Eberhard

ON SAINT EBERHARD

ARCHBISHOP OF SALZBURG IN GERMANY.

IN THE YEAR 1164.

Preliminary commentary on his written Life and cult.

Eberhard, Archbishop of Salzburg in Germany (St.)

G. H.

Eberhard, Archbishop of the Church of Juvavum or Salzburg, renowned for nobility of birth, pious education, monastic training, and sanctity of life, shone in the twelfth century of Christ, Time of life and death born about the year of Christ 1090, as will soon be established from the following years of his life. After forty years of life, modestly spent in various studies in the Canonical state and the monastic life, and then among his parents and kinsmen, about the year 1130 he again took up the monastic life in the monastery of Prüfening near Regensburg: but in the year 1133, having been made Abbot in the monastery of Biburg, and after five years invested and consecrated for it at Rome by Pope Innocent II; then in the year 1147 taken up as Archbishop of Salzburg, at length in 1164 on this 22nd of June he yielded to mortal nature, to live eternally in heaven.

[3] One of his ancient disciples attests that he himself wrote the things gloriously done by him toward the end of his life at no. 23, and before, at no. 8: "God," he says, The Life written by a disciple. "and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ knows that I do not lie in whatever I write … I will say what I saw, what I learned by the testimony of many, what by my own experience." Indeed the miracles which are added in Chapter 5, wrought after death, could have been afterwards ascribed by the same writer: since, following the sense of all everywhere, he calls B. Eberhard, St. Eberhard and a Saint. These his Acts were published by Henry Canisius in the second volume of the Antiquae Lectiones, The title of Saint attributed to him from of old and thence transferred into the last edition of Lawrence Surius, which we too give, illustrated with necessary Annotations. He is continually called Saint in both editions: with which title of Saint he is also honored by Zacharias Lappeloo or Cornelius Grassius in the Compendium of his Life, inserted into the Lives of the Saints on this 22nd of June, and printed at Cologne in the year 1616. With the same title he is honored by Hugo Menard and Gabriel Bucelinus in their Benedictine Calendars, and with them Philip Ferrarius in the General Catalogue, citing the records and Calendars of the Church of Salzburg: but what these are is not sufficiently established to us, having often experienced Ferrarius's levity in citing records which he never saw, but presumed to be held; especially since we have the Proper of the Saints of the Archdiocese of Salzburg, printed at Salzburg in the year 1647 by the authority of Archbishop Paris; in which there is found absolutely no mention of St. Eberhard. Wiguleus Hund in the Metropolis of Salzburg asserts that for his Canonization Burckhard de Weispriack, Cardinal and Archbishop, labored so much, and the Canonization was treated of. that all the examinations of sufficient witnesses were produced in the Consistory at Rome; but the same Burckhard being prevented by death in the year of the Lord 1464, the matter remained unfinished. Meanwhile Christopher Gewold, in his Notes on Hund, continues to honor him with the said title of Saint, which Cardinal Baronius also does in the Appendix to vol. 12 on the year 1164, whence we too judge that he can here be placed with the same title. Would that meanwhile the examinations or Processes, formed by the aforesaid Burckhard, and sent to Rome, were still to be found in one place or the other! From them, without doubt, a commentary not unworthy of this work could be gathered; but that is more easily wished than prudently hoped; since many documents of far more recent memory, even originals, the cause for which they were sent not going forward, very easily perish at Rome; and they argue too great a complacency on the part of those who did not take care to keep copies of them by them. Various benefits also were bestowed by St. Eberhard on the monastery of Reichersberg of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine situated on the river Inn: whose seven charters are printed in volume 3 of the Metropolis of Salzburg, page 235 and following.

LIFE

By his disciple as author.

Eberhard, Archbishop of Salzburg in Germany (St.)

BHL Number: 2362

BY A DISCIPLE.

CHAPTER I. His birth, studies. Canonical and monastic Life, the dignity of Abbot.

[1] When we attend to the lives of many described, of common or private persons, in such a way that not so much the dignity or abundance of their deeds, Prologue. as the goodwill of the writers appears in the titles, in regard to these we have seen that, for the life of the glorious Eberhard, Archbishop of the holy Church of Salzburg, the pen has more than enough material; and to leave this under the bushel of ignorance we have judged a disgrace to ourselves, an injury to him. Whence, the last of all to whom he was either properly a Bishop, or known only by companionship, or even once the master of merits, we undertake to set the Father in our pages; led by the presumption not so much of knowledge as of love, fearing lest the least things should be omitted by others. Charity hopes not all things, fears concerning uncertain things.

[2] Eberhard, therefore, had Noric a as his country, a most illustrious b stock, his father a good Christian, but otherwise in worldly honors; his mother indeed stood out in the best works, who, passing herself in alms, Born of distinguished and pious parents, prayers, fasts almost continuous, and indulging in food, except vegetables, rarely. An iron virtue: to commend whose good deeds let this one thing suffice, that, building a church in honor of St. Mary the perpetual virgin with her husband in her own court, she used, almost half a mile, barefoot, to carry stones to it on her own shoulders. By deeds of this kind she already seemed to have wholly abdicated that worldly nobility, except that the highest nobility is proved in the service of Christ. She drew there, with her attendants, no small crowd of women of both conditions, carrying stones. She had made the rest after her image and likeness. So nature has it, that, according to the form of their betters, the lesser conduct themselves. One might see further around, by the imitation of one, the female sex bettered. Holily did the matron do this work. Hence she merited a son c, of whom we now treat, worthy of one worthy; who, excellently adorned in boyhood, is consecrated to the disciplines of school, and in the Church of Bamberg d is handed over to be imbued with the liberal rudiments. with letters he drank in virtue: Where, a docile, attentive, and benevolent hearer, how much he devoted to mistress Philosophy is shown by his having attained three parts of her, Physics, Ethics, Logic. He therefore, tender in age, so transcended the nobility of his stock by virtue of character, that he was called now not a boy, but an old man; not light, as is wont at such an age, but wise and hoary by gravity of character. And if at any time he turned aside to carnal delights, by the mediation of God's grace,

he was not drawn off nor enticed: for in these arts, or in their branches, none afterwards was easily found second to him. Then there succeeded a happy adolescence, where the proportion of the Pythagorean letter, from the stem of undiscerning boyhood, turned the waxen age, either by the right branch to the blessed life; or by the left branch, which is also more sloping, bends it to earthly and downhill things.

[3] Hence, because he is seen worthy, he obtains e a Canon's prebend in the same Episcopal see. There indeed the most honorable youth chose the best part of Mary on the right branch, and secretly from the Provost, f who had hitherto fostered the novice, flying off to the monastery of St. Michael, passing from the Canons to the monks, he sought and received the monastic habit. The kingdom of heaven the young too seize by violence. The greater part are prone to evil from their adolescence, but Eberhard did violence to the kingdom of heaven, and suffered violence. For what could the Provost do? At his nod the all-sounding bells discordantly sound together, he himself proceeds in person with the whole choir of the temple to the monastery, they command rather than ask that the Brother be given back, they snatch rather than receive him. he is drawn back by them; But because, monastically tonsured, he did not befit the Clerical choir, the expenses being given, he is sent into France with his master: where he so advanced, that, his sense growing, he subjected his elders to himself. O how happy he went out! but much happier he returned: indeed, returned, he merited even to see a sign of his future felicity, and showed it beforehand to others.

[4] For when one day after his return he sat down with his parents in the house, a hen approaching laid a great egg under his garment; but in vain as if declaring to the people something that could be hoped for in him, going out, as is the custom, it cried aloud. The next day too, in the sight of all, it laid in his garment an egg, but larger than the first: in which, done twice, it signified, as can be believed, that he would discharge first the office of Abbot, and afterwards that of Bishop. Nevertheless, always afterwards in his mind aspiring to the monastic order, according to that of the Poet: "Drive out nature with a pitchfork, yet she will ever return." Since the youth's mind was by nature the best, it could not be weaned from its purpose; until, become g forty years old, by the connivance h of his Bishop Otto and of the Brothers, he entered the monastery, and the Spirit of the Lord was directed into him from that day and thenceforth, that in all religion he became the last first. He macerates his body with fasts, keeps vigil in prolonged prayers, gapes wholly after the divine offices; not to murmur superfluously, but rather strives with sweat to be poor with the poor Christ. The model set for him to be imprinted was his Abbot i Erbo, whom to praise sufficiently we know not how, unless by esteeming him almost another John, or Elijah.

[5] About the same time k his secular brothers, equally distinguished in birth, state, and goods, together with certain kinsmen, were invaded by one spirit, more grown, he is designated Abbot, to construct on their own estate a monastery of monks, from their hereditary goods. The place of Biburg is delegated for this work without delay l under the protection of the aforesaid most reverend Bishop: that the matter might more strongly have effect, and the effect firmness. Thither the most worthy Eberhard is destined, so unwilling that he refused consecration for five years. For only the thought clung to him, to create a kind of monks, and an order of monks, buildings, churches; and soon to lay himself privately down in a hermitage or convent. Humility never satisfies itself, nor is virtue sated by its vow, as also is vice. After five years he was drawn to Rome with his Bishop of Bamberg; for he was one to whom nothing was lacking, of what was suitable, what illustrious for the Curia. There was present in that very Company the most serene m Eberhard, consecrated at Rome by Innocent II, then Provost, but a little after created successor in the same Church of Bamberg. He had always been the most faithful of our Eberhard, and one pair. He who loves the just in the name of the just shall not lose his reward. To him as he went, the people of Biburg greatly enjoin the business of the consecration of the Abbot. He promises his effort, nor does he execute it less, until the Apostolic n Innocent himself in person invested the Abbot and consecrated him, saying: "Be comforted and be strong, in all things I am with you."

[6] At another time, when he was going to Rome, he approached the Apennine mountain, the dying woman placed on his horse he carries across on foot: on whose very high ridge a passage is scarcely opened by a very narrow path. There, at its very roots, he catches sight of a poor little woman, a martyr by poverty, more than a martyr by sickness; who, wishing to cross the mountain, was tortured by her will and by her difficulty. The Abbot saw the dying woman below. And he addresses the Brother accompanying him, saying: "What do we do for the poor Christ, lest, coming at the last, he reproach us?" But that simpleton, as a simpleton, was less burned, and said: "Nothing for women and us in such a strait." But Philochristus o, placing her on his nag, leaning himself with his hand backward on the horse's tail, carried her across. Happy he who loves his neighbor more than himself. And when he had led the burden across, he was still burned with pity, and said to the brother: "What then do we do?" Rusticity marvels, and says: "A time of silence, Father." Then sighing, having given the alms, which alone he could, he dismissed the afflicted woman from him.

ANNOTATIONS BY D. P.

g About the year 1130.

CHAPTER II. His illustrious virtues. The Archbishopric of Salzburg designated by a vision, and taken up.

[7] Already then by the heralding of many good men he heard that he would be a future Bishop, which it will suffice to have proved in one instance. There presided in the neighborhood an Abbot named Eppo a, whose life was great, his probity greater, By a vision he is designated Bishop of Salzburg, his familiarity greatest, with our Father. Him God found, to whom he might foretell the schism to come after many years against Pope Alexander, and how firm an anchor Eberhard alone of all the Bishops of Germany would then stand; and the aforesaid Abbot saw a form of these things through a dream: and behold a certain widow seemed to appear: and a certain King was assailing the widow, and there was no one to aid the widow, except a certain monk from Juvavum. This seemed to be Eberhard: this one seemed alone to withstand for the widow, this wrestling or image of wrestling raged on both sides, until the monk was changed into steel. Proportionally the iron signified hardness, the hardness the invincible. But the King raged no less against him than against the widow, until he too appeared turned into a dog. He who has ears to hear, let him hear the argument from likeness. Understanding which, he who had seen it related it into the ears of the Abbot, and said: "In truth you will preside over Juvavum, and there will be a time when alone of the Ecclesiastics b you will sustain the Alpine see. Sufficient for that time is its own malice."

[8] Among these things he was small in his own eyes, and outside the flesh appeared in the flesh. One might see, to carnal and spiritual eyes, the new place wondrously rising; from nobles and middle folk, a sudden swarm of Brothers, Sisters, c monks, to whom nothing was lacking in any grace and probity, excellent in every virtue, seething. What shall I say of the height of his conversation? From the dignity of Abbot all these things came. He not only by charity, prudence, discretion, mercy, and all the charisms of all virtues stood out for the admiration, but also for the love, but for the fear, but for the example of all. He was feared, but with filial fear; of servile dread nothing was known. He delighted in labors, not in rest; understanding already that of the Philosopher: "Labor nourishes generous minds." He was in no way hindered from visiting the house of the poor more frequently in person. There he used to wash and comb in his bosom the heads of the needy, especially of the languishing, kind toward the poor, to wash also and kiss their feet, and himself to put food and drink to their mouth. God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ knows that I do not lie in whatever I write. Nay rather, passing over many things in the telling, and by silence striving for brevity; I will say what I saw, what by the testimony of many, effective in his sermons. what by my own experience I knew. A wondrous efficacy of preaching, exceedingly, was present to him, always shaking out from all his hearers a commotion of heart, from very many even weeping, better than the fabled Orpheus, who by the sweetness of his modulation drew stones, woods, and beasts, and also (wonderful to say!) moved the shades of hell to tears.

[9] For he pursued hospitality, as much as he showed in the case of a soldier, who, turning aside into the cell, when he had asked drink for his lord passing by, the monk who was guardian of guests calling the lord rather inside, departed. Hospitable, he orders wine to be carried to the one asking Having learned

of the fault, the Abbot ordered a monk on foot to carry a cup of wine to Regensburg for the one who asked. What should the monk do? He was aged, and the day before yesterday had been bled in a vein. He therefore asked for a Brother as companion for testimony, if perchance he should fail on the way. This being given, he carried the wine for three leagues to the scholastic d of Freising, marveling and grieving that it happened on his account, fasting e he carried it to Imbripolis. Who would not be astounded at a miracle in the tertian bleeding? Plainly obedience seemed to have made a sign, and all who heard applauded that like the gentile one. Ask what virtue is, and seek a pattern of the honorable. And the Masters in the city called that drink, the drink of obedience. But let no one hearing these things esteem him crueller rather than more merciful: having experienced labors, for his mercies are above all his works, inasmuch as he had already known labors, necessities, colds, hunger, vigils, rather by experience. Which experience in all Rulers too would most greatly conduce to all things, for when those who have never fought must teach wars; those who have borne few things, patience; the happy, unhappiness; those at rest, labors—a small thing is done. * Therefore, for the height of mastery, the examples of the arrow, experience is an art, according to that of Dido in Maro: "Not ignorant of ill, I learn to succor the wretched." Hence the aforesaid example of the father in the case of the soldier was rather of mercy.

[10] At other times he fulfilled what Chrysostom says: "Do you wish to appear holy? Toward your own life be austere, but toward that of others kind." Hence, what even I writing marvel at, he did not consider the newness of his own place, nor what the ancient and richer monasteries could do, austere to himself, kind to others; what they would not do; but, ordering the grain of the Brothers to be reckoned up to the harvest, the remaining measure he used to transmit to the poorer monasteries in the neighborhood. So in all other things, avoiding "anything too much," he nevertheless loved poverty too much; so much that, the holy Bishop Otto compelling, he by no means accepted the tithes of new lands in Tangintile, very many indeed, for the necessities of the Brothers. Why these things? Where the burden of penury, how many or of what sort are to live; therefore goods sufficient for the sake of saving the more: if otherwise, by Jerome's testimony, as riches, so poverty is often a temptation, causing impatience or anxiety. These things are said generally.

[11] After some years, when it had pleased God to say, "Friend, go up higher"; f the incomparable Chunrad, Archbishop of Salzburg, being taken from the midst, He becomes Archbishop of Salzburg by the unanimity of Prelates and Clerics with the people, about the Paschal g solemnity, the Abbot of Biburg is summoned as Bishop to the mother Church. A special felicity of the Juvavensian Mother, that it is never widowed of such Bishops. Let it be sought far above our age, and the men preeminent in their time, of all the Bishops of the Germanies at Juvavum, you will see, as it were, suns of Bishops. Of the emotion of the people of Biburg I cannot speak. He was not one whom h the offered honor charmed; nay, terrified by the message, he began to wish to flee and hide, so as not to be Lord. But these things being tried in vain, when he is found by the first men of the Church who came, he is translated, anointed, and the hated horns i of the Metropolitan distinguish his forehead.

[12] However great then, he humbled himself in all things. To vigils, prayers, abstinence he gave his effort, devoted to alms, from Holy Scripture, except at table and on horseback, neither by day nor by night did they migrate from his eyes and hands. He broke his bread to the hungry, and led the needy and the wandering into his house; the naked whom he saw he covered, and despised not his own flesh: for he nourished orphans as a father, and snatched widows from tribulation; attending to that of the Apostle: "This is pure and undefiled religion before God, to visit orphans and widows in their tribulations." James 1 For these and like things, his goods were established in the Lord, and the whole church of the Saints will recount his alms. Against the manner of the Pharisees he strove to do all his works he desires to lie hidden, so as not to be seen by men. For his servants, afterwards made monks, related that he was wont to wear, with bare shins, secret pardons in the church, so much that, the skin and flesh being rubbed off on the pavement, they found his knees flowing with blood. Thus, when sometimes for weariness he had fallen asleep, chance betrayed it to them. To the largesse of his alms all the virtues yielded.

[13] According to Matthew, his speech was as of one having power over the sick, or even the demons, so that, making a discourse in the church, when the howling of the demoniacs filled all things, terrified, confounded, by one word only of indignation he at once took from them the voice and moreover all motion. Matt. 7 This virtue was common to our Prelate with the most blessed Pope k Eugenius, in whose presence the demons did not dare to be moved, or to insinuate themselves. No less did sicknesses sometimes know how to obey the authority of the Prelate and to depart. Finally, at the monastery of St. Peter, a certain one of the Sisters a long sickness had wasted, so that she could be cured by no one. Her, offered in his sight with much hope and desire, he blessed in the name of the Lord, and to her lying down perfect soundness returned from the temple: who after some time, coming again, presenting herself exultantly, when she had begun to give thanks for her health, at his first word she was rebuffed and her tongue suppressed.

[14] Truly, since blessed Gregory asserts that Prelates are helped or harmed by subjects, subjects by Prelates; that the disciples remain happy was sometime made manifest of this former Abbot. For so much did the merits of the Father redound upon the sons, that the dying sometimes of his own were saved, he procures the salvation of his own. because they were his, which it is worth while to be shown in one. While he still presided over the monastery, a certain aged man, of about a hundred years, with his wife and substance not small, converted with him, put on the cowl; and forgetting the things that are behind, he now knew almost nothing except the church and continual prayers. You would marvel whence to the decrepit man that alacrity in study, that perception toward study. Having thus conversed under the pious Eberhard and his successor about twelve years, in the month of January at the sign for matins, he was found dead in his bed. A hateful kind of death, doubtful, slippery; nevertheless he cannot die badly who has lived well. For on that very night and hour of the passing of the aforesaid Brother, a certain one of the Confreres saw through a dream, demons in a flock, in their manner, making for the cell of the infirm, and, while some covered the doors, others rushing in to seize the soul of the old man, after a little while, having gone out to their colleagues, they sounded forth a horrible barking: "Ah, grief, we have lost the man: he was a Brother of Bishop Eberhard." Then the unhappy battle-line, wailing and blaspheming, vanished. Why then not happy the disciples of Eberhard, of Benedict, of Antony?

ANNOTATIONS BY D. P.

CHAPTER III. His constancy in the schism. His acts on behalf of the Bishops of Regensburg and of Passau.

BY A DISCIPLE.

[15] As time went on, according to the saying of the Gentile, "All evils have arisen from good things," the schism arisen from the election of the Apostolic, In the schism stirred up by the Emperor Frederick, made an ineffable evil out of good, confounded divine and human things; woe to those whom that contagion enveloped! Where is the lawful anointed? "Behold here, behold there." Peter knows who are his. The Emperor, since he adhered with all his strength to the rival of Alexander, a whom he complained had earlier conspired against his commonwealth, drew after him for the greater part Italy, and Germany; the rest of the Church passed into obedience to Pope Alexander. There were very many for some years receiving neither, partly from hatred of the parties, partly because neither seemed to have entered sincerely in all things and simply. Among these things one might see a sad cessation of justice, and misery far and wide: to be feigned, intruded, expelled, neither peace nor war by right; and our Apostolic meanwhile was as if he were not. And since no one would not know that the Bishops of Juvavum and of Brixen, of all mortals whom we then knew most holy, in so great a fog of parties, in so great a question and complaint, in so great a doubt of all, we believed that we could safely follow the footsteps of such great Fathers.

[16] For after long consideration our metropolitan, alone of all the Bishops of Germany, drawing after him the aforesaid most Reverend b Bishop of Brixen, Hartmann, adheres to Alexander III praised Pope Alexander; whence to us, afterwards hearing among many, he gave no other reason than this: "Because the whole Church, with these and these kingdoms, has consented to Alexander, we esteem this one more just": which, because he said it as one presaging future things, the outcome after many years proved. Thus then he alone, hindering the fates of Augustus, did not however move against himself the hands of Augustus. How diversely, with how great adversities had his predecessors presumed so great a matter against the Caesars Henry? And behold, this one raged more with bile than the Henrys, and now against our Eberhard Augustus, and a sword pierced through his own soul; and he remains in the veneration of the Emperor, but when he had come into his presence, reverence for his sanctity repressed his spirit. A certain Angelic dignity in his face, and such a weight came over the eyes and mind, that he could not but fear more than a mortal, and tremble and spare and venerate. These things the Prince used to confess concerning himself. The most holy soul always hated too much its temporal prosperity and glory, and burned, on the aforesaid or any occasion, to sustain whatever adversities, whether of exile, or even of death, for the Lord: but thus he wished him to remain until he should come.

[17] Meanwhile, in his manner, he labored to restore peace in Regensburg, a most populous city, for they testify who know it that there is not among the Germans a more populous city, although there is a broader one. But the Duke of Bavaria, having perceived the simplicity of the Bishop c of Imbripolis, who then presided through underhand means; with insatiable avarice, usurped the greatest fisc of the Bishopric, that is, a certain castle d with all its appurtenances. he champions the Bishopric of Regensburg: The Bishop first began to rage, to make an uproar, to trouble heaven, to weigh nothing; on both sides almost the whole Bishopric began to be laid waste by fires and rapines. The townsmen, divided between the two, had gone off. The father of his country, anxiously drawing these things with his mind; both for peace, and most of all for the city, lest it be harmed, was busy how indeed this Mother of the province, and the sight of her in the whole land, and the fruit of all, might be in her. The Duke promised obedience in all things: the Bishop's folly it is irksome to expound, how he preferred the greatest loss and confusion to utility. The father nevertheless obtained from the Duke life for the captives, remission for the city, eternal memory for his labor; afterwards, by the grace of divine revelation, he foreknew his own death long before, as what follows declares.

[18] In the city of Freising e there dwelt an enclosed woman, who, the year before the Bishop's passing, when she was leaning on prayers as usual, His blessed death revealed a year before; was rapt in spirit, to contemplate those eternal and invisible things, the dead living. She saw therefore the punishments of the reprobate, various and horrid, which cannot ascend into the heart of man. Then she saw the mansions of the blessed and the joys, which it is impossible for man to speak. Above all these she contemplated among the Heavenly Ones a glorious throne, whose workmanship and appearance were more wondrous than all speech, and over a throne of this kind St. Peter and St. Rudbert standing as guardians on either side. When she marveled at the greatness of these, she heard an answer from those Saints: "This is the throne of Eberhard the Archbishop, which we guard until his coming: it is near that his time should come, and his days will not be prolonged." This woman sends word through a familiar messenger, and until the death of the Pontiff, the matter lies hidden in the mouth of three.

[19] As therefore the time of his calling approached, when already he had long begun to be deserted by the strength of his body, he likewise had business of peace; esteeming this a good consummation of his virtues, if he should have left peace restored to the Church. f They were at variance among themselves in their manner. The Duke of Eastern Bavaria, his care of peace among quarreling brothers. and also his brother, then the most excellent Prelate of Passau, but soon the successor of our Eberhard, translated to the Metropolitan see of Juvavum. Deliberately, if we mistake not, God, the arbiter of times, granted him this translation; that the end might teach him more congruous and worthy, in whom alone the whole storm of the time should be consumed. Hence the blessed Prelate labored, in a vision, not lightly to make his brother agree, inasmuch as in the neighborhood of death. What of the brother? How unbrotherly, how far from the appointed colloquy he was! But the Lord, following still further, granted appeasement to his man; whence, humbly admonished by his own, with great sweetness he alleged, saying: "I know, dearest ones, who descended from heaven to the earth. Prov. 10. 24 What of us? And besides, who is fit?" And adding, he said to his own: "I confess, I have in this the greatest hope, if I may be able to die in the business of peace, or at least to take beforehand the beginning of so great a good. For blessed are the peacemakers: and what follows? For they shall be called the sons of God." And his desire being given to the just, according to Solomon, he was even amid the actions of peace translated to eternal peace. Whence by the verdict of all he was noted as like to Martin, for this most of all, that the most illustrious man Otocher the Margrave had at that same time besieged the castle of the Bishopric, persecuting the ministerial Prefect of the Church to the town. The matter of another (since long-lasting, or even perpetual, evil would come to the Church, the town being taken) was a tragedy in the mouth of all. The work scarcely compelled the Prelate to come: without profit the sad matter is conducted. Then at last the strengthened Father speaks out: "Now behold, I will go up into my castle: who shall withstand, I will see." The most serene Margrave anticipates him, consults his intimates, lifts the siege without any pact, yields due honor to the Bishop. The Father rendered these things, that he might at length persuade the ministerial to satisfy the conditions. And these were his last works, when, already about to migrate as the disease ran its course, he was making his journey with four horses g in a sledge. And he did these things as if already dying, openly saying to all: "Peace I leave to you."

ANNOTATIONS BY D. P.

CHAPTER IV. His pious death, praise, and posthumous glory.

[20] He is led meanwhile to the monastery of Reun: a where, b laboring a while with a continued fever, as it had begun, after the third day, the sweat having poured out, he failed more. Hence, sustaining a little, he said: "Just now I have lost my hearing." The Saint dies on June 12 in the year 1164; Which sense, namely of hearing, so to speak, had always flourished beyond the nature of man, so that he heard and disclosed those whispering far off. The following Sunday toward evening, the Lord calling, on the tenth of the Kalends of July, he yielded to nature, in the eighteenth year of his Episcopate, in the second month, in the year from the incarnation of the Lord 1164, from the ordination of Pope Alexander the sixth, and of the Emperor Frederick the twelfth. His death for the time was the more lamentable. Mother Church languished in all her members, and, while here stood out the head of the whole empire, he is buried in the Cathedral, meanwhile the infirm members were aided by a head sound in sanctity and glory. What hope of the time? What hope of the future? "It is better to have what you desire, than to long for what you know not." What more? The deceased was translated by a long and rough journey to the mother church, and wondrously the poor celebrated his obsequies, that race near to God. What shall I say of the rest? This is new. We may say that, groaning, the lepers came together to this blessed one and with lament, offerings, alms, prayers, performed for him the last rites. A rare kind: the needy resounded toward heaven: "We have lost our Father: O our ruin!" The powerful themselves, one grieved that he had lost a lord, part a friend or father. Let the most excellent, and in our times most learned Eberhard of Bamberg, writing thus be an example:

[21] "E., such a minister as he is of the Church of Bamberg; c to the Venerable and in Christ most beloved Brothers and friends, Hugo, Provost of Salzburg, Udalric, Provost of Chiemsee. he is praised by the Bishop of Bamberg. A crown for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the cloak of praise for the spirit of grief. In the commemoration of our most blessed Father and Lord the Archbishop, it continually comes to mind, nay, it does not recede from our memory, that, the Lord being divided from him and carried up in the fiery chariot, that homely and inseparable companion of the Prophet cried out after him, saying: 'My father, my father; the chariot of Israel, and its driver.' 4 Kings 2 For was not this great Priest of ours, who in his days pleased God, and was found just, a chariot; when he relieved the necessities and infirmities of others, especially the burdens of sinners and the want of the poor, with paternal consolation and compassion? As if he said: 'Who is weak, and I am not weak?' Or was he not a driver, who ruled those entrusted to him and directed them into the way of truth, by examples alike and lessons? He was an eye to the blind, and a foot to the lame. His hand was not turned away from any poor man, with whom it was at heart to jest, to contend, and at length to be overcome by a weak hand. Moreover, that he might become all things to all, even above the law, not against the law, he did not abhor the breath of the leper and the touch of leprosy. He was rapt away, lest malice should change his understanding, or lest deceit beguile his soul, but, perfected in a short time, he fulfilled long times, as it is written; for indeed the malice of those remaining deserves that those who could profit be hastily withdrawn. Wisdom 4. 11 And yet that memorable follower of the Prophet had the magnificent consolation of a double spirit: but to us, in the passing of the most holy man, besides grief nothing else and more is left. Unless perhaps we were unworthy before God to be sustained by so great a patronage, such a Pontiff befitted us as that to whom to live and to die was Christ a gain. It was indeed our purpose to hasten to see him; but, alas! our sins requiring it, we lamentably complain that this last benefit of receiving from him a blessing has been divinely denied us": and below: "Let us console one another; our most pious Father has entered into the joy of his Lord. And may the Father of mercies himself, and God of all consolation, console you, and wipe away every tear from your eyes." These things the most serene Bishop of Bamberg. But let us return to our own matters: for the Lord did not delay to declare the merits of the buried one.

[22] A dropsical woman, whom the Blessed one living had in his manner nourished, at the tomb of the deceased, the more afflicted as the more constrained, poured forth, did not cease to vex the heavens with laments: "Why, Father," she said, "do you leave me desolate? Or to whom have you, Father and Pastor, committed the most beloved flock of the poor? Or have you rather abandoned us as orphans? And have you said: What dies, what

is cut down? But now I ask, through him who took you up, that you deign to succor my miseries, as hitherto in body, so now in spirit." Having prayed these things and been heard, she went out healed.

[23] Besides, a vision of a certain reverend man of the monastery of Juvavum has been esteemed worthy of memory. He seemed to himself, through a dream, while he was driven about by burning thirst, to enter, wandering, a church of wondrous beauty. There the blessed Mother of God Mary, with a countenance, as it is, most worthy, sat at a distance; Her glory is indicated by a certain vision. and he beholds her holding, as it were, a boy in her lap with dear embraces. He recognized the Lady: about the person and glory of the boy he was hesitating and marveling: to whom the mother of mercy deigned in a few words to set forth these things word for word: "This is my son Eberhard, who never denied me anything." Of this matter there are as many witnesses as there are of the Prelate's company. To everyone asking he was wont to grant what was asked in the name of St. Mary. Behold, such as the mother, such the son, that the things should be done for him which on his account they testify are done. After this I saw an elder, and the cupbearer, offering a mystical chalice, a cup of the heavenly fruit, was entering. The Queen drank, then the boy who appeared, the Lady offering it. When the boy had indulged in the wine, the last, the elder, hastily approaching to receive it, while he is deceived that it had come to him, heard the sentence of the Mother of God: "You cannot yet for the time receive from such a cup." You see how strict the voice. More blessed therefore the dead, who die in the Lord. Thereupon the elder, roused from sleep, both he himself, and all who heard, began to congratulate the vision. There was no lack of abundance of such things to be recorded, but for the commentary of our Father these few things, few they will not be. We have always loved brevity, and measure in things. If to anyone these things shall be pleasant, at least for the knowledge of our most blessed Lord: this is the whole for which we labored. If anyone blows them away, perhaps to him either all things of the Scriptures will be unpleasant; or the unworthiness of the writer here lacked acceptance. And yet, as it is written, love and power have the greatest kinship between them: for both principally preside, both will always speak through authority. Not by power therefore, but by peculiar love, with the leave of the powerful, this ministry of writing, perhaps deservedly, inasmuch as of his ancient disciples, the dearest and the lowest, we have claimed. What more? It remains to sigh after so great a Heaven-dweller, and that his fellow-dwellers, through him, now less wish for this life. For these, even by his form alone, know what is good, and heaven, and virtue, and, walking on earth, to converse in the heavens, where Christ is, sitting and reigning at the right hand of God, through all the ages of ages. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS BY D. P.

CHAPTER V. Miracles after death.

[24] After the death therefore of the God-beloved Prelate Eberhard, the Church of Christ began to be renowned for as many notable miracles as the Saint, while yet living, abounded in works of virtues: and he who then arranged to lie hidden from the world is approved, by the signs which now are done through him, as to who he was. Isaiah 24 For he who then said with Isaiah: "My secret to myself, my secret to myself," Prologue to the miracles and, lest he be tempted by elation, sought a hiding-place; behold, he has been led to the common spectacle of Angels and of men. What was done even in the hidden chamber of the mind, has now been preached above the roof: nothing covered which is not revealed, and hidden which is not known. For he who then hid alms in the bosom of the poor, now through it is held excused in the sight of the highest judge. It was fitting therefore that whom he enriched with honor in the heavens, the Lord should magnify on earth by the brightness of signs or rather of benefits. What he did living, are not these written in the knowledge of individuals? Yet unless the writing of past things commemorated them, there is no one in the future to glorify God in his Saints. Whence is that: "Quickly they did and forgot." Matt. 23 For what they wrote we know, and what they passed over we know not. We do not indeed read in the whole series of the Old Testament who that Zacharias was, who was slain between the temple and the altar: if it were known who he was, the people would glorify God in him. It is necessary therefore that we speak from the beginning of our purpose, how great things we have heard and known, and the faithful have narrated to us. By signs indeed the faith of the people is founded, whence is that: "We have not seen our signs, there is now no Prophet, and he will know us no more." Ps. 73. 9 That therefore all may know that B. Eberhard reigns with Christ, the Lord declares benefits in the dead man, in whom he was well-pleased while yet living. Therefore, O reader, since in the mouth of two or three every word stands, if you deny human testimony, at least to the miracles which are done give a faithful assent. Miracles indeed prove the Saint, and the benefits of the Lord reveal his sanctity to the people. But first the Lord manifested him thus.

[25] A certain man, the devil instigating, broke into the locks of the greater church with rash fury, He stole sacred things. and entered to commit a detestable theft in it, and violently broke open with an axe the chest of a certain Canon; from which he stole two chasubles with the other Priestly things and the rest of the goods, and put them into a sack to carry them off; but, about to go out, he beheld a man hoary with age, wrapped about with a white garment, standing close before him. Whence, indeed, terrified not moderately, but not yet fearing to pay for his wickedness, he proceeded with his burden into the middle; he is rendered immovable. but near the tomb of B. Eberhard, two paces distant, he fixed an immovable stance. For the Saint, as is believed, who living protected the ecclesiastical things, now availing better with Christ, did not suffer the losses of the church, dead. So long therefore he stood unshaken by the will of God, until, taken by the people with his bundle, confounded, he publicly confessed the deed done.

[26] Now it happened that a certain boy from Mattsee, by the will of divine predestination blind from birth, was carried to the threshold of B. Rudbert; but, placed upon the tomb of St. Eberhard, by the prayer of all who were present, The man born blind is healed he was suffused with the light of his eyes. A certain girl too of Gruscharn, twelve years old, having a deaf and dumb spirit, is rolled before the tomb of the blessed man, but, by the intercession of the faithful, is restored to hearing and voice together. Likewise a certain Soldier of the Lord Archbishop, named Rudiger, had a daughter, the deaf and dumb, deprived of one arm by paralysis, nay rather dead beforehand, for whose health the mother was often frustrated in physicians: but behold, turned to better, she experiences the grace and gifts of the blessed Pontiff. the paralytic, Compunct, she seeks Christ and the Saint, preparing a candle she measures the arm, sets it before the tomb of the Saint that it may burn, and returning home finds her daughter safe, and glorifies God in his Saint. In a wondrous manner the woman in the temple, the one suffering from the stone. the Saint in the House; she lights the candle, he heals the daughter; the wax by melting decreases, but the maiden, bettering, grows strong. Similarly a certain nun, almost consumed by a long sickness of the stone, prostrate before the tomb of the holy man, is compunct; and while she piously supplicates, by the merits of the Saint the stone slips away, and she, health being received, gives thanks. It was indeed fitting that he who softened the hard acts of men like rocks, should so also, himself a suppliant for prosperity, change the adversities of suppliants.

[27] On the Lord's Supper too a certain demoniac, now long possessed, is brought, over whom, when the exorcism was being read, the wicked spirit which was within babbled in various tongues. But while a threat was made to it by the Clergy through B. Virgilius, b the demon mocked the Clergy, and cried that it had left Virgilius its master in hell just the third day before. It is asked therefore, the demoniac who or of what country that Virgilius was? But it answered that he had been the Mantuan Poet. Then it is asked, where or through whom it would go out? It said: "That when he comes to the Father of the poor, there is no longer for it a place of remaining." Then at the height of dawn, when the antiphon "But the traitor c etc." was being said, it was seen to go out under the form of a bat. O sign of wondrous power, or rather of pious paternity! On the day on which the Lord set himself, the saving bread, before his disciples, then B. Eberhard, putting death to flight, bestows life on his sheep. But by the stench of the demon our Archbishop, together with the Bishop of Regensburg, were driven from their seat.

[28] Not long after these things a certain Soldier, from the wood d of St. Leonard, applied his wife to the tomb of the pious Father, whom, by the will of God and the merits of the Saint, although long contracted, quickly straightened, he gladly obtained. the contracted In a like manner too a certain woman of Gtraspraysen, deprived of the use of her hands by dryness of humors or contraction of the nerves, the name of the Saint being invoked, attained her former health. In the following time, the blind a certain girl of the Margravate of Riwenburg, e blind, came, her father accompanying her; but, rolled before the tomb of the Saint, by the supplication of the bystanders, happy she obtained sight. the demoniac Likewise a certain woman of Engelbressheim, for many years possessed, is brought by devout faithful to the monument of the Prelate; and she herself, mute, confesses the Saint in heart, whom she could not with mouth; but by the power of the Saint she is instructed, what she should speak even with voice. the one with the stone, A certain Soldier with the stone, long languishing and pale, yet, the name of the Father being invoked, so digested the stone that he felt no annoyance any more.

[29] Similarly a woman of Riemsee, f possessed, is brought; but by the merits of the aforesaid Pontiff, three Demoniacs she is quickly emancipated from the power of the demon. After this, a few months having run by, in the presence of Archbishop g Chunrad III and the Bishop of Brixen, the lesser Margrave Dietbold of Bocheburg, once foster-father of St. Eberhard, brought a woman possessed for eighteen years; and watching for her the whole night, whom he had deferred to be healed until then, for the glorification of his Saint, he obtained healed by his Lord. A certain woman of Mühldorf, vexed by a wicked spirit, was brought, but the grace of health which she sought, by the prayer of the faithful, she obtained from the Father himself the more quickly.

[30] The fame therefore of the miracles of B. Eberhard, and of the other Saints of Juvavum, being heard, as from a vehement thunderclap, the multitude of those lukewarm in charity is more quickly roused, as it were, from the sleep of incredulity. They come from remote provinces, the blind and arrive from foreign kingdoms; the lightnings of miracles rise, here to seek help, which faith did not obtain with itself. Among them, namely, a certain woman came from Bursburg, h for the sake of light, blind she seeks to experience the merits of the pious Father. While therefore she now tarries rather long at Juvavum, desirous of health, at length, from the importunity of piety,

the door is opened to her. She received the nourishment of a threefold i faith, and is so fed through faith, that she received health of body and of soul; in a wondrous manner she experiences with the eyes of the flesh that she sees, and experiences with the eyes of the heart that which she believes. She said indeed, "I saw him remaining in the flesh, but now I shall experience the power of him reigning in heaven." Happily she experienced it, because what she asked she obtained: for she came led by another, but behold she returns, showing herself her own way; and she who came sorrowing, returns glad, glorifying God in his Saints.

[31] Not long after this, two soldiers came, leading a man contracted in every limb, desiring to experience whether the power of B. Eberhard was true, the wretchedly contracted: as the report was. That sick man therefore, long since a soldier and a most wicked robber, and from incest, namely fornicating with his brother's wife, had been excommunicated by the aforesaid Prelate. When therefore he persevered thus impenitent until after death, he who could repent voluntarily and did not, was compelled by infirmity to repent unwilling. His body indeed is everywhere contracted, and as from a dry leprosy is befouled with a certain scab. The power of the pious Father being heard, therefore, he came to confess to the dead one, touched by faith, that he might please him, whom living he would not. Lo, now placed at the tomb, he offers the price of devotion: but the Saint loosed the bond of sin, and raising the contracted man, restored him whole. Behold, the voice of the people is lifted up in praise, Christ in the Saint, and the Saint in Christ is blessed, who is so wondrously propitious to the sinning sick man. ungrateful for the health received, he is again contracted: But his companions applaud the healed man, yet they withdraw themselves from his table, because he was still spotted with livid scab, yet at that very table they do not cease to commend the memory of St. Eberhard by celebrating it. But he said unhappily: "I would rather be contracted as at first, than thus, raised up, be despised by you; for if he had fully healed me, I would applaud; but now, despised, I grieve on account of this raising." O how terrible to say, on the morrow his chin is contracted down to his knee: and he who grieved to be healed, now becomes more infirm than usual. O wondrous verdict of the Shepherd! the dead one looses mortal bonds, the soul looses the bond of the body, the sheep experiences the power of the Shepherd. Let the subject condition therefore learn not to provoke the Shepherd, let it learn not to be ensnared by the bond of sin; lest, if death be at hand, all propitiation be absent.

[32] A certain woman of Ensee, leaving her lawful husband, joins herself to a minstrel for vice, an adulteress seized by a demon is freed, wishing to foster an insatiable appetite. Coming therefore to Juvavum lasciviously, she chatters like a fool, and jests like a harlot, forgetting that she defiles the lawful covenant. At length she approaches the tomb of B. Eberhard, and elated offers things prepared with gloves, but she is struck by divine vengeance, and becomes possessed. She searches out her usual sports of justice, blasphemes like a chatterer, rolls herself here and there into the air, in whatever way she was thus vexed by the demon, possessed. She is led out therefore and dragged into the temple, and by the Clergy standing around the demon is exorcized; and the woman confesses her sins lest she perish; and promising to amend, freed, she glorifies God.

[33] Let Christ therefore be praised in the Saint, let the Saint be praised in Christ, Epilogue. who so dispenses that the infirm labor; that the health restored to them they may ascribe to the merits of his Saints and to his power: for whatever is done through the Saints, God does in them: whence is that: "Without me you can do nothing": for he works all in all, dividing to individuals as he wills. For the Lord is powerful over all, and does these things to glorify the Saint, and to make known to us his power, saying through the Prophet: "See that I am alone, and there is no other God besides me." Deut. 32. For he shakes out Pharaoh and his power in the Red Sea. Who is this Pharaoh, but the devil, who is the King of Egypt, that is, of darkness? He indeed exterminates whom he can, that is, leads beyond the borders of the country and kills. What is his power, but the strong tumult of his temptations? What is the Red Sea, but martyrdom, or the sacrament of Christ's passion? For as Pharaoh with his army is submerged in the Red Sea, so the devil and his vices are convicted by the passion of Christ and of his Saints. And therefore God is glorious in his Saints, wonderful in his Majesty; terrible and praiseworthy, and doing wonders alone. And these things he does to the praise and glory of his name, who is blessed for the ages, Amen.

ANNOTATIONS BY D. P.