CONCERNING ST. SUITBERT, BISHOP, APOSTLE OF THE FRISIANS AND BORUCTUARI, AT KAISERSWERTH ON THE RHINE,
IN THE YEAR OF CHRIST 713.
Historical Commentary.
was made in the province of Lindsey, and governed the Church most nobly for a long time. These, therefore, while they were in the monastery which in the language of the Scots is called Rathmelsigi, and all their companions had been either snatched from the world by mortality or dispersed through other places, both were seized by the disease of the same mortality, seized, and most gravely afflicted. Of these, Egbert (as a most truthful and venerable white-haired Priest related to me, who said that he had heard these things from Egbert himself), thinking he was going to die, went out in the morning from the room in which the sick were resting, and sitting alone in a suitable place, began diligently to reflect upon his deeds: and pricked with the memory of his sins, he washed his face with tears, and from the depths of his heart besought God he asks God for time for penance that he should not yet have to die before he had more perfectly chastened in time his past negligences which he had committed in boyhood or childhood, and had exercised himself more abundantly in good works. He also made a vow that he wished to live as a pilgrim from God, so that he would never return to the island in which he was born, that is, Britain; with arduous vows added: that besides the solemn psalmody of the canonical hours (if bodily weakness did not prevent it), he would daily chant the entire psalter in memory of divine praise; that in every week he would pass one day with its night fasting.
[4] When, his tears, prayers, and vows finished, he returned home, he found his companion sleeping; and he himself also, climbing into bed, began to relax his limbs in rest. And when he had rested a little, from his companion, instructed in a dream, he learns he has been heard: his companion, waking up, looked at him and said: O brother Egbert, O what have you done? I hoped that we would enter together into eternal life: but know that you will receive what you asked for. For he had learned through a vision both what Egbert had asked and that he had obtained his requests. What more? Aethelhun himself died the following night. But Egbert, having shaken off the trouble of his illness, recovered, and living a long time afterward, adorning the grade of priesthood he had received with worthy deeds, after many gifts of virtues, as he himself desired, he recently (that is, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 729), when he was himself ninety years old, migrated to the heavenly kingdoms. He led his life, moreover, in great perfection of humility, gentleness, continence, simplicity, and justice. He lives most holily thereafter, Whence he greatly benefited both his own nation and those nations of the Scots or Picts among whom he lived in exile, both by the example of his living and by the diligence of his teaching and the authority of his correcting and the piety of his generosity from the things he had received from the wealthy. He added to the vows which we have mentioned that he would always in Lent be refreshed no more than once a day, tasting nothing other than bread and very thin milk, and that with measure. Which milk he was accustomed to place fresh the day before in a vessel, he observes three Lents each year: and after the night, the thicker surface having been removed, he himself drank the remainder with a little bread, as we have said. He also always took care to observe this manner of abstinence also for the forty days before the Lord's Nativity, and likewise after the completed solemnities of Pentecost, that is, of Quinquagesima.
[5] So far Bede on the virtues of St. Egbert. But concerning his zeal for illuminating the Germanic nations, still blinded by pagan errors, with the light of the Gospel, the same author writes in book 5, chapter 10, concerning Victbert sent to the Frisians: At that time, the venerable and with all honor to be named servant of Christ and Priest Egbert he thinks of going to the pagans in Germany to convert them: (whom we reported was leading a pilgrim life on the island of Ireland, to obtain his homeland in heaven) resolved in his mind to be of benefit to many more, that is, having undertaken an apostolic work, to commit the word of God by evangelizing to some of those nations which had not yet heard it. He knew there were very many nations in Germany from which the Angles, or Saxons, who now inhabit Britain, are known to have drawn their race and origin; whence to this day they are corruptly called Germans by the neighboring nation of the Britons. These are the Frisians, Rugians, Danes, Huns, Old Saxons, and Boructuari. There are also many other peoples
are contained, which indeed are nearer to the English, among whom Bede was writing, than the rest of Frisia beyond Lake Flevum may be; or certainly the nearer Frisia is that tract of Brabant, Guelders, and Cisrhenish Cleves that extends around the Meuse and the Waal, which perhaps the Frisians had held after tearing it from the kingdom of France. To this effect, the Annals of Metz, published by Chesne in volume 3 of the Frankish writers, relate that the Blessed Duke Pippin the Elder, grandfather of this one, governed with just laws the people dwelling within vast boundaries between the Carbonarian Forest and the river Meuse and as far as the borders of the Frisians. That Frisia, therefore, which was nearer to the Gauls, was the one that extended to the river Meuse; but to the English, it was what is now Holland. But if anything more concerning these matters seems to need investigation, it can be done on November 7, where we shall treat more fully of St. Willibrord.
[8] Concerning St. Suitbert, Bede records the following in book 5, chapter 12: At which time (when, having received permission to preach in the said regions of Hither Frisia from Prince Pippin, as he had previously narrated, Willibrord was directing his journey to Rome to Pope Sergius), the Brothers who were in Frisia, devoted to the ministry of the word, chose from their number a man modest in character and gentle in heart, Suitbert, that he might be ordained as their Bishop. He was sent to Britain and, at their request, was ordained by the most reverend Bishop Wilfrid, St. Suitbert is ordained Bishop in Britain by St. Wilfrid, who at that time, having been expelled from his homeland, was living in exile in the regions of Mercia. For at that time Kent did not have a Bishop, since Theodore had indeed died, but Berchtwald his successor, who had gone overseas to be ordained, had not yet returned to the see of his bishopric. St. Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, died, as the same Bede writes in book 5, chapter 8, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 690, old and full of days, that is, eighty-eight years old. Concerning whom more will be said on his birthday, which is September 19. He was succeeded, as the same Bede records in book 5, chapter 9, by Berhtwald, or Brithwald, who was indeed elected in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 692, on July 1 ... and was ordained the following year, on the third day before the Kalends of July, in the year 693 a Sunday, by Godwin the Metropolitan Bishop of Gaul, and took his seat on the day before the Kalends of September, a Sunday. Which chronological markers fit correctly, since the Dominical Letter was then E. In the same year, therefore, before Berhtwald returned to Britain, St. Suitbert was ordained.
[9] Bede continues in chapter 12: Suitbert, indeed, having received the episcopate, returning from Britain, not long afterward withdrew to the nation of the Boructuari, from the Boructuari he converts many: and led many of them by his preaching to the way of truth. But when the Boructuari were conquered not long afterward by the nation of the Old Saxons, those who had received the word were dispersed in every direction: and the Bishop himself with some,
three months; after him, the Priest Liudger for three months; then in the winter, the Priest Thiadbracht for three months. Liudger, therefore, in the order of his turn, at nighttime, after the psalmody and special prayers which he had always loved, in the upper room of the church of the Holy Savior which St. Willibrord had built, was accustomed to lay his limbs to rest. There, one night the venerable Abbot Gregory appeared to him in a vision, and what was said to him in it by St. Gregory, saying: Brother Liudger, follow me. While he was following him, he himself ascended to a higher place and cast before him, piece by piece, as it were parts of parchment and vestments, and said: Gather these into heaps. And when he had gathered them into three piles, he said to him: Distribute these well in the work of the Lord, and I will give you plenty. And he signed him with the seal of the Cross and departed. When in the morning he had related the dream to the Provost of the monastery, named Haddo, and to the guardian of the church, Marchelm, distinguished for holiness, of whom I made mention above, Marchelm immediately, and the subsequent outcome of events confirmed it, began to speak, saying: The three piles which you gathered are the governances of three peoples, over which you must still preside in pastoral rule. he interprets it as the governance of three peoples to be entrusted to him; But Liudger said: Would that I might bring forth some fruit for the Lord in the place entrusted to me. The other Life of Ludger has the same in chapter 3, with the phrasing somewhat varied, and adds: But whether Marchelm said this by conjecture or by foreknowledge, all things turned out just as he had said. And the third Life: When Liudger had related the dream to him in the morning, whether from the conjecture of human reason or (which is more credible) from the manifestation of divine inspiration, he interpreted it thus, as the subsequent outcome of events proved.
[13] But to what end have these things been repeated so deeply and at length? First, so that it may be clearly evident that St. Marchelm and Marcellinus are the same person: then so that it may be established that he predicted these things at Utrecht, and that at Utrecht, before a single witness, and indeed privately, with no witness besides Ludger himself, except Haddo the Provost. Whence the imposture of the one who fabricated the Letter on the Canonization of St. Suitbert under the name of St. Ludger himself is perceived, in whose opening he has these words: He (Marcellinus) publicly, in the village of Dokkum, before Haddo, Thrauburg, Henry, Gerard, Ono, and Adalger, and other Brothers, predicted and foretold that I would be raised to the honor of the Episcopate and would minister the words of life to unlearned peoples. This dream occurred, and its interpretation, when Ludger was Pastor of the Church of Ostrachum in Frisia and Rector of the monastery and school at Utrecht, one or two years after he had been initiated into the priesthood, which we shall show elsewhere was done in the year 778: in the year 780 or 781, so that it may be surmised that this happened around the year 780 or 781; for in the year 784 he was expelled from Frisia and made his way to Rome, and from there to Monte Cassino. But since this Pseudo-Marcellinus, the author of the Life of St. Suitbert,
the endurance of adversities and of chains and prison, and the approval of the Supreme Pontiff and the entire Roman Curia, and his zeal for propagating religion, made him more illustrious. Those things showed Acca's hope of a better purpose. If he had come with St. Suitbert from Frisia to Wilfrid and then remained with him at that time, having deserted the Apostolic task which they claim he had undertaken together with Suitbert and Willibrord, what better purpose could that have appeared to be? We do not deny, however, that Acca came at some time to the regions of Frisia, at least the nearer parts, and stayed with St. Willibrord, but with the same Wilfrid, on his last Roman journey, as I believe. Bede testifies to this in book 3, chapter 13, with these words: Finally, the most reverend Bishop Acca used to relate that when, going to Rome, he was staying with his Bishop Wilfrid at the most holy Willibrord, Bishop of the Frisian nation, [from St. Willibrord he learned the miracles of St. Oswald, which he narrated to Bede:] he frequently heard him narrate the wonderful things which had been done in that province at the relics of the same most reverend King (Oswald). And he reported that in Ireland, when he was still a Priest leading a pilgrim life for the sake of his eternal homeland, the fame of his holiness had already spread far and wide in that island as well. From these, one miracle among others which he related we have deemed should be inserted into our present history. So says Bede. We shall say more about St. Acca on October 20; venerated on October 20, where we shall also refute what Marcellinus here fabricated, that St. Acca was consecrated Bishop of the Church of Hexham, or Lindisfarne, by St. Wilfrid. He did indeed become Bishop of Hexham about eighteen years later, but after Wilfrid's death. Nor, as he says, was he made Bishop of the Church of Hexham or Lindisfarne, as if they were one and the same Church. Indeed, both St. Wilfrid and St. Eata once held both simultaneously: but afterward they were separated, and were also previously considered different Churches, even though governed by a single Bishop.
[17] We reported above in number 6 that Wigbert, when he was distinguished for contempt of the world and knowledge of doctrine (for he had led the anchoretic life in great perfection for many years as a pilgrim in Ireland), after Egbert the Priest had been divinely restrained from that expedition, came to Frisia and preached there for two years, with no fruit. Wherefore, having returned to the place of his beloved pilgrimage, Wigbert is added by the author to the companions of St. Willibrord, serving the Lord in customary silence,
August 14, on which he departed this life, as John of Leyden records in book 2, chapter 42. But Pseudo-Marcellinus places his death on September 13. The last of St. Willibrord's companions to be mentioned is St. Adalbert, whose Life was written at Trier in the monastery of Mettlach around the year 990, St. Adalbert the Deacon. when St. Egbert, son of the Count of Holland, was Archbishop there, and has nothing that contradicts Bede's narrative. There exists, however, another shorter one composed by some Egmond monk, which relates that he was sent to Frisia by St. Egbert, Bishop of the Northumbrians, with St. Willibrord and ten other companions, of whom it names only Suitbert and the two Ewalds. That author seems to have been a prelude to the forged Marcellinus: he says he was the son of the King of Deira and had given up his royal patrimony for Christ; nothing of the sort is found in the earlier Life. More about him on June 25. We have, therefore, as companions of St. Willibrord: St. Suitbert and St. Adalbert; St. Werenfrid, uncertain whether only a disciple or a companion from the beginning; St. Marchelm, a disciple of St. Willibrord in boyhood, then of St. Gregory. Where then shall we track down the remaining eight or nine? Indeed no certain reason or plan has thus far occurred to us. It once seemed to us quite probable that Tilmon, or Tilmann, St. Tilmon or Tilmann, to whom the bodies of the Saints Ewald were revealed, was one of the companions of St. Willibrord. He is called Tilmon in most copies of Bede; in another manuscript, which Abraham Wheloc used in the Cambridge edition, he is Tilmannus; in the Saxon paraphrase of King Alfred, Tilman.
Section IV. Other errors of the same writer concerning Saints Columban, Caedwalla, Judoc, Winnoc, Aidan, Wiro, Plechelm, and others.
[21] Lest a more lengthy disputation should disgust the readers, I shall briefly gather together, as it were in a heap, those things scattered here and there by this writer — not so much errors rashly sprinkled on history, as things uselessly and idly sewn together, as if to obscure the splendor of truth. Pseudo-Marcelline errors accumulated. Nor shall I diligently seek out everything, but I shall excerpt the chief points, and note each as it occurs, without any care for order. But to pass over the fact that he almost perpetually uses England for Britain, as we do now, or at least calls any inhabitants of Britain of Germanic origin English — because most of the apostolic men he treats of were of English origin, and Bede himself, also born of English parents, entitled his five books the Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation, in which he recounts the course of approximately 140 years
Bishop, not in the province of the Deirans, nor was St. Plechelm of Candida Casa; which lies between the river Tyne and the Humber estuary, then subject to the Bishop of York. St. Plechelm also was a Scot, and a Bishop in Scotland, not of Massa Candida — I have never read of a bishopric of such a name anywhere in the world — nor of Candida Casa, or Whithorn, where Bede records that in the year 731, when he completed his history, Pechthelm was Bishop. This latter, however, was an Englishman, a learned man, a disciple of St. Aldhelm, who is also read to have sometimes been consulted by letter by St. Boniface. But St. Plechelm was considerably older than him, to whom, as also to St. Wiro (with whom he long labored in the care of the salvation of souls in Gallia Belgica), Duke Pippin was accustomed to confess his sins, who were both confessors of Duke Pippin. and for that reason he would go of his own accord to them on Mount St. Peter, which is now called Mount St. Odilia, especially during the time of Lent. We shall treat of St. Wiro on May 8, of St. Plechelm on July 15, and of St. Otger the Deacon, their companion in apostolic labors, on September 10. Concerning the confession or penance of Pippin, some things will be said below.
[29] How confusedly and in what disorder he writes about Saints Livin and Lebuin! In the preface to St. Gregory, Administrator of the Bishopric of Utrecht, he speaks thus: You who sent me to Deventer and to the pagan Transiselan nation, nor was that name then in use for Deventer, with my beloved fellow brother and countryman Livin the Priest. First, I do not believe the place was called Deventer, but Daventre, even long afterward. Still less was the nation called Transiselan, but the district of the Yssel, nor the Transiselan nation, as will be evident on March 26 in the Life of St. Ludger. Nor was St. Livin his countryman, that is, an Englishman, but a Scot; nor was he given as a companion to St. Marchelm, or Marcellinus, by St. Gregory; but Marchelm himself was ordered to lead St. Lebuin to the places neighboring the Yssel, as is narrated in the Lives of St. Ludger and St. Lebuin. But this error — that Livin is said where it should be Lebuin — can be imputed to a copyist; [Saints Livin the Bishop and Martyr and Lebuin the Priest are not rightly confused with each other by the author.] and likewise the one where in chapter 14 it is said that Lebuin attained the pontificate. But the error that follows in the same place cannot be attributed to a copyist's carelessness: when among the Apostolic Pontiffs and outstanding Canon preachers who at that time were in the same primitive Church of Utrecht with Saints Suitbert, Winfrid, and others, it is thus recorded: Lebuin, having attained the pontificate, was crowned with martyrdom near Ghent. This surely must be understood of St. Livin, or Livinus; for Lebuin died a natural death, and
he intrudes as Archbishop. Having lived there holily for two years, he was elected, says our author, as Abbot of the monastery called Dacre: which monastery received its surname from the river Dacre, and in the year 680 Abbot of Dacre in Cumbria. upon whose bank it stands, built to this day. This monastery was in Cumbria, situated near the bank of the river Ituna, commonly called the Eden, at the rivulet Dacre, where now stands Dacre castle, as Camden testifies. But lest anyone should ask here how Cambrian monks could have elected an Englishman as their Abbot, the writer pronounces that he governed that monastery in place of an Abbot by command of Archbishop St. Egbert for about one year.
[34] Then in chapter 5 he relates that St. Wilfrid, Bishop of Lindisfarne or Hexham, then of Mercia, and finally Archbishop of York, arrived in Frisia in the year 687, while heading for Rome, and imbued many there with the religion of Christ. St. Wilfrid did not arrive in Frisia in the year 687, but 679. We showed above that this happened in the year 679, and that he was then Bishop of York and of the whole kingdom of Northumbria, not Archbishop; nor was it known to anyone that Egbert was then Archbishop — whom the author nevertheless says wished to go to Frisia and Saxony with most of his Priests, to lead them to the knowledge of the faith by preaching. Thus what Bede had written about St. Egbert the Priest, the author himself transferred to Archbishop Egbert, who was not yet born. I pass over in silence the fact that he writes that all those people propagated from Frisian and Saxon stock were in England; since we have shown above from Bede what nation those who were properly called English were descended from. There are also very many other things which we dare not embrace as solid and true, nor do we care to convict as false and vain: let others judge concerning these. One thing here
had preached in Dacia. The names Lotharingia and Dacia for Denmark are anachronistically used. But he betrays himself by his own words, while he continually uses names of provinces unknown in the age in which he feigns to have lived: for the name Lotharingia was never heard before the times of the grandchildren of Louis the Pious. And the name Dacia was not used for Denmark even in many later centuries, but for the province neighboring Pannonia, adjacent to the river Danube. Nor did they go to this latter, but to Denmark — St. Willibrord did. How truthfully he boasts of governing the places situated on the river Yssel, and of having gained nearly the whole people for Christ by preaching, and of having purged them from the worship of idolatry, may be perceived from the Life of St. Ludger, where St. Lebuin is chiefly said to have preached at the Yssel, being himself — as we are firmly persuaded — greater in age and authority than Marchelm, even though brought there by him at the command of St. Gregory. Nor even after his death was there lacking work in which St. Ludger, in the time of St. Albric, might sweat to establish the Christian cause there. What, finally, is this that he writes in the same chapter 14 about the Holy Martyr Ewalds? What is Nabia? Entering Nabia, he says, they confessed Christ by preaching: and ascending from there into Saxony, they were crowned with glorious martyrdom. What is that Nabia which the Saints entered? There is mention of Nabalia in Tacitus, book 5 of the Histories, near the end, where Civilis is narrated to have entered into talks with the Romans thus: A conference having been sought, the bridge of the river Nabalia is cut. Many learned men dispute much about Nabalia, nor do they sufficiently unravel the matter, while some, by a not very probable conjecture, interpret it as the river Waal; others as the Yssel; others as another river further from the lands of the Batavians; some, perhaps more correctly, hold it to be some place adjacent to the Rhine, with a bridge thrown across it there; while some honestly confess that the matter is by no means clear to them. Our writer makes the obscure question more involved, by changing the word Nabalia
to such an extent that the donations made to pious places in his last years are signed with both names. This may be seen in the document of donation and exchange made to the Church of St. Viton at Verdun, a part of which, from Wassenberg and Labbé, we have cited in our book 3, On the Three Dagoberts, chapter 2, Donations made by both in the year 705, page 159. Furthermore, as is there added: This exchange was made on the 13th day before the Kalends of February, in the 7th year of the reign of our Lord King Childebert. I, Hardricius, at the command of Lord Pippin and his illustrious matron Plectrude, wrote and subscribed this charter. Therefore, at least in the year 705, when this exchange was made and written, Pippin and Plectrude were living together, when Charles (who was afterward surnamed Martel, or the Hammer, from his deeds brilliantly accomplished against various enemies) was already about ten years old. They were likewise living together in the year 708, as is evident from the Acts of the Holy Fathers of Fontenelle, chapter 2, where it is read that the most glorious Duke Pippin, together with his noble wife Plectrude, built the monastery of Fleury, which is situated in the district of the Vexin, in the ninth year of Childebert, which was the twenty-third year of his Exarchate, 708, and the 708th of the Lord's Incarnation. Likewise in the year 709, or the following year, a charter of donation was given to the monastery of Echternach, over which St. Willibrord presided, made simultaneously by both those spouses; which charter is found in book 2, On the Three Dagoberts, chapter 11, previously cited by our Brower from a manuscript of Theodoric of Echternach, book 7 of the Annals of Trier, page 435. To which, on the 3rd day before the Ides of May, in the 12th year of the reign of our Lord Childebert, Pippin and Plectrude, 709, likewise Chudbert, Bernarius... subscribed. Is it not now sufficiently clear that Pippin did not divorce Plectrude, who arranged for documents of this kind to be drawn up by mutual consent and together
with Radbod driven from Hither Frisia. Nor do the inhabitants of the villa of Jupille call him otherwise than King Pippin: when I once passed through there and inquired of a certain farmer where the castle had once been in that villa, he asked whether I was looking for the castle of King Pippin, and showed a place surrounded by a ditch, within which it is said to have stood. It was not possible to investigate whether it bore the marks of Pippin's age; especially since at Herstal, on this side of the Meuse, I was unable, by questioning experts, to find any trace of the old palace. I ask again whether it is credible that a Prince, good in character, as Alcuin calls him, would have so stubbornly persisted in vice in his mind — one who did not wish himself or his nation to be deprived of the holy teacher Willibrord, and who is recorded by Pseudo-Marcellinus himself to have detained St. Suitbert with him for some time, so that he might hear from him the words of life? Who would lavish many goods upon communities of pious men, with Pseudo-Marcellinus raising an unjust clamor, so that he might wash away the stains of his past life and, with the Lord granting it, reach eternal joys? Who would hold holy men in veneration, accustomed to reveal to the holy Bishop the slippery falls of human weakness, and to approach him barefoot by the grace of Confession, and to obey promptly the command of his mouth: at the beginning of Lent, to hasten for some miles with bare feet and the royal purple laid aside, to the other: and to take counsel with him how he might govern the helm of the kingdom according to the Lord's will, and increase the greatness of the holy Faith IN HIMSELF and in his subjects; and with him, having made Confession of sins and received penance, to weep over the faults contracted from human frailty. Does it seem consistent that one who felt and did these things for many years, indeed until almost the very last period of his life, should then — with two other Bishops distinguished for holiness, plainly near the end
whose title is: The Suitbertine Shield, averting the javelins hurled at the writer of the Life of St. Suitbert. I do not wish to refute a dead man more harshly, whose kindness while alive I always cultivated, and whom all learned men loved. Otherwise, the arguments he brings forward are of such a kind that whoever reads this writing of ours and is moderately versed in the more ancient records of these nations will easily perceive that the strength in that defense is by no means great. His chief argument is from the most certain tradition (as he says) of ancestors, and indeed of many centuries; which he proves by a letter of Rixfrid, Bishop of Utrecht, to St. Ludger: which itself also, and the brilliant response to it, were forged, either by the very person who falsely called himself Marcellinus, or certainly at the same time. He cites tablets drawn up by public authority in the town of Gorinchem, on October 24, 1472; from which tablets it is established that before honorable men, by Theodoric Pauli, Vice-Dean citing a paper copy that was worn and damaged nearly 200 years before, or senior Canon of the collegiate and parish church of the Blessed Martin and Vincent of the same town, a certain paper book obtained from the monastery of St. Boniface, Bishop and Martyr, at Dokkum in the parts of Frisia, was exhibited; which book indeed had suffered ruin, breakage, and tears in most of its places and pages, because of what seemed the excessive age of the same book, and, as was said, or more truly was reported, it was written and compiled by St. Marcellinus, Priest and Confessor and outstanding Preacher to the profane Frisian people, published concerning the life of the most holy and Apostolic Bishop and Confessor Suitbert. Then in the year 1473, on February 1, by the same Theodoric Pauli, before witnesses, another paper book is said to have been presented, apparently equally old,
... dictated his deeds to Gregory, Bishop of Utrecht: but what is now read in Surius on the Kalends of March Labbé held it supposititious by a straw-man author; teems with anachronisms and was forged by an unskilled writer, and therefore by judicious historians that straw-man author is everywhere called Pseudo-Marcellinus, who led many into error, and by name Baronius, Bellarmine, Possevino, and Vossius. So says Labbé. Then a little further on: Miraeus in his Appendix asserts that it is to be lamented that the Acts of St. Suitbert written by Marcellinus were corrupted and violated by some more recent hand, which inserted the novel names of certain provinces. a genuine one is expected from us: But the wounds are far more serious indeed, on account of which he ought to have exclaimed: If only someone would bring forth a genuine and complete history! We expect the remedy for this malady from the Reverend Fathers Jean Bolland and Godefroid Henschen. So says he — words indeed worthy of his own kindness, but which our slenderness shrinks from accepting. We certainly profess that whatever probable things about this Apostle of Belgium or Lower Germany and other Saints may lie hidden somewhere, where it is permitted to penetrate by our labor, we shall diligently investigate and promptly bring to light. We have not, however, thus far obtained anything having long sought it, we have not found it, that could either illustrate the Acts of that Saint or in any way satisfy the reader, beyond what we have cited above from Bede. Nor does St. Radbod, the fourteenth Bishop of the Church of Utrecht, but neither did St. Radbod 750 years earlier, who died on November 29 in the year 917, repeat anything else solid — whose sermon and allegorical poem on St. Suitbert we shall give below. Which is an indication that this Life had not yet been composed at that time, two hundred years after the death of St. Suitbert. But neither, as was said before, two hundred years after the death of St. Radbod himself.
lies, honored with an Episcopal See around the year 786 by Charles the Great, King of the Franks, with the assent of Pope Hadrian, 3, beyond the Weser: at the very same time when Ludger was revolving in his mind plans for building the monastery of Werden.
[61] The first Bishop given to this Verden was also named Suitbert. And many indeed believed him to be the very same one the first Bishop of this see was St. Suitbert the Younger, who came with St. Willibrord to Frisia or Gaul in the year 690. We too erred in this mistake elsewhere, deceived by the words of Marcellinus, before we had properly examined them and condemned them with the charge of untrustworthy credibility. He explicitly writes in chapter 27: The most holy Suitbert, Bishop of Verden, died. And in the title (which was, however, prefixed by another, not the author himself) from the former these words are read: Life of St. Suitbert, not sufficiently distinguished, first Bishop of the Church of Verden. Yet our reasoning did not so far escape us that we would suppose St. Suitbert had extended his life to the year 786 from the birth of Christ, in which the Bishopric of Verden beyond the Weser is said to have been founded by King Charles the Great — he who is said to have died in the year 713, while Pippin, the great-grandfather of the same Charles, was still alive; or certainly that a Bishopric was erected at Werth on the Rhine by the elder Suitbert — for what Bishops of Cologne would have tolerated that, who desired to reclaim the Church of Utrecht itself for themselves? as if where he had preached, But since St. Suitbert was a Bishop, although attached to no fixed See, and is said to have brought the Gospel beyond the Weser into those territories in which the city and Duchy of Brunswick are now contained, and in the County of Hoya, neighboring the diocese of Verden, the memory is reported to exist of the faith sown there by the same Suitbert — it did not seem to us alien from the truth that when the city of Verden with its suburb was fully informed with the Christian religion and a Bishopric was also founded among them, by posterity he was considered Bishop of the same place, as nearly all peoples are accustomed to claim the antiquity
Otherwise our teaching will be useless and vain if we destroy by doing nothing what we say. Acts 1:1 For what does it profit anyone if he hears well and acts badly? Or what does it avail him if he shows others the way of the feet, but himself does not cease to err in the way of morals? Let us therefore, following the footsteps of our Redeemer, hear gladly whatever good things there are; and let us fulfill what we have heard with worthy deeds: and thus, proceeding in order to instruct our neighbors, let us advise them with the teachings of good things and equally with examples. In order therefore that this may be done without delay, the works of our Father as St. Suitbert did: of whom we have spoken above, must be called back to our memory: who in all things which he taught, first gave his hearers an example from himself; nor did he ever say in church that something else should be done, other than that in which he himself had led the way by doing. But so that this also may become most manifest to those wishing to imitate him, his deeds pleasing to God and quite necessary for every hearer, let them be recited in public: so that from them the people of Christ may receive edification, and may always be rejoicing in the glorious prayers of so great a man. But since some things are hidden from us which antiquity alone, after God, knows that he did — whose acts are partly hidden: since indeed he is proved to have come from the province of the English into our borders — let the writings of the venerable Priest Bede be brought forward; who in the Records of the English, among other things, left the following written about this most holy man:
[2] In the time of the Blessed Willibrord, Bishop of Utrecht, the Brothers who were in Frisia, devoted to the ministry of the word, chose from their number a man modest in character and gentle of heart, he preaches in Frisia: Suitbert, who
Indeed through monstrous guilt the savage mind is swept away, (Alas!) and entangles itself in the Stygian chaos: Wherefore the hoarse voice babbles dreadful roars, And mourns sad fates with heavy groaning: But you, who sing to Christ in figurative melody, And surpass all instruments with such great harmonies, With humble spirits, with contrite heart we beg, the Author invokes him. Be gracious, gentle one, be present to our humble prayer, That because the goodness of your life has raised you so high That you deserve to hear angelic tones, May you, O Saint, make us too, purged of the stains of sin, Fit to begin a melody of praise to you. Amen.