ON BLESSED ARNALD, ABBOT, AT PADUA IN ITALY.
FROM VARIOUS SOURCES.
A.D. 1254.
CommentaryArnald, Abbot, at Padua in Italy (B.)
[1] Concerning the illustrious monastery of St. Justina, the Paduan Virgin and Martyr, which the sacred Order of St. Benedict held for many centuries and which gave the beginning to recalling a great portion of that Order throughout Italy to the primitive vigor of the institute, In the church of St. Justina of Padua, whence the Congregation of St. Justina also received its name: concerning this, I say, monastery, Bernardinus Scardeonius, writing about it, says: Here rest the bodies of the Saints, of the blessed Justina, blessed Prosdocimus, blessed Maximus, the blessed Urius, Rainaldus and blessed Jacoba, three Innocents and the bones of innumerable Martyrs. Which venerable relics, concealed through various calamities of public or private affairs, were finally, translation of relics in the year 1562, two years after Scardeonius had published this at Basel in a second edition in the year 1560, brought to light and carried in a celebrated procession through the city, as may be seen more fully in Arnold Wion, part 2 of the Lignum Vitae, book 3, at this day: for from that time the entire Benedictine Congregation had this day enrolled among the feasts of the Order, as the Cassinese Breviaries testify, and from them Ferrarius, Menard, Dorgany, and Bucelin: but all have, in place of blessed Jacoba, unknown to the entire Paduan history, St. Felicitas to be commemorated on March 26: and in place of Rainald, Abbot Arnald: preceded by Wion in these words: At Padua, the translation of the holy Arnald the Abbot, Urius the monk, Felicitas the Virgin, and others: he who is here called Urius, however, is in more ancient documents called Julian. The feast of St. Justina is observed on October 7, of St. Prosdocimus on November 7, of St. Maximus on August 2, and on the 17th of this month, among which the body of Blessed Arnald, on which day the birthday of blessed Urius recurs, we shall treat of the finding and canonization of certain of these, erroneously extended by Arnold Wion through Leo IX to this blessed Arnald: whose birthday since it is nowhere found, we shall assign to him in particular this day of the Translation which is common to all. Scardeonius treats of him at greater length on the cited folio 119, after treating of blessed Jordan Forzateo, who suffered under the tyranny of Ezzelino, in the year of Christ 1208, on August 7, who was himself Abbot there, when his commemoration is observed with the greatest veneration in the church of St. Benedict. We present here the words of Scardeonius.
[2] There follows, equal to Jordan in the discipline of life and the distress of calamities, blessed Arnold, Abbot of St. Justina: a man, as they say, for all seasons, and equally vigorous in both private and public affairs: who, although he was distinguished by his noble family of Catanea and the royal stock of the Counts of Limina, yet shone far more by the virtue of his mind and the sanctity of his life than by the distinction of his birth. He, being esteemed so noble and dear to all, obtained from the Republic of Padua, for the benefit of the monks, a canal to be dug beside the monastery over which he presided, and in it a mill constructed with wondrous skill. Afterwards, however, when the Republic was oppressed, fleeing the tyranny of Ezzelino, a fugitive under the tyranny of Ezzelino, he first went to Este, then to Ravenna; fearing lest what had happened to Jordan and to many other religious men might happen to him: and there, secretly withdrawing himself from all acquaintances, he lay hidden until the arrival of Emperor Frederick: whom he humbly approached at Monselice and followed his court for two months. Finally, through the intercession of the Duke of Saxony, he was restored to both his abbey and his former honor. and worn down by eight years of imprisonment. But when the insatiable and impious avarice of the tyrant could not endure the loss of so great revenues, as soon as the Emperor had departed in the year 1246, Arnold was dragged captive into prison and grievously afflicted in chains at Asolo, which is a town of the Trevisan district: where, patiently enduring chains and prison for eight years, he finally departed, freed, to the Lord, in the year of salvation 1254, in the seventieth year of his age: and continuing until that age in virginity (which happens to very few indeed), in the year 1254 he is buried with two Abbots who were his kinsmen, he was distinguished in every kind of virtue. Rightly therefore we call him Blessed, and mingle him among the number of Martyrs. He was buried in the basilica of St. Justina; so that where he had not found rest while alive, at least when dead he might rest: moreover, he was placed in the same chest in which two other Abbots of the same family and the same monastery, James and Odoricus, lay: where this epitaph is read:
The renowned house of Limina, once bearing royal insignia, Produced the Abbots whom this urn covers, two.
Christ, I pray, may your light illuminate James in the open heaven: And may Odoricus likewise be above the stars.
[3] to be elevated when the Republic was pacified. It is credible that the burial was only temporary, and that when tranquility was restored to the republic, a separate monument was erected for him as a Martyr who had merited special religious veneration, or that his bones were duly translated into a reliquary, which in the year 1562 happened to be found with the bodies of other Saints, but not with the aforesaid James and Odoricus.