ON SAINT CALUPPANUS, PRIEST AND RECLUSE IN GAUL.
YEAR 576.
PrefaceCaluppanus, Priest, Recluse in Gaul (Saint)
[1] Saint Gregory, Bishop of Tours, in his book on the Lives of the Fathers, chapter 2, and in Book 5 of the History of the Franks, chapter 91, has provided all the information we have about the deeds of Saint Caluppanus the Recluse, The Life of Saint Caluppanus was written, which he asserts he obtained either with his own eyes or from the account either of Saint Caluppanus himself or of Saint Avitus, Bishop of Clermont, who conferred on him the grade of diaconate and priesthood, inasmuch as it was in his diocese among the Auvergnatians that he led his solitary life. The memorial of the said Saint Avitus is inscribed in the sacred calendar for 20 September.
[2] The time of Saint Caluppanus's life is indicated by Gregory in his History of the Franks with these words: "In the same year also" (namely, the time of his death, as he had said before, in which, upon the death of Sigebert, his son Childebert began to reign) "Caluppa the recluse also died. He had been always devout from his youth, and having entered religious life at the monastery of Meletense in the territory of the Auvergne, he showed himself to the Brothers in great humility, as we have written in the book of his Life." Now the first year of the reign of King Childebert of Austrasia, under whom the Auvergnatians lived, and at that time, after the death of King Charibert of Paris, also the Touranians, and of his entire life: corresponds to the year 576 of the common era. Saint Caluppanus was therefore born around the year 527, whom Gregory asserts to have completed the course of his life in his fiftieth year.
[3] Gregory did not specify the day of his death, from which Surius, and in French Rene Benoit, veneration: and in Spanish Juan Basilio Sanctoro, and from them various others elsewhere, have assigned the Life of Saint Caluppanus to this 3rd of March. They inscribed him in the sacred calendars for that day: Molanus in the first edition of Usuard augmented by him, Ferrarius in the Catalogue of Saints who are not in the Roman Martyrology, and Saussay in the Gallican Martyrology with a very long encomium.
[4] Gregory also passed over in silence what institute the monastery of Meletense among the Auvergnatians belonged to, in which Saint Caluppanus lived as a young man, around perhaps the year 543, in which Saint Benedict departed this life. Before his time there were very many monasteries throughout Gaul, monastic life. as we have said many times. Certainly, Severus, the disciple of Saint Martin, in his letter to Bessula, testifies that about two thousand monks gathered at Tours for the burial of Saint Martin in the year 397. Meanwhile, Wion, Menard, Dorgany, and Bucelin assign Caluppanus to the Benedictine Order, with the eulogy taken from the Touranensian source; and Baronius, citing the same, also treats of him in the Ecclesiastical Annals for the year 579, when he reckoned that he departed this life. Benedict Gonon published the same Life in Book 2 of the Lives of the Western Fathers, page 73.
LIFE
By Saint Gregory of Tours.
Caluppanus, Priest, Recluse in Gaul (Saint)
BHL Number: 1535
[1] The poverty of the world always opens wide the kingdoms of heaven, and not only prepares those who make use of it for heaven, but also declares them to be illustrious in the world, glorified by miracles. Whence it happens that, while that binding of prison-like confinement throws open the gate of paradise, the soul, inserted among the angelic choirs, exults in everlasting rest; just as now concerning Blessed Caluppanus the recluse, what we have known to be true Saint Caluppanus lives in the monastery of Meletense, we are entirely unable to pass over in silence. He, from the beginning of his life, always sought and found the good of ecclesiastical religion, and having entered religious life at the monastery of Meletense in the territory of the Auvergne, he showed himself to the Brothers in great humility. in humility and abstinence: For he was of the utmost abstinence, so that, being too greatly worn down by fasting, he was unable to carry out the daily work with the rest of the Brothers. Whence, as is the custom of monks, they heaped great reproach upon him, especially the Prior, who said to him:
"He who does not resolve to work unworthily demands to eat."
[2] While he was constantly subjected to these words of reproach, he observed a valley not far from the monastery, from the middle of which a rock, nature providing, rose up having endured reproaches, he withdraws to a cleft in a rock, and projected on high to about five hundred feet or more, having absolutely no connection with the other mountains set about it. A river washes the middle of that valley, which, gently touching this mountain, flows past. Into a cleft of this rock, therefore, which had once in ancient times been a refuge because of the passage of enemies, the holy hermit entered, and cutting into the rock, he established dwellings into which one now climbs by a very difficult ladder. For that place is so difficult to approach that even for wild beasts it is labor to come thither.
[3] In this place he made a small oratory. As he prayed -- as he himself was accustomed to relate to us with tears -- serpents and two dragons sent by the devil, serpents very frequently fell upon his head, and winding themselves about his neck, caused him no small horror. But since the devil is held to take the form of a cunning serpent, there is no doubt that these were the snares of his sending. For when the saint stood immovable against these things and was not moved by the strikes of the lesser snakes, on a certain day two dragons of immense size entered and stood near him; of whom one (as I believe) was the very leader of the temptation, stronger than the other, who with erect breast raised his mouth against the mouth of the blessed man, as if about to whisper something. But the saint, terrified with fear, became as stiff as bronze and could not move any limb at all, nor raise his hand to oppose the sign of the blessed Cross.
[4] And when both had stood for a very long time in silence, it came to the mind of the Saint through the Spirit [he drives them to flight by the Lord's Prayer and the sign of the Cross, reproaching them,] that he should cry out the Lord's Prayer at least in his heart, even if he could not move his lips. As he silently pronounced it, his limbs, which had been bound by the enemy's art, began gradually to be loosened. And feeling that his right hand was now free, he placed the sign of the blessed Cross upon his mouth, and turning again to the hydra, he traced again the Cross of Christ against it, saying: "Are you not the one who cast the first-formed man from the dwelling of paradise, who bloodied a brother's right hand with fratricide, who armed Pharaoh to pursue the people of God, who at last incited that Hebrew people itself to persecute the Lord, as envy inflamed them? Depart from the servants of God, by whom you have been overcome many times and have departed in confusion. For you are the one cast out in Cain, supplanted in Esau, laid low in Goliath, hanged in Judas the traitor, and on that very Cross of the Lord's power you were triumphed over with your powers and dominions and crushed. Hide now, O enemy, your head, and be humbled under the seal of the divine Cross, because you have no portion with the servants of God, whose inheritance is the kingdom of Christ." As the Saint spoke these and similar words, and made the Cross at each one, the dragon, confounded by the power of this standard, in turn humbling itself, was laid beneath the earth. But while these things were happening, the other one was rolling in ambush about the feet and shins of the Saint. And when the holy Hermit saw this one coiled around his feet, offering a prayer, he commanded it to depart, saying: "Get behind me, Satan: a foul stench being left behind: you will be able to do nothing more to harm me in the name of my Christ." But that one, going forth to the threshold of the cell, emitted a powerful sound from its lower part and filled the cell with so great a stench that nothing else could be believed but that it was the devil; nor did any serpent or dragon appear before the Saint thereafter.
[5] He always either reads or prays: He was constant in the work of God, and was never free for anything else except either to read or to pray. Even when he took a little food, he always prayed. He sometimes took a fish from the river, rarely indeed; but when he wished, with the Lord's help, one was immediately at hand. He took no bread for food except what was sent from the monastery. He gives offered food to the poor: If any of the devout brought loaves or wine, it was assigned to food for the needy -- those, however, who were accustomed either to receive from him the saving sign or to be refreshed with a meal -- recalling that word of the Lord which He spoke in the Gospel concerning the crowds whom He had healed of various diseases: "I do not wish to send them away fasting, lest they faint on the way." Matt. 15
[6] But I think that this divine favor, which heavenly piety lavished upon him in that place, ought not to be concealed. He receives water by divine gift: For since water was carried up from the bottom of that valley, a distance of about ten stadia, he prayed to the Lord to show him a vein of a spring in the very dwelling of his cell. And that heavenly power, which once produced waters from the flint rock for the thirsting people, was not lacking. Immediately, therefore, at his prayer, a drop of water bursting from the rock began to irrigate the ground with frequent drops. And he, rejoicing together at the heavenly gift, making a small concavity in the rock in the manner of a cistern, which held about two condiae, he received the waters divinely granted to him; from which so much was supplied to him each day as sufficed for himself and for the boy who had been given to him as a servant.
[7] We ourselves also came to the place with Bishop Blessed Avitus, and of all the things that we have narrated, some we learned from his own account, ordained Deacon and Priest by Saint Avitus, he drives away diseases: and some we observed with our own eyes. From the aforesaid Pontiff he received the grade of diaconate and priesthood, and he brought many remedies to the people vexed with various diseases. Nevertheless, he never presented himself to be seen by anyone outside the cell, but only extending his hand through a small window, he would impose the saving sign. And if he was visited by anyone, approaching this opening, he would offer prayer and conversation. At length, completing the course of his life in this religious way of life, he dies at age fifty: he migrated to the Lord in, as I believe, the fiftieth year of his age.