Benvenutus

CONCERNING SAINT BENVENUTUS, BISHOP OF OSIMO IN PICENUM.

YEAR 1276.

Historical Synopsis. Benvenutus, Bishop of Osimo in Picenum (S.)

§ I. The Episcopal See Restored to Osimo through S. Benvenutus; An Epitome of His Life: Sacred Veneration.

[1] When the tempest of the Frederician persecution was tearing apart the universal Church indeed, but especially Italy, and the rebels were striving by all means to strengthen their party against Gregory IX, the people of Osimo were also drawn into the sacrilegious alliance and adhered to Frederick. The Pontiff, moved by this defection in the year 1240, On account of the Frederician rebellion, and observing on the other hand such great constancy in devotion to the Church among the neighboring people of Recanati—because neither the losses of property inflicted by Frederick, the enemy of God and the Church, nor the dangers to their persons could turn them from fidelity to the Apostolic See—deemed it fitting to exalt the Castle of Recanati (which he thenceforth declared to be a city) with a grateful honor, and to grant to it, exempted from the jurisdiction of the Church of Humana, the dignity taken from the sons of malediction, the people of Osimo, the See transferred from Osimo to Recanati by Gregory IX; who had damnably adhered to Frederick in persecuting the Church, setting aside the fear of God; transferring to the church of S. Flavian at Recanati, which he thenceforth decreed to be a Cathedral, the See of Osimo with all its rights, dignities, and honors. Thus he, by letters given on the eleventh day before the Kalends of January, in the fourteenth year of his pontificate; the Bishop of Osimo at that time being Ramerius, to whom the same Pontiff directed letters in the immediately following year, commanding him to proceed to the said city of Recanati and to exercise diligent care over its Clergy and people and said diocese, as their Bishop.

[2] When the face of affairs had then changed, the judgment of the Apostolic See also changed; and the losses and infamy of the past time were amply compensated by S. Benvenutus, given as Bishop to the people of Osimo by Urban IV. by Urban IV, In his favor, it is fitting to append here the diploma issued, as we have received it from the archive of that Church.

"Urban, Bishop, Servant of the servants of God, to the beloved Sons, the Clergy of the city and diocese of Osimo, greeting and Apostolic blessing.

The balance of right judgment is tempered with an equal examination wishing to render to each as he has deserved, when it compensates worthy rewards for virtues and fitting wages for vices; for thus, with justice rendering to each in order what is his own—that is, grace for services and retaliation for injuries—the examples of rewards advance those who are slow to merit well, and the fear of vengeance sometimes restrains those prone to offenses from the incentive of wicked emulation. Formerly, indeed, the Apostolic See, their mother, using such equity of judgment toward the citizens of Osimo and the inhabitants of the castle of Recanati in the diocese of Humana—because those citizens had assumed the spirit of disloyalty and rebellion against her—deprived their city of the episcopal dignity and transferred it with its entire diocese to the aforesaid castle, whose inhabitants were then devoted to the said See, subjecting the city itself and the Church of Osimo to our Venerable Brother the Bishop and Church of Humana in spiritual matters, in compensation for the said castle, which was then of the diocese of Humana.

[3] Moreover, the aforesaid citizens of Osimo removed the stain of this disloyalty and rebellion through humble and prompt repentance..."

[4] "Furthermore, wishing the governance of the Church of Osimo to be committed by Apostolic providence to such a person as would be suited to so great a burden and honor, and Benvenutus is sent to them as Bishop, we have set over the same Church of Osimo, with the consent of our aforesaid Brothers, as Bishop and Pastor, our beloved son Benvenutus, Bishop-elect of Osimo, then our Chaplain and Archdeacon of Ancona, conspicuous in character and life, endowed with literary learning, provident in spiritual matters and circumspect in temporal ones—a man truly after our own heart—holding firm hope and confidence that through his industry, with divine grace preceding and Apostolic favor following, the Church of Osimo committed to him will prosper in spiritual and temporal growth, with a distinguished commendation of his virtue, and the aforesaid city will be reformed in its condition."

in a prosperous state, and may be strengthened in devotion and fidelity to the said See. Wherefore we admonish and earnestly exhort your entire community, commanding you by Apostolic writings, to receive the same Bishop-elect devoutly, as the Father and Pastor of your souls, and to render to him due obedience and reverence, humbly heeding his salutary admonitions and commands; otherwise we shall hold as ratified whatever sentence he shall have duly pronounced against rebels, and with the Lord as our authority we shall cause it to be observed to their due satisfaction. Given at Orvieto on the third day before the Ides of March, in the third year of our pontificate"—which was the year of Christ 1264, since Urban was created in August of the year 1261.

[5] Let these judgments of the supreme head of the Church concerning the living Benvenutus be followed by what Luke Wadding collected in his honor after death, in the Annals of the Minors, at the year 1276. "The most holy Blessed Benvenutus de Scotivoli dies this year, he was Archdeacon of Ancona, who, born at Ancona of his father John, devoted himself to Civil Law at Bologna, where, distinguished with the laurel of the Doctorate, he enjoyed the companionship and intimacy of Blessed Sylvester Guzzolini, soon to be the founder of the Sylvestrine Congregation. Endowed by Alexander IV with the Archdeaconate of Ancona and the Administration of the Church of Osimo—then deprived of pastors on account of their alliance with the Imperialists against the Papal party—he was soon created Bishop of that same See by Urban, his successor, to whom he was most intimate on account of his outstanding virtues, and Rector of the entire March of Ancona. of the Order of Minors, Before accepting the dignity, he took the vows of the Minors and thenceforth perpetually wore their garment openly, which can still be seen among the sacred relics of that same Church. In the offices he undertook, he won no little praise, nor did he give an obscure example of his sanctity, confirmed by frequent miracles. Having happily completed thirteen years in the episcopate, foreknowing that his death would shortly follow, he dies holily on the ground in the church, having distributed his possessions among the poor, he blessed the entire people in an open place. Then, weighed down by illness, in order to emulate S. Francis—whom he had chosen as his model in life—also in death, he had himself carried into the church, where upon the bare ground, amid the prayers and psalmody of the Priests, he breathed forth his holy soul on the eleventh day before the Kalends of April."

[6] For so great a Pastor, the people of Osimo built an honorable mausoleum in the very place where he died, and buried in an honorable tomb, supported on two rows of columns, and placed the holy body in a marble chest in an elevated position. But when Martin IV enrolled the holy man among the number of the heavenly blessed on account of frequent miracles, and the people of Osimo built an altar in a lower place beneath the chest, the holy corpse was found from which it descends after an altar is erected beneath it: to have left the elevated chest and to be lying on the marble pavement between the columns. When, having been replaced in its position, it was found a second and third time on the ground, the people of Osimo understood that the humble servant of God did not wish his perishable corpse to be elevated above the life-giving Body of Christ, but to be beneath it. Therefore, having prepared another tomb beneath the altar itself, they placed the holy treasure there, leaving the former mausoleum as a memorial and ornament. It rested in this place until the year 1590, when Bishop Theodore Florence of Osimo arranged for it to be transferred with great solemnity to a new tomb splendidly prepared by himself in the lower church, translated in the year 1590, built by the same bishop for the burial of the Prelates of that Church. This epitaph was added to the new tomb: "The body of S. Benvenutus, Bishop Theodosius Florence of Osimo arranged to be transferred hither from the upper church for more venerable worship, in the year of the Lord 1590, on the eleventh day of the month of July, in the Pontificate of Sixtus V." The epitaph of the former tomb was: "S. Benvenutus de Scotivoli, of Ancona, Bishop of Osimo."

[7] On account of the frequent miracles which are read at length in his manuscript Life in the Church of Osimo, and is solemnly venerated, many churches and chapels have been built in his honor, confraternities have been established, and a hospital has been erected under his name, as well as a convent of Virgins. His feast day is solemnly observed among the people of Osimo and in other places. His memory is celebrated in the Roman Martyrology, and his Life has been written, besides the Acts that exist in manuscript at Osimo, by what authors have written about him? Gaspar of Volterra, Bishop of Osimo; John Baldus, Canon and Penitentiary of the said Church, in his book on the Martyrs and Bishops of Osimo; Peter Rodulphus on the holy men of the Order of Minors; Philip Ferrari in his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy under March 22; and others. We have elsewhere counted, besides this one, three other Benvenuti who followed this rule of life. It is cause for wonder that this famous man, solemnly enrolled among the Saints, is not more celebratedly commemorated in our Diptychs and not festively remembered in our society.

§ II. The Acts of S. Benvenutus Sought in Vain: Pious Places Erected under His Invocation.

[8] Wadding indeed wondered, most deservedly, Acts indicated by Wadding, that the notice of so celebrated a saint in the Franciscan Order was so scant and therefore that there was no particular devotion. But we wonder not only at this, as he did, but much more how it could happen that, if the Acts and miracles of S. Benvenutus were truly read at length in the Church of Osimo at the time when he was writing—around the year 1620 of this century—no one, not even any of the aforementioned authors, cited them, nor does anyone who was known at Osimo with any knowledge of the subject remember having seen them, from the time when the Most Eminent Cardinal Antonio Bichi, Cardinal Bichi orders a search at the beginning of his episcopate: nephew of Alexander VII through his sister, first obtained that See. For he, formerly residing at Brussels as Apostolic Nuncio, having begun—both by the example of his uncle and by the spontaneous inclination of his mind toward the knowledge of ecclesiastical history—to hold in high esteem this work begun by Father Jean Bolland, as soon as he set foot in his Bishopric of Osimo, immediately selected the most learned man from the College of Canons, Antiochus Onuphrius, and commanded him to collect the Acts and records of the Saints of Osimo, as many as could be of use for promoting this work. But neither then could anything be discovered concerning S. Benvenutus of those things which Wadding cites as existing there in manuscript codices, nor were they found then, nor in the year 1660, nor some years after that time, when we ourselves, setting out from Ancona to Loreto, stopped at Osimo and enjoyed the hospitality of the Cardinal Bishop himself for three whole days—His Eminence most courteously entertaining us to renew the memory of the former friendship in Belgium, and personally showing us all the sacred and secular monuments of the entire city. When, moreover, he led us to see and adore the tomb of S. Benvenutus, he expressly testified that his life and miracles had been diligently sought in the Archives by himself and his people.

[9] nor again in the year 1666, After this, having returned to Belgium, we began to prepare the Acts of the Saints of March for the press; and when in the progress of the work there occurred certain matters which, sought and found in the Archive of Osimo, could shed some light on this Saint of so illustrious a name in that Church, we again wrote letters to the same most kind patron of our studies, who was then serving as Apostolic Legate in the Duchy of Urbino, not without new mention of the Acts cited by Wadding not more than forty years before. To which letters he immediately replied in this manner on the eleventh day before the Kalends of May in the year 1666: when most graciously everything pertaining to this was sent hither: "I have considered it done by the counsel of better fortune that your letters, written on the fourth day before the Ides of March, were delivered to me at Pesaro at the time when I was preparing my journey to this city of Osimo, since I understand that without any delay the opportunity has been given me to bring to Your Reverences all those things which you desire to receive from me concerning S. Benvenutus my predecessor, for the purpose of either augmenting or adorning your most distinguished labors. Whatever documents, therefore, are found here and in other places concerning the most glorious Bishop—in manuscripts, histories, stones, and traditions—all of these I have arranged to be collected for your reading by Signor Girolamo Ditaiuti, a Patrician of Osimo, Doctor of Both Laws, and well versed in antiquarian matters, and to be sent to you through the hands of the Reverend Father Hector van Albada, a Belgian Penitentiary at the House of Loreto."

[10] Among these was a brief eulogy of S. Benvenutus from the Catalogue of the Bishops of Osimo, among which were the authors whom Wadding cites, compiled by Gaspare Zacchi of Volterra, Bishop of Osimo in the year 1460, encompassing in very few words only the titles of the dignities which S. Benvenutus held, which Wadding inserted entire in his own work, to which is subjoined: "He performed miracles both living and dead; his body was placed in a marble chest, supported by four columns, in the last part of the church on the southern side." What Wadding praises concerning the Order and habit of the Minors is found in the Tree of the Religion of the Minors dwelling in Picenum, described by Father Cletus Calcagno of Jesi, as also the fact that Benvenutus was enrolled among the Saints by Martin IV, who governed the Church for four years from the year 1281, so that it is no wonder that the Acts of so ancient a time have perished. and Pontifical Bulls, The rest Wadding received from Baldus, whose book the aforesaid Ditaiuti took care to send to us, denying that anything else exists in printed or manuscript books besides Pontifical Bulls, copies of all of which he submitted; from these we have given one complete one above, and here we indicate two Briefs of Calixtus III, issued in the year 1455, in which he indicates the Guardian selected by him for the Hospital of S. Benvenutus at Osimo: Giacomo di Giovanni de Gaeta, a gardener; concerning the Hospital of S. Benvenutus, and another of Innocent VIII, who in the year 1491 declared the same Hospital—then and afterwards called the Hospital of SS. Benvenutus and Leonard (perhaps because it was founded in his honor by the latter)—exempt from all jurisdiction, superiority, dominion, correction, and punishment of the Ordinaries, for the lifetime only of the then-sitting Bishop Francesco Gerini.

[11] A Confraternity, likewise called of SS. Benvenutus and Leonard, is devoted to the care of this hospital; and concerning the monastery of the same name the Brothers enrolled in it, having removed the Rector and obtained the free administration of the said hospital, had been accustomed from its revenues to lend to the poor and other needy persons up to seventy bushels of wheat until the time of the future harvest, and suffered many difficulties in recovering them—as did the Chapter of Osimo, obligated to similar lending and other disbursements. Seeing, moreover, that in the same city, filled with a copious number of well-born and noble young women, many of those young women—because of the poverty of their parents and the lack of a suitable dowry—were unable to be suitably placed in marriage and were wasting away in the world in an unoccupied and useless life, not without grief and danger to their honor and reputation, together with the aforesaid Chapter they petitioned Gregory XIII in the year 1584 erected for virgins by the authority of Gregory XIII, that he would permit a monastery of nuns to be erected in their city, in certain buildings of the said Hospital—convenient and suitable and not necessary for the Hospital's use—for the use and habitation of such young women desiring to serve the Most High under the sweet yoke of religion, and this

monastery to be substituted in place of the aforesaid poor persons with respect to the aforementioned alms, which they intended to augment from other sources to an annual value of four hundred scudi in the currency of that land, besides the sum of three thousand scudi already collected at that time for the use of the construction of such a monastery. Nor was there any delay on the part of the Pontiff in ordering so pious a work to be carried out; and there exists in manuscript the most ample Bull of this institution, issued on the Nones of November, by which he permits the erection of a Monastery of Nuns under the invocation of the same S. Benvenutus, of the Order of S. Benedict, for one Abbess and no fewer than twelve nuns. Baldus says that the church which the people of Osimo had once erected for this their holy Bishop, and which, being ruinous, they had taken care to restore on this occasion, was also assigned for their use.

[12] It also redounds to the honor of S. Benvenutus that Eugene IV, as the same Baldus testifies, in the year 1432 opened the treasury of sacred Indulgences to those visiting his tomb; and that the aforementioned Innocent VIII, Innocent VIII, zealous for the honor of the Saints, piously concerned about the restoration of the church in which the bodies of this and other Saints rest, in the year 1488, on the seventh day before the Kalends of March, issued a Bull of this kind: "God, glorious in his Saints, by the ineffable clemency of his mercy adorns the citizens of the heavenly fatherland—who, emerging happily from the waves of this stormy age through the constancy of faith, have attained eternal blessedness—with inestimable glory of brightness. So we, although unworthy, acting in his stead on earth, in imitation of him rejoice that the churches of all Saints, piously dedicated to the honor of the Most High and under their names, are celebrated with the devout veneration of Christ's faithful; and that this may be accomplished more fervently, we willingly bestow the gifts of the spiritual treasury upon those who visit them, so that those whose souls rejoice in heaven may have their names celebrated on earth; and through this, with them at last interceding for us, we may be able to arrive happily at the rewards of the heavenly court.

[13] Indeed, as we have heard from a trustworthy report, there are in our city of Osimo, among others, five churches preeminent above the rest, for the Church of Osimo, in which diverse bodies of Saints and Blessed ones, daily resplendent with various miracles, repose, and other Relics of very many Saints, both male and female, are preserved with the most honorable worship and most worthy veneration; which churches indeed, on account of the decay of long time... are known to need great repair. We, desiring that the aforesaid five churches—namely the Cathedral church, in which the body of S. Benvenutus rests, in which rest the bodies of SS. Leopardus, Vitalianus, Benvenutus, Florentius, and Diocletian, Bishops and Confessors; of Victor, Philip, Maximus, and Corona, Virgin Martyr; of Sisinnius the Martyr, and of the Blessed John the Bishop, and relics of other Saints; and the church of the monastery of S. Nicholas, the church of S. Francis, the church of S. Mark of the Order of Preachers, and the church of the Annunciation of the Order of Friars Minor Observant outside the walls of the city—be frequented with fitting honors, to promote their restoration, and may be repaired in their structures and buildings, and the bodies of the aforesaid Saints and Blessed ones may be celebrated with the pious and worthy memory of the faithful; and that they may the more willingly flock thither in devotion, the more abundantly they shall perceive themselves refreshed there by the gift of heavenly grace: He bestows a plenary indulgence. Trusting in the mercy of almighty God and in the authority of his Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, to each and every one of the faithful of both sexes who shall visit the aforesaid church of the Annunciation outside the walls annually, during the days of this Indulgence—beginning from Good Friday and lasting through the entire Tuesday of the Paschal Resurrection of the Lord—on any of those days, and shall extend a helping hand for the repair of the structures of the aforesaid churches, we bestow by Apostolic authority and by the tenor of these presents a plenary remission of all their sins."

[14] John Baldus also reports that Cardinal Lorenzo Cibo, nephew of the aforesaid Innocent through his brother, Cardinal Lorenzo Cibo erects a Prebend, after recovering bodily health through the benefit of S. Benvenutus—which an incurable disease had placed among the desperate—founded a rich Benefice, and indeed from the time of his return to the Pontifical See or to the

Sterre in his Birthdays of the Saints of the Premonstratensian Order adorns him with this eulogy: "The tenth day before the Kalends of April. In the village of Boxum in Frisia, his commemoration among others. the passion of the Blessed Eelko, Martyr and Abbot of the monastery of Lidlum, of the Premonstratensian Order. Who, being zealous for the glory of God and for the integrity of collapsed discipline, was cruelly slain by the hands of the impious and died, and as a glorious victor flew to the palm of martyrdom; whose sanctity and precious death God deigned to make illustrious with miracles." Thus Chrysostomus, who, out of his reverence for Blessed Eelko, when he was Abbot of the monastery of S. Michael at Antwerp, also imposed the name Eelko upon his own religious at profession. A greater encomium from the Acts is produced by Jean le Page in book 2 of the Premonstratensian Library, page 583; Dionysius Mudsart in his Belgian Ecclesiastical History at the years 1325 and 1332; Peter Waghenar on Persons of the Premonstratensian Order Illustrious for Sanctity, page 217—all of whom adorn Eelko with the title of Blessed. Waghenar also published among his poems this epigram, page 462:

"The impious race burdens Eelko with false reproaches, Not well taught to bear salutary sounds. The stars of the Father in pity send rosy flowers: Do not the stars thus sufficiently absolve him of reproaches?"

Other verses about him were published by Martin Hamconius in his book on Illustrious Men of Frisia. His murder and his zeal for piety are also described by Ubbo Emmius in book 13 of his History of Frisia, page 197; Maurice du Pré in his Brief Annals of the Premonstratensian Order at the year 1332; and various other writers of the same Order or of Frisia.

LIFE

By Sibrandus Leonius. Eelko, Abbot of Lidlum in Frisia, of the Premonstratensian Order (B.)

BY SIBRANDUS LEONIUS

[1] In Western Frisia, called Westergo, between the two villages of Tiedmarum and Osterbierum, In the monastery of Lidlum, built by Sibo and Tziallingius a Donia, at the place of Lidlum, very near the German Ocean, there lived Sibo, a man abounding in riches and unmarried. He, moved by fervor of spirit, with the Spirit urging him on, having set aside the riches of the world, determined to dedicate himself and all his possessions to God the Best and Greatest, erecting a church from his own dwelling. But since he seemed unequal in resources for building a monastery, he gained as a partner in his plan Tziallingius a Donia of Bonnetorp from Vinson. These two, kindled together with the same zeal, built a small monastery. Meanwhile, the monastery of the Garden of the Blessed Virgin, of the Premonstratensian Order, in Oostergo, begun by the Lord Frederick, a most pious man, was being advanced with the greatest prudence by his successor Entetus. While this man, together with all his community, pursued the rigor of religion and the hard and strenuous life according to the statutes of the Order, he stirred the hearts of many to imitate his example, as we have mentioned above concerning Renicius, Vibrandus, and Goslicus, most warlike men, in the Life of the aforesaid Frederick. Sibo, emulating their example and relying on the counsel of his companion Tziallingius... approached the venerable Father Lord Entetus, Abbot of the Garden of the Blessed Virgin, and demanded the rule of a purer life. Entetus, striving in every way to extend the progress of the Premonstratensian religion, readily complied: he received him with his companions into the common society, clothed them in the white garment, and after deliberation with his community, first designated Felmarus as their Abbot, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand one hundred and eighty-two...

[2] The twelfth Abbot, Blessed Eelko Liaukama, The twelfth Abbot of this monastery was a distinguished man, Eelko Liaukama, who, upon his election, was confirmed by Abbot Poptetus, who presided over the election. He, born of the noble Liaukama family, imbibed the seeds of piety from his very cradle; advancing in these, he was honored with the priesthood. Shortly afterwards, elected Pastor of the church at Tuitgum, he stood forth as a model of the highest probity; he erected the principal vaulted hall with a basement from the foundations. Designated as Abbot, he attended the sacred offices day and night, walking barefoot in the winter season; devoted to mortification, afflicting his body with fasting, he resisted the devil, who appeared with glowing iron, through the constancy of his faith. He gave to the church ecclesiastical ornaments, which we have seen, distinguished with gold. Necessarily sustaining a war against noble and valiant men from Echna in the name of both monasteries, vexed by warlike tumults, he incurred great expenses, maintaining more than one hundred and eighty mercenaries, apart from the Lay Brothers of his own Order; and he suffered great loss from the armed men. Nevertheless intent on building, he built and completed the Abbatial house on Mount S. Michael with enormous labor; he incorporated the churches of Tuitgum, Sexbierum, and Spannum into the monastic jurisdiction of Lidlum. In his admonitions he used the greatest sweetness of words; in correction, according to the circumstances of the time, he was somewhat sterner. Gentle and strong in governance. For as the fervor of religion was gradually weakening, with the devil promoting everything toward the worse, he was many times compelled to censure wickedness.

[3] Adorned with these virtues, he pleased God in all things, but displeased the impious and brought upon himself great envy, which, growing worse day by day, erupted into a wicked and putrid ulcer, from which in due time came forth the pus and gore of foul murder. It was the custom in all the monasteries throughout Frisia to cultivate their principal possessions of fields, granges, and allods He frequently visits the Lay Brothers dwelling in the farms, with the labors of Lay Brothers and laymen; whence they were called Munckhuysen ("monk-houses"). Whatever surplus of dairy products, livestock, and grain these had beyond what was needed for their sustenance, they faithfully and obediently brought to their monastery; and from this there was great prosperity in the monasteries.

"You are lanterns, not one only—except in name—but truly seven lanterns shining in a dark place. In your midst Nicholas zealously strives, so that like burning and shining lamps you may continue to shine and burn, and that, like gold tested and purified in the furnace of these tempests, you may sit secure, as you have sat until now. He himself has hitherto shaken the flame of fire from this furnace, like that other Angel in Daniel chapter 3, and has made the midst of the furnace like a blowing wind of dew, so that the fire has not touched you at all, nor grieved you, nor brought you any annoyance. He is in your midst, that he may strive henceforth to do the same always. Our Nicholas also holds in his right hand seven stars—namely the seven most illustrious Magistrates of your sevenfold republic; stars indeed, not planets; heavenly bodies, not wandering but fixed; stars, not falling but firmly clinging to the Firmament of their ancestors. And that they may be forever firm, Nicholas holds them fixed in his right hand; he holds them in his right hand lest any forgetfulness of such illustrious stars ever steal upon him; he holds them in his hand so that, like the sun, he may impart his splendor to them; he holds them in his hand, finally, so that he may always bear them before his eyes and under his protection. This angel of ours, then, fashioned indeed by this slender labor of mine, yet equipped with the outstanding wings of his life, virtues, and prodigies—where should he fly but into your bosom? He is in your midst; you would not allow him to fly elsewhere even if he wished; indeed, even if he were flying away against my will, you would receive him in your bosom. He holds you in his hands; why should not you also hold him in your bosom and heart in return? You have him already, I know well; you have him most deeply stored in your bosom and heart, and that you may henceforth hold him somewhat more attentively than hitherto, this very slight work of mine ultimately aims. You will see him anew in these pages doing lofty and nothing but the greatest things; you will hear him anew persuading useful and salutary things for the fatherland, and foretelling those very things which experience now reports—which indeed you have long since both seen and heard and experienced; indeed, you can never see, hear, and experience enough of them. May therefore the honor and dignity of our Nicholas and of all of you together grow, aided and promoted by this very slight labor of mine; and may he himself persevere as your patron in heaven, and you as patrons of our Society on earth, as both have always been until now. Fribourg of the Aventicans, August 15, 1636.

Your most humble Chaplain,

PETER HUGO OF LUCERNE, S.I."

He was a native of Lucerne and professed of four vows in our Society; he flourished for many years with the distinction of an outstanding preacher. In his writings he is said to have used singular diligence and accuracy, especially in this Life, which was also translated into Italian at Rome, so that, more conveniently understood, it might prepare the way for a future canonization—future, I say, which the Reverend Father Nicholas Wysing, who, acting as Reviewer of books at Rome by the command of the Very Reverend Father General, treated the matter as Procurator, asserted had been brought to such a point that nothing further was required beyond the act of the Pontifical declaration. The same Father Nicholas composed a commentary on the deeds done by the Venerable Nicholas and sent it to the Rector of our College at Lucerne, in which he frequently cites the author of this Life. Therefore this will suffice for us for the present, until that other commentary sees the light—which is perhaps deferred to the time of the completed canonization. Following the dedicatory epistle in this place was the approbation, both of Walter Mundbrot, who then governed the Society as Provincial of Upper Germany, and of Jacques Schuler, Vicar General for the Bishop of Lausanne, Jean de Watteville.

PREFACE

To the Benevolent Reader.

"The Life and deeds of Nicholas of Flüe, hermit of the Unterwalden region in Switzerland, depicted on this paper, I offer to you, benevolent Reader, with a rude and unpolished brush indeed, yet without artifice. He himself led a life cultivated for God amid the rough terrain of uncultivated forests and mountains. If I have encompassed his life in a more uncultivated style than you might wish, consider that a woodland muse comes forth from the forests and mountains. I have only wished to labor so that you may esteem the matter itself, not the words; for I did not judge that so great a matter needed any blandishment of words to be esteemed. It has pleased me to divide this little work of mine, such as it is, into three parts. The first sets forth those things that concern the ordinary life of Nicholas, at home and in military service. The second follows the prodigious hermit and seer from the beginning of his more austere manner of life until his death. The last, finally, treats his posthumous glory among men, decreed for that hermit either by divine or human agency—among men, I say; for the glory which God himself has prepared for him among the blessed, 'eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man.' I add nothing more to the preface; I proceed to the matter itself."

We, content to have indicated this division in the margin—since the brevity of the chapters as defined by the author compels it—have introduced a new arrangement conformable to the other Acts of this work. Therefore, have here in order the catalogue and titles of the chapters as noted by the author.

PART I.

1. The time and birthplace of Nicholas.

2. The family and parents of Nicholas.

3. Prognostics of his sanctity before his birth.

and with standards raised they set out for Italy against the enemy by forced marches; and having overtaken the rear guard of the enemy, they crushed them with an immense and prodigious slaughter, drove them from the most strongly fortified cities they had taken, and, having wrested from them all their plunder—especially the Roman plunder—expelled them from all Italy. That same sacred plunder, lest it contaminate their hands and hearts, they carried back to Rome and reconsecrated to its former divine worship, and so returned to their Alps as glorious victors. This accomplishment made them not only famous and formidable to the whole world, but also particularly commendable to its highest magistrates, both sacred and secular. The Supreme Pontiff, certainly, by way of gratitude, thenceforth enrolled them as Protectors and Defenders of the Roman Church and wished them to be so named. This title was afterwards, around the year 1512, extended by the authority of Pope Julius II to the remaining confederated Cantons of the Swiss as well. Louis the Pious likewise, who then presided over the Empire, not only permitted them henceforth to use and live by their own laws, institutions, and magistrates on account of their successful exploits throughout Italy, and adorned them with other privileges and immunities, but also liberally bestowed upon them the insignia and standards which they still use in war. Such, indeed, were the fruits that the Alps once bore, which afterwards received our Nicholas at his birth into their bosom.

[3] So happy a lot was given by God to the valleys of the Unterwalden, that the fatherland of so great a man should be Unterwalden. Comprised under this nomenclature, derived from the multitude of forests, is that part of the Swiss Alps among the Unterwaldians which is more to the south, and is bounded on the east by the territories of the people of Uri and Schwyz, on the south by those of the Bernese, and on the west and north by the territories and extensive dominions of the people of Lucerne. It contains fertile valleys and rich pastures. The Kernwald forest divides the entire territory into two Unterwaldens, namely the Upper and the Lower, each of which abounds in pleasant and populous towns, villages, hamlets, and inhabitants. They relate that formerly, at various times, very many Roman citizens—whom the fury and tyranny of the Roman Emperors against their subjects, especially those faithful to Christ, had proscribed or driven from the city—settled in these places. The inhabitants also hold it as certain that S. Beatus, the Apostle of Switzerland, sent to these shores by S. Peter, as I have said, bestowed his labors principally on these lands, or certainly on the neighboring ones; that he eliminated dragons from the deep caves of the neighboring cliffs by divine power; and that, having entered those same caves from love of the solitary life, he chose them as his permanent dwelling and inhabited them until the ninetieth year of his age; and that at last from the same place he sent his blessed soul to heaven through the hands of the heavenly spirits, who had attended him in human form as he was dying. And accordingly

indeed it even lacked a parish priest; at baptism he recognizes the parish; whence this kernel of sanctity of ours had to be carried, stripped of its maternal husks, to the nearer village of Kerns and there dipped in the waters of the sacred font, according to the institution of our Savior—which the stone basin of the Kerns baptistery testifies to this day in its inscribed words. He received the name Nicholas not without a singular nod and will of God, so that how glorious a victor and triumphator over all the calamities of this life he was to be, and an outstanding follower of the holy Nicholas in many things, might be foreshadowed even by his name. Certainly S. Nicholas, scarcely born, when he was first washed with the waters, is said to have risen up spontaneously, erect on his own infant feet, and to have stood a long time leaning on them alone without any human assistance. So also our infant, namesake of S. Nicholas, scarcely born, began to continue those prodigies which, as has been said, had their beginning in his mother's very womb.

He himself was accustomed later to confess to intimate friends, to whom he more readily opened his rarer secrets, among other things, his parents and godparents, that at first sight he had recognized both his mother and the midwife, and had not needed any teacher or experience, by whose guidance a young boy gradually comes to a knowledge of them. Likewise, that the road by which he was carried from his paternal home to the church at Kerns to be dipped in the baptismal font, with its hills and windings, he had already then learned; and finally, that the faces of the Priest and of those who lifted him from the sacred font as godparents, he had retained in memory from that time and distinguished from the appearances of others. Only one man among the bystanders, whom gray hair marked as an old man, had been present, of whose identity or memory—who he might have been—he afterwards had none.

Our Nicholas was therefore present at his baptism both in body and soul; he recognized his parents, whom very many, already adults, often pretend not to recognize; he recognized those who conferred upon him the first fruits of blessings, whose entire harvests others often spurn. And these so precocious recognitions of this infant, which he himself, as I have said, candidly confessed he had drawn from God so early, suggest to me, weighing the whole matter with more mature reflection, far higher conjectures concerning him as well. For he who, still hiding in his mother's breast, was able to contemplate the stars of heaven, and who, scarcely born, recognized his parents, godparents, and patrons, seems credibly and much more likely also to have recognized divinely illuminated: God, the fount of the stars and of all blessings. What shall I say of the other mysteries? At that very time he was divinely aware of the muddy road by which he was carried to the sacred font; who, therefore, would doubt that he learned far greater things from baptism itself—what stains that salutary water washes away, to what place it establishes men before God, by what merits the water is raised to such sublime and heavenly effects, and six hundred other secrets of God, with which God deigned to imbue and prepare that still-infant soul, as with certain preludes to future contemplations?

CHAPTER V.

[8] Our Nicholas, therefore, born and reborn in this manner, from his very cradle began to be raised in the bosom of his excellent parents and to spend his boyhood under their holy and diligent discipline. He had no other teachers or guides than God and his guardian Angel; hence, although he remained devoid of all literary learning, yet he absorbed heavenly and divine teachings early. he passes through boyhood in holiness, Those who observed his character called him the Mirror of Boyhood. Nothing childish in the child: the boy represented a grave man. Whatever virtues are accustomed to adorn and commend boyhood were at their summit in him. Most observant of his parents, he considered nothing more important than to comply with them in all things and to engrave their counsels upon his innermost heart. He was never heard to stain his tongue with falsehood, which is otherwise a bad habit in boys. Nothing was more courteous, more pleasant, or more upright than he toward all persons; whence he was both loved and admired by all. Nothing wanton or frivolous in him. Among his household members, brothers,

* Rather, the fifth.

CHAPTER II.

Nicholas leads an upright life in marriage and military service; he is exercised by demons and refreshed by various visions.

CHAPTER VII.

[12] Now our Nicholas, having passed beyond the years of puberty, was advancing as a robust young man to the age of manhood, Preferring celibacy. at which time most people, upon the advice of more prudent persons, make decisions concerning the state of the rest of their lives. Nor was there need of much deliberation for an unlettered man to practice those things to which he had grown accustomed as a youth; but this, however, had come to be deliberated in this matter: whether he should live as a celibate or bind himself with the bonds of matrimony. For the man of God, most zealous for a higher life, was not unaware that God is not offended by marriages entered into by those who are not impeded by any vow of state or sacrament of definitive devotion voluntarily undertaken. Yet the plain words of that divine Orator inclined him in another direction, who said in 1 Corinthians 7: "I wish all to be as I myself am. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife. I wish you to be without care. He who is without a wife is concerned about the things of the Lord, how he may please God. The virgin thinks about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and spirit. She will be happier if she remains thus, according to my counsel; and I think that I too have the spirit of God." The spotless mind of the most chaste young man was also drawn by the most reliable examples of many persons of both sexes, from both the Old and the New Testament, whom perpetual celibacy had made more commendable to both God and men—and especially of those who, from love of the desert, with which he too burned ardently, as has been mentioned above, had never bound themselves to marriage. yet he yields to those who urge marriage, Nevertheless, the prayers of parents and relatives, which he was not accustomed to oppose, urged the virginal young man from another quarter to take up that yoke—although they themselves did not wish by their counsels to prescribe anything to his freedom in this matter. After the matter, so uncertain, had been long and much debated within himself, and much more in his solitary consultations with God, since he had also sensed that he was being driven to this by an inward divine impulse, he at last willingly yielded to the judgment and will of his parents, and married the maiden offered to him from the honorable Wyssling family, Dorothy by name—allured by the hope of offspring, not by the enticement of pleasure.

[13] From the rigor of his former life he relaxed nothing, even in marriage itself. and from his wife Dorothy becomes the father of ten children Nothing was holier than this husband,

taught the chosen soul to flee from manifest losses to salvation, so that she might the more freely take flight thither, where he was at length planning to draw her.

CHAPTER X.

[17] Nicholas still held that course of life among his household, wife, and children which I described above; he gave the days to labors and the nights to prayers and divine meditations, Intensely devoted to piety yet he labored zealously to conceal and dissemble this from his household. It was his custom at evening, at the usual hour of rest, to retire to bed with the rest of the family and to rest a little; but soon, having interrupted his sleep, when he observed that all the rest were the more deeply oppressed by it, he would leave the bedchamber quietly and without noise, fall upon his knees, and temper the entire cold of the remaining night with the most fervent conversations with God. Meanwhile he was bathed in the most abundant consolations from God, which, overflowing even into his body, restored his strength far better than sleep and rendered him more vigorous and stronger than the rest for the work before dawn.

But the fatal enemies of the human race bore it most grievously that one man—rude, common, and rustic—should experience so many divine favors, excel in so many virtues, and lead so innocent a life. His perpetual vigils, abstinences, and alms were suspect to them; he suffers hostile demons; they interpreted Nicholas's progress as their own contempt and indeed their ruin; they feared that by his example he would draw many after him and would at length snatch an enormous prey from the jaws of hell. Therefore, at first by secret tunnels they strove either to overthrow him entirely or at least to undermine him; they craftily suggested various things by which he might either be retarded from his piously and religiously undertaken exercises, or turned entirely from his proposed journey to heaven. But when he himself remained unshaken against all their hidden assaults, so that they could never drag him even to the slightest impatience, they finally determined to attack him by open and violent warfare. They would beat him, push him, and afflict him in various ways, so that they might stir his bile even once. But in vain; the invincible athlete of God laughed at their insults and by the greatness of his soul bravely eluded the harassments of his body. He had once retired to the country, accompanied by his eldest son, for the purpose of inspecting or tending the livestock. While his son in the stable was busily occupied with the care of the animals, Nicholas himself was laboring outside, beyond the pens, to tear down and uproot the regrowing obstructions of thorns and briars that were harming the pastures. and he himself is hurled through the thorns by them, The fierce enemy seized this occasion for doing harm: he appeared without warning, seized the innocent man by the middle, lifted him aloft, and with enormous force through the thickest thorn-bushes to the lower-lying meadows about thirty paces distant

when he had sufficiently long delighted his eyes and mind, and had also liberally bathed his eager throat with that nectareous liquid, going outside into the neighboring field, he encountered there innumerable throngs of men wandering promiscuously about the field. Like ants, people of different sorts were running about, occupied with different businesses; all, however, anxious, were gaping only at gain. Some were busy building fences, others were joining the banks of a river with a bridge, and both groups were cleverly demanding tolls from passersby. There were many who, in a more pleasant occupation, were playing on flutes, drums, and strings, who nevertheless were also extorting payment from the dancers; still others, strenuously intent on other labors, were devoted to profit. While Nicholas was astonished at these things, a divine light suddenly appeared and so illuminated him that he easily understood what all these portents meant. In that perennial spring he contemplated God, the inexhaustible spring of all good; in those three most sweet streams of the one and the same spring, he drew in the Trinity of Persons; in the ten steps of the stairway he read the Decalogue; he gathered that the cup of divine knowledge was offered to those who had traversed and ascended the stairs of the Decalogue; that many, indeed all mortals, were invited to these precious delights, yet few came running—indeed almost none; that commonly men seek mere vanities, rubbish, and temporal gains, and that all their zeal and all their efforts tend finally to that end. Whence a new spur was added to him for utterly abandoning these fleeting things and plunging himself entirely into those perennial streams.

[21] At another time, when he was occupied with some domestic tasks or other, he is commanded to serve God alone he received three grave men coming to him, similar in appearance, equal in stature, and seemingly of the same age. The first of them, turning seriously to Nicholas, said: "Does it please you, Nicholas, to dedicate and surrender yourself entirely, body and soul, to our power and judgment?" To this Nicholas responded with his whole heart's affection: "I make the surrender of my entire self to the one and only all-powerful God, and to no other; to whom I have long desired to serve with all the powers of both body and soul." Then those three men, with a beaming and cheerful countenance, seemed to put their heads together as it were, to smile, and to nod approval; and the first again consoled the holy man with these words: "If, therefore, you have definitively devoted yourself entirely to the service of the one God, do what you are doing, and firmly persist on the path you have begun. For when you have completed the seventieth year of your age, to die at age 70, freed from the prison of the body and from all the miseries of the world, you will fly to heaven, there to receive the reward owed to your labors. Meanwhile many contests will arise, demanding much endurance and much strength to fight through. But take courage, soldier: you will conquer, you will triumph over whatever hostile force

At last even his wife herself yielded and renounced her right willingly and voluntarily, and gave her right hand to her dearest husband, not without flowing tears, granting him free power to go wherever he wished. It is incredible to say with what a sense of inner delight this consent flooded Nicholas: he seemed to himself to have already placed one foot among the stars, and nothing else appeared that could place any obstacle in his way so as to prevent him from very soon embracing with open arms the plan of a more sublime life which he had long since conceived.

CHAPTER II.

[24] Having obtained his wife's permission, therefore, in the manner we have described, he began to look around for a desert suitable for his plan of life and to deliberate anxiously as to which one he should rather pursue and where—within or outside his fatherland. About to depart from his fatherland, In his native soil itself perfectly suitable solitudes presented themselves, but meanwhile various considerations came to mind which called him to a foreign place, where he might live not only alone but also unknown. He reflected that in his homeland there would not be lacking detractors who would form diverse judgments about this matter and spread various reports: some, as usually happens, would interpret it well; more would interpret it badly. With some he would not escape the name and stigma of rashness, with others of ostentation; his own household and friends would accuse him of being idle and lazy; finally, all this could be avoided by distance alone, which would deprive everyone of all sight of him and, as usually follows, even of his memory. Wherefore, in the seventh month of the year one thousand four hundred and fifty-seven, now past his fiftieth year, he announced to his relatives and household a fixed day for his departure, on which he would bid them a final farewell. They came in numbers on the appointed day, and first admiring, then also approving the man's resolution, he bids farewell to his people, which they could not oppose, they were nevertheless variously affected in their hearts. He stood before them, having put off his old garments, clad only in a long tunic of rough cloth, barefoot, with head uncovered, and his hands armed with a staff. His garb and his entire countenance, and above all his speech, breathed something divine. To embrace each one, to pray well for each,

he commanded, and to set aside superfluous anxieties of mind: that it was now the eleventh day since he had taken absolutely no care for his body, had admitted nothing of food or drink; that he had felt no discomfort from this, no fainting; that he wished, if he could, to persevere thus until the onset of some infirmity should counsel otherwise. And having said these things, he dismissed his brother, struck with the novelty of the matter, and sent him home.

[29] Lest, however, he should seem to wish to tempt God rashly, since, having been once discovered, he was being visited from all sides, which he consults with the parish priest, he secretly summoned a Priest to himself through an intermediary—a man of known prudence and probity. This was Oswald Isner, the Pastor of the parish of Kerns. To him Nicholas faithfully laid open his whole soul: how long he had already gone without any food while remaining healthy; with what longing he had burned from his earliest childhood for such a life as, being entirely devoid of bodily nourishment, would afford him greater opportunity both to bid the world a final farewell and to cling to God alone. He did not wish, however, to stand on his own judgment or decision, but asked that, having examined the matter prudently and maturely, the Priest should at last pronounce his own opinion concerning it: he would follow whatever he should advise. Then the pious Priest marveled at the unaccustomed and prodigious affair, more carefully observed the face and hands of the holy man, and explored his feet and arms with his fingers. He saw indeed that the entire face had grown pallid, the cheeks had wasted away with emaciation, it is approved. the lips, harsh with dryness, had cracked; the whole body was no longer sustained by flesh or any fluid, but by mere bones clothed only with skin. Yet in the desiccated body he perceived the spirit to be vigorous and the powers intact in the exhausted limbs. Nothing of liveliness, nothing of health was lacking to this image of death. Whence he prudently concluded that nothing vain, nothing superstitious lurked here; that a man could not be sustained for so long by the winds and blasts of empty air; that this was the work of God alone, who had disposed something above nature concerning this man. He therefore advised Nicholas to continue the abstinence he had begun, and to rely on the aid of God alone in this matter, as long as God himself should supply the strength and such a spirit. The holy man seized with a brave and cheerful countenance the advice given according to his desire, and continued the fast he had begun, unharmed from that time forward for the rest of his life and always constant in strength.

[34] Through appointed guards Most of the natives were now thoroughly persuaded of Nicholas's perpetual abstinence from food, but not all. Many began to doubt again, and, as is the inconstant nature of the common people, to fear fraud or pretense, to suspect, and to murmur openly that food was being secretly brought to the man. Although, therefore, as we have mentioned above, Nicholas's sincerity in this matter had long since been proved by a strict and prolonged enough guard, the Unterwaldians nevertheless, to test the truth even more certainly, decreed by public plebiscite fresh sentries and stationed them throughout the entire surrounding valley in such a way that no access or departure to him would be open to anyone, would never be permitted to anyone, until the matter was established by the most thorough investigation. The abstinence of Nicholas is investigated: For an entire month the guards spent their time in their stations with vigilant and diligent care, certain that during all that time Nicholas had lacked not only all sustenance but even all human sight. And because in the meantime the man of God had been found to have persevered alone, in the highest quiet, absorbed in divine meditations, without any diminution of strength or health, the siege was at last lifted, and all vain fear and false suspicion about his integrity was thoroughly removed and vanished from men's minds. The Vicar of Constance Indeed, that the truth of the matter might be more firmly proved and, confirmed by higher authority, might become more celebrated, when the Unterwaldians approached the Bishop of Constance, as I mentioned above, about the consecration of the chapel, they simultaneously made solemn mention to him of the prodigious abstinence of Nicholas, so that, if he wished, he too might take some notable and authoritative test of the same. He therefore seriously committed this business also, to be diligently investigated, to his suffragan bishop—the Bishop of Ascalon, as I have said. When the dedication of the church had been performed with pontifical rite, the aforesaid Bishop Thomas entered Nicholas's cell, attached to the sacred building, and spent a great part of the day, mingling sublime conversations with him, with much feeling of piety and sweetness. He marveled at the divine eloquence in an unlettered man, at the austerity of life beyond human powers, at the unusual visions and prophecies; and at last, when the conversation turned to the virtues, he asked which of all the virtues Nicholas himself considered the chief and queen.

reported, and that the holy and innocent life and death of Christ should constantly be before the minds of men, and that thanks should be given to God more frequently for such great benefits. These brief divine meditations ought to be all the more acceptable to us, not only because we know that they came forth from a man most expert in divine matters and a friend of God most richly endowed with the Holy Spirit, but also because they embrace in a brief compendium the principal points of our ancestral faith, set before us for meditation the chief articles of our redemption, and finally clearly set forth the duty of a Christian man." Thus Canisius; and after a few more words, he concludes that preface with these: "May God the Best and Greatest grant that these meditations and prayers, now published for the first time, may be embraced by all in the spirit of Nicholas himself, and, more frequently read, may be fruitfully employed." The same most weighty author then subjoins also certain other pious sighs of Nicholas, which he was accustomed to interject while considering somewhat more at length the words of the Lord's Prayer and the Angelic Salutation; from all of which it is easy for one skilled in divine matters to gather how the man of God was by no means unlearned in sacred things but experienced, and by what feelings he was moved in them.

[39] This he repeatedly impressed upon those who came to him: that there is nothing in the whole world better or more salutary than to preserve a pure mind and a clean conscience, He commends purity of heart, and if it has perhaps contracted some stain, to purge it more frequently through sacred confession properly made. When he suffered any adversity, he had but one maxim on his lips: "This is the will of God." He also gave thanks to God daily for three kinds of benefits: first, that by divine will he had obtained the gracious permission of his wife and children, with the care of domestic affairs set aside, to live in solitude and to serve God alone; grateful to God for benefits, then, that by the same generous favor he was never tempted by any desire or thought of returning to his own; and finally, that by divine grace he was permitted to live his life sound and whole without any nourishment of the body. He confessed that from boyhood he had yearned for this grace with many prayers and tears, so that he might be the more remote from all the impediments of this world and might cling the more fixedly to God alone.

for in bread lies hidden the grace of God, in daily bread, which if it be withdrawn, man seeks life in it in vain, nor can he be satisfied by it any more than if he were eating stones. When God by his unlimited power secretly enters the small host of bread, then indeed the bread is transubstantiated, so that there is no longer natural bread there, but by God's generosity flesh and blood, true God and man, though invisibly; and in any host consecrated by a Priest, indeed in any even the smallest particle of it, the entire Deity is perfectly and undividedly contained and remains. And this is finally our daily bread." the plague of pestilence. Thus he. When the man of God asked his guest about the savage contagion of the pestilence, what he thought—whether any mortal could withdraw himself from divine anger—and the guest at length asserted that it depended on the hand of divine providence and grace, he replied that he was of the same opinion: that indeed no one could withdraw himself from divine anger; yet that whoever preserved himself in the truth and constantly spent his life in the love of God, whatever might at last befall him, it could not turn out badly for him. After these and other conversations held on both sides, of which more shortly below, that unknown traveler, requesting Nicholas's prayers, resumed his journey.

CHAPTER V.

Heavenly Visions and Temptations Presented to Nicholas: His Affection toward the Blessed Virgin.

and pernicious words entered Nicholas's soul and wounded him gravely like a dart. He perceived immediately, of course, who it was that suggested such things—namely that noble apostate spirit, noble for his celestial ruin, noble for his implacable hatred and envy toward the human race. Wherefore, not deigning to give him a reply, he decided that he should be answered with silence and contempt. Meanwhile, turning his mind to God and to his Mother, the Mother of God, he fortified it against the wiles of the crafty old deceiver and earnestly implored her aid. When this was done, the vain spirit, confounded, immediately ceased to appear. At another time likewise, when Nicholas was walking not far from his cell along the bank of the Melchaa, the same impostor met him in the guise of a wealthy merchant, and again, for a large purse hung from his belt. And when the wicked spirit was now standing very near to the man of God, he began to address him thus: "What are you doing here, my brother, alone in the wilderness? Why do you flee from men, when you could benefit men greatly? You are a prudent man, provident, and beyond others most experienced in many things—are you then going to bury all these gifts in this desert? Are you going to steal away your help and counsel, necessary and salutary to many who are in need, through this separation and your obstinate absence?" To this Nicholas replied: "But you, wretch, what are you teaching me? You would have better counseled yourself, if you had been wise, when you still enjoyed celestial glory, lest you should ever be expelled from thence and plunged into the chasms of hell." And with this word he drove the proud enemy far from himself.

CHAPTER XII.

[48] They report that Nicholas frequently confessed to a certain intimate friend of his, a man of the senatorial order, that he had a daily contest with those infernal phantoms, He is aided by the Blessed Virgin, but that he placed his chief defense, next to God, in the Virgin Mother of God, by whose help and consolation he was never abandoned in his combats. Whence many gather by no vain conjecture that that most pious Lady often stood by her servant in those contests in visible form and put those monstrous specters to flight. This at least is entirely beyond doubt: that with the foremost piety and veneration, next to God, Nicholas cherished this his

faithfully and openly stated. The woman, moreover, on whose account the matter was being handled, understanding the affair well, at that same moment perceived both herself freed from all doubt and jealousy, and bids her go away reassured: and her husband amply vindicated from all perverse suspicion by so great a testimony.

[53] At some point a certain Swiss—I know not who—of profane appearance and speech, had approached the holy man. he corrects youthful vanity, For in his clothing there was nothing Swiss, but everything was foreign; nothing ancestral, but all was theatrical and histrionic. For his garment gaped with various deliberate slashes, and vanity shone through on every side through the windowed doublet. When this most vain man, therefore, presented himself to the man of God with great pomp and boastfully asked whether this style of dress pleased him, he answered that if the heart were good, all the rest would be well; "but your heart could be as sincere and good as to not degenerate from the modesty of your fatherland by despising this condemned extravagance of garments." And thus, having corrected him sweetly and yet vigorously at the same time, he sent him home. But what would Nicholas now be thought to feel about his Switzerland, into which, looking down from his heavenly watchtower, he sees all of France, England, Italy, and Spain to have migrated in regard to clothing? If he were to pronounce his countrymen vain—not to say foolish—he would be judged to strike them with far too light a censure, inasmuch as they have deviated by so great a distance from the ancient discipline of their ancestors. A certain citizen of Constance, engaged in the cattle trade, was so careless of his affairs and the pretense of riches. that in a short time he was reduced to destitution. He often traveled through Switzerland, whence the celebrated fame of Nicholas could not have escaped him. When, therefore, he saw that his resources were at rock bottom, he told certain people that he had heard many things about Brother Nicholas, and that he would therefore go and test by experience what that man could do. He goes; from his belt he hangs an enormous purse, bulging not with copper or silver but with hay, and ropes as well, as though about to buy up whole herds and droves of cattle, and thus presents himself before the holy man. To whom Nicholas said: "You pretend to be rich, wretch, and you disguise your poverty; your purse bulges, but it hides not even a farthing." At these words the vain merchant, drenched in blush, retraced his steps to where he had come from.

arising from a change of religion, could be guarded against and averted? He is truly blind, indeed more sightless than a mole itself, who does not observe from the present state of the fatherland that Nicholas's prophecies have long since been confirmed by the event." Thus he. Our prophet, therefore, not only uttered such prophecies at those assemblies at Stans, but also in the hermitage, when the magnates of the fatherland came often to visit him; he repeated these same prophecies and many others and impressed them again and again. Meanwhile he is also said to have been accustomed to add the following to these prophecies of future heresies, and their destruction: that he hoped from the goodness of God that those sects would not last much more than a hundred years. Indeed also in the year following these assemblies, in a letter given by him to the people of Bern, he again warned them of the same dangers; which I have translated into Latin, word for word, in the rude and simple style in which it was given.

"To the Venerable, Pious, and Most Prudent Magistrates and Senate of the City of Bern."

[58] He writes an exhortation to the Bernese. "Venerable, etc. May the Name of Jesus be your greeting, and I pray for you all prosperity and happiness; and may the Spirit be my final reward. First I give you great thanks for your gift, from which I recognize your paternal love toward me, which is more welcome to me than the gift itself—of which I wish you to be persuaded that I am perfectly content; indeed, if it were less by half, it would still have abundantly satisfied me. That I may therefore be able to recompense your charity before God and men, I will most readily labor. The messenger to whom you entrusted the gift faithfully delivered it into my hands; I ask you again and again to hold him commended to you out of love for me. I therefore write to you out of obedience, which is the greatest virtue in heaven and on earth; and therefore you must take care that mutual compliance flourish among you, and know that this is most dear to him from whom all things take their most blessed beginning. Peace is always in God; indeed God himself is peace, and can never be disturbed; but by discord peace is disturbed. You must therefore labor to pursue peace, to protect widows and orphans, as you have done until now. If anyone's fortune on earth grows for the better, let him be grateful to God, so that it may also grow in heaven. Let crimes

he also applied his mind to even more rigorous studies, letters sent to him from Paris, so that at last in the solemn theater of that most celebrated University he was honored with the supreme laurel of Philosophy. At that time, it happened that a certain young man, likewise a German by nationality, had devoted himself to letters at the same University, and finally, about to return to his fatherland, had received from his roommate two letters for Nicholas's excellent father, whom he had planned to visit on his way. It happened, however, by I know not what accident, that he carelessly lost one of them near the very borders of Burgundy, and was therefore so dismayed that he feared to present himself before the man of God and dreaded some offense on his part. Having recovered his spirits, however, he continued his journey, and when he was not far from Nicholas's chapel, he perceived the very same man coming forth to meet him. Wonderful to say! The man of God, with hand raised, was displaying from afar the letters that had been lost he receives them by a miracle: and already utterly despaired of by the messenger, and with a serene and cheerful countenance asked the young man, who stood fixed with astonishment, whether he also bore any other letters from his son from Paris. Refreshed by this prodigy, the anxious guest began to admire and venerate the man of God all the more, to whom those lost letters had without doubt arrived by heavenly messengers.

[62] A Consul from Interlaken in the territory of Bern had a foot so swollen with a grievous tumor that, tossed about with the most severe pains, he could take no rest. And now human remedies had failed, he heals a swollen foot, whence the religious man, turning to divine aids, vowed a wax foot to the Virgin Mother of God, who was then propitious to many in Nicholas's chapel, commended himself singularly to Nicholas's prayers, and thus shortly recovered his former health. Having recovered his strength, however (as is the ingratitude of mortals, mostly forgetful of benefits), forgetting that he was bound by his vow, he neglected to deliver the votive offering which he owed; whence the avenging hand of God compelled him to fulfill his vow by afflicting him with the old affliction. As soon, therefore, as he began to feel the retribution for his neglected piety, he hastened with as much speed as his illness allowed to the chapel of the man of God, and having hung up the votive offering, begged Nicholas's pious supplications before God for the health of his foot. No sooner said than done: the man of God, pouring forth prayers, immediately restored the foot to the sick man completely whole, in the sight of

what would be expedient for anyone's salvation. Ulrich therefore, first, following the example of his teacher, removed all nourishment from his stomach: he brought to the table neither any delicacy nor even bread, after a fast of 13 days and spent thirteen whole days entirely fasting and without effort or hunger, initiated into the holiest thoughts, in the hut which Nicholas himself had first inhabited, and then the sacristan. Then Nicholas, taught by heavenly counsel, sent him half a loaf to be dipped in the stream of the Melchaa and eaten. Ulrich, although his stomach was already averse (so quickly had it accustomed itself to enduring hunger), yet judging that fasting ought to take second place to obedience, ate it at Nicholas's command, he eats only out of obedience: and then on the following day took the other half. Then at last he began to feel such distress from the fast that it seemed he could appease his stomach with no food. Nicholas had already anticipated this in his mind and gave instructions to his household to prepare a copious supper for Ulrich, by which he might satisfy his thirteen-day hunger. Ulrich nevertheless wondered, when his hunger was now removed, why Nicholas had not allowed him to continue the practice he had begun of abstaining from food, since during all those days he had suffered no discomfort from fasting. "This sufficed for you," said Nicholas, "and thus God's command prescribed it; cease to inquire further." To what end (says the author of the life) consider, my reader: namely, that by the miraculous thirteen-day fast, the angelic sobriety of nineteen and a half years of Nicholas might be confirmed as with a seal.

[67] After this, Ulrich, having returned the cabin to John the Custodian of the church, he builds an oratory: withdrew to the rock of a hollow and eroded cliff across the Melchaa, and beside the cave erected a small sacred edifice with three altars, inscribed to Michael, the Leader of the heavenly Legions; to the Apostle Bartholomew; and to Anne, the excellent parent of the Mother of God of Christ our Liberator. There he established his arena of religious exercise; there he sustained his body with the most frugal and meager fare, for the sake of preserving life; he constantly harassed it with sleeping on the ground, vigils, and watches, and tormented it with praying and meditating. He spent seven years until his final day in the most holy manner, surviving Nicholas by four years.

"After this, when peace was made, very many churches fell away to Papism; and in the year 1533, the people of Solothurn, Fribourg, and the Valais joined with the Five Cantons in a private alliance, indeed for the sake of defending the Catholic religion."

CHAPTER VIII.

The Fame of Sanctity, Preserved from the Time of Nicholas's Death to the Present Day and Attested by Public Worship.

PART III

CHAPTER I.

[71] On the day after the one on which Nicholas was buried in the ground, the glorious man himself appeared both to his wife and also to other honored and trustworthy citizens. He stood upon that cliff The glory of his appearance after death, which had given him his family name; a most brilliant splendor spread itself from him far and wide and dazzled the eyes of those who beheld him. He carried in his hand a white banner displaying the image of a bear's paw, and waving it through the breezes, he sang of victory and triumph. That great spectacle brought consolation to his grieving wife, great commendation to the man of God himself among his countrymen, and assurance of eternal happiness. As soon as

of Peter, which he had received left to him for governance by his predecessor Alexander VI. He, having learned of the ardor of piety with which the Republic of Lucerne pursued that supplication for the appeasing of God, moved by pious generosity, granted the suppliants an annual jubilee, which his successive papal successors to the present day not only confirmed every ten or fifteen years, but also most generously augmented and extended to more days each year. This was done by Clement VII, Paul III and IV, Gregory XIII, Sixtus V, likewise Paul V, and finally Gregory XV, who sealed those Indulgences by his latest bull for two five-year periods, in the year one thousand six hundred and twenty-two, the first of his Pontificate. To these graces with which the Popes, as I said, adorned that divine worship, the Senate of Lucerne itself also added its generous hand; for it assigned to the Priests, whether inhabitants or neighbors, as many as flocked to it, two cups of wine of the Lucerne measure each, and six pounds of fish.

[76] That procession usually proceeded from the principal church of S. Leger, accompanied by the most holy Eucharist, he left to his host: the sacred relics of the Saints, a great multitude of Clergy, and the people, and crossed the nearby lake or the river Reuss by boat, and circled the rest of the city walls in such a manner that, after a preacher had delivered an oration in the open air on the suburban hill—in Latin to the clergy, and in the vernacular to the common people—it finally returned to where it had started. That our Nicholas attended this supplication at Lucerne every year is established by the most certain evidence, other relics held in honor. as Eichhorn testifies; but this must have occurred before it was adorned with the Pontifical indulgences which I mentioned above, as will easily be understood by anyone who diligently examines the chronology. The holy man lodged at Lucerne with the Uttenberg family, whose ancestors are said to have drawn their origin from the Unterwalden region. And since he was clad in a toga now worn and torn, a new one was offered—but one no less made from rough gray cloth—and the pious hosts asked and obtained that the old one be left to them or given as a gift; they then kept this honorably and religiously.

praises—which Paulus Giovio, the distinguished historian, pursues more fully in volume 1, book 11—that pious Prince, I say, was drawn with a thoroughly pious and religious affection toward this man of God. This is clearly attested both by his generosity, with which he above all promoted at his own expense the building of a new church near Nicholas's hermitage, begun in the year one thousand five hundred and one, as I said; and also by the preface of Henry Lupulus, Canon of Bern, by which he dedicated his booklet on the life of Nicholas, written in the already-named year, as I shall relate more fully below, to this Prince who was most devoted to Nicholas. In it, among other things, he addresses him thus: "Since it is by no means hidden from me with what great affection you are moved, not only toward this Nicholas and his entire posterity, but also toward all the citizens of Unterwalden, I humbly offer and dedicate this booklet, most distinguished Prince, to your excellent dignity—not because I would be so mad as to think that the uncultivated weave of words would please your most polished judgment in any respect, but so that, sometimes setting aside weightier business, you might meanwhile restore your wearied powers by reading the most approved character of so holy a man; and that the history itself, insufficiently supported by the strength of its own author, undergoing the correction of so great a judge, might be less attacked by the calumnies of detractors." Thus Lupulus to that Prince.

Among the other leading persons who religiously visited Nicholas's tomb, by S. Charles Borromeo, there was Charles Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan and Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church—that man most celebrated throughout the entire world for his fame of sanctity and miracles—who in the year one thousand five hundred and seventy came to Sachseln and, prostrating himself before the mausoleum of the man of God with great humility of soul and body, poured forth his prayers to God as a suppliant. And from that time, as long as he lived, showing himself a singular Patron and Father of the Swiss, he devoted all the efforts of his soul earnestly to their welfare, as his acts, signed in public records, amply declare. Nor is there any doubt that even after he ceased to be here, he has never ceased to be a Patron of Switzerland together with Nicholas, whom, as I have said, he singularly venerated. They relate that this same holy man, when he beheld

"the Lord, the Lord Pope will be able to gather what he owes to the prayers of Catholic Switzerland, to the opinion of the entire people, and to the testimonies of so many approved men concerning the admirable abstinence and sanctity of life of this our Nicholas, and concerning the evident miracles both during his life and after death; what, finally, he owes to the necessities of these times for the expansion of Catholic piety and faith in these regions of Catholic Switzerland. Wherefore the Powerful and Most Illustrious Lords of the Cantons or Districts of the Catholic Swiss, by humble prayers through their appointed Legates, petition His Holiness that, in consideration of this man and in acceding to the most pious prayers of so many faithful, having diligently examined and investigated the foregoing matters, he may deign to proceed to his consecration and canonization—lest he whom God has shown by many and manifest signs and miracles to have been made worthy of the choir of Saints in celestial glory should be defrauded on earth of the honor due to the Saints."

[82] The Unterwaldians sent to Rome as Legates the illustrious men Melchior Lussi and Melchior im Feld, both Knights of the Golden Spur and Consuls of both Unterwaldens, After the death of Gregory XIV, the former of whom had also been the ambassador of the Catholic Cantons to the Council of Trent. Pope Gregory the Fourteenth of that name received them most lovingly, especially Lussi, whom he had already begun to know at Trent, and gave them great hope of generously obtaining what they had piously and religiously sought. And certainly this hope would not have deceived them, had not intervening death removed the Pontiff, most ready for this matter, from the living. And so the business was again postponed to the year one thousand six hundred and twenty-one, the business is resumed under Gregory XV, when of its own accord the Congregation that is called the Congregation of Rites—because the former inquiry had lacked certain required solemnities—with the approval of the Supreme Pontiff Gregory the Fifteenth, decreed that a new inquiry should be made into the life, character, and miracles of Nicholas. This decree, when the Pontiff was shortly afterwards taken from the living, our Holy Lord Urban the Eighth, the present Pontiff, at the request of the Catholic Cantons, not only confirmed

an exordium was to be taken, by which your own most praiseworthy city—not the least among the parts of the Swiss confederation, yet still unknown to some foreign regions—illuminated from afar by the fame of this holy Nicholas, might also increase its renown through our writings, while we unfold the place itself and the people. Receive, therefore, best of men, this booklet, the first fruits of our labor, with an equitable mind, by which you may more easily perceive my regard for you and the mirror of your fatherland, to be beheld by all the Unterwaldians.

[85] With this exordium Lupulus wished to address the Unterwaldians as he set about describing Nicholas's life. with the epilogue: I also add to the exordium the peroration with which he closed his commentary: "These things, men of Unterwalden, have been presented to me for writing concerning your holy Father and countryman Nicholas. Although they are most true, they ought to furnish you with an occasion not for rashly or ineptly boasting, but rather for embracing and increasing divine religion. For what could have been given by God Most High more graciously to your city than to have its Republic preserved safe and peaceful amid such uncertain turns of fortune, enriched by the patronage of this hermit? Indeed no one ought to doubt that his intercessions have very often availed not only for his own fellow citizens but also for the entire Swiss Confederation. Therefore the greatest effort must be expended by you to most abundantly bestow all the benefits of so great an Advocate for the praise of God and your own edification; and if you do this, there will be no reason for you ever to complain that you are destitute of his aid. It remains for this little work of ours, composed with a cheerful countenance and a heart whole toward all the Unterwaldians, to be more promptly disseminated by you, so that minds devoted to Nicholas may more easily close the mouths of adversarial detractors (if there be any), and that they themselves, setting before themselves an example of piety, may be more ardently inflamed in obedience to God and his servant. I would also wish to exhort the benevolent reader not to be angry with me if he perhaps finds something rather inept or less polished to have slipped out, since I have labored more to declare the truth than in the toil of weighing polished discourse." These

of all toward the way of truth, justice, salvation, and peace. To those who are good and who have not deviated from the Catholic faith until now, it ought to be set forth that by the living example of so great a man they should remain and can benefit also the non-Catholics. unmoved, fixed, constant, and undaunted in the ancestral and Catholic religion, in the one orthodox Church of Christ, in the faith, veneration, use, and frequent reception of the most holy Sacraments; and that they should not allow themselves to be shaken and struck down by any storms of heresies and monstrosities of schisms—against which he, while still living, warned his contemporaries and followers so frequently, so seriously, so anxiously, and so fraternally, and impressed upon them the need for caution. To those, however, who have either wickedly defected from the Catholic faith themselves, or who, fraudulently and wretchedly deceived and seduced by impostors, are tossed about in the darkness of errors—to their own confusion, which nevertheless (if they wish to be wise and to reflect more diligently with themselves, from the course of his life, whence and whither they have wretchedly fallen) can lead them to the recognition of their errors and bring them back to that one Roman fold of Christ and the Catholic Church, from which they deviated and in which our Nicholas lived and died. These men boast that they have found the clear light of the Gospel and of the Word of God under the benches; but the time will certainly come, unless they return to the footsteps of Brother Nicholas, when they will experience and in vain lament their irreparable and eternally deplorable loss—when from the thickest and more than Cimmerian darkness of perfidy, errors, and heresies, and from the foul gloom of crimes, in which they are already enveloped, oppressed, and held, they will be cast into those outer and everlasting ones. Let this be our glory, this our joy and exultation, this the boast of our freedom and nobility: that by God's benefit so great a man has been given to us. Let us not only continually contemplate his faith, life, character, and God's wonders in him, nor only boast with our lips of his sanctity, but let us join and conform faith to faith, life to life, character to character, and thus truly proclaim God, who is wonderful in his Saints, in word and deed, here and forever. And let these testimonies of our edition and of its motivating reasons, among all lovers of Catholic truth, in writing and

Lucerne, in a vast wilderness; who for many years in great poverty, humility, patience, and sanctity strenuously served the Lord as a solitary in the same desert; and before his death lived continuously for twenty years without bodily food, as we have ascertained by the testimony of the Bishop of Constance, in whose parish he was dwelling, and of many other trustworthy persons. He also had the spirit of prophecy, and foretold to his people certain future events which afterwards came to pass. There was a great concourse of pilgrims to him, even from remote regions, since his dwelling was not far from the Monastery of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Hermits. This man of God was a miracle to us in his time; for although he was utterly ignorant of all letters, yet he flourished with a wonderful subtlety of understanding of the Scriptures, and gave answers to the questions of any learned persons whatsoever, not otherwise than that holy hermit Antony, once the most learned Philosopher without letters, is reported to have given. Although he did not admit all persons indiscriminately to conversation with him, but only those whom he recognized as being moved to speak by the divine Spirit. Finally, he is reported to have been resplendent with miracles." Thus Trithemius in that passage. In his fifteenth Homily, however, on abstinence and fasting, he proclaims this concerning the same man: "Behold, it is now the twentieth year since that famous Nicholas of Schwyz, having entered the wilderness, has not taken human food. I speak of what is most well known to all, nor do I think there is a man living in Germany who has not heard the fame of this miracle." So that Bishop spoke of Nicholas truly and no less than magnificently.

[95] Then in the ninety-first year of that century, there appeared at Strasbourg the Fasciculus Temporum, of the Fasciculus Temporum, compiled by an unknown author, which, among other outstanding men from the creation of the world, also includes our Nicholas and gathers his most ample praises in these words: "A certain devout hermit in the regions of the Swiss, near Unterwalden, in great humility, refreshed only by the Body of the Lord each month, lived for fifteen years and more without bodily food." Thus that passage. Two years later at Nuremberg, in both Roman and vernacular

and cares having been renounced, he could say with S. Paul: "I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him. For me to live is Christ and to die is gain." Phil. 3 and 1 This finally is the greater and more wonderful thing: that this man, by God's will and guidance, proposed to himself no other manner of life than that severe and hard way of the anachoretic life, and persevered constantly in that very way of life for about twenty years until death, with a glad, cheerful spirit and soul. Indeed, by his own testimony, he said he could never be sufficiently grateful to the Supreme Godhead for the fact that, free and released from wife, children, home, and other secular affairs, he could treat of heavenly things and devote himself day and night to pious exercises. Just as also the Forerunner of our Savior, John, by divine instinct sought the desert and spent the greatest part of his life there alone in severity. Entirely this soldier of Christ could appropriate the words of the blessed Paul: "Far be it from me to glory except in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified to me and I to the world. Gal. 6 and 2 I live, yet not I; but Christ lives in me."

[100] Nor should it seem strange to anyone that Brother Nicholas abandoned the married state of life an imitator of the Apostles: and departed from home, children, and wife. For God is wonderful in his Saints and works in them and through them as through his instruments in diverse ways, drawing them at his will to embrace this or that manner of living. Who shall resist the will of God? And who shall answer him? Whatever Nicholas did in this respect, he did with the foreknowledge and consent of his wife, following the example of the Apostles, who, induced by Christ's admonition and promises, left behind not only their worldly goods but also their wives, as soon as, inspired by the divine Spirit, they began to spread the seed of the Gospel throughout the whole earth. For Christ in plain words had foretold to them: "Everyone who has left house, or brothers or sisters, or father or mother, or wife or children, or fields, for my name's sake, shall receive a hundredfold and shall possess eternal life." Matt. 19 Whence it is manifest that Nicholas attempted nothing contrary to the ordinance of God and of the Church, and

the former of whom, treating of our Nicholas in book 7, chapter 4, describes him in these words: "A brief enumeration of the life, appearance, and dwelling of Brother Nicholas of the Unterwalden, a holy man and outstanding hermit. Around the year one thousand four hundred and eighty, in the Unterwalden above the forest, a certain adult citizen, having left all his relatives, withdrew into the desert of the Melchaa valley above Sachseln, called Brother Nicholas. He left behind him ten children, males and females in equal number. In this desert he led a solitary and holy life for twenty-one years without any bodily food or drink (some think he lived on roots). The natives frequently blockaded all the ways to him, to observe whether he was secretly fed from elsewhere. It was, however, certainly discovered that this man, similar to the Angels, surpassed the frailty of human nature and, though clothed in flesh, was nonetheless devoid of the necessities of the flesh and by no means subject to them. His principal prayer was: 'O Lord, take me from myself and give me entirely to you,' etc. Among other things he was accustomed to say that it had been far more welcome to him that by God's favor he was permitted to leave his wife than to live without food. He was a man of erect and tall stature, yet dried up and exhausted, so that only the skin adhered to his bones and sinews. His abstinence from food was also tested by the suffragan Bishop of Constance, who detected no fraud or pretense, so that he determined that he could only be sustained by divine power. He was chestnut in complexion, with black hair sprinkled with gray, a moderately long beard, thin and forked, with black or bright eyes from which a flashing terror struck those who beheld him. The veins of his throat, when he spoke, were thought to be moved and agitated more by air than by blood. He used one garment, reaching to the ankles, with head and feet bare. His voice was manly and his speech measured; to those who came to him he counseled repentance and the amendment of life. He disputed about God so exactly and subtly that it was as if he had penetrated all the secrets of the sacred pages, although he was utterly rude and unlettered. The serenity of his heart was an infallible sign of his certitude, on which his hope rested firm and unshaken, so that with S.

§ I.

[107] A certain citizen of Unterwalden, bearing the same name as the man of God, originating from the village of Inwil, had fallen by I know not what accident into extreme blindness, so that for not a few days his eyes admitted no light at all. A blind man receives sight, It came to mind, therefore, to visit Nicholas's tomb and, having poured forth prayers to God, to open heaven for himself, and also his eyes at the same time, through the intercession of the man of God. He goes, wearies himself and God with profuse supplications and tears, but moves nothing: he returns blind to his paternal home. During the following night, in his sleep he seemed to hear a voice of one seriously calling out that he should rise immediately, and leaving his bed, should follow with haste the one who called. He rises, and with his eyes opened he perceives that he can see even through the darkness; and from that time he had far sharper sight than ever before.

Sion is the capital of the Valais, a blind woman, where the daughter of a certain respectable citizen, afflicted with the same kind of misfortune, sat for three whole months without sight and struggled with the darkness. Her family members advised her to implore the aid of Nicholas and to vow a pilgrimage to his ashes. She implores, vows, and recovers her sight, and a few days later she joyfully discharged her vow at the church of Sachseln, bringing with her her parent as a witness to the prodigy.

From the domain of Bern, a certain careless man so severely struck one of his eyes against a wall and a one-eyed man: that he knocked out of it all faculty of seeing. When various remedies had been applied and the one-eyed man made no progress, he became a suppliant to the ashes of Nicholas and wiped away all blindness from the eye.

A certain man of advanced age, likewise another, for a long time, an inhabitant of the village of Lungern in Unterwalden, more sightless than a mole for many years, at last determined to seek his sight at Nicholas's tomb and to cling to it with a resolute mind until he should see with his eyes that his vow was fulfilled. He sets himself on the road, and at the very moment he began to tread it with his feet, he also began to make use of it with his eyes—though with dim and somewhat obscure vision. He proceeds full of hope, and gradually gains as much by seeing with his eyes as he advances by walking with his feet, with an equal increase of journey and sight, so that he at last found the same end both of his journey and of his blindness. Therefore, having completely recovered the power of his eyes, giving thanks to God

says the name was, and that the affair occurred two years before the mother legitimately testified to it in the year 1591, and that the girl was fifteen years old.

CHAPTER XIII.

The Dying and Various Sick Persons Cured through Nicholas.

§ IV.

[110] A boy, falling headlong from a height, struck his neck so violently upon a very sharp stake that the stake could not be pulled from his pierced throat without great force applied again and again. Lives are saved: a boy with throat transfixed, An enormous swelling of the jugular followed, which seemed about to cut off the boy's breath at any moment. The parents take up their son and, having carried him to Nicholas's tomb, beg for his life and health. The swelling immediately subsides, freer breathing returns, and the wounded throat is shortly healed.

A certain matron had undertaken to nurse her nephew by her sister, another crushed at night: quite an infant. It happened, however, on a certain night that, lying in the same bed with a maid, she placed the nursling between the two of them and sank into a deep sleep. When she finally awoke, she found the infant crushed and completely suffocated. Both rise from the bed, anxiously seek for life in the lifeless little body, and lament for a whole hour. At last, when they see that they are laboring in vain, they turn to heavenly aid; they bind themselves by a vow to Nicholas, and thus immediately recall the already-exiled little soul, together with perfect health, back into the little body.

a great many things followed, together with perfect health. A few days later, he himself came to Sachseln as a witness to this miracle, and ascribed his life and health, after God, to the man of God.

A certain ^k woman from Zurich commended her son, who had been struggling with kidney stone for a whole year and had been brought to extremity by the intolerable pain, and a boy, to Nicholas, with the interposition of the devotion of a pilgrimage and a religious offering at his sacred tomb. The following night the stone, the size of a bean, was expelled, and the health that followed made the mother bound by her act of devotion.

A certain citizen of Unterwalden had burdened himself with too great ^l a bundle of wood, so that, groaning under the weight, he contracted a hernia. He pledged a wax votive offering to Nicholas's tomb, and on that very night on which he made the pledge, he began to be free from all the affliction likewise four hernia sufferers and from all pain.

A certain parent in Unterwalden had handed over his son to a blacksmith to learn that trade; but he did not know that his son was herniated, for the boy's modesty had concealed that defect. But when the severity of the labor at the anvil caused the ailment to grow gradually worse, and he himself began to become more and more unequal to lifting the hammer, the matter could no longer be concealed. Surgeons are consulted, and they reveal the hernia. The parents take refuge with Nicholas, prostrate themselves together with their son before his sacred ashes, and immediately obtain for him complete restoration.

A certain woodcutter, intent at one point more vigorously than usual on his work, was ruptured with the same disease; but having poured forth prayers to God at Nicholas's tomb, he entreated relief from the affliction and immediately repaired the damage.

A seven-year-old boy, by I know not what accident or leap, began to suffer from hernia, and as the evil increased day by day, he began to decline to such an extent that he was finally called to the ultimate crisis of life. The anxious parents hurry to Nicholas's mausoleum, beg for the health of their dear child, and obtain it; for at home, while they were away, the boy completely recovered.

Then the pain began to subside, rest to return, food to taste good, and the limbs to solidify. Having therefore left his bed after three days, supporting his not yet entirely firm limbs with crutches, he came ^c to Unterwalden, and thence returning without any aid, he brought home with him the perfect health of his body.

A certain citizen of Erfurt had gone to ^d Compostela in Galicia as a pilgrim to venerate the ashes of S. James. It happened, however, A long-lasting disease is healed, that, oppressed by a grave and long-lasting disease, he was confined to bed there for nearly a full year, and no hope any longer remained in physicians or medicines. At length a refuge was found: the sick man resolved to visit the threshold of Nicholas on his journey home, if his strength should be restored. No sooner said than done: in the space of eight days, having recovered his strength, he prepared his journey toward Switzerland and finally completed it happily.

[118] A ^e matron of Nuremberg was so drained by a menstrual flow a flow of blood, that, completely deprived of strength, she could scarcely crawl on her hands and feet. The wretched woman, destitute of all help, commended herself to the prayers of Nicholas, and immediately, with the flow ceasing, she hastened in health to his tomb. From the same city, a certain neophyte who had been converted from the dregs of the Jews to the true faith erysipelas, was so burned by the sacred fire, as they call it, that all had already entirely despaired of his health. He therefore invoked Nicholas, when all other remedies had been despaired of, and by his most clear vows immediately extinguished all those fevers—which he himself proclaimed publicly a few days later, in full health, in the church of Sachseln.

A certain Unterwaldian matron received many benefits from God through Nicholas for the health of her children and grandchildren. diarrhea, Her two-year-old son had nearly breathed out his soul from a three-month diarrhea; Nicholas stopped the flow. The legs of her little daughter had swelled severely from the touch or spell of a witch, and, now blacker than charcoal, they threatened putrefaction; sorcery, Nicholas shortly removed all the sorcery. He also corrected a severe defect of the hip in her grandchild, and not long afterwards also a foul scab of the head and face.

The grandchild of a leading man among the Unterwaldians, one year old, had such a severely ulcerated right knee that all judged that it was all over not only for the foot but indeed for the boy entirely. When, therefore, no hope any longer remained in natural remedies, the parents fled to divine aid and carried the afflicted little child to Nicholas's sacred tomb. The ulcer vanished immediately, on the very journey, with all pain and danger wiped away, and on the foot only a scar appeared as a witness of the miracle.

ulceration, The sacristan of the parish of Kerns was so languid with paralysis of all the limbs below the loins that for four whole years he could not rise from his bed. He vows wax offerings to Nicholas again and again, but in vain: he feels no relief from them. He therefore has himself placed on a horse and, entering the threshold of the church of Sachseln with others supporting him, he immediately rejoices that his somewhat weakened limbs are solidifying, so that he could at least return home leaning on two crutches. After a month had passed, he returns the same way on horseback and, amid fervent prayers, obtains feet so firm and strong that in the following year he visited on foot both the Blessed Virgin at Loreto and the threshold of the Apostles at Rome. Then, having neglected for one or two years to offer the wax he had devoted, he fell into the same paralysis; nor did he recover until he made up for the vow he had neglected.

I furl my sails, for I have entered an infinite sea, which, if I wished to cross entirely, paralysis: I could not find or reach a port. Nicholas is the patron and preserver, and the common Physician, as he is usually called by the people, not only of his fatherland and his countrymen, but of all the surrounding regions and peoples. Even today people hasten, from near and far, heretics experience similar things. even the heretical Bernese themselves, to his ashes; vows are made, supplications are offered; gifts are sent, offerings are hung up; candles are lit; daily prodigies are obtained and wrought. I have enumerated a few from the innumerable, so that from these few the rest, whether equal or even greater, may be gathered. Whence it is easy to conclude that if God wished the bones and ashes of this our hermit on earth to be so glorious and prodigious, with how great glory and blessedness he has caused his soul to be bathed in heaven. And God, the best, will bring it about, as I hope, that even on earth the honor of this holy man may yet grow further, above all for the greater glory of the all-powerful God himself, and also for the more ample welfare of both our bodies and, most especially, our souls.

HYMNS AND COLLECTS

Venerable Nicholas of Flüe, Hermit of Unterwalden in Switzerland (S.)

Composed in the year after Nicholas's death by Henry of Gundelfingen, Canon of Beromünster.

For Nicholas's merits and his renowned deeds, And also for his shining virtues, let heaven exult with praises.

Born in Unterwalden, steadfast in word and deed, He hastened to the hermitage. "O God of your soldiers."

The time of his mature age he did not spend frivolously, Loving you most intimately, "O best Creator of light."

He despised worldly delights and snares, Relying on your consolation, "O Jesus, our redemption."

He abstains for a long time, bearing punishments in his body, Mindful of your works, "O gracious Creator of the stars."

He spent the nights in prayers and labors, Nor did he cease from work "when the star of morning had already risen."

Wearing himself down with fasts, afflicting himself with abstinence, He desired to enter "the supper of the provident Lamb."

At last imbued with the titles of virtues and miracles, He departed to you, O Lord, "Jesus, crown of Virgins."

Praise be to the Father with the Son, always on the throne of heaven, And fill us from above, "Come, Creator Spirit." Amen.

ANOTHER.

On the bright day of the Lord, let nations give praises to his Name, In a melodious song, "from the eastern boundary of the sun."

On this day Nicholas is joined to the heavenly citizens, With the angelic host "let the heavenly hall exult."

When he was celibate and leading a holy life, In you was his rest, "O Christ, who are the light and the day."

He obeyed your commandments, wherefore he was renowned for signs, For the salvation of the faithful, "O King Christ, maker of all."

Hence let us sing the glory, honor, and victory of the Trinity, In a faithful hymn, "in the mystical manner of the Doctor." Amen.

FIRST COLLECT.

O God, who showed the light of your grace to your Blessed Nicholas the hermit, walking in the way of angelic abstinence and of all the virtues: graciously grant that we may feel him as our intercessor in heaven, by whose example of life we are illuminated on earth.

SECOND.

O God, who made Blessed Nicholas the hermit a merciful intercessor for the sins of all: grant us, by his intervention, the forgiveness of our sins and the longed-for joy of eternal blessedness.

THIRD.

Grant, we beseech you, almighty God, that we may exult in the merits of the holy hermit Nicholas and be uplifted by the support of his benefits.