received its name which gradually grew up at it, on the said river Meurthe, commonly called Saint-Dié-en-Lorraine (for there is another Saint-Dié on the Loire) where, Canons being introduced in place of Monks in the 10th century, they venerate the same St. Deodatus as Patron.

[2] On the 12th day of this month of June are venerated SS. Nabor and Nazarius, whose sacred bodies St. Chrodegang Bishop of Metz brought from Rome, his birthday the 19th of June. and the body indeed of St. Nabor he placed in the monastery of Hilariacum—built by St. Fridolinus (as we said at the Life of both on the 6th of March) in present-day Lorraine: in whose monastery, of the said St. Nabor, in the manuscript Martyrology, on this 19th of June these things are read: "On the same day, of St. Deodatus, Bishop and Confessor." Grevenus in the Auctarium of Usuard, printed in the years 1515 and 1521, celebrates Deodatus, Bishop of Nevers and Confessor, whom Saussay adorns with a very long encomium in the Gallican Martyrology; Trithemius, in Book 3 On the illustrious Men of the Benedictine Order, ch. 304, writes these things: "Adeodatus, Abbot of the monastery of the Valley of Galilee, and afterward Bishop of Nevers, shone forth illustrious for great virtues and merits: and although he was a Pontiff, yet he in no way violated the purpose of a Monk. Whose feast is held on the 13th of the Kalends of July." Trithemius is followed by Wion and Dorganius, and likewise by Menard and Bucelinus, who call him Deodatus, and from his Acts accurately teach that, the Bishopric being relinquished, he departed to the monastic life. The same Bishop of Nevers Adeodatus, Camerarius ascribed in the Scottish Menology to the 23rd of March and to this day; and Fitz-Simon calls him Theodatus in the Irish Calendar. But these are refuted by the Acts themselves of their own accord. In the manuscript Florarium, on the 2nd day of January, is celebrated the deposition of Deodatus, Bishop of Nevers and Confessor.

[3] We have obtained his Acts, described by Jean Gamans from a paper manuscript codex of the library of the Capuchin Fathers of Paderborn, and collated with a parchment manuscript Passional of the monastery of Böddeken in the same diocese of Paderborn, The Life published from manuscripts. of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine; but in this the 4th Chapter is wanting. The same we had in the Utrecht manuscript of St. Salvator, but in this are lacking the things narrated at the beginning of no. 1 and at the end from no. 27. A similar copy Mosander had, in which the same things, but in a style somewhat amended, he published for the Supplement of Surius. These Acts entire too were published at Nancy in the year 1619: from all which we give them distinguished and illustrated in our manner. The same were afterward translated into French by Jean Ruyr or Ruer (for he caused his name to be printed in both ways), Secretary of the Church and Chapter of St. Deodatus; and the Nancy edition, and he published them at Troyes in the year 1594, and afterward inserted them into his work, likewise in French, on the Saints and Antiquities of the Vosges, Part 2, Book 2, printed at Épinal in the year 1634. He, in the dedicatory epistle of the first edition, to Gabriel de Reynette the Grand Provost and the Canons of the notable Church of St. Deodatus; asserts that these Acts, from the first collection made by the disciples of St. Deodatus, written from a collection made by his disciples. were afterward composed by a certain learned and holy man, Prelate of the Median monastery, after he had by a third vision been divinely incited to it. That this very thing was attested in an epistle described in verse, and directed with these Acts to Waldradus the Grand Provost and the venerable College of St. Deodatus. There is extant a History of the Abbey of Senones, by the author Richer, a Monk of the same monastery, published by Luc d'Achery in tome 3 of the Spicilegium, and in part 2 of the 3rd Benedictine century, whence we subjoin a certain miracle and notice of the translation. The rest can be read there.

D. P.

[4] Thus far, a few years before his death, Henschen; whose undertaking pursuing, I note, that "Lord Deodatus passed from death to life The year of death. (as is said in no. 20) on the thirteenth of the Kalends of July, on a Sunday, in the six hundred seventy-ninth year from the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ": which characters, since they agree excellently among themselves, I would not be moved from them, on account of certain hallucinations in other circumstances of the same Life, as to the names of Bishops, which I know not whether to impute to the Author of Saint-Dié, or rather to the Interpolator of the Median monastery; otherwise this death would have to be deferred by nearly a whole century, as our Fr. Labbe deferred it, ordering that for 679 be written 769, which was the first of Charlemagne; for that conversion of the figures, as easy as it is to write, so is it impossible to prove; nor would it have come into Labbe's mind, if he had considered that in Doublet's Saint-Denis there is extant a diploma of the same Charles then given, by which he declares that he gives "to the house of St. Denis the Martyr … the little monastery which is named from St. Deodatus, within the forest of the Vosges, just as Pippin his father is proved to have held it in his investiture." Long ago, therefore, even before the reign of Pippin, the Saint had died, from whose name that little Monastery was called, which we do not think to be other than the very one of the Valley of Galilee of which we treat. Nor would I admit that in the very year in which the Saint is here said to have died, he was led away from his wilderness, that with St. Wilfrid

he set out for Rome. That was the opinion of Charles le Cointe, who for this cause was compelled to defer his death up to the year 684. He confused this St. Deodatus of whom we treat with Adeodatus Bishop of Toul: who, having subscribed to the Roman Synod in the year 680, as Henschen more fully explained at the life of St. Wilfrid on the 24th of April, ch. IV, accompanied St. Wilfrid. The body of the former, as is written by the aforesaid Ruyr, was elevated by Bertold Bishop of Toul in the year 1003 on the 17th of June, by the effort of Beatrice the widow of Frederick Duke of Lorraine, with her son Theodoric: of which Translation there is treatment in ch. 15 of the Chronicle of Senones, carried nearly to the end of the 14th century.

[5] Francis Riguet, Grand Provost of St. Deodatus, according to the old Nancy copy, caused the aforesaid Life of that Saint to be reprinted; and reprinted sent it to Henschen in the year 1679, The Life reprinted around the year 1679, with his Observations added by his own hand, both in the margin and at the foot of the booklet, in the French language, by no means to be despised: but these in the following year he augmented with new historical and Chronological Memoirs in the same language, sent with similar care to Antwerp. Henschen had no leisure to revise to those his Preliminary Commentary, and the Notes prepared for the Life. This I now do; and at the same time I render to the Author the due commemoration of his zeal toward his holy Patron.

[6] [whose author is thought to have been a Monk of the place, in the 9th or 10th century] He premises in his first Observations that the Author of the Life seems to him a Monk of the Valley of Galilee, who in no. 11 says "of this monastery," and in no. 20, "Into this Valley of Galilee": where, since in place of Monks Canons were introduced around the year 980, it seems consequent that that Life was written before the said year, or even much earlier. The aforesaid phrases (to confess the truth) are more suited to a Monk of that monastery than of the Median. But when I read noted at the foot of the Life that, having been read in the Synod at Rome in the year 1049, Pope Leo IX decreed that it be recited in the church of God; and when I understand from Riguet that in the archive of Saint-Dié there is still preserved a parchment Legendary, where the same Life is understood to have been arranged into Lessons word for word, the greater part of it still remaining there; I am compelled to think that we do not have the first composition of the Monk of Saint-Dié, written perhaps in a much simpler style, but which in the 11th century the Abbot of the Median monastery interpolated, and likely obscured by no or fewer chronological errors. Those errors the Prelate of the Median monastery, holier than learned, heaped up the more laboriously, the more he tried to fit himself to a certain (as it appears) most corrupt Catalogue of the Bishops of Toul, whence he received the names to be brought in here, of which below in the Notes. Indeed that Waldradus the Provost, to whom Ruyr writes the Life was directed, seems to be the same of whom the aforesaid Pope Leo, and Leo IX approved it in the year 1049 in the year 1051, writes thus to Udo of Toul: "Our most dear brother Waldradus, Provost of the monastery of St. Deodatus, with certain of his Brothers being present with us at the Court of Henry III, around the time when the Pope himself was there elected, implored our aid." The same therefore on the same occasion offered to Leo the Life such as he had received from the Prelate of the Median monastery, to be approved at Rome in the first Synod; and so it passed into the aforesaid parchments, but without the Epistle which Ruyr mentions, which I wish he himself had published, for Riguet now indicates it is nowhere found.

[7] Meanwhile this Life, such as it is, must be used, and the rest must be fitted to the year of death: a more likely Chronology of the life, which year, with its accompaniments of the Indiction and the Sunday, could have been more certainly known. Thus although the Author or interpolator of the Life says that the Saint came rather often into the Valley of Galilee in the year 669, yet he came there a decade earlier. The cause of error may have been given by a Privilege found under the name of St. Hildulf Archbishop of Trier, as if given to St. Deodatus in such a year, for his monastery in the Valley of Galilee; the Author thinking this was the beginning of the monastery; and not having at hand either the donations of King Childeric, conferred on the monastery already begun to be built around the year 660 (of which not even now are the charters found), or the older Privilege of St. Numerian Bishop of Trier, prior to Hildulf, and given at the latest in the year 665; which Riguet congratulates himself on having found in the Median monastery, by which in the year 759 the saint came into the Valley of Galilee, inasmuch as a model, to which the other one of Hildulf was afterward either made or fabricated: but that one treats of a monastery already fully constituted, which to be so regarded requires at least five or six years. Furthermore, the opinion of others there may have been (to which, says the author in no. 14, "we neither object nor assent, since we are wholly unable to refute or defend it") that Blessed Deodatus, "thirty years after his departure from France, entered this valley"; which thirty years, together with the prior twenty, make up fifty years, spent among the solitudes of the Vosges in not one place, nor with one monastery founded. And so it will be understood that Deodatus came from France, where he had administered the Episcopate for at least some years, around the year 630, now near forty years old or older, having departed from France already a Bishop around 630. and so he died truly aged, as is said in no. 16, and a veteran of completed service, born around the year 590. All which, in our Notes to the life—much more prolix than Henschen had left them—will be proved to cohere excellently with the more certain history, the observations and Memoirs of Riguet serving as a guide.

[8] He begins the first ones by describing the present state of his church, such as it will not be incongruous to attach to this preliminary Commentary. "The present College," he says, "consists of twenty-four Canons, and besides of a Grand Provost, The present state of the church of Saint-Dié under the Canons, who is the head of all, comprising in their number the Dean, the Cantor, and the Scholastic, for whom, by reason of a dignity more eminent above the rest, the Prebend too is ampler. Once thirty were counted: but our ancestors obtained from Rome the suppression of three Prebends, for preserving the organ, and feeding an organist, with four choirboys and a Master of music: a fourth Prebend our Princes took away by Pontifical authority, for erecting the new church of Nancy, which they call the Primatial. The Office in the church is performed by the Canons, together with the Vicars; of whom now neither the number nor the stipend is fixed: before the wars there were generally eleven or twelve. From the institution of Leo IX, who once bore the title and office of Grand Provost among us, it is believed to have come about that his successors officiating in Pontifical manner have a Crozier and Mitre, whose Provost uses Episcopal ornament, with also a peculiar silken ornament, in the form of a fishing net covering the Alb, Tunicle, and Dalmatic, from the girdle to the feet, which they commonly call Rete [Net], in Latin we would say Retiatum. And this opinion can be confirmed from the privilege of the Pallium and Mitres, which the same Leo IX, in memory of Clement II his predecessor, formerly Bishop of Bamberg, granted to the Bishop, and to the worthier Canons of that very Church of Bamberg. In such ornament the Provost assists at the Offices of the more solemn days, otherwise he is not bound to be present: if however he wishes to be present, he is obliged to come in Episcopal habit; in winter indeed in a violet cope, stuffed with the little furs of the Armenian mouse ermine, but in summer in linen with the epomis and pectoral cross.

[9] as also jurisdiction, The Provost also has Episcopal Jurisdiction, not only in the town of St. Deodatus, but through the whole valley, separated from the bordering dioceses of Strasbourg, Toul, and Basel, and comprising twelve large parishes; to which I added a thirteenth, for the greater convenience of the Parish-priests; whom I call to my Synods, and to whose institution I hold the assembly, having ministers of my spiritual Court—from which there is no appeal except to Rome—an Official, a Promoter, and others, plainly as Bishops. depending on the Roman Pontiff alone. In those things which come to us from Rome in Bulls we are called simply 'of the Province of Trier,' no diocese being named; and for those functions for which Episcopal consecration is required, it is free to us to ask any Bishop, no one not admitting the Dimissorials of those to be ordained signed by us. Our Territory, from the donation of Theodoric II, made to St. Deodatus, extends through the mountains seven leagues in length, four in breadth, once a mere desert, now, on the occasion of the monasteries and cells built by the Saint, frequented also by the dwellings of seculars: of all of whom our church receives the Tithes, although now only a third part of the territory obeys us by title of supreme jurisdiction. In the prior centuries too the Regalia belonged to us, such as the right of striking coin, of conscripting soldiers, and of exacting tribute, and other things of this sort. But we find in our registers that the title of Grand was given to the Provosts already from the 13th century, and that the Duke of Lorraine used it in a charter which he signed to us in the year 1272."

[10] Thus far he: who then to the later Memoirs premises thus: "I will follow, as far as I can, the ancient Life, The manuscript Observations on the Life sent to us. approved by Leo IX; I shall nonetheless be compelled to add certain things omitted there, and to refute some, altogether incompatible with other places of the same Life; solicitous above all to separate the false from the true. In which matter I hope for a not a little better success than others have had, more learned indeed than I; but who, intent on greater labors, or placed farther off, had not leisure to weigh the individual circumstances, nor the opportunity of scrutinizing the monuments of our archive, and of personally visiting the very places in which the things were done; wherefore they could do nothing else than refer themselves to this Life, as the sole source of all the knowledge to be hoped by them. To these aids, therefore, I proceed to revise and augment the Notes of Henschen."

LIFE

First written by a Monk of Saint-Dié, then interpolated by the Abbot of the Median monastery. From manuscript Codices and the Nancy edition.

Deodatus, Bishop of Nevers, then Abbot of the Valley of Galilee in the Vosges (St.)

BHL Number: 2131

BY THE AUTHOR, A MONK OF SAINT-DIÉ

CHAPTER I.

His origin, the Episcopate of Nevers, the solitary life.

[1] St. Deodatus esteeming the fleeting things of the world; The Catholic faith, and Christian piety, the more vividly it fixes the edge of the mind on invisible things, the more sluggishly it attends to visible ones; because it perceives that it can be blinded by their vanity: nor is it soothed by any appearance of perishable things, which the fleeting curiosity of carnal men admires and courts outwardly, since it knows them inwardly to be sometimes foul, sometimes empty: from which therefore it turns away its eyes, that it may be able to enjoy forever the delight of the true and solid good: with whose sober wine it is so inebriated that it knows not by what path to return to these lowest things. To wine of this sort the Song of Songs thus exhorts us: "Drink, friends, and be inebriated, beloved ones." Song 5:1. The inebriation of the soul is twofold: for either, inebriated with love of the world, it forgets its Creator; or, inebriated with the bright cup of the love of God, it so ardently clings to the Maker that it feels not whatever is of the world. Which we frequently hear and see done, when some, for desire of eternal life,

flee from the parents of their flesh and their homeland, no one compelling them, to live under the yoke of spiritual Fathers; and once exalted, they desire to be what a little before they had despised, and begin to hate what they had been. Things once sweet grow bitter to them, and bitter things grow sweet: they dread prosperity, they long for adversity: forgetful of their resources, and of all carnal affections; nor are they recalled by the importunate weeping of spouses, or by tenderness for little children; so hastening to labor, as if to rest. Filled with this new wine of the holy Spirit, some have forgotten their opulent cities in this poor Vosges, content to waste away with hunger and cold: of whose number our most pious Father Deodatus is to be proclaimed by us with special heraldry. a

[2] Blessed Deodatus, begotten of the noble blood of the Western Franks, by the prerogative of his morals and acts stood out first in the line of his stock, Bishop of Nevers although by his bodily youth he was reckoned the last. Going therefore from virtue to virtue, step by step through the increments of age, he showed himself pleasing to God and the people by a twofold charity: untiringly embracing the riches of salvation, namely wisdom and knowledge, and likewise the fear of the Lord, as an incorruptible treasure. At last by the equal and single assent of the Clergy and people, he was, by God (to whom he had given himself wholly), according to the model of his name, endowed with the Pontificate of Nevers; lest his holy action lie hidden any longer under a bushel, like a most bright lamp to be set on a most fitting candlestick, that both in word and in deed it might shine to all in the sanctuary of the Lord. With how great devotion and industry he illustrated it under the Pontifical infula, none of the former ones doubts, since his whole praise the perfect end sings. b In which it is more clearly known than light, that in the Episcopate he sought not his own things, but only those that are of Jesus Christ; nor at least the reverence due from men, but the undefiled remuneration from God for that honor, which he was so perfectly able to renounce.

[3] Finally the most holy Prelate, wholesomely wounded by the arrow of divine charity, he abdicates the dignity, wished to be wholly drawn and to run after Jesus; c perceiving the world set in wickedness, and himself in the midst of scandals. For as it is of the proud to do little, or certainly nothing good, and to esteem themselves most perfect in the eyes of God; Ps. 138:16. so indeed it is of the humble to do all things that are commanded, and to pronounce themselves unprofitable servants, and inferior and viler than all men, not only with their mouth, but also to believe it with the inmost affection of the heart. For converted from malice, and made little in their own eyes, they weep with suppliant mind to the Lord who keeps little ones: "Thine eyes have seen my imperfection." By this very means, the man of highest sanctity Deodatus, rooted and founded in the love of God, in perfect humility, and astonished at the regard of the strict Judge and the final examination; and knowing that of him to whom more is committed, more is required, was animated to follow Christ perfectly. The deliberation of so great a matter therefore being altogether undertaken, d he renounced his own and others' affairs, e a successor being chosen for himself for the governance of his diocese; lest the ship of the Church of Christ be endangered, deprived of so suitable an oarsman. So, bidding farewell to the throng of his flock, about to remain in solitude: piously armed with weeping to retain him; with some of one mind with himself returning from the town of Nevers, of his own accord he goes into exile from his native soil, reckoned a fellow-citizen and co-heir with Christ: whom he desired to await, about to remain in solitude, made safe and free from pusillanimity of spirit and the storm of popular tumult. Here let it not now irk us to do what it is established that the searchers and diggers of precious metals are wont to do: who, if the quality of an earthen vein has smiled upon them, and has promised or declared that one will come by it to a rich mass; forthwith with spirited spades f and mattocks they cast away all the rubble, until they reach the desired metal. So let us measure the mind of this holy man, dead to this world, and hidden with Christ in God, and weigh it, if we can, from the quality of his outward acts. Let us consider how greatly he esteemed the present age, to which he bade farewell when it smiled upon him most, having followed to the laments of a troubled spirit and a contrite heart the Lord Jesus; who, lest we should perish here, descended to this valley of tears. Nor did any poor little man leave with so great alacrity his cheap little hut, covered with straw and turf; as this worshiper of God left the city of Nevers, whose Bishopric he administered in the highest abundance of goods. he chose as companions SS. Arbogast and Florentius; But, because inner things are more inward than the inmost, let us now come to what follows.

[4] Therefore to blessed Deodatus, attaining a hundredfold from Christ and eternal life, these are reported to have clung as companions of so great a reward beyond the rest, Arbogast g and Florentius: of whom the former in the sacred grove (which in the Teutonic tongue is called Heiligesforst) led an eremitic life; and thence was carried off to the Bishopric of the city of Strasbourg: to whom, at his death, there was given as successor one drawn from another h solitude, Hasale. These, after they had shown to the earth very many tokens of their merits, called by the Lord, rest in spirit in the hall of heaven, but in body in the places which we said above they founded. Then Willigodus, Domnolus, and his namesake Deodatus, whom no labor separated from the holy man, vying with one another in insisting on their services, and obeying his commands, thought it better to be in tribulation with him among strangers, than to rejoice with acquaintances in the land of their nativity.

[5] So, Lord Girbaldus i a most holy man presiding over the diocese of the holy Church of Toul, Willigodus, Domnolus, and Deodatus. the Lord's faithful servant Deodatus, renouncing the world, resolved to choose a place of habitation in the forest-pass of the Vosges. Coming at last with his men to k Romont (which then by hereditary lot two brothers had divided between them as an estate), what manner of man he was, was declared by the will of divinity. For there the prior of those brothers, called Asclas, having hired workmen, was insisting on the building of a new house. And as they were approaching the topmost work, a beam of timber to be laid crosswise on the middle peak, on which the whole framework had to lean, the Romont estate by no art for three days could be fitted to it, now hindered by shortness, now by curvature, or some other crookedness. Whence that Lord, angry with the workmen, heaped reproaches on them, that, having a forest at hand, they had like idlers sweated long and in vain under that timber. But these now weary with the work and going sadly to lunch, it happened that the holy man entered the same house, and sat down in it weary from his journey. He, taught the course of that matter by a certain little boy with bowels of mercy, for a beam fitted to the building grown up with him from infancy, and gone out with him from his mother's womb, moved, attempted to come to the aid of the grieving men: and having summoned blessed Willigodus with the rest, he gradually fitted the timber to its proper l place, and presently returned himself to his begun journey. Not yet far departed, he is brought back, his so benevolent work being learned by the Chief of that estate. He, when he learned by inquiry the purpose of his pilgrimage, or who he was; handed over that very estate to him, only the use of it being retained for himself while he should live, intending to pay the holy man five shekels m of silver each year. Nor did the poor man of Christ hesitate to receive others' goods, who had renounced his own: that the reward might be heaped up for the devout layman from the alms, he receives it as a gift. by which he had foreseen that the poor could be sustained, whom he afterward gathered to Christ: or at any rate without doubt, because he knew in spirit that that place would be ennobled by the burial of his beloved disciple Willigodus. At whose lifeless body, there even now so many and so great miracles are shown n, that it is plain that his spirit is rewarded in heaven with perpetual glory.

[6] Building the monastery of Argentilla, Thence the most devout Pontiff, going forward, reaches Argentilla (so named from its little stream), which however the rustic common folk now corruptly o call Arentella. There, wearied by the labor of so great a journey, he consented to stay, and prepared expenses for building himself a monastery there: whose foundations when he had brought up to some height, the top, he began to be offended and injured by the wickedness and injuries of the neighbors, envying him, as if he would daily usurp their estates: for they were also chiefly military men, he is hindered by the neighbors. but having freedom as a cloak for their malice. Whose insolence as soon as the servant of God humbly avoided and fled; the heavenly wrath so pressed upon them, that both they themselves, and all their posterity, either did not pass their youthful years, then most sweet to them, or certainly, diminished in intellect, remained despicable and ridiculous to their kinsmen, until that wicked stock was taken away from the midst.

[7] Hence the venerable man, after too many circuits of the trackless and winding solitude, p entered Elisacium: where between Amalricivillare and he erects a dwelling at Wilre Ungisi-villa, at Wilre (a dwelling being erected for himself) he settled: of which even today there are shown there very many ruined walls, and a clear and most wholesome fount, famous by his name. Where, when round about as it were a certain intellectual sun he was darting the rays of action well-pleasing to God, and was drawing to himself the docile minds of the religious by the good odor of Christ; a certain one of the eminent Nobles, Hunus, with his wife Huna, while he dwelt in the vicinity, and served this world more from duty than from intention; was familiarly joined in friendship with the servant of God: for like clings to like, and the unlike is wont to flee the unlike. There came among them also this, to the fullness of solid love, that the holy Prelate both baptized, and received from the laver of the saving font, his q offspring. But the devil, hater of holy charity, and of every good work, when he saw that no small fruits could rise up to the Lord, by his word and example, if so great a husbandman of religion should linger longer among that impious nation and barren of good works; but he departs on account of the quarrels of the neighbors raised up its abominable head to drive him thence. By sudden fury, finally, he stirred up the stolid and undisciplined common folk against the Saint, as a usurper of another's right; through which he inflamed the patrons of the region, until, harassed by continual quarrels and threats, he compelled him to go out from there. To whom, while his godfather Hunus most humbly besought him not to forsake him, and gladly offered him possessions of his own right to dwell in; the man of God answered tearfully: "Why for so many years must I, an exile and fugitive, wander about this province, since in it (my sins causing it) I cannot find for my foot the longed-for rest? Now I will give myself to a vast and unknown solitude to die: let the piety of the Lord look to it, for desire of whom I rejected my homeland, and sought these bounds." This said, and the kiss of peace given, with a mutual embrace they parted, not without much weeping of each.

[8] But to his servant, suffering persecution for justice, not without God's vengeance spread upon their descendants. divine compassion was not lacking: which provided him a fit and longed-for place, and struck his persecutors with an insulting and miserable plague in their offspring. For it halved the days of their chief, and snatched them from this light in the years sweeter to them: which it has exercised even now in their posterity, so much,

that sometimes eminent Nobles, and illustrious matrons, fearing for themselves so lamentable a condition of their genealogy, mulcted their heads and estates to this Saint, lest for the iniquity of their fathers they should deserve to be punished by God. And as many of the countryfolk as were born in the same villa r (as long as it remained), lived continually with a scrofulous throat: of which disgrace they were wholly free, as many as could be born on the farther bank of the stream flowing between. Which the women about to give birth noticing, were wont to cross that stream.

NOTES BY G. H. & D. P.

p Richer, no mention being made of Arentella, says the Saint first came to a certain place which in the Teutonic tongue is called Heligewoist, in Latin "the holy desert," next to the town which is called Haguenau, situated in the bounds of lower Alsace: where, believing himself to have found the rest of his vow, he lay hidden for a while: but thence driven by the injuries of the envious, he came to a cloister which is called Abregennisten; where he contracted his first familiarity with St. Arbogast. Meanwhile Riguet rightly thinks that, by the inexperience of scribes ignorant of the Teutonic tongue, from Ebersheimmünster, that is "the monastery of the House of the Boar," was made Abresennisten: and that Abbey is the one whose first Abbot some make St. Deodatus himself, in a place once called Novietum, so that Atticus, who is said to have been the founder of this monastery, the father of St. Ottilia, long after these times, is rather a restorer than a founder; which Riguet thinks likely for many reasons; and chiefly because the body of St. Deodatus is said to be held there. This is the companion and disciple of Deodatus of Nevers, placed there by his master, after the place was somehow set in order, and confused with him by many.

q Ruyr, Book 2, ch. 1, says the boy was called Adeodatus, and afterward made a Monk under the Saint himself.

r For Riguet warns that there is now no Villa, but I fear that something of the fabulous is mixed into this narrative, having taken its foundation from the frequent invocation of the Saint against an evil of this sort.

CHAPTER II.

His departure into the Valley of Galilee. The church and monastery built, and fortified with privileges.

[9] Then the soldier of Christ, with an untiring heart indeed, He comes into the Valley of Galilee but with a too wearied body, creeping through the rocky ridges of steep mountains, through the hollows of squalid valleys, at last, in the six hundred sixty-ninth b year from the incarnate Word, entered breathless the Valley called Galilee, a which the fishy and c vast river Meurthe washes between and waters: by which, on its Southern bank (a cave and a most pleasant fount being found) he lay hidden there for some time, succoring his bodily hunger only by eating wild herbs and little apples, desiring to live by the example of the holy Fathers; who, dwelling in solitudes, wandered in mountains and caves and caverns of the earth. Meanwhile the Lord, solicitous for his servant thinking nothing of the morrow, deigned to address the religious man Hunus thus in his sleep: Hunus being divinely warned, "Why do you allow your godfather, Deodatus Bishop of Nevers—made an exile and destitute for my sake—to perish of hunger in the solitude? who through humility scarcely made you conscious of his least act?" To him answering that he did not know whither he ought to seek him; he commanded, saying: "Load your pack-animals d with the goods which I have bestowed on you, and the divine Majesty being invoked, he receives the necessities of life: let them go by themselves to undertake this journey; believe me, a guide will not be lacking." Awakened by this, when he had related it to his devout wife, she began to exhort that it be hastened in every way. What more? The pack-animals, as had been commanded, being allowed to go, through the trackless wilderness, by a straight line of journey, came to the cave of the Saint: whose way being noted by those who had followed them thither almost step by step, the servant of God is found: whom they first having asked why they had come, learn the whole matter in order. And without delay he rendered thanks, seasoned with affectionate tears, to God, whom he proved not forgetful of him in necessity. Then both them, and the beasts, refreshed with necessary food, giving thanks to his Lord he sent back. Thus the cottage of the man of God being found, not only Hunus himself, but also some other religious men ministered to him afterward. Hence if we recall the life of the ancient Fathers, we will find most blessed Deodatus by no means unequal to them in this deed: to whom, as to the most holy Frontonius, e Benedict, and Columban, the Lord destined necessary sustenance.

[10] By this kindness of the Lord, so well solicitous for him, the most perceptive man understanding that his steps were turned back thither divinely, he erects a cell: was animated to establish a cell for himself. Which being there erected, and dedicated to the veneration of Blessed Martin f the Prelate, he laid up there also other most precious pledges of the Saints, brought with him from his native soil. And when the opinion of his sanctity daily not only spread to this our neighborhood, but also eagerly traversed farther lands; it came about that he drew the faithful to him in crowds from everywhere. Of whom some cheerfully conferred estates, very many money for building the monastery, and whatever other expenses they could; but sometimes not only their own, he obtains estates but moreover, kindled to imitation, subjected themselves to his discipleship with great urgency: for fame was not ashamed of the good things which it disseminated about the absent man, because in his presence he showed still better. In those days, the already often-named Hunus

devoutly granted him estates, and one named after him Huni-villare with a Church: in which he himself with his holy wife is shown buried g, but they are proved alike to live by miracles in heaven. Then too the liberal munificence of Childeric h the most excellent King, also by King Childeric the same Valley of Galilee being cut off from the fisc, with all integrity, to the man of God and his successors confirmed it forever by his ring, from the rise … of all the little streams or rivers entering the aforesaid valley, up to their exit from it: that he might there build a monastery, and gather what number he should judge of those serving God. You would believe that, for so many troubles by which he was hitherto girt and afflicted, when an exile driven this way and that he wandered about, the Lord now fully consoled his holy soul, and as it were coaxed him with these words of the holy prophet Isaiah: "O poor little one, tossed with tempest, and without any consolation, behold I will lay thy stones in order, for in a moment, in a little, I forsook thee, and in great mercies I will gather thee." Isaiah 54:11.

[11] This the docile man of God understanding, and seeing himself helped both divinely and humanly, from a foregoing vision there near the little oratory of St. Martin was insisting on building a monastery. But one of his disciples, while beyond the river, on Urimont (which now overlooks the monastery), he was attending by day to the workmen cutting and smoothing the timber necessary for that building, he builds at the little place but in the evening returned to the cell: on a certain evening, when it irked him to cross the Meurthe, and he wished to return more early to the work, on a little hill (called the Junctures) it happened that he stayed for the night. Which little hill is thought to be so called, because the Rabodeau and the Meurthe are joined not far from its foot. On which that Brother, reclined in sleep, received in a vision a command from the Lord of an oratory to be built there to the blessed Mother of God and perpetual Virgin Mary. Which when in the morning he had reported to his most holy Master, he commanded a stone to be erected in the place of the shown vision for a sign: to which not long after a basilica was built around it, an altar set up, and it was consecrated to the honor of the most pious Mother of the Lord and of all the Apostles, and likewise of the chief Pontiffs of the city of Trier i, Eucharius, Valerius, Maternus, and Maximinus. k Beside this another oratory is afterward built, which it is established was dedicated to blessed Maurice l and his most devoted college. the monastery In which deed it is openly given to be noticed that most blessed Hildulf m the Archbishop was a most close friend of the most holy Prelate Deodatus, from the foundations of this his monastery: whom he is believed to have endowed with Relics of the aforesaid Prelates of the people of Trier, especially of St. Maximinus, whose most worthy limbs he had very recently translated into the church, in which they are now most worthily venerated, namely when the six hundred sixty-seventh year from the incarnate Lord was rolling, and the servant of God Deodatus was staying at Elisacium. For in the year, from the incarnation of the Lord, six hundred sixty-nine, n he is proved to have entered the Valley of Galilee.

[12] For it is recognized not to have been without cause that the most devout Prelate of God passed over so many and so precious patronages of the Saints of his own France. joined in mutual charity with St. Hildulf. Indeed the man of the Lord Hildulf, about to lead an eremitic life, could have sought the most vast forest-passes of the Ardennes (as some of his neighbors are found to have done), or have revisited the deserts of Histria, o from which he had once been carried off to the Prelacy of Trier: but by too inward a love of the most sweet Deodatus he was drawn to this our Vosges. To which opinion if any of the calumnious resists, he will be convinced by the privileges of the Valley of Galilee: where the mutual charity of our most dear Fathers is evidently shown. But by us (because the occasion has aptly offered itself) let some things here be inserted concerning the ancient immunity or liberty of that place. In certain chirographs of the already often mentioned monastery, confirmed by Royal and Pontifical authority, the name of the blessed Father Hildulf is found prefixed, twelve Bishops subscribing with their titles. There the man of holy compassion, the Archbishop, indeed the Patriarch (because to a Patriarch alone is owed so great a throng of Pontiffs), professes that the holy and compunctious and religious petition of the venerable man Deodatus the Bishop penetrated the inmost parts of his ears, and with the visceral affection of piety so softened his heart by the charitable petition, that he reckoned it would be too irreligious not most willingly to fulfill his will. p

[13] He obtains the privilege to be confirmed by a decree of the Bishops. Consequently too it is there noted that, kindled by the ardor of holy desire, the reverend Deodatus the Bishop: in the Valley of Galilee, which he had earned from the King's fisc, first built monasteries q at the Junctures (as we said above). Where the devout man deliberated to place Monks, or pilgrims, to live under the rule of the most holy Fathers Benedict and r Columban. To whom at last by the common decree of the holy s Prelates it is granted that no one of Kings or Princes, or Bishops, or of any Clerics, should ever dare to usurp for his own uses anything of those things which seem to belong to the servants of God dwelling there under evangelical perfection, and which were acquired by Father Deodatus the Bishop himself, either by royal gift or the contribution of the other faithful, both in holy volumes, and the offerings of the altar, and ecclesiastical ornaments, and in those things which thereafter the servants of God themselves could add by their own labor. And whenever the often-named Deodatus (who is now the Father of that monastery) shall have been called by God, let him whom that congregation shall have unanimously chosen from among themselves be substituted as Abbot, and for blessing altars, or receiving sacred orders, let them seek whatever Bishop they wish; nor let any church, living without privileges, presume to hope for or take anything from them: and let it be permitted to no one (except by the invitation, or permission of the whole congregation) to enter the enclosures of that monastery. But if any of the Pontiffs, commonly asked by them, should come for their benefit; let him presently, according to the will of the Congregation (his ministry being completed), go away without the requisition of any gift: that, living under the holy Rule, they may, of the rest received, the Lord helping, exult through the times and more fully entreat God for the state of the Catholic Church. But if they should make any transgression of their Rule, and refuse to be rebuked by their own Pastor, even if their Bishop, who is also Abbot, cannot quell the sedition of the congregation; then let him summon to that monastery other Abbots who profess the same Rule, who may take care to repress the scandal by a regular sentence. Which privilege whoever shall have dared to infringe, is bound with anathema by the authority of the present Prelates, and through the venerable men Bibliobaldus the Presbyter, and Labinus the Deacon, is, for the absent ones, denounced to be subscribed. Which that it was devoutly done was said above. Thus far on this; now let what remains be treated.

NOTES BY G. H. & D. P.

p Riguet confesses that such a charter of St. Hildulf, whether true or feigned, is nowhere extant in the archive, but congratulates himself on having found in the Median monastery some earlier one of St. Numerian, in which these same things are contained; whose copy entire I wish he had sent described, to be aptly inserted in this place word for word and examined. For as far as I gather from the fragments sent by Riguet, there is named there indeed King Childeric, to whom namely Trier was subject, when the Privilege is said to be granted, that the Monks "for the state of the Catholic church, and for the desirable salvation of Childeric the Prince, may more fully entreat the Lord"; but the year of the reign is not expressed, much less of Christ, unknown to the Kings of the Franks of that time. The whole reason for ascribing it to the year 664 was for Riguet the subscribed Bishop of Verdun, Gisloaldus, whom Wassebourg sets down as having died in the year 665: which, granting it to be true, only proves that that Privilege was not written later, although it could have been given in the very year 660; since Dagobert had not yet returned from Ireland, and Childeric still held Alsace, but the Bishops themselves Numerian and Gisloaldus had long presided over their churches.

q Those monasteries, or rather hermitages, scattered through the Valley of Galilee, were turned into parishes, subject to the Provost, Riguet notes.

r Numerian's charter, subscribed by six Bishops, Riguet says; and that it is the source and beginning of the quasi-Episcopal Jurisdiction which his Abbots and afterward Provosts obtained and obtain; Charles le Cointe at the year 671, no. 15, this place being cited, notes these things: "The Valley of Galilee is not far distant from Luxeuil, where the institute of St. Columban flourished: whose memory through the neighboring regions was then most celebrated. The name of St. Benedict, which in that province was less known, the Benedictine author intruded. Similar interpolations we have already often refuted." These things le Cointe. Of the truth of the matter let the reader judge, when he has first read what Mabillon has in defense of his own, treating before the Benedictine centuries of the diffusion of the rule, against le Cointe himself.

s In a similar manner Numerian's privilege is committed to Blidoaldus the Presbyter and Vahinus the Deacon to be carried to the absent ones, namely those of Toul, Metz, and Verdun, Riguet notes: so that the same names seem corrupted by the scribes, and bring in a greater suspicion of fiction, ordained only for this, that whatever right beyond Numerian's Privilege the Abbots acquired, that the successor of Numerian might be believed to have given; or that Hildulf was substituted for Numerian, as a Saint known in the Vosges. Add that the style of Numerian, as more barbarous, so is more genuine. Indeed Riguet doubts whether St. Hildulf was ever more than the Chorbishop of Numerian the Archbishop, of which we will see elsewhere.

CHAPTER III.

The mutual charity of SS. Deodatus and Hildulf: the death and burial of the former, and the succession of the latter.

[14] Therefore in the six hundred seventy-first year, but from the coming of Lord Deodatus to Galilee the third, a the ever-to-be-imitated Father Hildulf (the Archprelacy b of Trier being renounced), devoting himself to die together with Christ, In the year 671 St. Hildulf comes into the Vosges, came to this dry wilderness, a most sweet neighbor, and most peaceful kinsman, to his Deodatus, by the cooperating support of Jacob c the most reverend Prelate of Toul. Here, lest perhaps anyone be angry with us, and object that two Pontiffs of Toul (namely Godo and Bodo) were between Girbaldus (in whose days Blessed Deodatus is reported to have left the Episcopate) and Jacob, in whose time Lord Hildulf came; and that it does not agree with reason that four Bishops administered the Pontificate in scarcely three years; we briefly meet the question: we consider the brevity of human life, and its vicissitudes: that even within a year more than four succeeding one another in order can die, we do not deny. But we do not take our argument from the uncertain: especially since we have learned that blessed Bodo presided over the Bishopric for very many years, and established a monastery of Virgins in the Vosges. Therefore it must be said that the death of the three former Bishops intervened, from the time when blessed Deodatus left the Pontifical honor, up to the third year of his entrance into this Vosges, and so it came about that in the first year of blessed Pontiff Jacob the man of God Hildulf came here after him. This is demonstrated from the aforesaid privilege, and the subscription of Blessed Bodo, in the year from the incarnation of the Lord six hundred seventy, and from the coming of Lord Hildulf to us, in the year of the Lord six hundred seventy-first. For the friend of God Deodatus, under the aforesaid three Bishops, d remained some years in the places (from which we said above he was driven), and at last entered the Vosges as if in his very last days; and so it happened that, the servant of God now lingering, now fleeing this way and that, Girbaldus and Godo had sought the man: and in the first year of his arrival to us, Bodo was passing the penultimate year of his Priesthood. Who dying in the following year received as successor Lord Jacob; in whose first year, as we said, which was now the third for St. Deodatus in this Vosges, the athlete of God Hildulf entrusted himself to the wilderness: although some wish that Blessed Deodatus, thirty years after his departure from France, entered this valley, to which years if they add these ten completed, without doubt forty are made. But to this opinion we neither object nor assent: since we are wholly unable to refute e or defend it.

[15] And so the blessed and ever-to-be-remembered Fathers, Hildulf and Deodatus, in the wilderness (as they had wished) made neighbors, f did not slumber, but vigilantly watched over the keeping of mutual and sincere love: both foster mutual charity, made the more familiar, the nearer to one another. For as you stir up a greater splendor or ardor, if you add light to light, or fire to fire; so to the holy men, from nearness, sight, and friendly conversation, holy charity grew. To whom, although it was the greatest pleasure always to converse and be together; yet it was unworthy that so great guests, like two of the world's brightest luminaries, should lie hidden under the narrowness of one cell, since the single cells scarcely held them singly: especially because they could lead very many to God with them. Whence the most dear Pontiffs decided once in the year (while they should remain in this life) each to visit the other's cell, and there to stay for the night: which sleepless they were wont to spend wholly in holy colloquies and divine praises, but at dawn to return to their own: furthermore their disciples ran between, and intimated the will and unwillingness, and the ability, of one to the other. each year they visit one another: And Lord Hildulf indeed not far from his cell g with his men came to meet Lord Deodatus and his coming to him, whom, hand given, he led to prayer according to the custom of the ancient Fathers, and the institution of the most holy Benedict the Abbot; and so, prayer being likewise poured out, they greeted one another with spiritual joy, and then at last associated themselves to one another in the holy kiss of inviolate peace, and in the rest of the office of charitable affection.

[16] The same most pious Father Deodatus did most devoutly to his most dear Hildulf, whom with his men he met, the Meurthe being crossed: the latter aged, devotes himself to God for as long as he lived, he did not desert the former cell at the little oratory of St. Martin. For he was an aged man, and now a veteran of completed warfare of Christ: nor could he bear the popular concourse, and to take part in the Brothers' outward labors; especially he who had nothing sweet, except to be at leisure and see that the Lord himself is God, and to taste and see that the Lord is sweet. In stature indeed, as is reported, most tall, in form most elegant, and in heart most gentle, but now worn out h by too much labor and years, and bent. He sometimes passed over to the Brothers at work: and the work of each being considered and arranged, returned by night to the cell. Whence even today is shown i the path by which he was wont to go to the monastery at the Junctures. St. Hildulf labors with his hands But on the contrary, Hildulf, of middling stature, with an Angelic face, of most compunctious mind, most friendly to voluntary poverty; whom a still green old age, and a mind suspended in God, rendered prompt and lively to every good work: for even in the last years of his life, he lived by the labor of his hands. In morals indeed both equal, but in age unequal, each preferred the other to himself, and the most humble Hildulf esteemed the most holy old man Deodatus, from his service of Christ and his veteran old age, the prior: but the most devout to the omnipotent Deodatus attended in the younger Hildulf to the dignity of the Patriarchate and the maturity of his morals.

[17] How sweet it was and delightful to pious souls continually to behold: both as it were 2 columns two columns of the heavenly fabric becomingly erected by God; and not against God, but to the Lord piously raised; which with solid and inflexible strength of mind so stood by the supreme Maker, that they wished the greatest heap of little stones to be laid upon them, for the part in which they deserved to be placed. Finally, as if vying with the multitude of the least of Christ, both present and future, rejoicing that their epistyles, that is their capitals, were burdened (provided there be those who can gain for the Lord), receiving in the breadth of their charity the littleness of another's faith, and the heaviness of another's sins, they tolerate it, that by the strength of their merits, and the labor of their longsuffering, they may bear those lifted up to the heavenly building. and 2 hens You would think these holy Fathers were intellectual hens, and defended the little chicks with the wings of their merits and the beaks of their prayers from the rapacity of the invisible kites, provided them food with hands and feet, and warmed the cold ones for God by fostering them with the feathers of their examples. Moreover they loved sometimes to stretch their feathers outside their own little nest, while by turns they busied themselves to profit the other's chicks, out of the love of God and neighbor. With changed voice, and the appearance of their own body laid aside, they were made weak with the weak, as you have in the Apostle's words. 2 Cor. 11:29. "Who is made weak, and I am not made weak?" Thus our Fathers lived for a time solicitous, that their sons both present and future might one day be secure. Nor did their labor and their sweat irk them, provided only their successors should remain set in safety. they take up the care of their subjects. This their structures demanded, this their flights sought, of blessed Deodatus our Father especially, who changed so many places built by himself with great sweat, k until he found a quiet seat for his spiritual sons. For if they had sought only their own, they would most easily have rested: for having food and clothing for themselves, they would be content with these; especially those who, by renouncing riches, had flown to poverty with the highest desire. But these things elsewhere. Therefore the Prelates most worthy of God, insisting on the spiritual business, in no way failed from what was begun, or deviated from their purpose, by becoming better than themselves from day to day. For they were rendered daily the more lively to labor, the nearer to rest: nor did they feel in the vineyard of Christ the burden

of the day and the heat, by which it was now near that the penny should be paid.

[18] At last when in this Vosges, alike in one heart and one soul, they had completed seven continuous years with six months; St. Deodatus sick, God the generous rewarder decreed to render to most blessed Deodatus the fruits of his labors. For the stadium of the present life being run through, the strenuous athlete now gaped for the crown and the prize of the supernal remuneration; whence, called by the Lord, seized by an access of languor, he is detained in his little bed. Which when a sad messenger brought to the absent disciples, forthwith mourning they run to his cell: for minds presaging future grief, his infirmity being heard, could not but be troubled. Weeping, therefore, they stood by the pallet of the lying Master, lest so sweet a Father should forsake his sons, and cried out to him with common howling and groaning: whom that Saint, admonishing them with a saving word, restrained, and to the observance of the holy Rule and to the memory of himself, as much as he could, he animated, and above all piously commended them to Christ the good Shepherd.

[19] Of this deed and of the death of so holy a man, St. Hildulf is visited his most beloved Hildulf in a vision of the night is divinely admonished, that he should hasten to him as quickly as possible: for it was fitting that a friend should bid the last farewell to a friend going before to God, devoutly beseech him not to forget himself, make the ecclesiastical commendation, furnish the Viaticum; duly compose his mouth and eyes, hands and feet; conduct his funeral, attended with due veneration, and most carefully place it in the tomb. All which, God willing, it is established were fulfilled by Lord Hildulf for the most pious Father Deodatus. For as he awoke, he hastened to the Blessed one as quickly as possible, as he was commanded by the Lord: whom he found still living. By whose longed-for l sight the Saint, refreshed, vehemently rejoiced in the Lord: who deigned to reveal his death to his servant Hildulf, and to destine him to care for his funeral. And without delay, about to depart from this life, to take up the rule of the sheep, which obedience and charity had hitherto nourished there, he compelled his surviving friend, and commanded his men, that they should retain Lord Hildulf as Father in his stead, as long as he should live. Hence, commonly now to all, the things which the most dear to the most dear setting out hence owed being fulfilled by Lord Hildulf, between his hands the holy soul, commended to God with much prayer, exercised and refined by countless and continual labors for the kingdom of God and his justice, and filled and adorned with very many virtues, most joyful he poured back to heaven; but to be more joyful in the arrival, by which he deserved to see God face to face without end. Who (as is written in Ecclesiasticus) "died, and as it were did not die: for he left behind him one like himself." Ecclus. 40:4. In his life he saw, and rejoiced in him, and in his death he was not saddened, nor confounded before his enemies: for he left a defender for his house against the enemies, and one rendering grace to his friends.

[20] He dies on the 19th of June Now he passed from death to life, from exile to homeland, the lovable Father, Lord Deodatus, on the thirteenth m of the Kalends of July, on a Sunday, in the six hundred seventy-ninth year from the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, in the seventh indiction: but from his entrance into this Valley of Galilee in the eleventh year n at its middle, Theodoric o son of Clovis and brother of Childeric reigning: under whom the most wicked apostate Ebroin beheaded with the sword the most excellent Martyr Leodegar p Bishop of Autun, first tortured with diverse torments. But the funeral of so great a Father being cared for with all reverence, he is borne by the disciples with too tearful obsequies to the Church of the blessed Mother of God Mary: where, the saving Host being offered for him by the most devout Archbishop, and the rite of the Catholic Church being completed, the most precious body is committed to the meanest q earth, because the cemetery of his former little cell was watery, inasmuch as situated in a valley; and it was fitting that the body of so great a Patron should be present, in the presence of the Brothers, paying praises and prayers to God: whom, although the pious souls knew was not to be wept for, he is buried in the church of St. Mary. yet they could not restrain the flood of tears, which not the impulse of the flesh, but of the spirit, drew from the inmost depths of their hearts. For they wept not because he had died, but because he had preceded them to God, as also the most learned Father Ambrose was wont to have said of himself: nor did they envy his glory, but desired to be with him, when they perceived that they had remained in mourning; when they knew that they were to seek a future homeland, nor to have here an abiding city. Moreover under the joy of the Holy Spirit they emitted pious tears, when they recalled the memory of his most sweet fatherhood, and his familiarity, who had been to them a most benign chariot and charioteer, by carrying them in his hands, and exhorting them to better acts. How far do tears of this sort differ from those which carnal men are wont inconsolably to pour for their dear ones or for their losses, with unbridled audacity not fearing to leap forth to a public detestation of the divine judgments! For because they do not gape for everlasting goods, after the loss of temporal ones they know not what further to hope: and therefore those whom (God being neglected) they uselessly love, they do not wish to be taken hence, because they wish, if they could, to enjoy them forever in the pleasures of the flesh and the use of the world. Against such the holy Jeremiah thus inveighs: "Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord." Jeremiah 17:5.

[21] And so the man of God Hildulf so obeyed the last petition of his dying friend, the care of the monastery that for twenty-eight years and a half (by which he survived him in the world) he watched over his flock, administering through Provosts the benefit of that place: and although he set an Abbot r over his congregation in his stead (because, kindled by desire of supernal contemplation, he shunned to be occupied with outward business), yet he did not strike the Valley of Galilee from his care, as long as he remained in this light. For the force of perfect love toward the most holy Deodatus made the toleration of labors easy for him. St. Hildulf takes up. Nor was he wearied to care for another's things, who from weariness had imposed his own on another: because what infirm old age refused to bear, and a mind desiring to be at leisure for God alone; the affection of brotherly love, and the virtue of holy obedience, embraced with longing; as if continually he exhorted himself thus: "With what face will you go to your friend, if you refuse his last command?" For whose perennial life in heaven and glory, in the first year of his deposition wont often to go to the monastery of the Valley of Galilee, he frequented the solemnities of Masses at the holy body: for he knew it written: "Man knoweth not whether he be worthy of love or of hatred, but all things are kept uncertain for the future." Ecclesiastes 9. s And that saying of the most acute Father Augustine: "Woe to the praiseworthy life of men, if piety being set aside it be judged. For who of men will dare to say: 'The prince of this world has come, and in me he has nothing,' unless one free among the dead?" Wherefore, the only and singular benefit which he knew would be for the dead, after his friend entered the way of all flesh, he did not cease to send on. Which although the pious mother Church indifferently sends after all her sons, because she does not yet penetrate the hidden judgments of God, yet the just Judge so accepts the vows of his own that they do not grieve to be wholly frustrated; since according to the opinion of the holy Fathers, for the very good there are thanksgivings, for the not very bad propitiations, but for the very bad some kind of consolations of the living. But because in this life every merit is acquired, by which after this life each one is either relieved or burdened; it is established that the most devout servant of Christ Deodatus there by pious merit so acquired, that every supplication for him should there be a thanksgiving.

NOTES BY D. P.

that he obscured this certainty, by ill combining the Episcopate of Garibaldus with the departure of Deodatus from France, and that of Jacob with the coming of Hildulf into the Vosges.

p Leodegar was slain in the year 688 on the 2nd of October, on which he is venerated.

q Within a stone ark, however, says Riguet, which is preserved even now, until a larger one should be completed, which was held begun, the church of St. Maurice, now called St. Deodatus, where before the altar of the Holy Cross the body is buried in the same ark. But what if the body, first buried in the bare earth, be believed to have been placed in that ark at the translation itself? Yet our church did not then receive the form of a cross, which it now has; and which it is established from the Bull of Nicholas III is a work of the year 1278, says Riguet.

r Here, in the parchments of the place, end the Lessons concerning the Saint, distributed through the Octave, and hitherto word for word the same as the printed editions. But the Abbot constituted by Hildulf was called Leutebaldus: but having died before him, he imposed on the Saint the necessity of resuming the rule for the last three years, as Ruyr writes.

s Here the Utrecht manuscript and the Life published by Mosander end.

CHAPTER IV.

The veneration of SS. Deodatus and Hildulf in their tunics and bodies. The elevation of the same. The approved Life.

[22] A year having at last elapsed from the glorious death of Lord Deodatus, in which the blessed Patriarch Hildulf, by assiduous visitation and frequent offering of the saving Host, took care to profit his spirit, St. Hildulf venerates the Tunic of St. Deodatus offered by the disciples thereafter the Brothers of both places resumed the former institution. Finally as before once in the year the holy Prelates were wont to visit one another's cells, so afterward they strove to do. But to the man of God Hildulf visiting the Valley of Galilee in Lord Deodatus's stead, his disciples came to meet, bringing forward the tunic of so great a Master. Which the holy Pontiff, reverently received, kissing as the sweetest pledge of his friend, embraced: and in the garment most sweetly venerated the name of that Saint, and seemed to see him in it. This same he did, when at the appointed time it was brought back by the Saint's disciples to the Median monastery. And whatever veneration he bestowed on the insensible tunic, he rejoiced to bestow on his most dear Deodatus: whom he judged to feel a devout charity toward him, and by whose efficacious merits he prayed, amid sweet sighs, that he himself, still struggling in the stadium of this life, and sweating in the spiritual wrestling-school, might be sustained. For he trusted that he, the adversary now laid low and trampled, had been endowed by the Lord with the palm and crown; and that with Him he could do very much, inasmuch as indelibly enrolled in the order of the heavenly court. But since the temporal life of the holy man was, by God's disposing, extended into many years, that by his example very many might be kindled to eternal life; it came about that toward his last years, now weighed down and broken by old age and weakened by continual labor, he did not go out from his cell, even for the sake of the customary visitation: yet not for that reason did the disciples of most blessed Deodatus omit to bear to him the Master's tunic, as they were wont.

[23] And when divine compassion had decreed that his veteran soldier Hildulf should rest forever from too much labor, who being forewarned by him through his most beloved Deodatus he deigned to announce to him the day of his passing, and that he should busy himself to dispose both their cells (as the matter required). Whence the holy man much rejoiced in the Lord, because from the turbulent conflict of the world he was soon to go to the tranquillity of perpetual peace: where, every tear wiped from his eyes, he would be perpetually consoled. And so, an Abbot being designated for the Brothers of his cell, Lord Raimbertus; but for the Valley of Galilee, Lord Marcinannus, he shone forth from this exile, in the year from the incarnation of Jesus Christ seven hundred seven. successors being given, he dies. Whose holy mention here, led by the tenor of the narration, we have scarcely cared to touch summarily; lest we be charged with having collected and crammed food for fastidious ears; the eager Reader, however, we direct to the Life of the Saint. Furthermore Lord Marcinannus, whom we mentioned above as set over the monastery of most blessed Deodatus, was most zealous in the provision of the monastery for such benefit. For he survived a long time under the Kings Theodoric and Childeric the younger, from whom too he earned at Aachen that a description of his whole Abbey be strengthened by Royal authority.

[24] Then the suitable successors of the holy predecessors, Raimbertus and Marcinannus, did not diminish the charitable society, The Monks of both monasteries pray for their mutual dead taken up from the most holy Masters and left to them as if by hereditary law, but rather augmented it. Which indeed from the breviaries or written documents of that time was hitherto shown: in which the names of the Brothers of both monasteries, both dead and living, most diligently noted and placed upon the altars, were preserved; for whom in the solemnities of Masses it was most truly said, what is everywhere found thus in the books of Sacraments: "And whose names are seen written upon thy holy altar." Meanwhile by the most devout disciples it was inviolably observed, what they recalled handed down by the most pious Masters; namely, that once in the year both these should visit their cells, and those theirs, bringing forward as chief pledges the tunics of the Masters (since the disciples of Lord Hildulf too had retained his tunic for themselves); whom they met with such devotion, and to whom such veneration was shown, that the most sweet Fathers were believed to have returned to their sons after the long rolls of ages.

[25] But if, the sins causing it, the heavenly wrath raged against the people, and they were struck by drought or too great a downpour of rains, or pestilence or any kind of plague; by the presentation of which the divine plagues cease presently the Convent, assembled hither and thither, offered the tunics of their Patrons with mournful prayers and presented them to the divine gaze: and presently piety removed what impiety had merited. For against the onslaught of the raging scourge the merits of the Saints, and the faith of the people, availed so much, that without delay the most merciful Maker restrained the severity of his just judgment from the people, and distilled upon them the consolation of the desired mercy. Thus, finally, a temporal and small consolation became the greatest advancement of faith, which exhorted each one, according to his measure, to rise to the correction of his depravity, and the imitation of the Saints, and to due veneration of those whom they understood to have so merited of God; whereby they could turn away his wrath from a sinful nation; and they desired to be such as the divine kindness deigns clemently to regard. Now let us weigh, if we can, what merit or virtue the holy souls of these our Fathers had inwardly; whose meanest tunics, represented outwardly to the eyes of God, suspended his wrath from a people full of their sins.

[26] Therefore this custom, so pious and religious, was most entirely preserved between these two monasteries, the bodies of both, elevated, are in veneration: until the holy bodies, declared by very many miracles, were lifted up from the bosom of the earth, the divine grace disposing. Then what they had been wont to do with the tunics of the Saints, they preserved, up to these our times, with their bodies, by visiting one another with them, or sweetly meeting at a place pleasing to them. Where, by exchanging the pious burdens between themselves, they love for some time to carry them as their own Lords: nor do they believe any of them a stranger to themselves, when the assembly of the Valley of Galilee recognizes Blessed Hildulf as its own, inasmuch as set over it for twenty-eight years and a half: on the other side the little people of the Median monastery claim for themselves the notable Confessor of Christ Deodatus, to whom Lord Hildulf had attributed the priorate of his place, by receiving him there most worthily while he lived, and no less his tunic after he died. To these things they also add their mutual charity, Aristotle, Book 8 of the Ethics, ch. 9 by which it was effected that all things were common to them. As the philosophical opinion insinuates: "Most things of neighbors are common, but of friends all things." Wherefore as then they were wont mutually to receive the tunics of these Saints, namely the spoils of their bodies; so now too they receive their bodies, the spoils indeed of their souls: by whose merit be peace to us now and forever. Therefore let these things now suffice for religious souls, which in poor speech we have cursorily explained concerning the deeds of our most pious Father Deodatus, scarcely touching a few of countless, the least of the greatest: by which the holy Trinity glorified its beloved on earth for the merits of his holy life. For the rest, his venerable body is daily ennobled with so many and so great miracles, that scarcely, as is thought, can any most eloquent person suffice to narrate them. b

[27] not so much the miracles as the virtues of the Saints are to be inquired into By these he became so famed and known to the world, that he had no need to be proclaimed by this our meager and barren narration. But since it is of Christian perspicacity rather to require and attend to the works which make each Saint, than those which show him to be a Saint; it is delighted indeed by the visible deeds of the Saints, but yet it desires in every way to reach their invisible deeds; and thirsting, it prefers to quench its thirst from the fount, rather than from the stream: for it learned from the Lord Jesus whence to rejoice, who says to his disciples: "In this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject to you; but rejoice that your names are written in heaven." Which indeed may we merit by sanctity of soul, not by ostentation of miracles; especially since on the day of judgment he will say to many, who in his name will have done many mighty works, "I know you not." Luke 10; Matthew 19. Hence it is that, inviting to himself all who labor and are laden, he does not say, "Learn of me to do signs," but "because I am meek and humble of heart, and you shall find rest for your souls." This plainly which we learn from the Head, we ought also to learn from his chief members; because the faith of the Church more ardently seeks out what those whom it venerates were in the invisible virtues of the soul, than what they were in visible signs: which indeed are the milk of little ones, not the solid food of the robust. But as from milk one comes to solid food, so from signs the imperfection of our faith, invigorated, is at length led to the solid virtues of the soul; so that it now has no need to flee, but only to ruminate. Hence it is, most dear ones, that when you were fed with the daily and excellent miracles of the most worthy Confessor of Christ Deodatus, you were led to such robustness of mind, that with these alone you were now not content, but anxiously sought that your holy hunger be refreshed by his holy life. For you know most excellently that among miracles the mind must be sought, and that, the good rightly ceasing, miracles are nothing.

[28] Now therefore let us in common give thanks to the most pious Maker of all, that he has not in every way defrauded you of so good a will: for from the few things which we have premised, we recognize how good was the treasure of his heart: who for joy of the pearl found so sold all that he had, that he even denied himself, and an exile in labor and hardship, their examples to be followed in many watchings, in hunger and thirst and many fastings,

in cold and nakedness, imitating the Apostle Paul, wandered for many years for Christ: nor could any pressure of the world wrest from him the sweetness of the twofold charity, on which the whole Law hangs and the Prophets. Ecclus. 44. And so, according to the admonitions of the book of Ecclesiasticus, "Let us praise glorious men, our Fathers, in their generation": but let us so praise them, that by their example we may direct and form the depravity of our life. For as the opinion of the most learned Father Augustine has it: "To speak well, and to live ill, is nothing else than to condemn oneself by one's own voice." But especially, by beholding the life of our Fathers, let us be armed for contempt of the world, and imitate them in so perfect a work. Let us not love the world, nor the things that are in the world: because, as the blessed Evangelist John testifies, "whatever is in the world is the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, which are not of the Father." 1 John 2:16. These three indeed are the causes of the rest of the vices, which so grow hot from the love of the world, that they prevail to separate an innumerable people from the charity of Christ: from which we shall be wholly free, if we exclude the love of the world from our breasts. Which when we have done, let us not doubt that we are everywhere helped by the patronages of the Saints, in whose footsteps we gape with a ready heart. But because outward miracles give testimony of a good life: in what follows c we will try (if God permit) to transmit some of these to posterity: that from a few it may be gathered with how great glory our most pious nourisher Deodatus is exalted in eternal life, to whose dead bones so great solaces are conferred from heaven upon bodies and souls. Relying at last on his merits and prayers, let us with confidence approach the throne of the divine glory, asking that our debts be forgiven us, and that by the example of so great a patron we may be perseveringly girded for a conversation well-pleasing to God: the mercy of the eternal Father preventing and following us, with the Son coessential to him and the Holy Spirit, in the threefold Unity, and one Trinity inseparably dominating, living, and reigning forever and ever. Amen. d

[29] In the year from the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ one thousand forty-nine, in the second Indiction: This Life approved in a Roman Synod. the concurrent being the sixth, the Epact the fourteenth, in the tenth year of the reign of Henry son of Conrad the Emperor, and the third of his rule, these deeds, which were written of the Pontiff Deodatus of pious memory, were carried to the supreme summit of the Apostolic See, and in a provincial Synod of the same holy Roman Church it was established that in the presence of Bishops, Abbots, Clerics, and Laymen they be recited, and when they had been recited, authority being given by the same supreme Pope Leo the ninth, in the first year of his Apostolate, it was decreed that in the Church of God they be read and most firmly preserved; to the praise and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the honor of his very blessed Patron Deodatus, and to the edification of many through all ages of ages.

NOTES BY D. P.

APPENDIX.

From the Chronicle of Senones of Richer.

Deodatus, Bishop of Nevers, then Abbot of the Valley of Galilee in the Vosges (St.)

BHL Number: 2133, 2134

[30] Lest anyone believe this most blessed Deodatus to be of no great merit with God (says Richer in ch. 9 and 15), it will not irk us to insert into this page one unusual thing out of many. There was, therefore, a certain rather wealthy man in the parts of Alsace, in a villa which in Teutonic is called Sigolthem; a who, stirred by the fame of the holy Bishop, conferred part of his estates on Blessed Deodatus; in which part a certain vineyard field was given, which to that donor, because it produced most excellent wine, was incomparably dear. And when the monks of the monastery of Blessed Deodatus possessed it for some time, the donor of that vineyard, considering that in all the vineyards left to him he nowhere had such precious wine; blinded by the greed of his mind, presumed to take back into his own uses that very vineyard, which he had before devoutly given to God, now become an invader of his own largess; in place of wine he draws flies: which he cultivated, gathered, and carefully placed the wine in a certain vessel, and ordered it to be carefully preserved for him. Finally on a certain day, when he reclined gladly to eat with certain friends, his cupbearer being called, he orders some of that best wine of his to be brought to him. He, with hurried course to the cellar, where the vessel with wine was kept, came having taken a wine-vessel, which is called a cantrum. And when he had drawn back the little peg from the bottom of that vessel to let out the wine, and believed he would have the wine; a wondrous thing! in place of wine so great a multitude of flies bubbled out through the hole, that you would think yourself, if you had seen it, to be in Egypt, where the plague of flies is narrated to have punished the Egyptians by divine command. Seeing therefore this wonderful deed, he who had come to draw the wine was astonished; and threw to the ground the peg with the cantrum which he held in his hand; and with most rapid course came to his Lord, to narrate what had happened: and at once a swarm of flies coming with him attacks the Lord, and so cruelly assailed the Lord with bites and stings, that the same Lord, pricked, was compelled both to give back the field, and to ask pardon for what he had committed. The field being restored to the monks and pardon obtained, that multitude of flies ceased from vexing the man: and so that vineyard is known to be possessed by the people of Saint-Dié up to this time.

[31] But afterward in the year of the Lord 1003, the number declining, there was a certain Duchess, b who, widowed of her husband, the body is translated in the year 1003 ruled the Duchy of Lorraine according to her measure. Among the other things which happened in her times, she came to the church of St. Deodatus, and commonly threatened the Clerics, that if they did not show the body of their Lord, namely Blessed Deodatus (which they boasted they had, and which was still held in a stone tomb), she would reduce them perpetually into her own servitude. The Clerics and people, terrified by the threats, having summoned religious men from everywhere, fastings and prayers being premised, lifted the body of that Saint, Deodatus the founder of that place, from the tomb placed in the middle of that church, before the altar of the Holy Cross which is now parochial; into a new ark: and placed it in a new shrine prepared for this, the day before the vigil of the Deposition: whence still each year his sacred Translation is commemorated by the Clergy and people on that day. So from then the church and valley were exempted from the oppression of that Duchess. But in the second year after, the same monastery of St. Deodatus, falling down from age, was endowed by Beatrice herself and a certain Count c Louis, with some other faithful helpers, with an ampler and new building.

[32] From that time, says Riguet in his Memoirs, our ancestors preserved the Relics of the Saint up to the last fire of the year 1635. and they being burned in the year 1635, But although the same flame which melted the bells also confused the more sacred metals with which the bier of St. Deodatus was covered; it yet spared a good part of the bones found within, of which we still have very notable portions, d which in the prior year 1679 I myself solemnly translated into another silver shrine, procured by the liberality of the Lord Dean. The Relics of the same our Saint perhaps are also in the monastery of Lagny near Paris, into another in the year 1679. where St. Deodatus the Bishop, together with others, is venerated on the common feast of the translation on the 11th of June, and alone again on the 21st.

NOTES BY D. P.