CONCERNING S. AETHELWALD, PRIEST AND ANCHORITE IN ENGLAND.
AROUND A.D. 700.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Aethelwald, Priest and anchorite in England (S.)
Section I. The deeds of S. Aethelwald during his life. Miracles.
[1] We have related at length in the Acts we elucidated on March 20 that the most holy Cuthbert, Bishop of Lindisfarne among the English, lived the anchoritic life both before and after his episcopate on a small island in the Ocean called Farne, near today's County of Northumbria: The Acts of S. Aethelwald, but on this March 23 we present his next successor on that island; whose deeds we collect principally from the Life of Cuthbert composed by Bede and from Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People. His name is variously written in the codices of Bede: in the Life of S. Cuthbert as hitherto printed, Edilwald is read, for which in our very ancient manuscript on parchment, his name variously expressed: Eadilwald is written. In the Ecclesiastical History as hitherto printed in Germany, book 4, chapter 1, there is Aedilwald; in the Cambridge edition, Aethelwald, and in Saxon, Aethelwold. In the poem of the same Bede on the Life of S. Cuthbert, published by Henry Canisius, Odilwald; in our said ancient manuscript, Oidilwald; in Simeon of Durham, to be cited below, Ethelwold. Whence later writers, each according to his own dialect, have written the name variously: yet the same meaning attaches to it, so that it means "powerful in nobility": because Athel, Adel, Edel signify "noble" and "nobility"; and Wald or Wold signifies "powerful." Camden, on the names of the Anglo-Saxons, renders it "noble governor."
[2] What he did before his entrance into the island of Farne, Bede briefly sets forth in the Life of S. Cuthbert, section 68: He was a monk for many years, "He too, tested for many years in the monastic life, had duly ascended to the summit of the anchoritic grade." He is silent about the place of his monastic life, which it is easy to conjecture was the monastery of the island of Lindisfarne, since this anchoretic retreat on the island of Farne remained subject to it, and, perhaps on the island of Lindisfarne? as will be said below, he was buried among the Lindisfarne community, and his sacred bones were afterward translated by the same people of Lindisfarne to Durham and devoutly preserved with the body of S. Cuthbert. Meanwhile, the same Bede assigns him another domicile in the Ecclesiastical History: "There succeeded the man of the Lord Cuthbert in the practice of the solitary life, which he had led on the island of Farne before the time of his episcopate, the venerable man Aethelwald, who for many years in the monastery called Inrhipum, having received the office of the priesthood, consecrated it by actions worthy of that rank." The same monastery of Inrhipum is mentioned by Bede in the Life of S. Cuthbert, section 13, and a Priest in the monastery of Ripon: in which Cuthbert lived for a time under S. Eata, and then returned to Melrose, whence he later migrated to Lindisfarne. Whether the same should be said of S. Aethelwald, we do not wish to advance a conjecture in the silence of the ancients. We merely note that Bede in the aforesaid words omitted, for brevity's sake, the anchoretic life spent by S. Cuthbert on the island of Farne after accepting the episcopate: and here likewise wished to indicate only the dignity of the priesthood. Inrhipum, in Bede's poem the monastery of Ripon, was situated on the border of the Northern and Western Ridings of Yorkshire between the rivers Skell and Ure. Consult what was said about it in the Life of S. Cuthbert.
[3] What his solitary life on the island of Farne was like can be gathered, at least in some measure as though seen through a crack, from Bede's poem. On the island of Farne. He indicates there how, between S. Cuthbert and Felgild, who was living at the time he wrote, Aethelwald stood in between, and thus sings:
"Between these two, no less diligent than your blessed companions, O Oidilwald, you prudently governed the sacred fortress: of whom they say he rarely wished to disclose his own virtues to anyone, while he lives in silence and seclusion: or the bloody shafts of the fierce serpent, which he as victor shattered, opposing them with his arms. Whence that memorable utterance remains long remembered, once carelessly fallen from his blessed lips. Perchance while the holy man was watering his faithful ear with heavenly admonitions, he received these words from his companion's breast: 'What is the cause, I pray, that so often the flowing speech from your mouth interrupts and varies frequent silences, and forgetfulness sets limits in the middle of your words?' To whom the pious Hero returned this answer in a few words: 'This, dear one, you ought to keep with a fixed and mindful heart perpetually: that unless one strives he shares in the heavenly singing; diligently to turn his ears utterly away from the speech of the flocks, he cannot utter words among the ethereal hosts, nor open his ears to the joyful harmonies of heaven.' He had spoken, and struck to the heart with trembling fear, he was seized with fervent sobbing, and beat his chaste breast with his fists, and at length groaning, bathed in tears, after sorrowful silence, he burst forth into this utterance: which, having disclosed it to another, he asks be kept secret: 'I beseech you humbly, by the scepter of the Most High Thunderer, that you hide these words from all, until I return my dying limbs to the earth and walk in the path of my fathers.' Thus the holy one, though he would rather have hidden his highest gifts in his chambers, they are disclosed by a heavenly witness. But Cuthbert, recalling the pious deeds of his predecessors under heavenly praise, in this unlike S. Cuthbert, would also briefly add how Christ had been his companion in his own contest. And so the same Spirit illuminated two men with different gifts, and by the divine path of high heaven led them to one kingdom."
[4] So much for the love of silence and seclusion observed in S. Aethelwald. But how he calmed a storm at sea by prayer, Bede narrates in the Ecclesiastical History from the mouth of Guthfrid, Abbot of Lindisfarne, he shines with miracles: whom he mentions in the Preface to the Life of S. Cuthbert written earlier, at which time that man was the Mansionarius, that is, the Prefect or Guardian of the Church, as we observed there in the Notes. Bede therefore writes thus: "That the merit or quality of Aethelwald's life may become more clearly known, I shall narrate one miracle of his, which one of the brothers, for whose sake and in whose presence it was performed, narrated to me himself: namely the venerable Guthfrid, servant and priest of Christ, who afterward also presided by right of Abbot over the brothers of that same church of Lindisfarne, in which he was raised. 'I came,' he said, 'with two other brothers to the island of Farne, desiring to speak with the most reverend Father Aethelwald. And when we had been refreshed by his conversation and had sought his blessing and were returning home, behold, suddenly, when we were in the middle of the sea, a great storm at sea, the calm weather in which we were sailing was broken: and so great and fierce a winter storm burst upon us that we could make no progress by either sail or oar, and could expect nothing other than death. And when, after long and hard struggle with wind and sea in vain, we at last looked behind us and the danger of drowning of some he beholds, to see if perhaps we might by some effort regain the very island from which we had set out, we found ourselves hemmed in on every side by an equal storm, and that no hope of our salvation remained in ourselves. But when we raised our eyes farther, we saw on the island of Farne itself, coming out from his hiding places, the Father most beloved of God, Aethelwald, watching our course. For hearing the crash of the storms and the raging Ocean, he had come out to see what was happening to us. And when he saw us in labor and despair, he bent his knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ to pray for our life and safety. And as he completed his prayer, he calmed the swelling seas at the same time, by prayer he renders the sea calm: so that, the violence of the storm ceasing entirely, favorable winds accompanied us over the smooth surface of the sea all the way to land. And when we had escaped to land and carried our little boat also from the waves, immediately the same storm, which had been silent for a moment on our account, returned and did not cease raging mightily throughout that entire day: so that it was plainly given to understand that the brief interval of calm that had occurred had been granted from heaven at the prayers of the man of God, for the sake of our escape.'"
[5] "The same man of God remained on the island of Farne for twelve years and died there: but he was buried on the island of Lindisfarne beside the bodies of the aforesaid Bishops, after death, buried in the church of Lindisfarne, in the church of the blessed Apostle Peter. These things were done in the times of King Aldfrith, who after his brother Ecgfrith ruled the people of Northumbria for eighteen years." So much for Bede in the Ecclesiastical History. After the aforesaid King Ecgfrith was killed by the Picts on May 20 of the year 685, his half-brother Aldfrith succeeded him, who was then absent from the kingdom, living among the monks on the island of Iona for the pursuit of learning, and who died in the year 705. S. Cuthbert departed from this mortal life in the year 687, and if twelve years are added, in the year 699, the year 699 results, in which the death of S. Aethelwald must have occurred, unless perhaps a space of either one year or at most a few months after S. Cuthbert's
death elapsed before S. Aethelwald set out for the island of Farne and began the solitary life of twelve years, or 700, so that easily the year 700 might be assigned for his death, as must necessarily be done in computing the years of Aldfrith's reign.
[6] Finally, to speak with Bede, who thus concludes the Life of S. Cuthbert: "Nor do I think it should be passed over what miracle of heavenly origin the divine mercy showed even through the relics of the most holy oratory, in which the venerable solitary Father was accustomed to serve the Lord: equally devoted to God as S. Cuthbert, whether, however, it should be ascribed to the merits of the same blessed Father Cuthbert or of his successor Aethelwald, a man equally devoted to God, the inner Judge knows. Nor does any reason forbid it to be believed the work of both their merits, accompanied also by the faith of the most reverend Father Felgild, through whom and in whom the very miracle of healing which I relate was accomplished. He it is who, the third heir of that same place and spiritual warfare, today over seventy years of age, in great desire for the future life, awaits the end of the present one. When, therefore, after the man of God Cuthbert had been translated to the heavens, Aethelwald began to inhabit that same island and monastery -- who likewise, tested for many years in the monastic life, had duly ascended to the summit of the anchoretic grade -- he found that the walls of the aforesaid oratory, composed of boards less carefully fitted together, had been dissolved by long age, and that the boards, separated from one another, had provided easy entrance to the storms. But the venerable man, who sought the beauty of the heavenly rather than of the earthly edifice, he stops up the cracks in the wall with a calfskin: having taken hay or clay or whatever material of this kind he found, had stuffed up the cracks, lest the daily injuries of rain or wind should retard him from the urgency of prayer. When therefore Aethelwald, entering the place, had seen this, he requested from the brothers who visited him a piece of calfskin, and nailed it fast in that corner where both he himself and his predecessor Cuthbert most often used to stand or kneel in prayer, opposing it to the violence of the storms. But after he too, having spent twelve continuous years there, entered into the joy of heavenly blessedness, and the third occupant Felgild began to inhabit that same place, it pleased the most reverend Bishop Eadfrid of the Church of Lindisfarne to restore that oratory, collapsed by age, from its foundations. When the work was completed, and many with devout piety asked the blessed athlete of Christ Felgild that he should give them some particle of the relics of the holy and God-beloved Father Cuthbert or of his successor Aethelwald, it seemed to him that the aforementioned piece of skin, divided into particles, should be given to those who asked: but before giving it to others, he first tested in himself by a particle of which the swelling and scab of his face are afterward healed. what virtue it might have. For his face was covered with an ugly redness combined with swelling, signs of which future malady in him were already visible to those looking at his face when he was still living the common life among the brothers. But when, withdrawn in solitude, he applied less care to his body and greater abstinence, and as though enclosed in a prolonged prison, more rarely enjoyed the warmth of the sun or the breath of the air, the malady increased and filled his entire face with burning swelling. Fearing, therefore, lest the magnitude of such infirmity make it necessary to abandon the solitary life and return to the common mode of living, he exercised faithful presumption and hoped that he would be cured by the aid of those whose dwelling he rejoiced to hold and whose life he rejoiced to imitate. Putting a portion of the aforesaid skin into water, he washed his face with that same water: and immediately all the swelling which had beset his face, and the foul scab, departed, just as was first indicated to me by a certain religious Priest of this monastery of Jarrow, who reported that he had known his face when it was swollen and deformed, and later, when it was cleansed, had felt it through the window with his hand: and afterward Felgild himself confirmed it, affirming that the matter had been accomplished just as the Priest had narrated: and that from that time, while he remained enclosed for many years' course, he always had his face free from such trouble as before, by the working of the grace of almighty God, which is accustomed to heal many infirmities of our heart and body both in the present and in the future, and satisfying our desire with good things, crowns us in his mercy and compassion unto ages of ages, Amen." So much for Bede, by whom the Eadfrid indicated was Bishop of Lindisfarne from the year 698 to 720, and Bede inscribed to him that Life of S. Cuthbert.
Section II. Translation of the body of S. Aethelwald. Commemoration in various calendars.
[7] The body of S. Aethelwald remained deposited in the church of Lindisfarne, together with the bodies of S. Cuthbert and other Bishops, The bones of S. Aethelwald removed from Lindisfarne around the year 875, until the incursion of the Danes under their chief Halfdan into the territories of Northumbria, about the year 875: when Bishop Eardulf of Lindisfarne and Abbot Eadred, taking up the uncorrupted body of S. Cuthbert together with the sacred bones of other Saints from there, fled and resided with them in various places. Translated to Durham around the year 995. Meanwhile, after other Bishops, Ardunus succeeded, who, admonished by a heavenly sign, migrated to Durham, and having erected the episcopal see there, translated the sacred relics together around the year of Christ 995. A solemn elevation of the body of S. Cuthbert was afterward made in the year 1104, and from his opened tomb the accompanying relics were separated. Finally, Bishop Hugh of Durham around the year 1160, or somewhat later, constructed a most splendid shrine, and honorably placed around the year 1160, excellently wrought of the purest gold and the cleanest silver, and adorned with precious stones in a wonderful work: in which he placed the bones of the venerable man Bede, Priest and monk of Jarrow, together with the relics of many other Saints. So writes Simeon of Durham in the appendix to the History of Durham composed by Turgot (as was proved in the Life of S. Cuthbert) and published under his name, column 67. There follows a Catalogue of the Relics contained in the Church of Durham together with the bodies of SS. Cuthbert and Bede; where among other things one reads: "The bones of S. Aidan, Eadbert, Eadfrid, Ethelwald, Bishops," with the relics of other Saints, that is, of Lindisfarne... "The bones and hair of the holy Ethelwold the Priest, who succeeded S. Cuthbert in the anchoretic life." Similar things are found at column 76 in a certain Saxon inscription, to which this title is prefixed in Latin words: "On the situation of Durham and on the Relics of the Saints which are contained therein, a poem composed." The rest concerning the Translation of the Relics is explained in the Life of S. Cuthbert: some things were indicated on February 12 in the Life of S. Ethelwold, Bishop of Lindisfarne, and on March 6 in the Acts of SS. Balther and Bilfrid, anchorites. Of the Saints already indicated, Bede is venerated on May 27, Aidan on August 31, Eadbert on May 6, to whom his successor Eadfrid may be added, unless meanwhile his feast day should turn up.
[8] The commemoration of S. Aethelwald has been inserted in Martyrologies on various days. Menard under January 6 has: "At Lindisfarne, of S. Edilwald, Priest and monk," Commemoration in Martyrologies on January 6 and June 11, and in book 2 of his observations adds some things from Bede's Ecclesiastical History which we have related, with no reason added for why he assigned it to that day: nor does any other reason seem to have existed than to fill the gap of that day, having reported the said S. Edilwald and Count Adalbert, whom we have relegated to those Passed Over. Bucelinus follows Menard, but does not cite him. But the author of the English Martyrology printed in the year 1608 relegated him to June 11, which he likewise had vacant, having also found as a follower Ferrarius in the General Catalogue, who thus begins that day: "On the third day before the Ides of June, in England, of S. Edilwald the Priest."
[9] Edward Maihew in the Trophies of the English Congregation of the Order of S. Benedict, although he leaves both January 6 and June 11 vacant, nevertheless chose this March 23, and most especially March 23, on which he celebrates the Commemoration of S. Aethelwald, Priest and hermit, or rather anchorite. Hieronymus Porter does the same in his Flowers of the Lives of the More Illustrious Saints of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and both cite many things from Bede and also cite the English History of Harpsfield, who in century 7, chapter 35, treats of the same from Bede alone, with no mention made of the day on which he died or is venerated. The English Martyrology was then reprinted in the year 1640, and with the Flowers of Porter cited, S. Edilwald was reported under this March 23, and it is asserted to be his feast day. Finally Bucelinus, who had earlier celebrated him on January 6, again reports him under this March 23, with an entirely different eulogy, citing Edward Maihew and the writers of English affairs, whereas before he had cited only Bede: and had said he embraced the cowl in the monastery of Inrhipum and entered the solitude of Lindisfarne out of zeal for rigorous life. But for this day he asserts that he renounced the world in the famous monastery of Ripon, then embraced the anchoretic life according to ancient custom, and flourished in the year 694. Inrhipum and Ripon are the same monastery. He withdrew to the anchoretic life, however, not to the island of Lindisfarne, but to another very small one called Farne, as is evident from what has been adduced above. It has pleased us therefore also to report the Acts of this Saint at this March 23, together with the said authors, since among the ancients no mention of his feast day or death is found, and his life has much in common with the deeds of S. Cuthbert, and the bones of both are customarily preserved together: and already the most extensive treatment was given of him on March 20, which the reader may more easily consult.
CONCERNING S. GREGORY THE WONDERWORKER AT CONSTANTINOPLE. From the Menaea and Synaxaria of the Greeks.
AROUND THE ELEVENTH CENTURY.
CommentaryGregory the Wonderworker at Constantinople (S.)
[1] This Saint was made venerable to the Church of Constantinople not so much by the virtues of his life, lived with God alone as witness, as by the miracles that followed his death, as is attested both by the Menaea printed at Venice for this day, and by the manuscript Synaxarion of the Parisian College for the eleventh day, Why he is called Neophanēs, and by the other Mazarine manuscript, also in manuscript at Paris, for the twenty-fourth day of this same month: in all of which his commemoration is indicated in these words: "On the same day, the memory of our holy Father Gregory the Neophanēs and Wonderworker." For by a most commonly received usage among the Greeks, all who thus became famous through Martyrdom or miracles, when other persons of the same name were most widely known to the public, are called neoi or neophanes for the sake of distinction; the Latins would say "the Younger." Thus the Ambrosian manuscript calls the forty-two Martyrs who suffered under the Saracens neophanes, lest they be confused with the Forty of Sebaste: and assigned to the twelfth century? thus John Moschus called Mary, the niece of Abraham the Hermit, "the New," to distinguish her from the Egyptian Mary known to all: as others previously cited and to be cited may be passed over. This one, therefore, is called the Younger, to distinguish him from the great Martyr George. And indeed he must have been much younger, whose memory was so recent when these things were written that it seemed superfluous, as in a matter of the present,
to add another chronological marker: whence we find him neither in the older Synaxaria or Menologia of the Emperor Basil nor in the Ambrosian ones, but only in those manuscripts which are judged not to exceed an age of five hundred years, and therefore we have considered that he may be assigned to the eleventh century. His eulogy reads as follows.
[2] "This man, having left his wife, children, and kinsmen, entered the narrow way, Coming as a pilgrim to Constantinople, and submitted to the most gentle yoke of God, traversing regions, towns, and wilderness; in which, having led the most austere life and having been divinely warned of his approaching dissolution, he came to Constantinople and, entering the venerable church of S. John the Theologian, which is in the Dihippion, rested in peace on the seventh day after his arrival there. And when those who were to bury him had come, and there, dying, he is found girded with iron, and had discovered an iron of great weight so applied to his body that it appeared grievously affected by its rubbing, they raised a cry together, saying: 'Lord, have mercy.' For which reason he was placed in a marble casket of the same church, pouring forth miracles of healing upon those who approach with faith: nor are there lacking those who, and shines with miracles, having experienced his aid and still being among the living, present themselves to all as witnesses of the prodigies worked upon them." Dihippion: our Raderus in the manuscripts rendered it as the "region of equestrian Jupiter"; another as "the church of John the Evangelist at the Chariots" in the church of S. John the Evangelist in the Dihippion; but just as we have found no region of this name designated by anyone at Constantinople, so neither have we found an author who called a two-horse chariot a dihippion. In Suidas, however, we read that dihippasia are equestrian, not chariot, contests; and we recognize the compound formation, such as in all others formed from the particle di, signifying doubling, as in dimorphos, two-formed. Therefore, if we must proceed by conjectures, we would reckon that these contests were so called because in them Desultores -- riders most famous in the Roman circus, called Amphippoi by Aelian -- rode on two unsaddled horses tied together, and leapt from one to the other as occasion required. For further testimonies on this matter from Homer, Propertius, and others, one may read Lipsius, book 3 on Roman Military Service, dialogue 8, and will marvel from Florus that Teutobocchus, King of the Teutons, was accustomed to leap over even four or six horses: it suffices us, from these, to render plausible that a place designated for such exercise or contest is indicated here, in which that church of S. John was situated.