African Martyrs Liberatus the Physician With His Wife and Two Sons and Another Boy and Crescentius the Priest

CONCERNING THE HOLY AFRICAN MARTYRS LIBERATUS THE PHYSICIAN WITH HIS WIFE AND TWO SONS AND ANOTHER BOY AND CRESCENTIUS THE PRIEST.

AROUND A.D. 484.

Liberatus the Physician, his wife and two sons, Martyrs in Africa (SS.)

Another boy, Martyr in Africa (S.)

Crescentius the Priest, Martyr in Africa (S.)

[1] Maurolycus in his Martyrology adds these to the preceding Martyrs as having suffered in the same persecution under King Huneric: "Likewise," he says, "the passion of S. Liberatus the physician with his wife in Africa, slaughtered under the Arians, and of their two sons and another seven-year-old boy drowned in the deep, Names in various Martyrologies, and also of Crescentius the Priest, who wasted away enclosed in a cave of the mountain near the city of Turzetana." Felicius has the same, but calls the city Zurzatana, below Misentina and Miritana. Galesinius begins this day with them thus: "The tenth day before the Kalends of April. In Africa, of the holy Martyrs Liberatus the physician and his wife and sons." Ferrarius, following Galesinius, also placed them first in his General Catalogue. They are also included in the second edition of the German Martyrology. Richard Whitford in his Martyrology, published in English in 1526 at London, adds not only all those here reported, but also twelve other boys who suffered many things at that time. Peter de Natalibus preceded them, who in book 3, chapter 221, treats of these twelve boys, and in the following chapter of the others, and adds that their passion is observed on the tenth day before the Kalends of April. Their contest was described by the eyewitness Victor of Utica or Vita, in the same book 3 of the Vandal Persecution, from which we also give their Acts.

[2] "With such violence, before our eyes, there at Carthage, the son of a certain nobleman, about seven years old, was by order of Cyrilla separated from his parents, while his mother, with wanton disregard for matronly modesty, with loosened hair ran after the abductors through the whole city, the little child crying out as he could: 'I am a Christian, I am a Christian, I am a Christian.' And stopping his mouth, they plunged the innocent infant into their pool. In like manner it is proved that the same was done to the sons of the venerable physician Liberatus. For when by the King's command he was ordered to be sent into exile with his wife and children, the Arian impiety devised to separate the little sons from their parents, Events related by Victor, so that through the affection of parental love, they might also overthrow the virtue of the parents. The tender pledges of their sons were torn from their parents: and when Liberatus wished to shed tears, he was rebuked by his wife's authority, and at the very point of his departure his tears were immediately dried. For his wife said to him: 'Are you, Liberatus, going to lose your soul on account of your children? Reckon them as never having been born: for Christ himself will surely vindicate them. Do you not see them crying out and saying, "We are Christians"?' But what this woman did before the judges must not be passed over in silence. For when she and her husband, although separately, were held in prison custody, so that they did not see each other at all, the woman was given a message and told: 'Lay aside now your stubbornness: behold, your husband has obeyed the King's command and has become our kind of Christian.' And she said: 'Let me see him, and I shall do what God wills.' Therefore, brought out of prison, she found her husband standing with a great multitude, bound before the tribunal: and thinking true what the enemies had invented, she seized the hem of his garment near his throat with her hand and strangled him in the sight of all, saying: 'You wretch and reprobate, unworthy of the grace and mercy of God, why did you wish to glory for a moment and perish forever? What good will gold do you? What good silver? Will they deliver you from the furnace of hell?' She said many other things. Her husband answered: 'What is the matter, woman? What seems right to you? Or what have you perhaps been able to hear about me? I, in the name of Christ, remain a Catholic, nor can I ever lose what I hold.' Then the heretics, conscious and exposed in their lie, were utterly unable to disguise their deceit. And because we briefly mentioned above the violence of their savagery, many, fearing it, some in caves, others in desert places -- men or women, with no one aware of them -- shut themselves away: and there, with no sustaining food coming to their aid, overcome by hunger or cold, they breathed out their crushed and afflicted spirits; amid these trials of affliction, carrying with them the security of unviolated faith. For thus Crescentius the Priest of the city of Mizentina was found in a cave of Mount Ziquensis, already decomposed, his corpse dissolving."

[3] Concerning the twelve boys, Victor writes: "At the suggestion of a certain apostate Lector named Teutheric, whom he knew as vigorous singers and apt for musical melodies, he says that by his designation twelve little children should be separated, as also of the other twelve boys, whom he, while still a Catholic, had then had as disciples. Immediately at his suggestion, men were sent in haste, and by the force of barbarian fury the group of twelve boys was recalled from their journey. They were separated in body, not in spirit, from the flock of the Saints: who, fearing the precipice, with sighing tears, clung to the knees of their companions with their hands so as not to be torn away; but heretical violence, separating them with threatening swords, recalled them to Carthage. But when they were dealt with not by blandishments, as one might with such an age, they were found superior to their years, and lest they should fall asleep in death, they lit for themselves the lamp of the Gospel light. The Arians were gravely indignant at this and ashamed to be overcome by boys. Whence, inflamed, they ordered them to be subjected to the rod, whom they had already scattered with various beatings just a few days earlier. Wounds were pressed upon wounds, and the restored punishment raged anew. It happened, with the Lord strengthening them, that neither did the younger age fail in its suffering, and the spirit grew ever stronger, fortified in faith. These Carthage now venerates with wondrous affection, and beholds the choir of boys as if it were the twelve Apostles. They live together, eat together, sing psalms together, and glory together in the Lord." So Victor. Yet these twelve boys, because their death is not certain, and therefore they are not mentioned by Maurolycus, Felicius, Canisius, and others, we have omitted from the title: but since they are reported by Peter de Natalibus and Whitford, we have appended their Acts to the others.

*Alternatively: Cyrilli. *Alternatively: Miritanae. *Alternatively: Quisensis.

CONCERNING SAINT BENEDICT, MONK IN CAMPANIA.

SIXTH CENTURY.

Benedict, monk in Campania (S.)

[1] This monk lived at the same time as the great Benedict, the founder of the Order, and together with him was reported under March 21 by Galesinius, Canisius, Grevenus, and Whitford: whom the Tables of the Roman Martyrology celebrate on March 23 in these words: Commemoration in the sacred calendars: "In Campania, S. Benedict the monk, who, enclosed by the Goths in a burning oven, was found unharmed the following day." The same was inscribed in the Benedictine Martyrologies by Wion, Dorgan, Menard, and Bucelinus, for whom at least the name of Benedict procures favor and affection. What can be known about him is related by S. Gregory the Great, book 3 of the Dialogues, chapter 18, in these words:

[2] Eulogy from S. Gregory. "A certain brother lived with me in the monastery,

most devoted to Sacred Scripture, who preceded me in age: he was accustomed to edify me from many things I did not know. From his narration, therefore, I learned that there was a certain man in the parts of Campania, within forty miles of the city of Rome, named Benedict, young in age indeed, but mature in character, his cell not burnt, and strictly binding himself to the rule of holy life. When the Goths, in the time of King Totila, discovered him, they attempted to burn him together with his cell: for they set fire to it, but while everything round about was burned, the cell itself could not be consumed by fire. The Goths, seeing this and growing yet more savage, dragged him from his dwelling, and not far away they saw a heated oven, unharmed in the oven: prepared for baking bread, and threw him into it and sealed the oven. But the next day he was found so unharmed that not only was his flesh untouched by the flames, but not even the outermost edges of his garments were in any way singed."

[3] So S. Gregory, from whom Peter de Natalibus in book 3 of the Catalogue, chapter 216, contracted his account, the time of his life: as did Ferrarius in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, the above-mentioned Bucelinus, and others. Totila, King of the Goths, under whom the said miracle occurred, reigned in Italy from the year 541 to the year 552. But how long afterward S. Benedict still lived, is established neither from S. Gregory nor from any other source.

[4] Whether his feast day is March 31. After writing this, we found that his feast day is assigned to March 31 in very ancient Martyrologies, namely the manuscript Roman Martyrology in the library of Cardinal Barberini, marked number 1852, the Arras manuscript of the Cathedral Church, and the Tournai manuscript of the monastery of S. Martin. There is a certain manuscript Benedictine Calendar of the monastery of S. Saviour, compiled from Trithemius and others, in which the commemoration is made of S. Benedict the monk, of whom Gregory speaks in book 3 of the Dialogues. Bucelinus in the Benedictine Menologion asserts that he found, in the work of Andreas of Bamberg, S. Benedict a Campanian monk, and nothing else was recorded beyond the name: from which, not sufficiently mindful of himself, as if this were a different monk from the S. Benedict who died in Campania, whom he had reported on this day from the Dialogues of S. Gregory, he celebrates the same person a second time.

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.

Gregory 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.

CONCERNING S. OTHO, SOLITARY, AT ARIANO IN THE KINGDOM OF NAPLES.

AROUND A.D. 1120.

Preliminary Commentary.

Otho, Solitary at Ariano in the Kingdom of Naples (S.)

[1] The region that lies midway between Naples and Siponto, cities each placed upon a different sea, we now call the Ulterior Principate; the ancients appear to have called it the land of the Hirpini. The capital of the region is Benevento, The location of Ariano, from which Ariano is only fifteen miles distant, placed upon three hills of the Apennines, from which it also took its coat of arms. Some think it is the Tuticum of Ptolemy: others, lest even the name of the city should seem new, invented long ago that before the times of Diomedes (whom Servius makes the founder of both Benevento and Equi-Tuticum), one of the Janiculan Princes, departing from Sutri under King Italus, led a colony of five hundred men there and gave it its name from a temple and altar of Janus dedicated there. Such fables aside, this town has the solid glory of having had as its inhabitant, S. Odo the Patron, and still having as its Patron, S. Otho or Odo: whose body in the Cathedral basilica formerly had its own chapel and solemn veneration on the eleventh day before the Kalends of April, as David Romaeus reports in his index of the Saints of the Kingdom of Naples; except that, because in Italian he is called Santodo in one word, he thought the Latin form should be S. Thodus, as also does Paul Regius, cited by Ferrarius in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy.

[2] Peter the Deacon of Cassino, who composed the discourse on the discovery and miracles of S. Benedict and who survived beyond the year 1140, whom S. Benedict commended to a certain captive as most observant of his Rule, narrates a memorable event for the commendation of this Saint in section 42, which we shall not hesitate to relate here: "A certain soldier in Apulia, captured in a certain conflict by a most wicked man and bound with chains, was thrown into a pit. And when he had been held bound in the same stocks for many days, and anxiously implored the aid of the most holy Father Benedict day and night, one night he appeared to him, saying: 'Are you sleeping or awake?' And the man replied: 'As you see, my Lord, in the secret of my mind I am contemplating death rather than the repose of sleep. But who are you who have deigned to come to me? Reveal yourself, I humbly beg.' And the Saint said: 'I am Brother Benedict, whom S. Benedict praised to a certain captive, whom you asked to come to your aid. Now rise quickly: the chains with which you are bound, since on account of the length of the journey you cannot carry them to my body at Cassino, hang upon the tomb of Brother Otho the recluse, who most excellently observed my Rule: and for your liberation, hasten to Cassino to render praises to God.' When he had said this, the soldier immediately rose, and invoking the name of our Redeemer and of the Blessed Benedict, and ordered the broken chains to be hung at his tomb, the chains that were on his feet were at once loosened: and immediately rising, he took care to fulfill with all diligence what had been enjoined upon him; and coming at last to Cassino, he rendered the greatest praises to God and Father Benedict." That this is indeed the same Otho of whom we treat is suggested by the location of places and the reckoning of times: for the captive in Apulia, even in the stricter sense of that region alone which now bears the name of the Capitanata, was very near to Ariano, while Cassino was perhaps a hundred miles distant. And since we shall demonstrate that the Blessed Otho died within the beginning of the thirteenth century and its twenty-seventh year, and immediately after death shone with very many miracles, nothing is easier than to judge that S. Benedict ordered the chains broken by his favor to be hung at this man's tomb: since this miracle is reported by Peter as the penultimate in the order of others, as though of more recent memory and of his own age, whose first year of Peter fell in the seventh year of the said century, as is clear from what either he himself about himself or another about him appended at the end of his treatise on the illustrious men of Cassino.

[3] Moreover, Ferdinandus Ughellus mentions the Blessed Otho, intending to set forth the series of the Bishops of Ariano in volume 8 of Italia Sacra; His body, taken back by the Beneventans around 1452, asserting that his body was carried to Benevento when the Saracens were devastating Apulia, and rested there until the year 1452; when King Alfonso gave a letter, signed at Pozzuoli on May 12, to Antonio, Cardinal Priest of the title of S. Chrysogonus, of Lerida, in these words, of which we have a threefold copy:

"Most Reverend Father in Christ, Lord, and our dearest Friend. The citizens of Ariano desire in the greatest measure that the body of the Blessed Otho the Confessor, which in the time when the infidels were invading Italy was translated from the church of Ariano to Benevento against the will of the citizens of Ariano, be restored to the Church of Ariano: for this is honorable and pious. We therefore ask your Paternity, with all the vehemence of mind we can, that you interpose your good offices for this restitution to be made, both with our most holy Lord and with the Archbishop of Benevento, so that the said restitution may follow without fail: which will be to our singular satisfaction."

[4] The arm was restored. The Archbishop of Benevento at that time was Giacomo della Ratta, son of the Count of Caserta, and the Pontiff was Nicholas V. The authority of the King and the intercession of the Cardinal, owed to his distinguished learning, prevailed with these to the extent that at least the arm of their Patron was restored to the citizens of Ariano: which, received into the treasury, is devoutly preserved, says Ughellus, and his feast day is celebrated with solemn rites in the aforesaid church on the 13th (he meant to write 23rd) day of the month of March: which, because while the citizens ran through the entire city with weapons of war and a banner carried by the Master of the fair, the feast was transferred to the Octave of Easter, it disturbed the discipline of Lenten penance, it was recently transferred to the Octave of the Lord's Resurrection. So much for Ughellus, who places his death under the third Bishop of the See of Ariano, Bartholomew, who attended the Lateran Council in the year 1179: evidently following Ferrarius, who describes his Acts in a brief compendium: which he professes to have taken from the records of the Church of Ariano, written at considerable length about the person of Odo himself. Fabius Barberius, unknown to us, whom the same Ughellus says published at length the Acts and miracles of S. Otho, manifestly shows he followed the same, when from them he attempts to establish the origin of the city as older than the truth.

[5] We have a double copy of these Acts: one transcribed at Rome from the papers of Constantinus Caietanus; Acts ascribed to Otho himself, the other transmitted from Naples by Antonio Beatillo, a most zealous supporter of our work, under this title: "The Life of the Blessed Otho, which he himself wrote on the Ides of September in the year from the Nativity of the Lord 1180; which was found after his death in the church of S. Peter outside the walls of the city of Ariano, which he himself inhabited and where he also departed from this life: which Life is preserved with other holy Relics in the reliquary of the greater church of Ariano." Considering this to be the true and genuine writing of Odo himself, when we had begun to illustrate it, adorned with marginal additions and divided into chapters, also with annotations, we discovered it to be a pure and utter fabrication of some insipid storyteller wishing to lend credibility to his fiction about the origin of the city indicated above and to be refuted more fully below.

[6] And indeed, taking upon himself to describe the state of the Church and Empire torn apart by schisms from the very beginning of the twelfth century, teeming with very many chronological errors, he everywhere stumbles so badly that we found nothing sincere in that account except the names of Pontiffs and Princes; but everything else in the utmost confusion. For first, he casts this aspersion upon Roger, Count of Sicily (who is known to have been appointed heir by William, Duke of Calabria and Apulia, the last scion of the family of Robert Guiscard, dying without children, in the year 1127, and was disapproved by Honorius II for the sole reason that he had occupied a fief of the Apostolic See without authorization, as if by inheritance): upon this Roger, I say, he casts the charge that he despoiled his nephew William, son of his uncle, who was absent and Count of Apulia, in order to exalt himself as King of both Sicilies. He then says that Peter the Roman, son of Peter Leonis, pretended especially concerning the Antipope Anacletus, that Pope Innocent had died in the battle fought with Roger (in which indeed Innocent himself, truly defeated and overcome, remained captive for many days), and thus, deceiving everyone, compelled them to declare him Pope: wherefore Innocent, once restored to liberty, secretly transferred himself out of fear to Lothar in Germany. But it is established that Innocent III was not defeated in battle, but deceived by a pretense of peace and detained as a captive, until he should confer upon Roger the coveted title of Kingdom,

which he conferred upon Roger by feudal right in the year 1139. It is also established that the Antipope Anacletus (for this was the name Peter assumed) was promoted by schismatic election in the same year 1130 in which Innocent was created, and protected himself by the power of the aforementioned Roger. It is established thirdly that Innocent never even saw Germany, but fled to France, to Louis the Fat, and remained there until the year 1133 of that century, when King Lothar brought him back with him to Italy, and in turn was crowned Emperor by him. It is established finally that all these things were done before the captivity of the Pontiff.

[7] We were, however, excusing these very things among ourselves after a fashion: because it did not seem all that remarkable if a solitary man, taken from the world in the very flower of his youth, they are proved to be spurious, in his decrepit age should remember less well the events of his childhood. But when we arrived at the passage where Otho is introduced writing: "At this festivity" (he is speaking of the coronation of the Emperor, which he says was performed in the church of S. Peter with the greatest pomp) "many young Roman Patricians, and I with them, were adorned with the golden military girdle, in the eighteenth year of my age": when we arrived at this passage, I say, there was no longer any room for excuse. For who does not see that it was absolutely impossible for him to forget the place in which so solemn and rare an act was performed, and he himself, a young man of that age, was adorned with so distinguished an honor, to be remembered for all his life -- not to mention the time of the Pontiff's captivity, which is here placed earlier, whereas it followed by a full six years? And yet Otto of Freising, a writer of those same times who died in the year 1158, expressly testifies that Lothar was crowned in the Lateran, not the Vatican basilica, in book 7, chapter 18, where he says: "The King, trusting more in his resolve than in his soldiers, advanced all the way to the City; and there, having accomplished what he could with a few men, strenuously, in the church of the Holy Savior, which is called the Constantinian, he was crowned by the Supreme Pontiff Innocent and obtained the name of Emperor and Augustus." For Peter Leonis had at that time occupied the church of the Blessed Peter, where it was customary for Emperors to be crowned.

[8] Why Otho is ascribed to the Frangipane family in these Acts: Consonant with this is the Vatican document which Baronius cites, speaking thus of this same coronation: "This is the oath which the Lord King Lothar, in the time of the heresy of the son of Peter Leonis, took before the Lord Pope Innocent, before the doors of the basilica of the Holy Savior, which is called the Constantinian, on the day on which he was crowned by the same Innocent, before receiving the crown; the Lord Cencio de Frangipane administering the oath, and Otto his nephew and the other Roman nobles being present." Then follows the formula of the oath, whose already-cited title not only confirms what we have said, but leads us to the very source of the entire fiction. At what time, namely, the holy Otho had lived was not sufficiently established: regarding whose family the matter is entirely uncertain, tradition held that he was born in Rome, and indeed of noble family; from the profession of military service from which he had fallen into captivity, those who composed his Life for use in the Ecclesiastical Office inferred his background: yet they denied having discovered the names of his parents or the nature and extent of his lineage. Therefore, when the architect of this Ottonian fable had read that a prince of the Roman youth named Otho was present, he believed he had a firm enough foundation upon which to build the remaining mass of poorly stitched lies.

[9] Other very grave errors concerning Alexander. With that foundation uncovered and overturned, it is not greatly necessary for us to labor in setting forth and refuting the remaining anachronisms and hallucinations of that deranged mind, which follow in numerous paragraphs thereafter, without a single word about the Life of Otho himself, up to the time when Alexander III, having subjected the Emperor Frederick and the Antipope Victor to anathema, departed to Philip, King of France, and was received as a father. He had been elected in the year 1159, and against him Octavian of Monticello had been schismatically elevated by the Fredericians: compelled finally to yield to their violence, he sailed to France in the year 1162, three years before Philip II, called Augustus, was born from his father Louis, son of Louis the Fat; and before the latter had completed his third month of life, he returned to Rome, which had been recovered through a Legate upon the death of his rival. And concerning the time when Otho was captured: Under the same Alexander's auspices, the Romans besieged Tusculum in the year 1167: but here by the arriving army of Frederick, and there by the sallying Duke Rayno of Tusculum, they were struck with such a disaster that Alexander himself, writing about it, denies that such a one was ever recalled from the time when Hannibal defeated the Romans at Cannae. In this battle, if the same Otho who was said to have been present as a youth of eighteen at the coronation of Lothar had been captured, he would then have been in his fifty-second year of age. While he is held in prison, moreover, he is imagined to hear the news of Milan captured and overthrown by Frederick: which is known to have happened in the sixty-third year of that century, almost five years earlier than the Romans besieged Tusculum.

[10] And all this is prefaced in order to arrive at the purpose of the entire fiction: other things less consonant with the readings of the ancient Office, and first, Otho, freed from prison by the aid of S. Leonard (Ferrarius substitutes Bernard for Leonard), is said to have passed by Rome and betaken himself to Ariano, and immediately built a little cell for himself at the church of S. Peter. But in the Readings he is said to have traveled for a long time visiting holy places, and to have lived laudably among the citizens of Ariano for some time, leading a civic life, supporting himself and the pilgrims he sheltered by repairing shoes of the common folk: which ignoble craft, if he knew it before being captured, he is said to have been noble without reason; if he learned it after escaping from prison, he learned it by several years' practice before coming to Ariano; nor should he who wished, as is imagined, to leave the history of his life to his future clients, have forgotten his sojourn among the citizens.

[11] The fiction about the city's nomenclature from the Altar of Janus. When Otho was now living as a solitary, Count Jordan is introduced, with singular zeal excavating the ruins of an ancient temple, dedicated to Janus, as tradition held: whose two-faced image was found, and a cubit-high altar, and a stone inscription five cubits long and three wide, carved thus: "Q. BABRIVS COR. AMIANTVS. PA. QVAESTOR. P. R. EX S. C. IN. P. A. S. HE." which should be read as: "Quintus Babrius Cornelius Amianthus, Patrician, Quaestor of the Roman People, by decree of the Senate in the provinces of Apulia, Samnium, and Etruria." As for such a stone, if any exists or ever existed outside this fable, nothing milder can be pronounced about it than what Ughellus says: that more sensible students of antiquity do not consider that inscription to be genuine, but a clever invention devised for the glory of talent. As an attentive investigator of ancient remains will find in these letters almost as many traces of falsity as there are characters, so he will have no doubt that the remaining more elaborate narrative of the same stone was fabricated with equal audacity, in which it is said that the city, founded as indicated above, was destroyed by Pontius the Samnite general, and restored by Praeter at his own expense in the five hundredth year from the founding of the City.

[12] But lest this so prolix and so elaborate inscription of a single stone should seem to be obtruded entirely without purpose, the fictitious Otho proceeds to narrate the popular joy at its excavation, and the vanity of the Arianensians corrected by Otho, and to commemorate the image of Janus affixed to public and private buildings and inserted into banners and standards: and the boasting of the populace, while recalling the deeds of their ancestors, about Sappia, a colony of the Beneventans ten miles from Benevento, destroyed in the time of Totila and its inhabitants transferred to Ariano. The repentance of the people for this idolatrous vanity and empty boasting was aroused by Otho through a most effective oration; he was also the author of changing the seal and assuming a three-peaked mountain in place of the image of Janus: in such a way, however, that A and I, for the preservation of the memory of their ancient origin (which Otho did not wish to be entirely extinguished), were inscribed on the middle mountain. From that point the Pseudo-Otho begins to play the prophet, prophecies falsely attributed to him, and to predict a future siege by the Agarenes with almost total destruction, and the earthquake of the year 1456, by which the city was almost completely overthrown; and this under the beginning of a Prince from the West who would be raised to the Kingdom of Naples, indicating Alfonso of Aragon: and finally that the people of Ariano, as followers of the French, would be subjugated by the Imperialists, looking to the times of the Emperor Charles V and the Duke of Guise. He does not dare to touch upon further events, lest a false prediction of things not yet done should convict the prophet of falsehood. Finally, having collected many formulas from Sacred Scripture, he blesses the city and its inhabitants as their Protector.

[13] This is the sum of that profane writing, and having seen these things, we hope it will be removed from the sacristy. With this disposed of, nothing remains for us but the Ecclesiastical Office: whose nine readings exhibit a good part of the Life in such a way a more sincere Life to be gathered from the most ancient Office that they sufficiently show that the rest, with his miracles performed before and after death, was written in a similar manner. This, now lost, or at least not found by him who most diligently arranged for everything to be copied for us, Antonio Beatillo, we supplement as best we can from the Responsories and Antiphons as well as the Hymns of the same Office, combined into one, whence greater authority may accrue to the Readings themselves. Having been composed, namely, at a time when under the name of Apulia some tracts of the ancient Samnium and Campania and nearly Naples itself were still reckoned: whence Otho, coming to Ariano, is said to have come to Apulia.

[14] He came, moreover, in the time of Count Jordan, as even the very fable we have refuted agrees, and thereby perforce destroys itself. Age determined from the age of Count Jordan, who died in the year 1127. For this Count flourished from the very beginning of the twelfth century, known for his deeds in the Chronicle of Fulco of Benevento, appointed Judge of his homeland by Innocent II, and recording events of his own time up to the year 1140; where he narrates the death of Jordan, who rashly sprang at a certain gate while assaulting the fortress of Florentino and was there overwhelmed under a hail of stones by the defenders, under the year 1127. And Otho was worn out by old age when he came to Ariano; and therefore when the Count died he was either already dead or very near death. So that it is plainly evident that the impostor who concealed that writing in the church of S. Peter was not only a man of brazen impudence but also utterly ignorant of the history of his own homeland: who did not see that it followed from the age of Jordan that perhaps Otho had ceased to live before the impostor makes him born.

[15] As for the time of the body's translation to the city of Benevento, Translation to Benevento around the year 1230, if the cause of this translation was fear of the infidels, as King Alfonso writes, it must have occurred around the year 1230 under Frederick II, when the Saracens were devastating Apulia: before whose incursion, unless the Office had been composed, it could not speak of him so absolutely as resting at Ariano

to speak. In certain manuscript additions of Father Rosweyd to Usuard's Molanus, these words are read: "On the twenty-third day, at Ariano, the feast of S. Otho the Roman, An altar at Rome, Protector of the people of Ariano: whose altar and image is at Rome in the church of SS. Martin and Sylvester on the Hills." When Father Daniel de Virgine Maria, Provincial of the Flemish-Belgian Province, was consulted about this while attending the General Chapter convened at Rome in the year 1666, he replied on May 22 that the religious whom he had questioned, who had lived in that convent for twenty or thirty years, knew nothing of any such altar or image: that the church had been entirely renovated a hundred years ago by S. Charles Borromeo, and again twenty years ago; and that, while the altars of SS. Sylvester and Martin and of the Blessed Virgin Mary were retained, most of the others had been made new and dedicated to Saints proper to the Order.

LIFE

From the Office and proper Readings.

Otho, Solitary at Ariano in the Kingdom of Naples (S.)

BHL Number: 6391

[1] The illustrious man of the Lord, Otho, as has now been made known to our ears, was born and raised at Rome: A Roman by birth, but the names of his parents, and the nature and extent of his lineage, we have neither discovered nor endeavored to record for posterity; yet although their station is unknown to us, his offspring demonstrates how great they were. For the most holy Otho, placed in the flower of his early youth, was most influential among his fellow citizens: a soldier by condition, for if he had not been born of noble parents, in so great a city, which is the capital of the world, he would not have been endowed with military rank.

[2] For such was the divine ordinance promulgated from the very earliest origins of the City, that the sons of veterans should be enrolled in the military through successive generations. And when, at that time when the Blessed Otho was serving in the military, a certain nation that owed submission to the Roman Empire refused to bend its neck, resisting the magistrates and the decree of the Senate, and an army of the Roman military was sent to subdue it and subject it to the Roman Empire and its dominion: the Most Blessed Otho, going voluntarily with the rest of the soldiers to that campaign, is captured by the enemy, was captured by the enemy together with several of his companions when the war began. Which let no one believe was done without the Lord's guidance: for whom the Lord loves he chastises, and scourges every son whom he receives.

[3] With his hands therefore bound behind his back and his legs constrained by the dire iron of chains, He invokes God in his grievous prison, they shut them long in the custody of a dark prison: but when his companions were ransomed, Otho alone remained there. At last in that same place of confinement, worn down by the privation of hunger and the weight of his chains, he besought God, the Redeemer of all, with tears, saying: "Jesus Christ, Lord, only-begotten Son of God, if it please you, do not permit me to linger long in the torments of this darkness, nor ever deprive me of a share of your graces: but deign to lead me out of the straits of this prison, that I may always be able to bless and praise your holy name."

[4] He is visited in his sleep by S. Leonard. And not long after -- indeed on the following night -- when he had given himself over to sleep, S. Leonard came to him, that consoler of such wretched ones, and burst forth with these words: "Do not be afraid, Otho, your prayer has been heard before the Lord: but hear what pertains to your salvation. Take care, I say, that you no longer serve as a soldier for the passing world, but henceforth walk with a simple heart and a pure body." Awakened then from sleep, he believed that all he had seen was done by human agency, and turning it over in his mind, he fell asleep again. And the Saint, coming again, roused him from the bosom of the dark prison, and is freed: and by his power led him, still slumbering, into a certain wooded glade. When the Saint had returned through the thin breezes of heaven whence he had come, the Blessed Otho broke the fastenings of his chains with a stone and began to reflect upon how these things had been done.

[5] Thenceforth serving God alone. Moreover, when morning came, not unmindful of the benefit received, leaving behind the density of the shady forest, he began to visit as a suppliant the shrines of the Saints throughout the regions of the world: at length, now worn out by long old age, coming by divine Providence to Apulia, he entered the walls of the city of Ariano. Its situation and soil so pleased him He comes to Ariano in old age, that, wishing never to leave, he established there a hospice for the reception of pilgrims, at whatever expense he could manage: and since he lacked material resources and had nothing to give to those in need, he cobbled the shoes of the inhabitants of the aforesaid city; he receives pilgrims hospitably: and with what he earned therefrom he provided food for the guests he received: likewise, carrying loads of wood on his shoulders, he also prepared beds for them at night.

[6] He himself, however, not wishing to indulge himself in these things, endured the greatest pains of fasting, cold, and wakefulness, practicing the cobbler's trade for three years, hoping and firmly believing that at the strict judgment he would reap what he had sown; when the King exalted above all Kings, sitting on the seat of his majesty and weighing all our deeds in the scale of justice, shall render to each according to his works, and shall say to those who are at his right hand: "Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world: for what you did for one of the least of mine, you did for me." And when by living thus for the course of three years he had led an innocent life among the citizens of Ariano, moved by the most holy inspiration, renouncing the society of men, he came to the church of the Blessed Apostle Peter, seven hundred and sixty paces from the city.

[7] Next to it he built himself a little cell, and wished to be enclosed there to lead the solitary life: in which he often felt the tyrannical threats and mockeries of demons beyond number: afterward, having built a cell: for the devil visibly attempted to deceive him with a thousand lying arts. But then the illustrious Confessor of Christ, persisting in vigils and prayers, protected his whole being with the sign of the Cross, and afflicted all the members of his body with sixty leather straps tied together. He lives as a solitary. He fasted six days of the week and was content with the most meager provision of food. In that cell he had also made himself a tomb as a reminder, which he left open day and night, so that in him the Scripture might be fulfilled which says: "Son, in all your works remember your last end, and you shall never sin." Eccl. 7:40

[8] But how much he suffered in that same enclosure, our tongue cannot narrate: When a soldier climbs his roof to retrieve the Duke's hawk. therefore, passing over all these things, let us turn our pen to the miracles which the Lord worked through him. At that time, then, when the noble Jordan, Count of Ariano, was governing the reins of the city, while a certain soldier of his, named Servatius, was going out hawking with his hawk, and released it into the air to catch birds, it happened that it did not proceed to catch them, but instead alighted upon the cell of the blessed hermit Otho. Distressed by its idleness, the soldier recalled it in the usual manner. And when his voice was now failing from calling out, and the hawk would not come as it usually did, he immediately resolved in his mind to approach; he irrecoverably loses it, nor did any delay detain him, but climbing up he leapt upon the roof of the nearby cell. After the Saint asked him who he was and why he had climbed up, he immediately prayed to the Lord that the man should not be able to catch it.

[9] Immediately, in a wondrous manner, the bird which he had already thought he held in his hands, until he humbly supplicates the Saint, he saw flying through the open air. After he saw that there was no hope of its returning, he descended sadly to the ground. And when, searching through the hollows of the valleys and the heights of the mountains for three days, he had diligently sought it and not found it, he went in shame to the hermit, whom he humbly besought with tears to placate the wrath of the aforesaid Count toward him by his prayers. The hermit, hearing this and moved by compassion, said: "Go quickly to the spring called S. Peter's, and there you will find it bathing in the water; and when it sees you, it will immediately come to you as usual." Hearing this, the soldier went to the indicated place, he deserved to recover it, and just as the Saint had predicted, he found it. Then the soldier, returning with joy, gave thanks to him and to the Son of the Most High God.

The rest is missing, and can be supplied to some extent from the responsories and antiphons in this manner.

[10] A certain young man, deprived of the light of his eyes, was healed He heals a blind man and a woman with fever: when he was signed by the latter with the Cross of Christ. While the Blessed Otho poured forth prayers to the Lord that he might take away the fevers from a woman, he immediately perceived the power of God to be present; and when he arose from prayer, the woman was freed from her infirmity. Because from boyhood he took care to please the Almighty, he deprived himself of all fleshly ambition. Like flashing lightning, this Saint penetrated the heavens when his soul departed from his body. When the funeral of the holy man had reached the ears of the populace, The body of the holy dead man is brought into the city, immediately gathering together, they proceeded unanimously and brought his body in a vehicle and placed it in a monument. A girl, moreover, languishing and exhausted by the burden of a demon, was made well by the merits of the Blessed Otho; and when she raised herself from the ground, she immediately blessed God along with the multitude of bystanders. He frees a demoniac. O reward received! O life pleasing to God! Through whose merits the sick, afflicted with various sufferings, are healed as they devoutly run to you. O Ariano, most excellent city, in which so many praises of virtues shine forth, and Otho drives demons from the possessed! O with what great joy the people of Ariano glory, because they are always aided by the patronage of this Saint!

[11] From the Hymns composed for Vespers and Lauds, it is also useful to excerpt the following:

"To the festival of Otho the whole country hastens, That it may praise his merits along with his own city. Epitome of life and miracles collected from the hymns. This man, Roman by birth, inspired by the nourishing Spirit, When he was a noble recruit, and also young in age, Admonished in a dream by the most holy Leonard Not to bind himself to the world but to serve the Lord, Spurning human glory, he left his homeland, And came into Apulia, to lead a heavenly life. In the province of Samnium stands a city so mighty That it cannot be conquered unless it itself consents; Near whose fortifications Otho, the holy worshiper of Christ, Enclosed himself in a cell, praying for the whole homeland. He afflicted himself with fasts, spending nights in vigils, And on continuous days scourging himself with leather straps. Among the many wonderful miracles he performed, He restored sight to a Jewish woman who had persisted in her faithlessness. What the Count had thought and had told no one, He shines with the gift of prophecy, Otho swiftly reveals, as the same Count testifies. When the magnanimous Count and all the people heard, They believe Otho to be a diligent and true servant of God. So he did in the matter of the hawk that had fled from the soldier, Designating by name the place in which it was staying: Showing those who sought it that it was washing itself at the spring."

"He also restored sight to a wretched blind man, And extinguished the burning heats of fever from a poor woman. He did many other things as well, which cannot individually Be proclaimed in full discourse, on account of their magnitude. He led an angelic life there for many years, And afterward, rendering his soul to God, he lives for all eternity. His sacred little body is carried to the episcopal church: Where many miracles are performed through his merits: He exercises power over demons, For through his merits demons abandon the possessed, Driven to black darkness, they are plunged into the pool of fire. Wherefore the most devout little people of Ariano, Paying their due vows, seek your intercession: Succor your own city, in which you rest in body, He is venerated as the patron of Ariano. And preserve all the people of God in perpetuity. Amen."

"The blessed Otho, while with bound hands He stood, enclosed in a dark prison, And while he prayed to the supreme Creator, He saw great things."

CONCERNING BLESSED PETER OF THE ORDER OF HERMITS OF S. AUGUSTINE, AT GUBBIO IN UMBRIA.

THIRTEENTH OR FOURTEENTH CENTURY.

in his honor: Crowds gather for the spectacle of the uncorrupted body. then on the said Tuesday itself, after the customary ringing of the bells, the coffin is opened, with not only the people of the city and territory of Gubbio assembling, but also a great multitude from neighboring places: which fills the entire church in regular order until the third and fourth hour of the night; while each person strives not to leave without obtaining a portion of flowers or cotton that have touched the holy Relics, or with their prayer beads sanctified by contact with them.

[9] Moreover, from the very day of his death (or rather of his elevation), this blessed body has rested beneath the altar and most recently translated in the year 1666. called the Samaritan, in a walnut coffin. But when afterward, beside the aforesaid altar, another more sumptuous and more conspicuous one had been erected and consecrated under the name of S. Thomas of Villanova, it seemed to Father Master Felix of Offida, Father Master Andrea Balbucci, and other Fathers, that the sacred treasure could be much more fittingly housed in this new altar, and they sent a supplicatory letter concerning the matter to the Most Reverend General of the Order, Peter Lanfranconi. When he assented to their pious wishes, the Blessed was translated in the presence of the Vicar and Episcopal Notary on Tuesday of Holy Week in the year 1666 to the aforesaid altar, and placed there in a cypress coffin, partially carved with skill and gilded; entirely intact, and in the same humble and rough habit in which he had first been buried so many years ago; not without a signal miracle of virtue transmitted from the body itself to the garment.