CONCERNING S. ERICUS OR ERRICUS,
A MONK OF AUXERRE IN GAUL.
ABOUT 924.
THE COMMENTARY OF JOHN BOLLANDUS.
Ericus, Monk of Auxerre in Gaul (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR I. B.
§. I. The birthday, age, and profession of S. Eric.
The name of S. Heiri is recorded in the Ecclesiastical registers on the 8th of the Kalends of July, whom we have learned to be that Ericus, of whom there exist two books on the miracles of S. Germanus, and other things concerning which below. The name and birthday of S. Eric, Some call him Erricus, many Herricus, some Henricus. The book of Sigebert On the Ecclesiastical Writers, which Suffridus Petrus used, written by hand, received from Vroenhof, has Firicum; the manuscripts of Geertruidenberg and Affligem cited by him, Liricum; both faultily. The name of Erricus you may rightly derive from the Teutonic etymon Er or eer, which signifies honor, and ryck, which signifies rich; so that it sounds "abounding in honor." Concerning him the Carthusians of Cologne, in the Additions to Usuard: At Auxerre, of Heyri the Confessor. The manuscript Florarium: Likewise of Heri a most learned man. Molanus in the Additions to Usuard: At Auxerre, of S. Heiri a most holy man. Ferrarius: At Auxerre, of S. Heiri the Confessor. Andreas Saussay in the Gallican Martyrology: Likewise in the same place (Auxerre) of S. Heiri, a man of great virtues.
[2] He was, as he often indicates in his writings, a Monk of Auxerre, in the famous monastery of S. Germanus. Now Auxerre, or, as some call it by an ancient name, Autricum, is a city of the Senones in Gaul. his country, That Ericus was sprung from the same region of the Senones seems to be signified in the Preface to the Miracles of S. Germanus, in these words: For wisdom being offended, which is to be sought for its own sake alone, by the base gains of some, the undisciplined life of many, and lastly the dishonorable sloth of all who sought it tepidly, a lack of teachers intervening, and the studies of the former being almost collapsed; she, having destructively hated this our region, set up for herself for a while at Lyons a familiar consistory. Although those words "our region" can be understood both of habitation, especially long-lasting, and of birth or the place of nativity.
[3] He lived in the ninth Christian century, inasmuch as he dedicated a metrical Life of S. Germanus to Charles the Bald the Emperor. his age, The Bald ruled from the death of his father Ludovicus, which happened on the 20th of June in the year 840, having taken Westria, or Western France, then also Aquitaine from the sons of his brother, up to the year 875, in which, Ludovicus II the Emperor, son of Lothair, being dead, he himself was crowned Augustus at Rome by Pope John VIII on the day of the Lord's Nativity, but died in the year of Christ 875, on the 7th of October. In these two last years of his life therefore there was published by Eric, and dedicated to him, the Life of S. Germanus, described in heroic verse. This is plain from the beginning of the dedication, which is thus: The dedicatory Epistle of the Author to Charles the King, at once also the most excellent Emperor. To the predestined of immortal scepters, and the most excellent of all Kings, Charles, perpetual triumpher and ever Augustus, Hericus the least of the cenobites, present and perpetual felicity in the Lord.
[4] But Eric at that time was in the thirty-second year of his age. He testifies it toward the end of book 6 of the Life of S. Germanus.
Lo, three decades now turn my wretched life, A second year is added to these with the swelling age, And I recall that I have never done anything of good.
He seems therefore to have been born about the year 843. When he was seven years old, he was offered by his parents to S. Germanus, and educated in his monastery in letters and piety. his monastic life, Which he himself in the same book 6 thus commemorates.
Many things gave me courage, the love and reverence of the Saint, Very much matter; then, besides the rest, that A mind conscious of things admonished me that I owed to the man, And owed too much. As a boy of nearly seven years My parents enrolled me in the services of the Saint, Both poor of sense, and unarmed of cautious reason. Tenderly, pitying, he received the tender nursling, Tenderly nourished, gave coverings, prepared cherishings, Advanced him in body, then enlarged him in his senses, A lively heart bestowed upon a difficult art; benefits received from S. Germanus. He drove away languors, subdued all dangers, The absent he helped with prayers, the present with his name; He conferred every good, restrained every misfortune. Should this one go unpraised in our songs?
§. II. The writings of S. Eric.
[5] Concerning the writings of Eric Sigebert hands down these things, in his book on the Ecclesiastical writers, chapter 105: The metrical Life of S. Germanus, Ericus the monk described in metrical style splendidly in six little books the life of Germanus, Bishop of Auxerre. On what occasion he undertook that work, he himself indicates in the Preface to Charles the Bald. To what end I have brought forth these things, he says, this is the cause. Lothair of divine memory, son of Your Majesty, a boy in years, a philosopher in mind, I ingenuously confess, by the disposition of mind and the wealth of skill, so that I would concede to you alone, to have been precious beyond the rest of the mortals of his age. He, because by your disposition both devoted to God, and entrusted to B. Germanus to be educated, to Lothair the son of the Emperor had conceived so much devotion toward the Saint, so much ardor toward the place, that the envious death may be deemed deservedly to have envied us his life. And since the boy was of divine genius, and supremely studious toward the knowledge of things; it happened that on one of the days, examining the hidden things of a certain book, he came upon two epistles. In one of them the most holy Aunarius, the sixth Bishop of Auxerre after B. Germanus, was suing with prayers that Stephen the African Presbyter would arrange the Life of the same most holy Father Germanus in metrical fashion. In the other the same Stephen signified by rescript that he would obey the aforesaid Pontiff. Both epistles being recited, Eric subjoins: These things having been run through with anxious reading, and at length finding by the report of those assisting that a work of this kind had never and nowhere appeared with us, he is seized with much spirit, that so great a work had been lost in vain to the knowledge of men: and for some days he was consumed with inner anguishes of mind. And at last, having summoned me, who had then recently emerged from the schools, he discloses his inward sorrow; him urging, and importunately protests that I should heal it by some means if I could, namely that I should renew what he had read once elaborated in the aforesaid Epistles; and transfer the most excellent deeds of Germanus from prose into meter, about to satisfy his desires. I was terrified (I confess) at the business; and reckoning it beyond my strength, slackening the reins, sometimes nursing the griefs which were imposed on me, I withdrew my neck, as far as I could. At last, bound by the objection of the regular Chapter, which prescribes that even impossible commands of the Abbot are by no means to be shunned; I undertook indeed, as was fitting, the command of the one ordering; although with no confidence of strength, but, as the regular institution forewarns, trusting in charity, and obedient through the help of God.
[6] I had scarcely reached the first parts of the work, and (alas, the wretched lot of the human condition!) that Abbot of mine, when he being dead, soon to be marvelous in the world, exceeding his tender limbs, deserted the world by an untimely death. This case, so mournful, so bitter, had shaken from me all studies, all cares; had not that probable opinion come to my mind, that grief is lessened by time; and that what length of time would bring, which takes away the greatest griefs by age, that we ought to anticipate by counsel and prudence. By this thought I impelled my mind, that as I had been compliant to him living, I should also obey him dead; and in favor of the deceased I set myself to apply persistence of completion to the begun work, as I could, and not against Minerva's will, I relieved my good will by the play of the Muses, completed as by the art of a certain familiar medicine. The completed work indeed it displeased me to publish, because to whom I should especially destine it, I had not sufficiently deliberated in mind. he dedicates it to her father, To me long hesitating You, most excellent Caesar, You, I say, the next heir of an intestate offspring, occurred: his goods returned to you by law. These things being withdrawn into mind, I have dared to send beforehand to Your Majesty this writing, which should commend the content of the following work by a pre-built order of reason.
[7] From which words first this is made manifest, to Charles the Bald, not the Fat; that this work was dedicated to Charles, when he was already inaugurated Caesar, after the year 875, before the end of the year 877. Secondly, that this Charles is not the Fat, who, having been created Emperor in the year 880, died in 888; but the Bald, whose son that Lothair was. This is plain from the same Preface, where Eric thus addresses Charles: Many are the monuments of your clemency, many the tokens of piety: that especially prepares for you eternal memory, that you not only equally represent the zeal of your most famous grandfather Charles toward the immortal disciplines, but even surpass it with incomparable fervor. But Charles was the grandfather of the Bald, not the Fat. For he had as father Ludovicus the Pious, and as grandfather Charlemagne. But the Fat had as father Ludovicus the German, as grandfather Ludovicus the Pious, as great-grandfather Charlemagne.
[8] But the son of the Bald, Lothair, died in the year of Christ 866. S. Ado Bishop of Vienne testifies it, who lived in the same age, before the death of Lothair, which happened in the year 866 writing thus in his Chronicle concerning the children of Charles the Bald: He from Queen Ermentrude received four sons, Ludovicus, Charles, Carloman, and Lothair: but Lothair, a boy of good disposition, was snatched away by an untimely death. Charles too, a man of fairly honest form, a youth already established King of the Aquitanians, troubled and dishonored first by an adverse injury, dies. In the year therefore of the Lord's Incarnation 866, the same Charles son of Ludovicus reigning, two of his sons, as has been said, die, Lothair the Abbot and Charles King of the Aquitanians. But that the work was begun by Eric while he survived, is plain from the Preface of the first book, where these things are read.
To prepare the title of praise for Germanus The matter urges, love constrains The wondrous love in you, boy Lothair, begun; To whom it would not be right to deny anything, Not the mouth, not the mind, nor certainly those things Which are friendly to fair offices.
[9] Eric composed another work, on the miracles of S. Germanus; of which he thus makes mention in the same Preface to the metrical Life addressed to Charles the Bald the Emperor: He wrote the miracles of S. Germanus in 2 books, I have finished besides, he says, from the miracles
of the most excellent Germanus another little work, distinguished into two books; in which, because mention both of your name and of your time is more frequently made, I have nonetheless preferred it to be dedicated to your Highness. Receive this too, and conceive toward Germanus that reverence of mind which befits indeed Royal Majesty. And these books indeed, the two of miracles, and those six composed in meter, we shall give on the 31st of July on which S. Germanus is honored. The former Philippus Labbe published in the new Library of manuscript books.
[10] Some other writings of Eric Trithemius recounts in his book on the Ecclesiastical writers. and other works: Ericus the monk, he says, of the Order of S. Benedict, of the monastery of the city of Auxerre, a man learned in the divine Scriptures, and most erudite in the disciplines of secular letters, excelling in verse and prose, in declaiming homilies to the people, was an excellent Doctor. He wrote in meter splendidly the Life of Germanus of Auxerre in six books. One book of Homilies to the people. Several Sermons and Epistles. He composed also many other things in both styles, which have not come to my knowledge. He flourished about the times of Charles the Fat the Emperor, in the year of the Lord 880.
[11] But our Possevinus, when he had related concerning Eric what has already been recited from Sigebert; but the Life of S. Alban the Martyr again below under the letter H writes these things: Henricus the Gaul, a monk of S. Benedict, of the Congregation of Luxeuil, who lived in the time of Charles the Bald the Emperor, wrote concerning the Life of S. Alban the Martyr verses, which are adduced by Renatus Benedictus in the Lives of the Saints of Gaul, translated into the Gallic tongue. But neither in the Lives of the Saints of Gaul does Renatus recite those verses, but in the Gallic history of the life, death, passion, and miracles of the Saints, whose feast and memory the Catholic Church chiefly celebrates throughout the Christian world. Nor does either Renatus himself hand down, or have I read elsewhere, that the monastery of Auxerre, of which Eric was an alumnus, was of the Congregation of Luxeuil. The words of Renatus from the French are these: A Compendium of the Life of S. Alban paraphrastically expressed from 28 Latin verses, at the beginning of book IV of the Life of S. Germanus of Auxerre, written by F. Henricus of the Order of S. Benedict, in the times of Charles II, surnamed the Bald, Emperor and King of France, about the years 734. He subjoins a single Latin verse.
A just sentence drove the returning Fathers, etc. Then in 48 Gallic hexameter verses he commemorates what was done at the sepulchre of S. Alban by SS. Germanus and Lupus the Bishops. in book 4 of the Life of S. Germanus, Thus Eric begins the fourth book of the Life of S. Germanus, after the Preface of the other expressed in fearful song.
Happy constancy had laid low the unspeakable pestilence, Striving for God, and faith forged of pure serenity, Kindled the breasts of all with chaste flames: A just sentence drove the returning Fathers To surround with vows the sepulchre of Alban the Martyr. He protects his Britons by his merits and prayers, Having suffered a thousand punishments for the name of Christ, etc.
This Henricus therefore is no other than Eric, not separately. nor did he write anything separately concerning the Martyrdom of S. Alban, as Possevinus seems to have thought. Henricus also and Ericus Claudius Robertus calls him, in the Gallia Christiana, in the Catalogue of the Bishops of Auxerre.
[12] In the Catalogue of the witnesses of truth of Guilielmus Eysengrenius, edited about the year 1565, concerning Eric these things are had: 691 years ago, which was the year of Christ 874, Ericus, a monk of Auxerre of the Benedictine institute, chaplain to Wallo the Bishop, a man famous for doctrine and eloquence, a Poet, Orator, and Theologian the most celebrated of his age, comprised the Life of S. Germanus Bishop of Auxerre in six books. Familiar to Wallo the Bishop, an outstanding man: Furthermore Homilies, Sermons, and several most learned Epistles he left. That Eric was chaplain to Wallo, or Wala the Bishop, as Eysengrenius writes, that he was certainly dear to him can be conjectured from the Chronicle of the Monk of Auxerre, where concerning him these things are read: In the Church of Auxerre to Christianus succeeded Wallo, brother of the aforesaid Archbishop Ansegisus, a man famous for knowledge, and adorned in manners. His zeal was to embrace charitably the Masters of letters, and to use their conversations and counsels, and to share his table. The treasure of the Church, as if it were sacrilege, he avoided to touch. Silver or golden gifts, and most excellent palls, he conferred on holy Stephen. In all company and in secret he used the presence of his Clerics, not enduring to hear or speak anything sinister of them, using the common proverb: Let not Laymen know, what Clerics do; and, Let equals be associated with equals.
[13] As for the Sermons of Eric, there exist in the book which is entitled the Homilies of the Doctors, he wrote also homilies, which exist. very many elegant homilies of Eric on the Gospels of various feasts and Sundays. That several Epistles were written by him, as Trithemius wills, and after him Eysengrenius and Gesner, can be doubtful. Whether they exist, is not clear to me.
§. III. The piety and deeds of S. Eric.
[14] Eric everywhere reveals his own piety in his writings. I bring forward one passage, from the Preface to Charles the Emperor: I have finished besides, he says, from the miracles of the most excellent Germanus a little work, etc., as above in number 9, and he subjoins: And although it is the part of the crafty, What does Eric regard in his writings? to refer all things to his own utility; in this, however, and for this labor, great as it is, I seek rather the praise of blessed Germanus, than favor for my own person. Whom how much I esteem you can easily perceive, if you run over in order the tenor of our song. The interest of so long a sweat therefore I greatly desire to gain, that God may be glorified in the miracles, who wished to be admirable in the Saints; that to the most holy Germanus on earth veneration and glory may grow, who obtained this in the heavens by the increase of good works; that edification may be acquired for readers, peace for believers, salvation for imitators, immortality for those persevering in faith: with which that you may forever be strong both we wish and tirelessly pray, greatest of Kings, perpetual Triumpher and ever Augustus.
[15] What business, besides these literary lucubrations, he managed, what deeds Eric performed, I have found handed down in writing by no one. He stayed at Soissons: He himself testifies in the former book of the Miracles of S. Germanus, that at Soissons he once stayed in a monastery, as I suppose, of S. Medardus the most celebrated; whether for the sake of studies, or to manage some business there of his monastery, or for some other cause, he does not reveal. But he commemorates what prodigy then befell him by the help of S. Germanus, to whose service he had wholly devoted himself: On the day before the Kalends of August, he says, the passing of B. Germanus was being celebrated at the city of Soissons with fervent homage. there, while he hastens to the church of S. Germanus, about to sing Vespers, And when from day to evening the celebration of divine praise, both in the urban and also in the suburban churches and monasteries, had been carried out; an anxious thought came upon me, to hasten, the Aisne being crossed, to the aforesaid basilica, lest perchance (which I was reckoning in mind) by the departure of the Presbyter the evening offices should be wanting in that place. Having taken therefore some Brothers, I anxiously hastened. And now as we were entering the atrium of the church, the bells gave their wonted sound. With a course quickened more sharply we approached the door, the bells ring of their own accord, which indeed we found closed, but by no means bolted. Scarcely had we set foot on the threshold, and now the bells had ceased to be struck. Casting our eyes hither and thither, we saw no one in the church. There was no door through which anyone could slip out. struck by no mortal; Entering the house of the Priest with the greatest speed, and diligently searching all things, we perceived no person, all things empty. The Presbyter with all his men, as he afterward professed, having left the house empty, had long since departed into the city to dine. And when I turned the matter over silently with myself, it was conjectured by all, that to blessed Germanus the divine homage in the evening had not been wanting, which by all openly seemed to have been neglected. The Office being finished, we departed cheerful, the lights being arranged for the night, and the doors of the church more diligently secured. And although my mind, conscious of the miracle, applauded in the inmost recesses of the inner man; yet I preferred the heavenly portent to be published by others proclaiming it, lest perchance I be made suspect to anyone, that being the peculiar bondman of B. Germanus, and for the sake of multiplying favor I wished to affect greater things from lesser.
[16] These things he. And perhaps no less to his piety, than to the honor of the holy Bishop, perhaps by the merits of Eric himself. was that portent expended divinely. But what and how great that church situated by the river Aisne was in celebrated religion, the same had set forth a little before; In the suburb of Soissons, he says, the church of B. Germanus stands out, which opinion, conscious of antiquity, reports to have been once constructed by twelve most famous merchants of the world: who, since passing diligently from realms to realms, on account of the water of the Aisne pitched their tents more frequently, decreed to set up a monument of their frequenting in that place, that, expenses being collected, they might build B. Germanus a basilica, by whose merit and prayers amid the dangers of lands and sea they trusted that they especially could be protected. Concerning the sanctity of that place very many things are ascertained, which the brevity of the little work does not allow to set forth. Thus far there: and thus far, without a word added or changed, Bollandus, of blessed memory, by I know not what occasion anticipated to compose, we rejoicing, if from time to time we make something revive in pursuing that work which he so happily began.