ON SAINT EVERMAR
SLAIN IN THE FIELD OF TONGEREN.
ABOUT THE YEAR 700
PrefaceEvermar, slain in the field of Tongeren (St.)
G. H.
Among the illustrious libraries of our Belgium, in which very many Acts of the Saints have been preserved from destruction, can be reckoned that which in the forest of Soignes near Brussels, in the monastery of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine, called Rouge-Cloître, still stands. There lived the Subprior John Gillemans, who by the testimony of Andreas Valerius in the Belgic Library, Acts from the MS. of Rouge-Cloître tripartite, collected and described with his own hand the Hagiology of the Brabantines in two volumes, the Novale of the Saints likewise in two volumes, and the Sanctilogium in four volumes, and at length died at these labors in the year 1477. From the already indicated second volume of the Hagiology of the Brabantines we give the Acts of St. Evermar, distinguished into three parts, of which the first contains his deeds done in life, and, as the Author speaks, the Passion of the Martyr, martyred in the parts of Hesbaye. The second part explains the history of the body found about the year 960, under Eraclius Bishop of Liège, four centuries and a half after the death of the Saint himself; when either by Ruzelinus the Presbyter himself, whom the Lord through his Angel taught of the name and life of the Martyr, to whom he related the series of his life and the course of his martyrdom, to whom he showed in what place buried he lay, as is said at the beginning of part 2; or by another who faithfully received Ruzelinus's relation, the Life however succinctly was written, of which Life with Bishop Theodwin the Archdeacon makes mention in part 3 num. 14, almost a hundred years after the aforesaid Finding.
[2] This therefore the author had before his eyes, and by a most verbose amplification dilated it into that amplitude, in which we have the first two parts: the more ancient from the MS. of Utrecht. and because we seem to have found it in the MS. of Utrecht of the Church of St. Salvator, we prefix it to the more prolix history: of which the third part there, untouched, sets forth the cause, on account of which from the church of St. Martin, into which Eraclius had transferred the body found, to the place of the old sepulcher, built with a wooden little shrine, the Abbot of Porcetum, lord of the village as it appears of Rutten, had judged it to be carried back. He narrates also how from the offerings accumulated on account of the miracles a stone church built there, was dedicated by Bishop Theodwin after the year 1050 on the 25th of July, Cult first on the 25th of July then the 1st of May. and it was ordained that that day should be held annually sacred to St. Evermar, whose Natal day was unknown. Yet it afterward prevailed, the more singular cult of the aforesaid day being abrogated, that on the 1st day of May this Saint should be venerated, after a certain nocturnal vision, which is subjoined to the related miracles, from the public testimony of the village of Rutten, that is, from the known tradition or asseveration of the inhabitants; to which although the author does not ask that sure faith be given, yet he asks that it be not disapproved, that the people of Rutten relying on it have the said day festive to their Patron, whom also they have been wont to frequent every Friday, by visiting the chapel which of the once splendid and great church now alone survives, and is preserved honestly enough by the alms of pious pilgrims.
[3] But the more prolix history was written at least in the 12th century: The Acts when written? for Giles a monk of Aureavallis of the Order
Cistercian, who finished his History of Liège in the year 1251, inserted much into it from the same first in the additions to the history of Anselm Canon of Liège chapter 48 treating of Bishop Eraclius, then in that part which properly is wholly his own c. 4, as is to be seen in John Chapeaville vol. 1 and 2. Who in the Annotations to the former place of Giles, notes that St. Evermar is honored among the Martyrs by the church of Rutten and by the neighboring one of Tongeren, The body is carried every year to Tongeren. to which every year the sacred body is carried: and that in an elegant ark, which (as he wrote to us in the year 1676 Dom Portugaels, lately Canon of Rutten and Pastor) becomingly adorned contains the greater part of the sacred bones; and by the frequent miracles of healings restored to those asking ceases not to prove their sanctity even to the present day, by the testimony in a certain manner of an eye-witness, the aforesaid Canon, although no further care is had of legitimately noting them, as happens in those things which by their frequency have ceased to be a wonder. The head at Porcetum is in honor. The head from time immemorial is in the Abbey of Porcetum near Aachen. I would believe it was separated from the rest of the body in the very translation aforementioned, and long afterward was at Rutten before it was carried off to Porcetum, perhaps on occasion of the wars raging in the Liège field; after which it seemed good to the Abbot, the ark being sent back to its place, to retain the head with himself. There were wont of old to be sent from the same Abbey to Rutten religious men, who by song and presence should honor his feast and its Octave, as from part 3 num. 20 and 36 is understood.
[4] In the old Breviary of Tongeren, on these Kalends of May, in the Ecclesiastical Office of SS. Philip and James the Apostles, there is prescribed the Collect of St. Evermar the martyr. But in the Martyrology this elogium of him is given: In the territory of Tongeren, the village which is called Rutten, of St. Evermar the Martyr, who by unjust men was innocently slain. his name inscribed in the sacred calendars, His precious death is illustrated by frequent miracles. To these Molanus in the Births of the Saints of Belgium adds these following things. He was, as in the Ecclesiastical office is read, a noble Frisian, who, the virtues of merits growing with age, was making pilgrimage to holy places. the elogium in Molanus And when he was going to Maastricht to St. Servatius, he turned aside in the territory of Tongeren to a certain Hacco in the forest Harsclopia with his seven companions. Who as he was a tyrant, slew the blessed man with the said companions. He is honored moreover among the Martyrs of God by the church of Rutten, and by the neighboring one of Tongeren, to which every year his body is carried. His bones Heraclius Bishop of Liège raised about the year nine hundred sixty-eight: which elevation so many miracles followed, that, written down, they would make a whole volume. There is moreover, as the cited Giles the monk writes before, A village which is called Rutten (in French Ruchon) not far from the ruined walls of the city of the Tongri, namely the ancient ones when the city was most ample, of which some vestiges stand in the rubble: for those which were walls in this century, and lately were not very amicably overthrown by our friends the French, are distant at least one league from the place, commonly called Rutheim, retaining the name from the uprooted forest, as is intimated at the beginning of part 2. For Heim marks a home, Rote or Rute a forest: but Ruyten to the Belgians, to the Germans Reuten by the testimony of Kilianus, is to uproot and to pluck out: whence very many names of places built in cleared forests commonly occur terminated in Roy or Rode, which is derived from that root, or in Ray or Rade according to the variety of dialects.
[5] By the Office of a Martyr St. Evermar is venerated, as are wont all the Saints who perished by a violent death, which through this whole work we have often said. Celebrated together with St. Evermar are his companions, who were seven in number, in the MS. Florarium of the Saints, where this elogium is brought forth: At Herstal, on the confines of Brabant and Lotharingia, and in the MS. Florarium. the passion of St. Evermar, and of his companions. He tyrannically slain with his own, found by a hunter of Pippin Duke of Brabant, his own shield being divided into two parts, is venerably buried in the village of Rutten near Tongeren, for the opportunity of place and time, in the year of salvation seven hundred. Whom afterward Eraclius the 16th Bishop of Liège raised from the earth and honorably transfers, admonished through the venerable Presbyter Enselm, who thrice over this through a vision was divinely instructed: and a wondrous fragrance of odor proceeded from the body of the Martyr, in the year of salvation nine hundred seventy. Thus there. But because concerning the bodies and cult of the Companions neither do the Acts have anything nor the observance of the people of Rutten, we do not dare on account of the uncertain authority of the Florarium to give them the title of Saints. Other elogia of St. Evermar have Bartholomew Fisen in the Flowers of the Church of Liège, Aubert le Mire in the Belgic Calendars: there make mention of the same Saint also Galesinius, Canisius, Ferrarius, Gelenius and others. Nay also we have received a fuller history rendered into French and printed at Liège in the year 1670.
[6] Giles Gonsalvus Davila, in the Theater of the Churches of both Castiles, treating of the Church of Burgos page 36 says, that in the year 1506 there were brought to Burgos the Relics of St. Everemarius and St. Gerso, Whether relics at Burgos in Spain? which whether they be of this Saint perhaps someone could doubt, and on that title contend that this or the following day should be held festive there. But him thinking such things the memory of eleven heads of the Ursuline Society, with several other bones likewise then brought, will easily restrain: because it is more likely that those too are had of the same society, with names like most others, fabricated long since at the will of the givers or receivers: with which Hermann Crombach would have augmented his most certain catalogue, laboriously collected and proposed in book 8 of Ursula Vindicated chapter 21, if he could have seen Davila's work.
ACTS OF THE LIFE AND MARTYRDOM
From the MS. of Utrecht of St. Salvator.
Evermar, slain in the field of Tongeren (St.)
BHL Number: 2797
FROM MS.
[1] The monarchy of Germany, from the Carbonarian forest even to the Rhine, and from the Meuse even to the Moselle, being held by the middle Pippin, sprung from St. Begga daughter of Duke Ansigis, Nobly born in Frisia, Frisia brought forth B. Evermar from a most noble root: whom consecrated to himself from his mother's womb the Omnipotent had now wholly suffused with the grace of the holy Spirit. But the virtues of merits growing with age, he shone forth into a mirror of all sanctity. Of whose progress the enemy envying, by many temptations strove to cast him down from his holy intention. But the strong athlete of Christ closed his ear, and advancing to great sanctity, reducing the enemy to nothing. But when by God's gift, temptations of this kind being lulled, he led a most holy life, he began to aspire to martyrdom, without which he feared himself to remain imperfect before God.
[2] He determined therefore to make pilgrimage for God, that as one unknown he might be able to attain martyrdom. a pilgrim he goes round the places of the Saints, The man of God therefore enters the way which leads to St. James of Galicia. And having entered the church of St. James and his suffrages being sought, he returns to the lower parts of Gaul, where the Saints recently withdrawn from the world were shining with miracles, namely Foillan the Martyr, Furseus and Ultan his brothers, B. Remaclus the Pontiff, Trudo the venerable Confessor, and the Virgin of God Gertrude. The suffrages of which Saints through their single places B. Evermar devoutly seeking, when at Maastricht he wished to go to St. Servatius, with seven companions he came to the first approaches of the forest, which is called Rutis.
[3] and by night turning aside to the house of Hacto In which when, night pressing on, lest committing himself to the darkness he should wander through the windings of the unknown forest, he turned aside to the nearest village which was called Herstal. Which village a certain tyrant by name b Hacto had made his own, and dwelt in it. Who a public enemy, by ferine temerity and the confederated savagery of his companions, despoiled or slew those passing through the forest and the public ways. Who also had erected for himself another dwelling near the Meuse, to which he had given the name Hactoletum from his own name, as if Hacto's bed, in which he might see and hear those passing, and despoil those sailing. he is kindly received by his wife: The man of God Evermar therefore, turning aside to the house of the aforesaid Hacto, not knowing whose it was, declined to it. He being absent his wife, fearing God and accommodated to the necessities of pilgrims, gratefully received the holy man Evermar with his companions, and admonished them before sunrise to take the way, lest on the morrow her husband coming over, whose cruelty she knew, if he should find them, should kill them. So they, a blessing being given to the faithful woman, went out in the morning, and entered the forest which they had left.
[4] Meanwhile Hacto returns home, and is informed of his guests who had passed the night with him. But he, made almost lifeless, broke forth into these words: Whither have they fled? Quickly, he said, let us pursue them, lest if they escape my hands, they say to those meeting them, that they passed Hacto with impunity as if sluggish and sleeping. After these things with his own he enters the forest, pursuing them through trackless and abrupt places. But unexpectedly there is offered to them the place, in which they were lying down, supplying the sleep which the morning flight had broken. Whom Hacto first chides, that they presumed to enter a land subject to his primacy: he argues also that they had not redeemed free passage by the tribute, due to him by the law of the land, but it being withheld had fled like thieves: by this guilt he said them to be bound against the public right, by which they could not be absolved except by the shedding of their blood. So having spoken, on B. Evermar, he slays him with seven companions. because by a more honorable and more composed habit of body he seemed to excel the rest, he leaps; and pierced with a dart or transfixed with a sword he prostrates him.
[5] The rest of his companions are struck with the sword, but I know not if according to their merit, yet for the fellowship of so great a man and for the dignity of martyrdom their spirits were received in some lodging of the diverse heavenly mansions. And so what had been the chief thing, the executioners despoil the Saints. the unburied bodies the hunters of Pippin bury. Whose bodies remained unburied protected by Angelic watches, until the aforesaid Pippin came to those borders: who enters the forest of Rutis for the sake of hunting. Of whose fellow-hunters a certain part, while it surveys the trackless places of the forest, comes upon the place where the Saints lay. Whom while they discern lifeless from wounds and blood, moved with mercy they bury: but B. Evermar, by the beauty of countenance and the excellent composition of members believed more worthy than the others, the exequies being performed they honestly buried, and his shield being divided one half of it being placed under him, the other half they placed over the body.
[6] At the time when Eraclius the Bishop presided over the church of Liège, there was in the village, which now from the uprooted forest had retained the name Rutis, Eraclius the Bishop, Evermar a church dedicated in honor of St. Martin: In which a Presbyter, Ruzelinus by name, a man of great sanctity, served. This one the Lord through his Angel taught of the name and life of B. Evermar the martyr; to this one the series of his life
and the course of his martyrdom he related; and in what place he lay buried he showed; to whom also he commanded in dreams, that going to Bishop Eraclius, on the part of God he should call him to that business, and lead him to bring forth the holy Martyr Evermar from the bosom of the earth, whose spirit from the hour of his martyrdom possessed heaven. after a triple revelation he raises him: But the Priest hesitating concerning the vision, in that year did not fulfill the command of God. In the second year, on the same night, by the same Angel he is blamed, that he had not obeyed the command: but the Priest, this time also persevering disobedient, in the third year, on the night on which the two visions had preceded, the Angel appearing being seized and scourged, at length believed the vision: which relating in order to the aforesaid Bishop, he showed the bruises and stripes in testimony. To which Presbyter the Bishop committed that he should dig up St. Evermar, many miracles following. and then the Bishop coming should raise him from the earth. Which was done. But from the body of the holy Martyr so great an odor of sweetness came forth, that the bystanders seemed to themselves to have entered paradise. The Bishop therefore raised the holy Martyr: and placing him in the church of St. Martin with great glory, the people of the land being gathered, he instituted him Patron to the people and country. For so many miracles followed after the elevation of the sacred body, that written down they would by themselves make a vast volume.
ANNOTATIONS.
TRIPARTITE HISTORY
From the MS. of Rouge-Cloître near Brussels.
Evermar, slain in the field of Tongeren (St.)
BHL Number: 2794, 2795, 2976
FROM MS.
PART I. The Life and passion of St. Evermar.
PROLOGUE.
[1] As former times were instituted and instructed by many examples of the Saints, which deduced through the single ages profited in their studious lovers; The examples of the Saints useful, but in the slothful and idle, despised, both lay vacant and were hidden: so among the studious and the idle they were variously brought together, but differently received; because grateful to the studious, and hateful to the idle they descended even to us: with whom also when by certain ones they ought to be received, repulsed by them they flee and depart; but in certain ones received they gratefully rest. Which to us either by writing or by speaking proposed or shown, do not seek our tongue for saying their praises: but rather our eyes by which they may be seen, and memory by which they may be held. For neither do the Saints need our intercession with God, if anything of the fulfilling of their perfection remained: but they wish ceaselessly to be remembered by being recounted and to be embraced by being imitated, they lead to Christ: that by their conduct they may faithfully lead us to the sight of Christ. For the examples of the Saints confirm the discourse of all preachers: and where the hortatory words of discourses fail, where they do not profit; substituted for perorating, the history of good men supplies and aids. Whence for the advantage of hearers and readers we write the life of B. Evermar: which to hear is the salvation of the hearers, which to read is the salutary doctrine and discipline of the readers: as also the Acts and miracles of St. Evermar. whose miracles, although they are succinct in a compendious narration, yet let no one for this reckon his merit the inferior; since the Lord preaches that he will say to those who are about to glory in the virtues done by themselves, Depart from me workers of iniquity, because I know not whence you are. Luke 13, 27 But the virtue of miracles is to be approved, not by the abundance of words, not by the applause of hands, not by the favorable acclamation of peoples; but by the testimony of holy life and the attestation of God: who so communicates them to a holy man, that the holy work, which is done through the merit of a good man, is believed to proceed from divine virtue.
CHAPTER I.
His birth, temptations overcome. The desire of martyrdom, the pilgrimage to Compostella.
[2] The monarchy of the Germanic part, from the Carbonarian forest even to the river Rhine, and from the Meuse even to the Moselle, being held by the middle Pippin, sprung from Begga daughter of Duke Ansgis, the further Frisia brought forth B. Evermar from a most noble root of noble parents (whom consecrated to himself from his mother's womb the right hand of the Omnipotent had now wholly suffused with the grace of the holy Spirit) and as if anointed with the unction of fragrant aroma, he began with the sweetest address of the mouth to breathe forth the odor as of a full field, which the Lord has blessed; Born in Frisia and so to show himself mature, that, still in earliest age a boy, in understanding and wisdom you would believe him an aged old man. in adolescence mature. And that I may show his first-fruits visible and more excellent to every age, his age, compared with his coevals, did not contain itself in their equality; but compared with old men, borrowed senile gravity in living well, and wisely assumed senile words in speaking. For indeed by his lively genius, and by his sound words and manners surpassing his age, he showed himself a John to his parents. But his parents, as if with the parents of John, he heard jest of him; and these things in turn reciprocally to repeat with voices: Who, think you, will this boy be? for the hand of the Lord was with him.
[3] b And when now the little recruit of Christ flourished in the years of adolescence, the most fruitful germ of virtues blossoming in him; the ancient enemy, as he envied the first man the pleasantness of Paradise, so he envied this one the greenness of the fruitful seed. he is assailed by the demon, Who as he is wont to assail this kind of age more strongly, strove to dash out the virtue of his mind: but conquered by divine protection he withdrew, and as if none had come disappearing he vanished. On the contrary that one rises up more vigilant for himself, certain that his enemy in a short while would be present to him sharper for the combat. He exhorting himself with the Prophet, Upon my watch will I stand, and will fix my step upon my fortress, the wrath of the enemy being again recalled assails him: nor by degrees, nor alternately does he attack him with his frauds; but manifold in grief he presses the manifold one in virtues. Isai. 21, 8 For he feared, lest, if pressing on him by intervals he should vex him by turns by tempting, through these spaces of remission that one should renew for himself the virtue of resisting, and therefore without withdrawal he wholly thrust upon him. But the athlete of God that one pressing on stood unshaken, but he persists a victor. and with strong mind endured: for the hostile terror did not unman him. Hence the enemy confounded recoiled from him, and the spirit conquered by a mortal man fled away, and the fugitive and apostate Angel from the persecution of the apostolic man mourning and groaning even this second time desisted.
[4] But that his renown might become more celebrated by the example of the Lord's temptation (which by the external combat had been destructive to the conquered enemy, but to Christ from the threefold victory had been triumphal) he proclaims a third war to the athlete of Christ, a third detriment equally also he procures for himself: and while he labors that he whom he assaults may slip, he himself is driven into the pit of confusion and precipitated by that one. Finally through young men and coevals glorious by illustrious birth, invited to the hunt, and the exercise of riding, the soldier of the Lord, equal to the excellent kind of veterans, but by his excellent faith superior, very frequently he assailed concerning attempting the use and exercise of hunting, riding and jesting: for they asserted it would be unbecoming, that the elegance of his form and the honor of his lineage be abolished by leisure and sloth, and the renowned industry of conspicuous adolescence be lulled by torpor and softness. But the strong athlete of Christ not unmindful of holy Wisdom thus prescribing: My son, if sinners shall entice you do not consent to them, restrain your foot from their paths; closed his ear to this perilous exhortation, nor was he led into the net captivating so simple and improvident a soul of creeping fraud: pitying their error, detesting also their noxious suggestion, he shrank from being mingled with the society of those, whom in this part he did not recognize as comrades; although he congratulated them as dear in love, and equal to himself in birth and dignity. Prov. 1. 10 He understood besides in them the cunning of his enemy known to him and frequently experienced, who offered to him in his stead and for his seduction persons, both conspicuous for comeliness, and famous for nobility, and eloquent in fluency, and in every way for his deception configured and imaged to him. as demoniac temptations he rejects them: And so in their gleaming skin, and in their whitening hair, and in the persuaded sports, and in the exercises of missile weapons understanding, as we have said, the demoniac temptation; by sound counsel and prayer poured out to God, he repelled it from himself and emptied it. So therefore the third conflict of the hostile recurrence being overcome, free and a triumpher he shone forth: nor indeed further did anyone explore the quality of his mind concerning those things which are worldly; nor did the wicked spirit, so enraged and so vehemently as it was wont, apply the machinations of its malignity to his irruption.
[5] Therefore all impediments being removed, he was supported by so great a firmness of security, that he directed the solid step of his mind through the path of justice: for security in him constantly stood, but caution in him sedulously kept watch. When therefore the Lord had given him peace round about, and he was troubled by no incursion of spiritual enemies; he could through this grace understand that he had the grace of God, and that this peace was for him a hope of heavenly rewards and a way of going to God. But a more abundant appetite of the supernal remuneration more fervently kindled his desire: he aspires to the laurel of martyrdom, for by votive sagacity he aspired to heavenly things through martyrdom, by which he foresaw his joy was to be fulfilled: without which namely not obtained he feared to appear imperfect before God. For he knew that Christ measures the reward of each elect by his own merit; but the reward of martyrdom is heaped with manifold fruit. He had known also that Christ has this commerce with the Martyr, that, for the blood of martyrdom poured back for his blood, he makes him sit with him, reign with him, be illustrated with his glory, be adopted by his Father as a most dear son, but to himself a hereditary brother. But so laudable a desire of obtaining martyrdom, the time refused, Christian peace prohibited: for the Christian profession had corrected and cleansed the world from idolatry: the Church too of the faithful had sanctified the single places. To another business therefore he transfers his desire. He wished to offer himself to God a martyr in whatever way: but he despaired that this could be fulfilled, because at this time in all places he saw Christ to be feared, him also in his members to be venerated.
[6] He determined therefore to make pilgrimage for God, hoping in this pilgrimage that his unknown face would become suspect to unknown peoples, and at first perhaps with injury be kept farther off by them: nay even if he were thought to have come to explore foreign things, about to seek some kind of martyrdom, he hoped that for despoiling him on the occasion of his unknown face the unknown provincials would be kindled by hope of booty, and after the booty by the hostile sword
he might be able to be laid low in death. But if in this manner it should happen to him to die, this martyrdom he would believe he had dedicated to God: which both the pilgrimage of his affairs would commend, and the death inflicted would join and number him with the other Martyrs. The man of God Evermar therefore enters the way, which leading to Gaul brings pilgrims to the patronage of St. James the Apostle. This way he found free from every impediment, he sets out to St. James of Compostella: and unencumbered from every difficulty, and beset by no conspiracy of robbers lying in wait. This way to the so faithful pilgrim Evermar was more opportune and more unobstructed than he wished. This way too kept him unwilling in every prosperous event, and against his will spared him from every impediment and especially from the contest of martyrdom. Therefore having entered the church, and the suffrages of the blessed Apostle being sought, if anything for his sins were to be supplicated, he prayed it to be expiated by the Apostolic intercession: martyrdom too at some time by the grace of God and by his obtaining he supplicated to be provided for him: which to him, from his sins, as he most certainly trusted, absolved through the Apostle, would become the sum of all beatitude, and the glory as of a fellow-tribesman of the holy Martyrs. Then with many prayers a fellow-traveler being sought for him, the holy Apostle himself, and through the Gauls he returns. he returns to the parts of Gaul, the same being his guide by whom he had come, namely Christ, prospering his journey: and he desired in returning that the glory of the triumphal palm should befall him, which he understood in coming had been salutarily deferred to him. But Christ did not defraud his vow, which he procured for him a few days after fruitful and equally tempered to his will.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER II.
Places illustrious for sanctity and miracles visited in Belgium. The fierce manners of the tyrant Hacco.
[7] Therefore the very prolix interval of many regions being overcome, he reached the lower parts of Gaul very famous and celebrated; which proclaimed to his ears sonorous praises, and lastly poured into his mind a most grateful delight. For there shone in those parts luminaries radiating more splendidly than the stars, In Belgium by which all those depressed in the darkness of error were illustrated, in whom also the virtue of miracles and the power of medicinal signs was eminent. They were moreover holy men, recently withdrawn from the world and assumed by God: who as if still on earth left in virtues and miracles, and translated to their glory and merit in heaven, left to their dead bodies that they might more wondrously live lifeless, than they had lived when the spirit and soul vivified them. Foillan one of these, he venerates St. Foillan, whom the triumphal renown of martyrdom raised distinguished, adorned his b town of Fosses with the neighboring region. Whose praise and renown, like the voice of thunder, filled the mouths of all and resounded in the ears of all: but to the holy man Evermar himself above the rest he was admirable, because through that shedding of blood which he desired, he had washed his stole in the blood of the Lamb; and by this example exhorted him to the laver of the same purification, that he should prepare his stole.
[8] c Gertrude the most illustrious Virgin, both by the name of virginity and the fame of virtue prevailing, illustrated that, St. Gertrude, which for her birth and first-fruits she chose, the village of Nivelles; which also she both fortified, while she lived, with herself a Virgin and a manifold succession of Virgins, and dead assigned to God. This village then the man of God Evermar coming, she distinguished by merits and miracles, and by no mediocre virtues summoned all the neighboring and even far-distant nations to admire the fecundity of her virgin propagation. Besides d Furseus, magnificent in his visions, and victorious in the objections of the enemy repelled, came with the fame of his name and the renown of his virtues into the ears of St. Evermar: SS. Furseus whom received in admiration, in a certain manner he believed him, namely St. Furseus, to run about everywhere, whom he heard all the auditoriums and the most crowded assemblies of men ceaselessly to name: e Ultan also his brother in the same praise he wondered to be eminent and to approach the third brother St. Foillan: and Ultan, holy Gertrude too, their fellow-confidant in the things which are of God, on account of the merit and dignity of virginity to hold the first station in their order.
[9] f Trudo too that native of Hesbaye, that, I say, of Hesbaye both son by birth and Patron by the defense of virtue, as if by tongues and voices of wondrous works, and as if by the fragrance of medicinal cures, called almost the whole world; and especially St. Trudo renowned for many miracles, and after the fame everywhere preaching him, showed the proof of himself. There was no region, there was no nation ignorant of his name: there was no city or village, hamlet or town, in which the lame, leaping up through the virtue of Trudo, did not walk; in which the blind, deprived of light for seeing, did not see light with his eyes; in which the feverish, the trembling of his members compressed, did not rest; in which one made savage in sense and madness, did not return to a natural and rational and sound knowledge of himself, through Trudo. This report of St. Trudo animated B. Evermar to visit him and more certainly to know him; that, known by fame, himself coming from afar might humbly salute him, and approaching close at hand devoutly and reverently adore him, and by the exquisite conversation and quality of his life, by laudable emulation of him, in Christ more fully form himself. g Remaclus too had undertaken the Ardennes to be guarded, and St. Remaclus. and cherished the monastery of Stavelot with bodily embrace and protected it with his merits: he also transmitted the fame of his virtues and his name everywhere through all corners of the earth, and in his dead body proved himself to live by virtues. This his wondrous deed brought thither the man of God Evermar, that he might admire him and venerate him, and from this more earnestly glorify Christ, who so works in his servants.
[10] After therefore the man of God Evermar had paid in turn to these Saints, whom we have premised, the service of veneration; he resolved to go to Maastricht, drawn by the name and virtues of h St. Servatius. This one once at Tongeren, while it had the name of a city, held the Bishopric, when the Huns hastening to its overthrow he restrained by prayer made. about to go to St. Servatius, He afterward dying, they with unbridled rage ferociously raging into the city itself, made nothing remaining of the conquered. His sepulcher shows this evident miracle, that, all the land being rained upon and besprinkled with snow, by a private and special reverence for his servant, the Lord permits it neither to be covered with snow nor to be flooded by rain: the rest which were wondrously wrought by him living or dead, we have not undertaken to narrate. Which then intimated to the blessed man Evermar were for stupor and veneration: who wished to go thither, that by adoring and supplicating he might experience his virtue, remission being received of those sins which he lamented now to be for him a fear, and which he feared at some time to be examined. But the divine will stood in his way, demonstrating to him that the way of man is not in himself.
[11] Therefore having advanced with his seven companions even to the first approaches of the forest, to which from ancient antiquity had been given the name Rutis, he came to the forest of Rutten, he is hindered by the nearness of the pressing night, that he should neither commit himself to the darkness of night, nor immerse himself in the noxious or perplexing windings of the unknown forest: for by the blindness of night the eyes are blinded and by the rugged losses of the forest the feet are bound. There was nearby a village, i Herstal called, either situated close at hand for the fortification of the forest, or the village itself for its own use, having the same forest neighboring, which both for dominion and as a fitting dwelling for himself a certain Hacco had made his own. This man of perverse mind, first had given himself headlong into every crime, then pernicious to all exercised cruelty, slaughter, every rapine, fires and the other crimes of malignity; where Hacco cruelly lorded it. leaving nothing untried, that could be devised for the torment of human affliction. This man ferine temerity and the confederated unanimity of his companions had made a public enemy: this wicked robber the forest exposed to those passing nearby to glut his greed, overflowing more with the spoils of men than with hunting prey. Besides those spoils, which the public way and the places obstructed by woody roughnesses brought to him; also the river Meuse with great gains filled his avarice nor satisfied it. For those conveyed by boats he plundered: with fire too he consumed those, whose life by sword, hand, spoils he could not break off.
[12] By this tyranny so by himself, by his companions, by fire, and by water, against innocent men he raged; who besides that place, in which we have said he abode, had erected for himself another dwelling near the Meuse, to which k Hacco had given the name Hacletum: which name feigned by himself as author, is set forth himself also interpreting it, namely that the little bed of Hacco is placed there; in which reclining he might both see those passing, and hear those rowing, and so be a terror to all of our country both waking and sleeping. This dominion, and this providence over a part of the kingdom he had received from Prince Pippin, cruelly abusing which he showed himself a tyrant instead of a Lord, and a robber instead of a provider: whose ferocity was the more intolerable, the more indifferently and indiscreetly he joined the good with the evil in punishment, involved the just with the impious, the poor with the rich in the examination of the same judgment. For because the solicitude of Duke Pippin extended widely through the kingdom, had excluded this part of the kingdom, endangered under Hacco, from the regard of his custody; therefore this tyrant presumption being assumed, while he believes himself alone to be prince, in all things shows himself a Prince of cruelty; and esteeming himself born in the kingdom, thought that by royal power it was given to him to make whom he would abound, and whom he would be in want; whom he would live, and whom he would perish.
[13] The man of God Evermar therefore, by the pressing night hindered from the entrance of the forest, he turns aside to this man's house: turned aside to the abovesaid village Herstal: and not a vile cottage, not a humble hut he chose for lodging; as if by the vileness of the little lodging he were excused, that he could suspect with himself nothing honorable, nothing desirable, but to a richer house he turned aside, supported by walled walls, and by its loftiness testifying to be the stronghold of none but some powerful man. This was the house of Hacco, who then absent by chance in the village of his name was carrying off the booty of naval merchandise, or in the nearest village was observing those passing, suspecting those to defer flight into the night, whom he foresaw to appear by day. But his wife fearing God, and compassionating the necessities of poor guests and pilgrims, he is kindly received by his wife, them
she gratefully received; and mindful of Christ, who said himself to be received in a guest, in Evermar she venerated Christ, and showed herself another Martha in the sedulity of ministry. She understood moreover in the person of the man that a noble birth had brought him forth; nor that he had obscured anything of the illustriousness of his race, whom both a comely face, and modest speech, and ordered gait, and the other affected honesty of body gratified to all who saw him.
[14] This habit of the man of God was for the love and veneration of the good matron well composed: but she foresaw her husband on account of them could be bitten with malign envy, and irritated with intolerable indignation, and irritated be appeased only by their spoils and death. Therefore she so began to exhort them: Most dear to God, and at her exhortation he departs at early morning. to me also to be cultivated with heartfelt affection, by an earlier flight anticipate the rising of dawn: here to await my Lord about to return on the morrow, is to be in peril of life: whom fleeing both rescue yourselves from death, and him from crime. I know the malice of the man: when he is to hear that innocent men have come, he will reckon you to have rushed upon him as enemies; and having heard that you passed with impunity, he will believe himself for your impunity to breathe out his spirit. Wherefore depart hastily, and for the charity of the lodging, by which you ought to have been retained by us even against your will; receive patiently, that for the charity of preserving your life you seem to be salutarily repelled by us. So they, a blessing being given to the faithful woman, the twilight of the morning light not awaited, having gone out of the lodging, enter the forest, which in the evening on account of the long losses and on account of the near night they had not reached. Having therefore measured a little of the woody way, beside a brook flowing down with a pleasant and gentle course, they lie down; and repair the timely advance of the morning time with leisure, and solace themselves with rest of the bodies.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER III.
The slaughter of St. Evermar and his companions. Martyrdom is ascribed to him.
[15] Meanwhile Hacco returns home; and is informed of his guests who had passed the night with him, and of the blessing given by which they had consecrated his house. By Hacco pursuing, But he made almost lifeless and demented with dullness of mind, trembling in his lips, presenting also a brutish rage in his countenance, broke forth into these words: Whither have they fled? whither escaping from our lodging have they got away? No flight will so hastily snatch them from us, but that we more hastily pursuing them will avenge our weariness upon them. They will understand that they profited nothing in flight, when a little after the sentence following will convict them of their slowness. And so with me let the soldiers be marshaled, but the clients scattered everywhere, let us more swiftly pursue them: and found let them sustain our judgment, who carry with them my contempt, about to say as they think to all they meet, if however they shall have escaped my hands, that they passed Hacco with impunity as if sluggish and sleeping. Having spoken these things, with troops of soldiers and foot-clients he enters the forest, judging them to have sat down there, and to have lurked in its hidden recesses, which only to the fleeing are passable and accessible by the necessity of preserving life.
[16] found, he is upbraided. Pursuing them therefore they measure equally the trackless and the passable with no difference, pass through all difficulties, not unhurt, but yet on account of the swiftness of the way they were ignorant of their hurt. So them running about there is unexpectedly offered the place, in which they were lying down, repairing with rest their bodies wearied with labor, and as if by a noonday pause supplying the sleep which they had broken by the morning flight. Whom Hacco first chides for his contempt, that they presumed to enter his land, subject to his primacy and confiscated to his treasury: he argues also that they had not redeemed free passage by the tribute, due to him by the law of the land, but it being withheld had fled like thieves; and for this crime they had condemned themselves to all punishments, and lastly to an ignominious death. By this guilt moreover he said them to be bound against the public right, by which they could not be absolved except by the expiation of their blood and the proscription of their goods: of which goods one part he himself exacted for his tribute, the other for their presumptuous coming, and for the peace and salutation not offered, and for the not-asked command and license of coming and returning.
[17] So having spoken on B. Evermar, because by a more honorable and more composed habit of body he seemed to excel the rest, he leaps, and pierced with a dart or transfixed with a sword he prostrates him: who from this with the tyrant was more despised and more damnable, whence to all good men he was more acceptable and more specially pleasing. For on account of the comeliness of body, which had commended him to all, he is slain, reproved by the judgment of this homicide, he is first chosen for death: as one who fouler and more uncouth than the others, his sight would foul; and therefore more quickly consumed by death, he would not be worthy longer to appear to his eyes. So the holy man assailed with false crimes is slain: of which false crimes, as far as pertained to his innocence, this was the more venial, that he did not pay tribute, because he carried no merchandise from which tributes are paid. The other crime was concerning the contempt of Hacco himself, by which namely Hacco himself complained that he had been despised by him: innocent of every fault in which against him he contracted nothing of offense, since he himself was wont to humble himself to vile and even the lowest persons. The third crime was concerning his presumptuous coming into his land and fleeing departure; from which he was immune: since the public way, as to citizens, so also is free and gratuitous to pilgrims.
[18] By these, as we have said, crimes the holy man Evermar falsely charged, innocently fell: but rather I believe him to have fallen, God so disposing, for the long-lasting desire of martyrdom: which desire the conjecture and avaricious cupidity of the bloody robber served. So the holy soul (God not then executing his will in attaining martyrdom, joined to the Martyrs. when he sooner wished, but when God himself more advisedly ordained) presented to Christ, is mingled with the holy Martyrs; and in all the good things, which the holy Martyrs enjoy with Christ, it also indifferently participates. The rest of his companions are themselves also struck with the sword: but I know not if according to their merit, yet for the fellowship of the man, with the Companions slain. and for the name and dignity of martyrdom, in some lodging of the diverse heavenly mansions their spirits were received.
[19] And so what supreme thing remained to the slain, and what was the chief matter of slaying them, they are despoiled: and what the decrees of the Roman Princes sanctioned, The bodies despoiled that the slayer of the slain should take the spoils, here was transgressed; since all the booty was brought to the avaricious and insatiable treasury of Hacco alone. Unhappy who for taking booty and spoils used the mystery of death, not noting that the greatest sin of death is accumulated with the greatest sin of booty; whom if God foresaw to perish perpetually, the sole slaying of the Saints could suffice for his merit; but if the booty and spoils of the Saints have been added to the increase of his perdition, who will estimate the measure of his damnation? The bodies therefore of the Saints remained uncovered and unburied; they remained naked, exposed to birds and beasts. for neither by human nor by common compassion were their slayers brought to this slight piety, that they should either sprinkle them with leaves, or covered with shrubs or thickets hide them from birds and wild beasts of the forest; I believe wishing that, them being consumed, no vestiges of their crime should remain. But their impiety the crime being performed endures in the will of crime, ready to act more wickedly, ready also to lend official hands if a thing to be wickedly done be set before their eyes and in their face. And who would ask of impiety of this kind the service of humanity, which always untiring persevering in cruelty, knows neither to be changed nor transferred into that compassion, of which it never received the discipline?
[20] Their bodies therefore exposed, and disdaining as I think human custody, were protected by Angelic watches: which were so studious and assiduous, that their zeal received no weariness, nor did their assiduity vary any turns. This custody meanwhile neither by night nor by day departed from the bodies of the Saints: until Pippin, by the courtiers of Duke Pippin they are buried, whom we have said to be prince in the whole kingdom, came to those borders. Where while he attends to very many things, and goes around very many; he enters the forest of Rutis for the sake of hunting, by this delightful exercise relieving the weariness of intolerable labor. Of whose, so to speak, fellow-hunters a certain part, while it surveys all the trackless places, and with solicitous search penetrates and explores the deep recesses of the forest; comes upon that place, which the Saints of God, at the beginning as if chamber-attendants received, then over the Martyrs exulted, now as domestic cohabitants guards. Whom while they discern lifeless from wounds and blood, it was evident to them that they had fallen by the sword: but whether for their crimes it had been avenged on them, or for spoils more easily to be taken the robbers had extinguished them, was uncertain. But whether laudably or criminously they died; those hunters however, weighing not the crime in them, but compassion, cover the rest naked with earth.
[21] But St. Evermar, by the beauty of countenance and the excellent composition of members believed more worthy than the others, they follow with more careful exequies. Finally one of them, more prone to compassion, but more honorably the body of St. Evermar. the earth being dug out prepares for the more honest body a more honest tomb; and his shield being divided one half being placed under him, the other half he places over the body: and in a certain manner murmuring certain supplications, he covered it with earth. We believe God to have loved his servant also in this part, whom by these last services not
he deprived: for whom in place of a sepulcher, as for a vile and lay person, he provides a tomb through a God-fearing man, who buried him. The Lord did not judge him to be contemptible with himself, for whom afterward he converted that very place into a sanctified hall, and changed from a woody squalor into a beautiful house of prayer.
[22] So St. Evermar the Martyr, the wearisome course of this world being measured, who is praised as a Martyr, attained the perfection of integrity; whose mortal man, as he perfectly lived in God, so now made one in him, reigns and triumphs with him: with the other Saints as a companion he is mingled, as with equals he cleaves, as with Confessors he sits, as with consorts he communicates, as with fellow-citizens he cohabits, as with those banqueting he himself a fellow-banqueter in one banquet feasts together. But also with the holy Martyrs he himself a Martyr washes his stole in the blood of the Lamb, with the Martyrs he carries the palm of victory, is distinguished with the diadem of the kingdom, is crowned with glory and honor, is armed with the work of fortitude, and with all perfection and virtue is coupled and united to the holy Martyrs. May his merits therefore aid us, and he is invoked. with the suffrages of his seven companions: of whom he himself the eighth designates the eighth beatitude to be given to himself and his companions. Which beatitude perfect and last, and to be terminated by no end is designated by the eight Evangelical beatitudes. Which eighth beatitude, this seventh which is now the age being transferred, follows in the eighth age: and so with the eighth age the beatitude of the same number to St. Evermar and his companions and to all without end shall be extended, he granting it who is neither begun at a beginning, nor concluded by an end, our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns God, through all the ages of ages Amen.
PART II.
The Finding and Translation I and the miracles that followed it.
PROLOGUE.
[1] The blessed Apostle Paul, in the consideration of the divine works suspended in admirable contemplation, says: O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how incomprehensible are his judgments, and unsearchable his ways! Rom. 11. 33. By this his admiration the Apostle, by which he admires God, The judgments of God incomprehensible, leads us into his admiration; that he himself so perspicacious an explorer of the mysteries of God at some time fails, not penetrating and not understanding certain secrets of God, which to his own knowledge only God himself reserves, and to man does not become known. If therefore to very many secrets of God so great an Apostle does not approach, and many things are hidden from him which with himself God judges man ought not to know; why do we so greatly strive to know, what by the uprightness of life we do not merit? and why do we so attempt to attain by knowledge, what we do not learn from a master, lastly what we are not taught by the revelation of God? For it could be inquired, if by inquiring it availed to be learned, what is the cause, that almost all the Saints, immediately after death shut in their tombs, are so long there hidden; that the Saints from death long lie hidden, as if they had no good things, for the grace of which God would more timely bring them out of the tombs, and expose them to all peoples for veneration and to all sinners for salvation.
[2] If anything in them was to be cleansed, their tears washed it away, worthy penance purged it, a cleansed life abolished it, and to the purest passage the consummation of the purest life led it. What then does so long-lasting an enclosure of the sepulcher punish in them? and when in the sepulcher the dissolved bodies have flowed away, what is it that through so great times their bones are demolished by corruption and dust? nay also the Martyrs, and what is more stupendous concerning the judgments of God, what is it that the Martyrs, worn out with punishments, consigned to God by the shedding of blood, with wounds, with burning, with blood are shut in their tombs, and through many centuries so many testimonies of truth are concealed there? Hence it is that the judgments of God are to be admired, which Paul the Apostle with his unsearchable ways calls incomprehensible by admiring. and among these St. Evermar. Wherefore we wonder that God so late showed his will concerning the revelation of his faithful Martyr Evermar, whom then he made to be hidden in the funereal borders of the earth. If he had sent his fame and name and virtue through the land, as if for preaching; he could have resuscitated the funereal souls of many buried in sins: but he did not distinguish him from the law and order of the rest, who as them, so also him by a hidden judgment as long as he willed he hid, but when he willed in this order he manifested.
CHAPTER I.
The threefold Angelic premonition. The Finding of the body.
[3] At the time when the church of Liège was presided over by a Eraclius the Bishop, as in b building churches so in the cult and propagation of the Saints he was devout; in the village, which now from the uprooted forest had retained the name Rutis, he dedicates a church to the honor and name of St. Martin. In this a certain c Ruzelinus serving the Sacerdotal office, by a proved life showed himself wholly a Priest in himself: Ruzelinus a pious Priest at Rutis, in whom also if you sought a Deacon, you would find a devout Evangelist: if the other Orders, you would see him through the single ones run unstumblingly: if in the day you explored his exercise, the aforesaid offices duly performed you would hear him crying out in preaching; but by night, whom early the couch being left with vigilant instance you would catch passing the night. To this was added that he attenuated his body with continual abstinence; persecuting in himself the gluttony, which he did not endure as an enemy; and gratuitously afflicting himself for a sin, which he had not done: but yet lest it should creep in, by this affliction he guarded.
[4] This man of so great uprightness the Lord judged worthy, to whom he should reveal his visions. This one he instituted a foreteller of future things: this one he chose a truthful messenger of the revelation of the body of St. Evermar the Martyr: [he is admonished by an Angel to take care that the body of St. Evermar be raised through the Bishop] this one the Lord through his Angel taught of the name and life of the Martyr himself: to this one he related the series of his life and the course of his martyrdom: to this one he showed in what place buried he lay. Whom the Angel of the Lord addressing as he slept with words bound by this legation and obedience, that going to Bishop Eraclius, on the part of God he should recall and lead him to that business, that he should bring forth St. Evermar from the bosom of the earth; and him whose spirit from the hour of martyrdom heaven possessed, from the sepulcher too he should expose, and render the son of the Church to Mother Church; from darkness to light he should lead back the son of light, and render him to the eyes of men. That this privilege of dignity became his Pontifical office, that with the many miracles of the Saints, which in diverse parts the world has, through the Bishop himself provided by God there should still be added the oracle of this holy Martyr: that he had passed by long many of his predecessors, whom he did not deign with this honor; but had reserved to him in praise and honor, that through him in perils the world should have the protection of St. Evermar.
[5] This vision the Priest awaking turning over with himself, believed himself deluded by various dreams: reckoning this nature to be in certain sleeping mortals, to which incredulous and disobedient, that their spirit by airy spirits while they sleep is wearied. For they talk with them, jest and flatter, sometimes wrestle with them, sometimes rejoice together, sometimes groan together with those groaning. So the Priest, because from the law and love of God he thought he bore a cold and dissolute body and mind, therefore in the time of rest esteemed himself agitated by fantastic seductions, terrified by figured images, bound by deceptive little nets, and deluded by many mockeries. On account of this incredulous of the vision, what he had seen and heard he by no means approved: and therefore the command, directed on the part of God through the Angel, he did not announce to the Bishop. For he feared to be found a liar, if he should call his dream a vision. He guarded also lest this be objected to him with insult, and he be mocked with these words: All visions have ceased, since the Prophets slept. Lo this one suddenly appearing as one of the seers has revived. Let us go, they will say, to the Seer, and insulting they will add, Are you the Seer? He feared also that to his mockery be added, that Angels now appear to mortals through a vision either never or most rarely; that Christ too now speaks to men not by visions, but by the words and discourses of the Gospel. To none therefore did he manifest what sleeping he had heard and seen: not considering that in this he detracted very much grace from the holy Martyr, and much in this harmed us, that he being silent of the Angelic command, his sepulcher retained him longer, and the earth exposed him to us more slowly.
[6] The first vision therefore he suppressed until on the same night of the following year the Angel appeared to him sleeping. in another year again with threats he is admonished: First therefore with severe rebuke he is inveighed against: he complains that his command was not fulfilled. Then for carrying it to the Bishop more fully he repeats it, and inculcates it instantly in his ears. Besides he threatens stripes, if he refuse to fulfill what he commands; but a promise of fulfilling the precept being given by him, the Angel suspended his hand and spared. This second time also the Priest escaping from the hand of the Angel still sparing him, perseveres in the incredulity of the vision: and neither the first, nor the second Angelic vision profited with him. In the first vision the Angel by flattering, and nonetheless keeping silent the things seen, addressing him and giving him divine commands to the Bishop he spurned, not observing what he enjoined on him. But in the second commanding by threatening he nonetheless despised; since what he had seen and heard sleeping, he thought to be only either a dream or a lie.
[7] In the recurrence of the third year, on the same night, on which two visions had preceded, a third vision met the Priest, not so flattering as the others, but threatening and avenging on the Priest himself, that from the prior visions he had turned away his hearing and understanding, for which he had rendered incredulity and contempt. In which appeared to him the Angel, harsher in countenance, more threatening in words, severer in judgment, in the third year he is chastised with stripes and blows, sterner in hand, more austere in vengeance; and affecting to himself every likeness of an irritated and disturbed power, by judgment he examined the contempt of him, by hand he scourged the contemner, by vengeance he chastised or punished, that he said this vision to be not truth, but a lie or a dream. And so by judgment examined, by hand scourged, by vengeance chastised; by judgment he is taught that the messenger is truthful, whom he saw and heard and did not believe; through the striking hand he understood, that the command of the Angel was true and evident, which he despised; but through the vengeance he learned, that he does not dream falsely, who under stripes grieving and weeping sighs. By stripes therefore and pains brought to the discipline of truth and credulity the Priest, awaking and sighing, exhibits his body cut with stripes in testimony, that he had stood before the tribunals of great power, although in his bed he had seemed in body to have lain down.
[8] It was clear therefore by the indications of the lacerated body, that he had been subject to punishments, and had passed the rest of the little bed into pain: which was stupendous to the Priest himself worn with stripes, because over the softer couch his body
itself, as if bruised with rods and clubs, had swollen and grown hard. But remembering that he had not seen a fantastic vision, at length the incredulity being removed, he asserted that by the confession of the scourged body under the spiritual animadversion of the avenger he had been corporally beaten. Conquered therefore by pains, and giving faith to the vision, the bruisings of his body attesting it, and so he goes to the Bishop: he came to Bishop Eraclius, and narrated to him what a third time he had seen and heard, and how long his mind had hung in doubt: for which doubt, as if under a lictor, he had sustained parricidal punishments; or as under a grammarian, scholarly stripes. Receive, he said, holy Father, the witnesses of my words, the punishments of my body: receive the sureties of my legation, my shoulders: who if you find me a lying legate, subject them to stripes, that as by the preceding, so by the following blows you may see them livid and bloody.
[9] When with these few words he had abbreviated the great series of the prolix vision, as if the too great pain of the afflicted body interrupting his thin voice, and animated by him, he fell silent. At whose words and sudden taciturnity astonished, and compassionating his pains the Bishop. What is it, he said, that you have so compendiously cut short your narration? why short in speaking, have you attenuated great things in few words? Do you scarcely breathe from the weakness of the afflicted members, that as if panting you cut off the necessary words, since from the first beginnings of your speech I understood you would speak great matter? It does not become you speaking to bring forth half words, nor us hearing to listen as it were to imperfect whispers. Wherefore recover your spirit, which for the recent stripes by coming to us you have almost breathed out; and recollect the strength, which from that pain has flowed away and languished: and so pursue the whole speech.
[10] Then the Priest, Happy are, he said, your times; because while justice has departed from the lands, execrating the fellowship of corrupt men, in you alone it has left its footprints, and so you the heir surviving it has not wholly disappeared: whose footprints left while you received and cherished, like a fruitful mother you have poured back the whole justice of the earth; and under you, as under a most faithful nurse, it has revived and grown. Hence it is that happiness, justice striving with it, has rooted in your land, and bursting forth has grown up as into a tree, and with its branches has overshadowed you, that you may say, Under his shadow which I desired I sat, and his fruit was sweet to my throat. Cant. 2, 3 To this grace of great happiness God adds for you the grace of great beatitude: that as through the land he provided for you in all prosperity, so from under the land he will more salutarily and more abundantly breathe to your salvation and the progress of your Church; he sets forth the vision: because by two visions he admonished, and by a third vision with the gravest stripes inculcated to announce to you, that in the village Rutis there be sought and brought forth the body of a certain holy man, of whom lest the inquiry be doubtful, the name Evermar is designated; and the village in which he is situated, Rutis is called; and the place which holds him buried e Maritimus, from the water collected for watering the flocks is named. There is found besides one indication which will be greater than all indications, namely that over his sepulcher a little tree has grown, by which those seeking will know, that under it his body is most certainly to be found. To which command transmitted from heaven you ought to apply both zeal and effort and dispatch, that by zeal you be solicited to this thing, by effort be girded, by dispatch hastily execute it.
[11] This pursuit of the Priest was for the Bishop an occasion of great security and solicitude: that the truth supported by so many indications could not be changed he was secure; but he was solicited that he was bidden hastily to scrutinize unknown places, since he knew not how to seek a holy man. Which business he commits to the Priest, that he who dictated these things to be done, should himself more studiously pursue them; hoping that none would err less in this matter, than he who so knew to order and to impose on another things to be done. the command of the Bishop being received, The inquiry of the place and tomb being committed to him therefore, the Bishop himself retained for himself this last mystery, that he himself should bring forth from the tomb the holy body, and should transfer it into a place, now not to be called a sepulcher, but a sanctuary. He congratulated himself therefore on the revelation of the holy Martyr promised to him and reserved to his time: he rejoiced for the obedience of this office enjoined and transmitted to him by God. And so the vision being considered, and every event of the vision being considered; namely concerning the Angel, who brought the command from God to the Priest; and concerning the Priest, who doubting spurned, and afterward scourged received; concerning the name of the holy Martyr, concerning the situation of his sepulcher; these and the rest he believed to be most certain signs of truth. Then he commanded the Priest that he should go before him in this work, and should pre-attempt this work; should seek the place, and according to the faith of the vision should investigate all things; and the holy Martyr found should keep unmoved, and abstain his hand from the touch of him; but should keep him to be brought forth and exposed by himself.
[12] The Priest departs from the Bishop: the matter, for which he had almost fallen into death, he studiously pursues, that according to the faith of the vision, the end of truth might consummate it: he inquires the place, and the tree which was said to have grown over the holy sepulcher he studiously searched out. And when he saw several trees, he knew that if around the single ones he should seek what he desired among many his hand and inquiry would err. he seeks the sacred body, His eyes therefore being led round about, one little tree is offered to his eyes nearest to that place, which we have abovesaid is called Maritimus, which perhaps from the merit of the Martyr lying under the earth stood greener than the rest, more comely in leaves, and (if it was fruitful) more laden with fruit, and more profuse with branches widely spread. Under this tree girded, and forgetful of the infirmity of the scourged body, he began to dig. And when the earth being dug out he descended inward not with much depth, there appeared the middle part of the shield placed over the holy body: there appeared also a certain uncovered part of the body, from which a wondrous fragrance bursting forth flooded the panting Priest. The Priest rejoices, and what scourged he grieved, this refreshed by the odor he despised; and the holy odor running through the veins of his body, his languishing members recovered.
[13] He sends word to the Bishop that the vision had spoken true, that he had announced true, the place found, the sepulcher manifested by the betraying little tree. This remains, he said, for showing the holy Martyr to the eyes of men, that you come, and indicates the finding to the Bishop: and put to him the finishing hand. We have performed concerning him those things which are as it were servile works: after the manner of slaves by surveying places, by discerning trees from trees, by digging the earth and digging it out we have finished a laborious service: the remaining part of this work the more honorable, that is the bringing forth of the Martyr from the sepulcher, requires you, demands you to come, asks you for your Pontifical dignity to put to him hands sanctified to you, you presiding for God over the Christian people, you, I say, alone it becomes to touch the Saint and becomes to proclaim him; but the people to acclaim under to the holy Martyr glory and praise: you it behooves to set forth this Saint to the people in praise and veneration, that it may invoke him as an intercessor, and ever beseech him to be its patron. This one God, now mingled with the holy Martyrs, has appointed that being entreated he should intercede for sinners: see therefore lest the intercessor be silent, if you not commanding it the orator shall have been silent.
ANNOTATIONS.
d Our copy by visions.
CHAPTER II.
The Translation of the body. The punishment inflicted on the one who stole a tooth, and remitted.
[14] This command heard, the Bishop rises with his Officials: goes thither, prostrates himself, adores, The sacred body found is raised, supplicates with weeping, and to the people what more it owes to the holy Martyr, what it should seek from him, this by his own example demonstrates. This devotion of the Bishop the devout people emulates, it is also animated to the veneration of the holy Martyr by the fragrance of the most sweet odor which rose from the odoriferous tomb of the holy body. The Bishop puts his hand to the holy body: the part of the shield, with which at the time of his burial the hunter pitying him had covered him, is removed, and drawn out of the tomb, with the other part of the shield placed under the body; and with praises and joys, with weepings and prayers indiscriminately mingled, into the church of St. Martin it is carried; there by the Bishop he is instituted Patron to the people: and is transferred to the church of St. Martin, there to be in praise and veneration by Pontifical edict it is commanded: there to be served and chanted to him in the Ecclesiastical offices is enjoined: there for the miracles and virtues of him to be dispatched the people is commanded to be invited; asserting it would not be lacking, but that God, who decorated him with martyrdom, should add to this grace the merits of virtues.
[15] The Bishop commits himself faithfully and suppliantly to the Martyr himself, by the Bishop, who invokes St. Evermar as Patron for himself and his own. enjoins on him his supplication to God, which he himself beginning to bear by himself, lamented that he alone could not bear it through: he commends to him his Clergy to be governed, prays that there be given them doctrine by the merits and prayers of the Martyr himself, which they did not receive by Sacerdotal speech and preaching, nor by the reading of books or mutual conversation: he prays that by his intercession their negligences be washed away, which either were too inveterate or could be abolished by no repentance: he supplicates also for his people, to whom he himself as Shepherd for a long time applied providence, but did not profit; to whom he offered discipline, but it did not receive it; because corrupted by vices, it could not be restrained by providence nor coerced by discipline: for these and all who were oppressed by sins and crimes, the Bishop by his prayer conducts St. Evermar as intercessor and Patron: concerning himself too he concludes his prayer, that to this holy ministry not ungrateful, as he led him out of the earth in body, so he should draw him out of the earth in mind, and help him to finish this life, if not a Martyr, at least a humble and justified sinner. So perorating the Bishop returns to Liège: rejoicing he leaves Hesbaye founded with the offshoot of a living scion, and not so much living, as triumphal. For who would not know all the Saints, dead in body, to live by merits? and who is ignorant that the holy Martyrs, for Christ prostrated by the sword, not so much live, as triumph.
[16] Hesbaye rejoices in the fruitful produce of harvests, that it gives its sons copiously victual bread: The writer congratulates Hesbaye, but more happily I do not say it rejoices, nay it will glory, that it has more abundantly borne fruit when it brought forth B. Evermar, not a natural-born son, but a Martyr adult and mature. Hesbaye rejoices, I say, that for its natives from the bosom of its earth it produces the bread of salvation, since those natives are truly fed with the bread of Hesbaye,
when by the miracles, merits, protection and intercession of B. Evermar they subsist. Besides all the Saints are spiritually called bread, who united to Christ the heavenly bread, in as much as they are one with him, obtain the name of bread. Blessed therefore Hesbaye, who when in her son Evermar she brought forth bread, with him also generated Christ, who is the living bread. What shall I say of Rutis? and the place of Rutten, which according to its name, while among the other neighboring and bordering villages it glows like a most bright star, overshadows and obscures all things with its shining signs? Since once it was a rough and parricidal forest, retaining the name of forest, from the mother of wild beasts it passed into the mother of men; and for the merit of the Martyr Evermar, who then in the forest died, it passed into the name of a village: which from its greatness and the dignity of its inhabitants would even have obtained the name of a city, had not ancient antiquity envied it this, on account of reverence for the neighboring Tongeren: which had now lost the name of city, but easily forgives this name of honor to those envying it: because, having obtained only the Martyr Evermar, it yields neither to villages nor to towns, but composes itself with free brow even to the cities themselves.
[17] The parts of the shield, in which the body was found, But that we may by touching upon collect the relics of the translated body of St. Evermar, the two parts of the shield, of which one was placed over, the other under the holy Martyr, were brought into the same church, in which also the holy Martyr: which lest they should be vacant and as if signify nothing, before the sanctuary, which from the holy body received was holier, they were hung up; where exposed to the eyes of all, they designate themselves to be the tongue and testimony of the holy Martyr; hung up in the church are seen. and because they served him in the sepulcher, they drew for a reward something of his virtue: which seen by the unacquainted are asked why they hang, whether to the praise of virtue or to the reproaches of dullness: and an answer being given them, that they hang to St. Evermar, who he is, who he was, how great he died, becomes known. But when any one acquainted with the matter intervenes, the parts of the shields being seen, he remembers Evermar; and recollecting how great he was in work, more confidently invokes him that he may intercede for him.
[18] But that I may repeat a few things above. When the body of the holy man was being brought into the church, a certain man, Tegeno called, of perverse mind joins himself to those carrying the body, of his own accord offering himself to help. Having stolen a tooth from the sacred body, But he had conceived in mind that from this holy body great gain could come to him, if he could have stolen something of it. But the gain from venality of this kind either he was ignorant to be a sin, or to sin against the Saints he believed to be next to pardon, because they were no longer to be called Saints, if forgetful of their sanctity they would not be appeased except avenged. Thinking these things, as if to correct something in the composition of the holy body, he latently put in his hand, and a tooth plucked from his jaw he stole, and hid in his bosom: then from the most crowded assembly of men he departs, and with certain companions carrying the stolen merchandise, he disposed to go to Huy, that there he might set forth for one little particle the whole holy Martyr for sale; that he might make gain, unhappy led into this madness, that he should believe forensic merchandise to consist of the sale of the Saints. Some little of the journey being performed, a sudden cloud overclouds all the clearness of the air, and so covered them beholding themselves and in turn conferring words, he is punished with darkness, that although they were present to themselves in body and hearing, they thought themselves to be absent to themselves in vision; as concerning Saul and his fellow-travelers it is said, Hearing indeed the voice, but seeing no one. Act. 9, 7. The companions indeed are terrified and wonder that so sudden a setting had been in the airy clearness of day; with dryness of the throat, but he whose guilt the light had fled and the day had abhorred, was burning with dryness of the throat: besides his eyes would better have flown out from their seats, than, unhappily lingering in him, be ceaselessly carried about with a wheel-like vertigo: with the turning of the eyes his face with the head is wholly turned, and yet since his sight knew not but the front part, and of the head: led back to the shoulder it intends the back parts.
[19] His guilt hidden with him, that is the tooth of the holy Martyr furtively stolen, in his punishment is manifested. They confer in turn and conjecture what this so sudden mist portends, hostile to their eyes by the infused darkness, closing the open way to their feet, and to them straying converting all that was passable into impassable. He for the manifest punishment, which uncovered his hidden wickedness, that compelled him to uncovering, said to his companions. This confusion of the disturbed air regards me; he confesses the fault, it meets my guilt; it has now dictated for me a sentence, which penally strikes me. You for my sin under the darkness of this cloud have disappeared, but a little more the cloud being dispersed you will see in me the punishment which exacts that my fault be laid bare. St. Evermar, whom the earth restored whole, by one tooth of the jaw I have diminished: and when God restored him whole to the Church, I know not which of three I have more offended, whether God who restored him, the Church which received him, or himself who restored and received whole is not found.
[20] For this fault is punished by my penalty: this is my crime, that I disposed to transact for a price, since the Saints ought to be bought only by faith, and to be estimated by the reward of gratuitous charity. While yet with voice and speech I sound a man, without figure and common habit I bear a human face: all my things are inverted and monstrous, and portentous (I believe) forerunners of greater torments of my whole body, if they shall not have been remedied by the piety and mercy of the holy Martyr Evermar. he promises restitution: I will return to the holy Martyr, I will lament my sin in his theft, I will show his vengeance in my affliction: perhaps he will have mercy on me, because when God beatified all the merciful saying, Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy; he also foresaw St. Evermar himself to be merciful, and he himself of the merciful living for a lesser mercy will not be the last. Matth. 5, 7 Wherefore confidently I return to him, that seeing his guilty one penitent, he may excuse the crime of cruelty; showing, that it was of my guilt that he struck, and of his mercy that he will pardon the penitent.
[21] So having spoken he returns; and soon the mist withdrawing from his companions, having returned, for his deformity he is abhorred and spurned. It was to them for admiration, for a plague hitherto unexperienced; it was for grief, for the human comparison; it was for shame, for the casual event of the social journey; for which also, as Aaron for his sister, they cried out to God: We beseech, Lord, let him not become as one dead, and as an abortive that is cast forth from its mother's womb. Num. 12, 11 Finally they come to the holy Martyr, whom in the avenging of his sinner on the journey they had experienced to be a fellow-traveler to him. he hands the tooth to the Priest: He is prostrated on the ground, confesses his sin: the very thing, which was the testimony of the sin, he brings forth from his bosom; and through the hands of the Priests restores it to its place. Thence he asks to be absolved: the punishment by which he was punished, he begs to be relieved: he devotes himself a perpetual servant to the Saint, if he recover: of work, of harvest, of fruits he promises a condign portion, if by actual ministries he reform his eyes, face, and body.
[22] When he had perorated, according to the vow of the prayer there followed the remedy of health: and he is healed and many thanks being acclaimed, after prayers murmured with prayers, after praises chanted with praises, he loosed the mouths of many in the praise of God and the holy Martyr, and opened them into the jubilee of exultation. And so the holy Martyr consummated this his first virtue, that as the Lord's, so also this miracle should be commended by the praise of the people, because all the people, as it saw, gave praise to God. Commended therefore to the holy Martyr, addicted to his servitude concerning himself, and concerning his things imparted to him in the manner of tribute, he added still benefits, and covered his shrine with bronze, which by its workmanship and sculpture was a spectacle to all. Not to be despised the offering of a poor man, which he would have preferred to have made of gold and silver, if at least for this his devotion toward St. Evermar God had willed him to abound in gold and silver: and because the kingdom of God is worth as much as you have; as much as he had, with so much he nobly honored the holy Martyr, and procured for himself the kingdom of God for so rich a will.
ANNOTATIONS.
PART III.
The Translation II and the miracles that preceded and followed it.
PROLOGUE.
[1] The miracles of the Saints to be written for the usefulness of men, The glorious triumphers of the world so ran the course of this life, that what they lived, what they did, and what they spoke, was the life and work and doctrine of those, who lived with them. But when both the life and acts and words of them written are handed to posterity to be read, in the description of them they read how they live, how they work, how they preach, or how by mutual conversation conferring words concerning the Saints they converse: and since the Saints live with God in beatitude and glory; if there be recounted either by writing or by reading what they did, they confer on them for heaping the rewards which they received. But thus some strive in writing their acts, as if the ignorance of God needed to be aided, although they themselves do not need it. and as though God did not remember what and how much the Saints merit, unless he be taught by writing and speech. They do not therefore now require that there be written what they did, when they were still living: [for] although they greatly strove, that before God they might work well, yet greater was their zeal lest they be betrayed. But if, they being dead, and now free and secure from vain praise, those who are devout in the memory and praise of them, in as much as they can recollect, give their life to reading; the Saints themselves suffer them to allude to this with their favor, that not they themselves more often named in the same reading be preached, but that those following them be provoked to acting like things. who in life desired to lie hidden. Hence it is that we write the life and miracles of B. Evermar: who indeed, as far as pertains to praise, would prefer to be unknown; but as far as regards charity, contends to be salutarily known that he may be imitated. This one therefore by the grace of God brought out of the bosom of the earth, that he may declare him by signs and virtues, it is not expedient to be hidden by silence; but it behooves that since we trust him and the other Saints chosen by God, we also by our attestation show them illustrious. And who malevolent would attempt to conceal those, whom from under the earth [God]
calls forth, magnifies upon the earth, crowns in heaven? Let envy cease, which thinks Evermar to be lessened and obscured, the letters being withdrawn and the characters suppressed. Certainly glory will overcome envy, when with miracles and virtues, not only the known, but also the unknown kingdoms it will traverse.
CHAPTER I.
Miracles at the ancient sepulcher. A church erected. The contracted and the blind healed.
[2] After from the sepulcher, in which after his martyrdom St. Evermar lay buried, The fame of St. Evermar widely divulged, Bishop Eraclius conveying him into the church of St. Martin he passed; first through all Hesbaye, like a sonorous trumpet it pealed, then through the whole kingdom of a Lotharingia like a universal thunder it thundered. The fame of his name runs everywhere through the lands: it penetrates cities, towns, villages, and hamlets: it suffers no corner of the earth to be either ignorant of him or unknown to him: it strives to promote its own Rutis in great dignity, while on his occasion the diverse peoples thenceforth coming to that same Rutis, in a certain manner it will seem to make appendant and tributary to it. There those dissolved by any debility come; the sick and wounded come, those wounded by any wound there find a medicine, surpassing all the juice of wine and the savor of herbs, of which medicine the fragrance breathes an odor more salubrious than every aromatic. Whoever needs medicinal help, let him go to Rutis, where he will find the body of the blessed man Evermar to surpass all physicians by spiritual and corporal virtue of medicine. and are healed. There he comes not in vain, who comes with faith, and while he receives what he seeks, from the merit of his faith his body being repaired he departs more faithful. There to the holy Martyr there is a great concourse of the people, some to the intercessor for sins, others to the physician for infirmity, others to prove if at this time anyone could be sanctified; since now for a long time this virtue has ceased to appear in the land, by which the ancient just obtained the names of Martyr or Confessor.
[3] Therefore that place, which kept him buried; although it had remained void of his body, [especially in the place however of the prior burial, a wooden little shrine being erected there;] retaining great prerogative from the body itself, shone with more frequent virtues. But there where he was translated, namely in the church of B. Martin, present in body he wished to work nothing. On account of this the men of that village, devout in his service and in reverence for that place, which from the virtues wrought there they understood to be more loved by him, erected a wooden and very short church over that place. Which church, for removing the brute animals, contaminating that place, was opportunely made; that defended from this injury and uncleanness, it might be more venerably frequented by the inhabitants themselves and by passers-by.
[4] On a certain day therefore a certain woman, not knowing that the holy place was not to be polluted, but rather to be extolled, or knowingly despising it; near which a woman shearing sheep, gathered her sheep beside that church, that she might shear them: and about to do this studiously, there delighted by the pleasantness of the place she sat down. Who, met by a certain one coming up, why, the holy place being despised, she despised also the Lord of the place St. Evermar; insolently disdaining him rebuking, and spurning his admonitions, in pursuing the contemptuous work she pertly persisted. While therefore she pertinaciously lingered at this work, and guarded herself less; lo the shears, which in shearing the sheep she drew about, suddenly the point of each part fixed in her hand, tore away a part of her flesh. By which pain she almost unmanned, late grieved, that she had not heard the man rebuking her; and slowly understood, that God undertakes to avenge the injury of the Saints by himself, the Lord himself saying, But will not God avenge his elect, she is punished by the swelling of the hurt hand, crying to him day and night, and will he have patience in them? I say to you that he will quickly avenge them. Luc. 18. 7 Which God undertook to avenge not so as to terminate this torment of hers before death; but so as, she suffering it, to temper it, but not wholly to take it away. For her hand swelled, and as long as she lived wasted away with ceaseless pain, and so living in pain, so to speak, it lived together and endured, that she herself had her swollen hand as witness, that what she sinned against the holy Martyr proceeded from a swollen heart. and the loss of the fleeces: Finally a vehement wind blowing, the fleeces shorn from the sheep, because they are light to yield to the blast of the wind, suddenly vanished: and so the woman who sinned, by the infirmity of her hand little by little flowed down into death; and the thing, that is the fleece, which was the matter of the sin, scattered through the air did not appear. So God avenging the injury of his servant in the punishment of one preserved the life of many; while in the penalty of that one they learned, not rashly to sin against the holy Martyr, having God as avenger even in a venial fault.
[5] We have said the injury of the holy Martyr avenged in the insolent woman; now we follow his virtue manifested in the cure of another woman. This one called Aldeindes, was a native of that same village Rutis: who, her sinews dead, the humor exhausted, the heat extinguished, had wholly withered, and, as it is vulgarly called, contracted she went most miserably creeping along the ground. two contracted women are healed, This one in the vigils of the Apostles Philip and James passed the night with those keeping the vigil. But this vigil-night they assigned not only to the holy Apostles, but also to St. Evermar; and as for them, that is, the holy Apostles, celebrated with praises, so for him they made it solemn with cheerfulness. But she, a part of the night now somehow passed, while perhaps she attended more to herself, but less to the sports of the people; suddenly her sinews being stretched, the juice and greenness being resumed, from the slowness of creeping to the mobility and use of walking is re-solidified: and erect, evidently showed St. Evermar to have worked his virtue in her: and this miracle by itself glorious, by the praise and clamor of the people, grew into the hymns of the Divine renown.
[6] Another miracle like this was shown in Lamburgis a woman, who was a citizen of that same village Rutis; not indeed on the same night, but as it pleased the divine will, by intervals of time to extend the merits of his servant Evermar by publishing them. This one as also the former, whom we have touched upon, deprived of the common use of walking, by another's carrying or the support of her own stools came to the sepulcher of St. Evermar: and him, by the example of her who above was healed, she prayed to have mercy on her: who a little after by many prayers received from the holy Martyr the power of walking, being raised up.
[7] The virtue of this Martyr a blind woman of b Curtericia also experienced, who walking with a guide going before, came to his church. likewise two blind women, She prayed that, the darkness being dispersed, light might be rekindled to her eyes, and from this one virtue burdensome on her he might grow bright, who toward the other infirm was wondrous and chief in all virtues. The holy Martyr heard her: stripped her eyes of darkness, clothed them with light, and as she returned to him for all the time she lived, had her as a herald of his virtue, and her eyes as witnesses of his salutary help.
[8] This one led back to light there follows another of c Gladuus, who coming to the aforesaid church, with face raised showed her brow to be empty of eyes; but that her exterior man saw nothing but darkness, since the darkness could rather be felt than seen. She prayed therefore that light be poured back into her eyes, which by I know not what chance had happened to be extinguished, darkness being infused. The holy Martyr attended to her praying, condoled with her not seeing, and irradiated the light of his virtue into her blind eyes: and seeing clearly, sent her back to the mouths of many for the praise of God to be fulfilled for her illumination.
[9] There came to this medicinal church a man of Vilarium d, by name Gislebert, having nothing of a whole and sound man except hands and face. and a man contracted in his whole body. His calves were joined to his thigh, his hinder parts sat on his feet as if on seats: his belly and breast bent downward hung over his knees, and there appeared nothing but a globe collected by a manifold wrapping. And perhaps for this it happened him to be collected into one mass by such deformity, that the more deformed he was, the more glorious the virtue of him reforming and curing him might appear. Therefore before the holy sepulcher, I do not say he lay down, but he sat on his bent hams; and now staying back for reverence of the holy Martyr, and now approaching trusting in his clemency, St. Evermar help, St. Evermar succor, he repeated: instantly he prayed for the knottiness of his members to be loosed; and that he merciful to others, he supplicated also to be clement to himself. He said this to be not the piety of the Saints, that to some they soften as if milder, to others they harden as if more austere; that he was one of the Saints, that it did not behoove him to differ from the associate piety of the Saints. The Saint heard the prayer of the infirm: and the faith of the infirm concording with the virtue of the Martyr, there follows the effect of the remedy. For he who had stood wholly in one mass, suddenly is stretched into so great a length, as his natural state demanded. Health being received he magnifies and praises his Saviour, but blesses Christ the common Saviour of all, who in the virtues of Evermar and the other Saints exists a cooperator. And so for this benefit all the time of his life he spent in his service, and served his ministry with no ungrateful return.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER II.
The body translated: a new church constructed: and after a paralytic healed dedicated.
[10] Therefore the Bishop of the city of Liège being a Theoduin, the eighth from Eraclius (who by a divine vision revealing it, had translated the body of St. Evermar from the sepulcher into the church of St. Martin) by these virtues, which we have premised, In the time of Theoduin Bishop of Liège the same holy Martyr grew renowned round about: by which all Hesbaye and the neighboring regions excited flow together, part to acquire for themselves an intercessor for their sins, part a physician for their infirmities, many a protector in all things by which this uncertain life is wearied. There was no measure of those coming: most frequent were the neighbors, most crowded the pilgrims, unknown peoples were straitened in the villages, in the streets the crowd of each sex was densened. The wooden church both pleased and displeased: on account of the frequent concourse, for the veneration of the sepulcher, and for the salvation found there which was sought, it pleased; but it displeased for its shortness and narrowness, by which it excluded those wishing to enter, but exhibited those received most narrowly: and since the holy Martyr was everywhere
diffused in fame, great in name, far-reaching and spacious in virtues; all wondered that he was constrained by the boundary of so narrow an enclosure, although this place, emptied of the body, appeared to have been his sepulcher.
[11] At that time Wederic Abbot of St. John the Baptist of b Porcetum, by a life proved to God acceptable, and dear to St. Evermar (for the reason that the same Saint, the Abbot of Porcetum, with the part of the village which is ennobled by his presence, paid the property of himself and his revenues to St. John and the aforesaid place, that is of Porcetum) determined to enlarge the church built over his sepulcher, and not so much with walled walls, as with the wall of his body: that the sepulcher, wonderful through his holy dust, might become more wonderful through its formerly funereal hostage, now exhumed and vivified Martyr. The faithful therefore being gathered, offering their effort and zeal to expedite this business, he came to the church of St. Martin; where, as if for reverence of B. Martin namely, St. Evermar had held back the reins of his virtues, had raised no sails of his miracles, but had transmitted these to be done at his sepulcher: so yielding to B. Martin in all things, he transfers the body of St. Evermar to the wooden church of the sepulcher. he restrained himself from all effecting of signs, and before the holy Confessor was ignorant of himself a Martyr. This one therefore the aforesaid Abbot thence with praises and with the jubilee of many monks, with the applause and clamor of an innumerable people, carries back to the wooden church of his sepulcher, that from each one a more abundant virtue might be eminent, and if anything be less the one might supply to the other for nearness. The body therefore is composed in the wooden church, and soon a greater frequency of the people increases: because what from one, that is, from the sepulcher, before was wont to come, now from each, that is both from the Martyr's body and from his sepulcher, salvation proceeds.
[12] And so sometimes the Saint preventing the benefits of the people with his miracles, but sometimes the people preceding the miracles of the Saint with their benefits, a very large offering is brought together, and from the gifts offered, and any thing about to be profitable either to the adornment or use of the church is conferred; nor any hour vacant from this expense, the votive gifts of those offering ceased not. None was so empty that he excused himself by scantiness or poverty, but according to the quantity of his substance he brought a hand either loaded with the two Evangelical mites or laden with a cup of cold water. But we do not say that anyone brought any materially, or that a cup of cold water was necessary to the holy work: but, for this vile substance, any most small thing, yet necessary, if anyone offered, was not repudiated. He who was of middling substance, pleased from good will, while from what he had he devoted as great a portion as he wished, and from it diminished nothing: the rich man, who from his much substance gave what he wished, and from this retained very many things, did not sin; while to the holy body or to his sepulcher he faithfully approached with the promised offering.
[13] These offerings prudently collected, and the Abbot considering from these that much of adornment could be fitted to the holy Martyr, he constructs a church: he determined a church to be constructed, that the Saint himself might have the property of his own house, whom hitherto his poverty had compelled to be a guest in another's house. The church therefore began to be begun, and for sufficient expenses the work in a short time advanced; and, as we believe, the Saint himself being present and putting his hand, it maturely rose on high: and a little after consummated, although it had not falsely usurped the name of church, yet it awaited this name to be dedicated to it only by Episcopal benediction. But in this Bishop Theoduin was unwilling to assent; saying, that there was no religion in whitened walls, which Theoduin the Bishop being unwilling to consecrate, no veneration in roofing, in panelings, in pavements, unless these, like the other ecclesiastical things, be supported by the relics of the Saints, and by the patronage of the Saints differ from urban and village houses. Besides that there was no truth in this man: his name new, his life unknown: that he was created by the feigned invention of a deceiving people, celebrated by the opinion of a lying crowd, and therefore that it was not of counsel to accommodate faith to falsity.
[14] On the contrary Gosbert the Archdeacon, the Christian c guardian of this place and the spiritual provider of souls, affirmed that there was no falsity in the man: that even by a true name he was reckoned: in vain instructed by the Archdeacon; that from his life, although succinctly written, it was clear who he was, what he had been; that it was acknowledged afterward, that he passed by martyrdom to Christ: in which alone, if not in other attestations, it could be conceded to the truth: but the Bishop himself, opposing testimonies and miracles of his so true, as if those voices defending him, he said to sin inconsiderately against God and against the holy man himself. But the Bishop could in no way be brought into the matter, until on the day of the Nativity of St. Mary, conquered by a probable proof, he acquiesced in the truth. d For the Bishop dining at Tongeren, which place dedicated to St. Mary had invited the Bishop himself to the aforesaid Nativity of her, when he was present at Tongeren concerning Evermar amid the dining mention fell, and some said that he was approved by most certain indications to have been most faithful, others affirmed that by him the people were demented with fantastic seductions.
[15] There lay e then before the Bishop a certain languid man, Adulph by name, from the lower part deprived of the use of his members through paralysis; and saw a paralytic, to whom on occasion of his infirmity food was more readily prepared, and before the eyes of the Bishop himself, by the pretext and intervention of his sickness, he lay as another Lazarus. And when it was suggested to the Bishop that he should adapt his will to the will of God, and make the house of the Saint a house of prayer; he with this condition suspended his consent, for a sign of his Sanctity they wish this one to be healed. that if in this his paralytic Evermar should show himself a Saint, and as was said, himself a Martyr, he would forthwith change his house into a venerable sanctuary. Let the cure of this infirm man precede as witness of his sanctity, let there follow assuredly the blessing of that house as witness of his belief. This one is sent, and indeed incredulous, The infirm man is forthwith sent thither, and he himself also incredulous of his virtue, so considering himself in his infirmity to have grown inveterate for a long time, that he distrusted (except through God alone) that he could recover.
[16] Standing therefore by the holy body, he began by insulting more to provoke indignation, and irreverently insulting St. Evermar, than by supplicating to implore that mercifully it might be granted him. Evermar, Evermar, he said, you are said to prevail in virtues, you are said to arrogate to yourself the name of sanctity, you are said to have assumed to yourself the name and merit of a Martyr: but it was of the past age for men to receive this, but it is not of modern time ever to aspire to this grace: whence we wonder if this merit can be attributed to you, that you be believed a holy Martyr, a worker of virtues; and why, since you are unknown and a sojourner of our region, you have invaded a part of our land. Lo I am present contracted and paralytic: set forth whatever you have of virtue, pour out whatever you know of medicine: make me prove, whether you have truly cured other infirm, or fallaciously deceived them. Lo, I say, I am present, either quickly confirm through me the virtue of sanctity and the name of Martyr usurped to you, or depart from this house: whose blessing the Bishop set behind my cure; this condition being made by the Bishop himself, that health restored by you to me may obtain the blessing of your house. Now therefore, if you are powerful in miracles, it will appear: now, if you are powerful or nothing in virtue, in giving or denying my health it will be clearer than light: now, if you are powerful in curing the infirm, it will be evident.
[17] Soon the Saint, not impelled, nay persuaded by his insulting, showed what he could, not over the contumelious, but over the infirm. he complains that he is healed but with torment: For soon he stretched his sinews, and uncoupled the joined frames of his knees: he raised his legs with his feet, and lifted the erect man into a tall stature. In the stretching of the sinews a creaking, noise, and crash resounded; blood too flowed abundantly; through all which it was clear that the infirm man was restored to health. Amid these things the infirm man, incredulous and contumelious, by this ungrateful and grievous healing (as he thought) more wounded than cured, with these querulous voices inveighs against St. Evermar. What do you do, Evermar, why do you so greatly rage against me? You heal me and torture me alike. I beseech you, neither heal nor torture. I pray, cease to heal and to torture alike. I beg, desist from curing and from torturing alike. I supplicate, cease to vivify and to slay alike. I concede to you, Evermar, you are a holy Martyr, prevail in miracles. Why do you prove your virtues in me? I do not want your benefits, which to me are the hardest torments. Alas for me! why did I offer myself to you to be cured? Nor in truth did I wish to be cured, but distrusting that you could heal me, I came to insult you, that returning not healed I might show myself to all in testimony that you are truly fallacious and a seducer. Spare me, I pray, from this healing, through which now neither sound, nor infirm, but I appear almost dead.
[18] Saying these things, supported by a staff in place of stools, step by step he goes out of the house, and conveyed by his little ass returns to the Bishop, which seen the Bishop, and complains that by Evermar he was not so much healed as tortured. And although he grieved and groaned; yet he showed in himself that together with the pain healing had returned; proclaiming in his healing, that Evermar had been a powerful physician; but in his pain, an unmerciful torturer. Which seen the Bishop repented that he had so obstinately hardened himself against the holy man, and at last had fallen into this guilt of offense, that he had tempted him by the proposed condition, that, the infirm man healed, his belief and the consecration of his church should follow. Wherefore greatly compunct, and most affectionately drawn into favor of the holy Martyr, he offered himself in the consecration of his church as official minister, he consecrates the church on the 25th of July. and designated as opportune to this matter the day the 8th of the Kalends of August, on which he consecrated that church, and delegated the holy Martyr himself to the neighboring peoples as Patron and intercessor with God, and with his church established it annually frequented and festive, that all coming might merit to be justified by God through him, and in his blessed house to be eternally blessed. Amen.
ANNOTATIONS.
f The MS. Shepherd.
CHAPTER III.
Various thieves, injurious to St. Evermar, are punished. The body carried about. Rain in a great drought is obtained, other miracles are wrought.
[19] At this solemnity at some time, which is always renewed by the annual revolution, a great people came together: About to steal the adornment of the church, among whom there was present a certain one, devoid of the fear and love of God and of the holy Martyr Evermar; unmindful too of his own salvation, improvident of his own peril. This one, besides the losses, which many to many in this populous frequency he had brought, presumed also that from the adornment of the church of the holy man much gain could secretly come to him, if his eyes, hands, and mind were aided by the time, the hour, and silence; and if there were supplied to his endeavor solitude, and (what was chief) the solicitude of the guards wearied with labor and lulled with drunkenness. And so they being free for their own occupations, this one too did not let his own occupation grow torpid with leisure: but in the church itself seeking a hiding-place, there he lurked, until the coming night called the guards wearied and well fed, and lulled also with wine before sleep, and to whom by night shut in, to rest. And when it had grown quiet, he coming forth from the hiding-places, was carried by eyes and mind to the sanctuary, about a little after to put forth his hands to sacrilege. Therefore entering the door of the Choir, he stuck fast: he wished to advance, he could not: he wished to retreat, he was not able: he wished to leap out, he could not be moved: he attempted to turn from each side, he could be turned to neither part: he persists immovable: he wished to fall to the ground, he is held in his place. So fixed he persisted the whole night: neither praying, because the madness of heart had taken from him reason and the memory of prayer; nor making theft, because his members so bound showed themselves to be not the members of a thief, but the members of a nocturnal orator.
[20] But the Brethren awaking with the guards, that with matutinal hymns they might prevent the light of day, found this one, opposed to their entrance, like an image. Wondering they stand still, not knowing the unknown person: they suspect him to be one of the nocturnal terrors, or one of the phantasies by which men are wont to be terrified through sleep: whence they almost unmanned, the hairs of their flesh trembled, their locks stood up, their voice stuck in their throats; the hand, with which they signed to one another, trembling and so to speak enervated fell. Another suspicion came, namely that a watchman had descended from heaven, and this house being committed to his care, in custody of it kept watch by nights. A third suspicion came, which was also the more probable in part, namely that from the people which the day before had flowed together, this one had either remained in the church for devotion, or was a nocturnal thief, and for making theft had awaited the darkness of night; but St. Evermar had stood in the way, lest he could attempt what he was machinating. Hence they their spirit being resumed animated, see him stick fast, and as if rooted to the earth stand immovable, and as if frenzied with the other members unmoved roll his head about, and with lips running together more to break than to sound informed words.
[21] It is asked who he is, what he wants, why as if rooted to the earth he sticks fast, why he has so blocked the entrance by the obstacle of his body, he confesses his fault: that either to return or to advance he either will not or cannot. Then he confesses his sin, that he is a thief, not an orator; that before St. Evermar he stands, not that he may say prayers or pour tears, but that by him he is held bound, because he attempted to despoil him. But if he is pious and merciful, let him first free him from these fetters, and so punish him: and let him not on this account spare him from death, so as to leave him in this binding, which to him is established to be more grievous than all deaths. The Saint heard the confession of his sinner, heard the petition of the penitent, and with this fetter freed him: and lest he should die he heard, he invokes the Saint and is freed. and permitted him uncondemned to go away. But those who awaited the Saint's judgment concerning him, when they saw him freed by that one, gave no judgment over him; while he against whom he sinned, for his piety both freed him from the fetters, and freed him from death.
[22] Two women at some time were coming to St. Evermar, drawn by the most frequent mention of his name, carrying with them their little bundle: in which they had put both their victuals, and which they had chosen for the Saint as the votive expense of their poverty. To these on the way was joined a certain fraudulent fellow-traveler, Deceitfully joining himself to two pilgrim women who when he saw them panting from the long stretch of the journey, and wearied from the load of their provisions; offered himself to them as a voluntary carrier, that he by alternating succession relieving the feeble little women, they meanwhile might resume the strength, which by frequent panting they seemed to breathe out. Whom they on occasion of the journey believing themselves to have as a comrade, and from mutual conversation truly faithful, confidently put on him their burdens. Hence relieved of the great bundle they go before, as light, and undertaking their bundles to be carried, performing the journey more lightly, and secure of the following them as they thought faithful companion. He, as if retarded by the heavy weight, feigned that he could not overtake those going before: he pleaded that he was hindered by the debility of his body, fainting under the great burden: he complained of the difficulty of the journey: he murmured of the swift advance of his comrades, who by womanly loquacity could have made both the heavy burden and the difficult way more tolerable.
[23] So murmuring with himself, while a long interval of the way had snatched those gone before from his sight; the way being left by which he could again be joined to the women going before; he enters another way, by which led away from them if they should return, he would not meet them. For it seemed that, if returning they should meet him, from the flight which he had entered they would charge him with the fraud of the meditated theft, and would correct the error of that way; and so his bundle being transposed upon himself, they would empty his fraudulent will. And so the women came to Rutis, and mindful of the divine precept, you shall not appear before your God empty, withdrew themselves from approaching the church, until, their companion coming, they might more securely approach the holy Martyr; wishing more earnestly to gratify him for their offering and visitation, and so more clemently to be heard by him in prayer. And when he long awaited did not appear, they understood that he for carrying off the bundle had stayed back afar, and perhaps had voluntarily strayed. Then having entered the church, but St. Evermar being invoked, he is called back, to St. Evermar first for the votive offering, withdrawn by the deceitful fellow-traveler, they offer a complaint; first they lament their faith, before they pour out prayer; first they weep that the Saint had been despoiled in his prey: that it behooved him therefore both himself, because he is a man of virtue, and weak women and poor little ones to avenge.
[24] The holy Evermar therefore heard the suppliant little women, and restored the things taken away. and undertook their vengeance enjoined on him by themselves with pious compassion, and most promptly executed it. Finally that deceitful companion of theirs came into this madness, that the right way being left he changed way for way, valleys for valleys, mountains for mountains, villages for villages; and surveying all passable and impassable places, by much erring he ran about; and rolled back frequently into the same gyre, found himself in the first place of his error. So therefore captive in sense and alienated in mind, or made captive by the virtue of the holy Martyr, ignorant and unwilling he was driven to Rutis. Whom seen the women, to the bystanders accuse him of the fraud of the feigned fellowship, that he deceitfully stayed back, that he wished to despoil them, that he retarded their offering to the Saint, and as far as in him was wholly took it away. Then he being upbraided by all and expelled from the village, the little women received their bundle, and to St. Evermar humbly and reverently paid their votive offering: gave thanks, that in that adversity they had been heard by him: prayed for their sins, the remission of which, as we believe, through so great an intercessor obtained, not without his praise and admiration, alert they returned home.
[25] While a temple was being built for St. Trudo, and from many parts many expenses were sent for this work; from that part which is lower than Rutis, a wagon laden with stones was being brought. Whose driver, while chance so offered that through the middle of Rutis his passage was opened, coming before the church of St. Evermar, About to convey stones to St. Trudo, the drivers being willing halted: until the drivers themselves fed and rested a little, a little after might perform the begun journey. And when by the bystanders or by passers-by they were asked, to give these stones to the church of St. Evermar, who poor needed of the abundance of the rich Trudo; they refused, and drove off those asking from them with a turbulent repulse. St. Trudo, they say, if he abounds, they are compelled to give them to St. Evermar, let him be richly and honestly adorned with his abundance: St. Evermar, content with his poverty, let him not covet what is another's; that free from covetousness, from his poverty he may ascend to the abundance of St. Trudo: each will have his own: that injustice be done to rich or poor, it is established is to consent to injustice and sin: we will convey to St. Trudo, what is his; let God increase to St. Evermar, what is lacking to him; let him hasten to give him, what he is to give. Saying these things they drive the oxen to advance with goads, but they are not moved; they strike with rods, but they profit not; with frequent prickings they make them bloody, the oxen immovably standing still. but they are held as fixed images. Which they perceiving to be done divinely, and that St. Trudo wished to grant this small charity to St. Evermar; they lay down the stones, offer them to St. Evermar; and so the oxen being loosed to walk, with them and the empty wagon they return, and in the praise of each, both the virtue of St. Evermar, and the charity of St. Trudo and their mutual love and concord, they narrated to all meeting them.
[26] At some time the earth, all moisture being exhausted, had wholly dried up; so that it broke apart into dusty minute particles, and at the slight blast of the wind suddenly excited darkened the pure and clear air. It germinated no herb, no grain or fruit: because the clouds being constricted by drought, it was neither flooded with showers, nor watered with rains; and therefore, as if effete, and uncultivated, and idle it lay vacant. Hence famine fed upon human bodies even to the bones, covered only with skin; leanness running through the single members, In the highest drought, consumed whatever it could demolish; bloodless pallor discolored the whitening skin, and want had occupied the whole man. Here was the mercy of God to be invoked: here the help of the Saints to be sought. There was no affliction of fasting or abstinence to be imposed by a Priest on anyone, because this Sacerdotal edict the famine itself preventing had claimed for itself, while no time being excepted all even if they would not were compelled daily to fast. To the fasts were joined prayers, to the prayers tears: to those singing before were sung in response
litanies, by all with the voices of all together it was cried out, Lord, Lord, have mercy. The more cultivated garments being cast off, they were clothed with penitential ones; after various prayers the shoes being thrown away, they were anxious under bare soles, worn with cold and prickings. God was unwilling to be appeased by this anxiety of those supplicating and afflicted: because he reserved his appeasement to the grace of St. Evermar; whom now illustrious by other miracles, by this miracle he disposed to make more illustrious.
[27] and the bodies of various Saints carried in procession, The people persisted in prayer, stood firm in supplication, for the watering of the dryness of the earth. That God might free his people from the destruction of the pressing plague, St. Servatius, the most faithful preserver of his borders, is exposed; b Monulph and Gundulph are carried forth; St. Amor c, the sweetest lover of his neighbors, is carried out in public, that for compassion and commiseration of them God might compassionate and have mercy on the burning earth. These advance, that by their procession they might meet this plague; lest it should strike as much, as the fault of the people demanded; but that it should spare as much, as their familiar confidence with him presumed of God. Going out they see the sun decoct all the earth in the virtue of its ardor, the clouds water the air with no droppings, the burning wind dry up all things, the earth germinate nothing, and nothing vital sprout from the earth; neither herb, nor fruit, nor tree to live: but from heaven and from earth death to emerge for the destruction of men. These advancing God did not see, since they are always in the sight of God: these praying for this plague God did not hear, since they are always in the hearing of God; nor did he grant them that the sum and perfection of this virtue should be reputed to them; whence they withdrawing, he imparted nothing of that virtue to their praise or name.
[28] The plague not ceasing, it was sought what affliction remained for appeasing, what helper for interceding. at length St. Evermar is invoked, It was found that the people of Rutten perhaps had not been present at the affliction and procession, and that their poor Saint, for his rudiments and first-fruits so unknown, had not advanced with the other Saints: and by what crisis the world was shaken, or by what plague it was struck, even now to be ignorant. Let him give, they say, his proof: he has not yet betrayed of what merit, or of what grace he is with God, or of what virtue or renown he is with men. Let him advance, and oppose himself to this plague, nor let him fear poverty, while only he shows a rich and powerful virtue. The poverty will be for praise, the body is carried about: from which there has advanced a virtue fighting against this disaster of pestilence: the poverty will be, I say, for glory and veneration, when his virtue obtains for the hungering earth, if not an opulent, at least a slender harvest. The people of Rutten therefore come forth with their Evermar, show him the peril by which the earth labors, show him what burnings from the burning sun, what dryness from the dry clouds, what overthrow from the burning wind it suffers, a little after (unless he resist) about to suffer supreme destruction. The peoples run together from everywhere, to behold what this poor and small Saint could do: they await if to this he dare to strive, that by his merits he might touch heaven; if the sun, even unwilling, he restrain from this immoderate ardor: if he flood the clouds with moisture, if at his nod the winds grow warm from their burning, if the earth wearied by the infestation of these, by his virtue refreshed may rest.
[29] St. Evermar therefore goes round the fields, villages, and towns: to whom God granted, that what advanced should not be idle, while at his sight he compressed the sun from its ardor, extinguished the burning wind, filled the clouds with rainy waters which they should distil to the lands. Scarce had the Saint advanced, when the sun abhorring his advance, and rain being obtained the crops are given. under the shadow of clouds sought a sudden refuge; the clouds pour the waters, which God pledging them they had imbibed, into the lands, and abundantly rain upon them. Whatever too the too great fervor of the sun had parched, swiftly grows torpid: whatever by the parching or burning wind had withered, the moisture being resumed grows green again. The softened earth grows pliant, is bent, is bent round, grows young again with herbs, in the trees grows leafy and fructifies: the standing corn too sprouts in the bowels of the earth, bursts forth, grows up, grows yellow, ripens; and reaped with the sickle and worked into bread, satisfies the hungering people. So St. Evermar, poor and small, by a rich virtue, freed from the imminence of death, which through famine miserably dissolves the body, the people, now despairing to live. So therefore without injury of the Saints, who labored in this plague to be eliminated and could not; so I say, to this one alone God gave to have been able to do this; that the Saints themselves, not disagreeing from the will of God, charity being preserved with their fellow-brother, should most benignly concede that he alone had done this. So therefore St. Evermar, honored by God, praised and glorified by the people, is carried back to his home, thenceforth everywhere divulged by his works.
[30] It happened at some time in those days, in which the celebrated and solemn litanies are kept, In the days of the Rogations, that St. Evermar was carried forth, that there might be one who should precede the people in prayers to God, and there might be hope that the prayers of those following would be heard, since so great an intercessor preceding had made the beginning of praying. With the prayers therefore of the Saint God received and heard the prayers of the people: which that it might be clear and evident, in this following miracle he showed. For when the holy body was conveyed by two bearers in a pleasant place the wonted station made them halt d, the body of St. Evermar being carried, either for relieving the weariness of the bodies, or for confirming the people by their Priests in the fear and love of God, in custody of themselves, in continence from sins, besides for intimating to the people the matter of this affliction and procession, and for beatifying the people, who should follow so great a Martyr, on this way of penance the leading guide. a paralytic is healed. Meanwhile a certain paralytic, Peter by name, drawn by faith, went under the litter of the holy Body, and put himself under it: and because he came with faith, he obtained the reward of faith: for soon loosed from all the bonds of paralysis, unharmed he leaped up; and gave thanks to God, who his Saint, as in the other infirm, so also in him glorified. The holy Martyr too voluntarily inclined, who a little before prostrate crept with all his members, he praised and blessed: and his virtue done in him to all the people both announced with words, and showed by the testimony of his healed body: and all glorified God, who gave such power to men.
[31] Among these miracles, which St. Evermar worked, wondrous indeed to those seeing, but salvific to those feeling; he did one, which what it intimates for its charity is not known, what it portends for its obscurity is ignored. And indeed what in this one he did, by working he showed, but by signification he hid. Whence both human estimation, although concerning this it opines many things, yet with full faith, what is to be held, what is to be believed, does not attain. Hence we do not doubt St. Evermar to have been a man of most reverend dignity, who in the admiration and investigation of this miracle, which by recounting we have subscribed, When the body was carried about through towns and villages. makes even any philosopher either grow dull, or in the studious scrutiny of this work compels him from his philosophy as if blind to stray. At some time, which I would say without injury to him, for his poverty he went out to beg, about perhaps to correct what in his church either an overthrowing loss had broken, or a not full integrity demanded to be supplied. In all cities or villages, as a good pilgrim sent by God, he is received; and as the Lord's guest is saluted and adored. He excepts no village from his entrance, makes none unworthy of him, and for his benignity and humility equalizes all to himself, and tempers himself to all; because weighing his penury, for his subsidy before their doors, as any poor man, he begs alms.
[32] When therefore he had approved by his entrance all the villages, which he wished to be held and known worthy of his survey; and had found by their offerings, so to speak, hostile handmaids to himself, and at his going out commended to God, made them annually tributary to his church; approaching e Herstal, his bearers as if conquered by his weight, to be brought to Herstal it remained immovable, but not by their weariness or the failure of their strength, set down on the ground he sat, and as if weary he wished by resting to indulge himself, he lay down on the earth. Those who went before, who carried, who followed, astonished with their fellow-traveler, namely St. Evermar, lie down and from this repose in this lying-down, await him to rise stronger to advance. They themselves rise, attempt also to raise him, but cannot: they strive with stronger effort to lift him up, but are frustrated: they endeavor with a more numerous hand to raise him up, but profit not, and that very frequently attempting with panting breath they fail. Of the neighboring, they say, villages, which you have not spurned, Herstal is one, nay the chief, which once the renown of the royal assembly illustrated: whence it is both larger in magnitude, and fuller of inhabitants, and more profuse in substance, from all which there will be for you a coming of more abundant gain, and for us for staying a more spacious hospitable success. Enter therefore, and receive not offerings, but great expenses: loose your bosom, and in it hide the treasure which from here you will carry back. Saying these things they put their hands, but as if you saw St. Lucy f there, that, as a mountain prevailing over yokes of oxen, you would say her to be in her weight a lighter material, than this Saint, whom only as it was thought the litter of his body weighed down. Again they attempt with all the strength of their bodies bending themselves to the holy body, that they might bring it into Herstal, but they could not.
[33] Let them now say who penetrate the enclosures of riddles by the light of their knowledge, who behold obscure things, what stood in the way of his entrance? for an inscrutable cause. why what he conceded of himself to other villages, to this he denied? why the human vehicle, which in carrying does not fail, here in raising languished? why the very body did not press its carriers thus far by any heaviness, but now as a great mass or leaden weight cannot be lifted by their arms? There is none who would intimate to us whether the Saint perceived God angry with this village, and nay with the angry God for its execution he himself too was inflamed? or whether he himself offended by it in the order of his circuit did not write it down, nor pre-entitled himself to be its stipendiary. We could opine many things concerning this matter: but because by natural kinship opinions and lies are near to themselves, because we beware of lying in the deeds of the Saints, we are unwilling in these things which we do not know to opine anything. Let the Saint know, what offense intervened between him and that village; and if he disposes at some time to be appeased to it, by the prayers of all the faithful of God and especially of his own people of Rutten, may he deign to hasten his appeasement, and among the other villages also to take Herstal as tributary to himself: disposing then with the holy body to pass elsewhere, he is carried back to Rutten. soon relieved
of the heavy burden the agile carriers put themselves under the holy body, and the circuit being happily finished, at length they restored St. Evermar to his Rutten.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER IV.
Incurable diseases healed. The natal day divinely indicated.
[34] In the church of this village the same saint placed indeed is silent in words, but speaks in virtues: nor needing a herald, he himself discharges his own office: everywhere by fame, name and virtue he runs about: and where by Christ a place is opened, he succeeds and rests. To the village which is called a Heeren, he came by name and virtue, where he healed a girl, In the hamlet of Heeren a girl who now almost consumed by death. The Saint recalling her to life, she began to begin again the relapsed rudiments of her adolescence. This one through nine months, the other foods being scarcely slightly touched, could not feed on bread: whose both odor and savor she abhorred, and its taste she feared most as death: and since in the taste of bread nature has placed the seasoning of the other foods; this girl believed in it that nature itself had wrought for her the deadly dish of a poisoned confection. There remained therefore to her nothing but to perish: dangerously laboring with a loathing of bread, and if there was hope for her to be able to be healed by anyone (because, as is read, in those days there was no manifest vision) this was reserved to the divine mercy, that it might teach her through a vision, how she should drive this infirmity from herself. 1 Reg. 3, 1 A youth therefore of bright countenance suggesting to her in sleep, who from his brightness conspicuous, and from his novelty was terrible to the timid sex, admonished in sleep to go to St. Evermar, she is admonished to go to St. Evermar, and ask his suffrage for herself to be healed. The girl awaking woke up, and at once the name of Evermar sounded, whom we have said to be now there present in virtue. She told to each parent what sleeping she had seen, what dreaming she had heard, and that amid these glad things in dreams she was not deluded, she is healed: but that by the safety which she enjoyed she was salutarily repaired.
[35] St. Evermar, she said, being admonished is to be sought at Rutten, now whatever of him can be felt more salutarily, I now feel in myself; his virtue, which has its differences about diverse infirmities, in my health I experience: but not therefore is he less with me, if it was not necessary to use all in me: because as much in turn in single ones, so much he prevails in all the infirm. About to give thanks I will go to his church, for thence he sends his virtue, wherever true faith seeks his cure: and lest what he grants seem to be ungrateful, there praise is rightly returned, she goes to Rutten, whence the benefit goes forth. She is led therefore thither by her parents on the day, which from the consecration of the Church celebrated, was more celebrated from the praise and presence of the holy Martyr, and solemn from the frequency of the people most joyfully keeping holiday on it, festive too about to be from the present testimony of so admirable a virtue. Here the series being recited, how long, and how direly, or with what kind of infirmity the girl languished; how in a vision through the Saint she recovered; how most promptly about to give praises to her Saviour she had come; she narrates the disease and the health: soon as we believe, if anything to her health to be fulfilled was to be increased, she received. Besides during the time of so prolix a sickness the detested and execrated bread, more avidly than the other accustomed foods, in token of received health, the people looking on she ate; and resolved all ambiguity of the people concerning herself saved.
[36] The Clergy finally and the company of monks singing before the hymn, which to the holy Trinity especially in the nocturnal vigils is jubilated; and the people acclaiming, The Te Deum is sung, the bells, by whose great tumult the ears of God are believed to be opened, sounding, St. Evermar is acclaimed and concelebrated. But he himself ascribes to God, whatever laudable is paid him with so great voices: he himself attributes to God, whatever he himself cooperates with him commanding: lastly he gives thanks, that to him having all things in him he gave participation and fellowship with the other Saints. But that we may conclude concerning the girl the praise of the holy Martyr, she is set forth to be seen by all: whom when they consider exhausted with leanness and thinness, and the flesh fed away nothing remaining to the infirmity; they wonder that she was even sustained by the frame of her members, since for debility they see her scarce to cling to her bones. They do not distrust that St. Evermar, as in infirmity, so in debility could help her, that taking away the infirmity he might take away also the debility, and restoring health restore also strength: … b and yet the one helping the other obtains a greater praise and a greater name of the Saviour, because he was unwilling in his cure to be singular, then the girl with a votive and annual denarius betroths and addicts herself to St. Evermar, and she returns home. and not without veneration of the holy Martyr himself and admiration of herself returns home; about to prove while she lived by the attestation of her health, that St. Evermar among the Saints doing like things has a session of the same majesty and equal sublimity.
[37] In that village Rutten itself, which by his presence he makes illustrious, and which among the neighboring villages he makes to be chief, he showed the probable evidence of his most sweet compassion in a lesser person of that same female sex, A blind girl, about soon to die from the torture of her eyes, but not in a similar trouble of infirmity of this kind. A certain girl afflicted with the gravest torture of the eyes, had also thence contracted a penal blindness, and from each she was prematurely dying sick, a little after unless help were given to the torture of the eyes and the blindness by St. Evermar, about to die also by the common condition. From the seats of her eyes, which we call orbs, swelling with a horrendous tumor, and in the manner of curling water struck with the light blades of oars boiling up, the eyes drawn out by too great pain almost leaped out; and as if execrating their natural chamber, burst forth outward. They seemed moreover to surpass the prominent eminence of the brow: and when they were still held in their seat, they drew no light from within; because by inner pain extinguished, outwardly they appeared nothing but a certain rotundity of a formless globe. A flowing humor ran down, flooding the face free from the pain of the eyes: which humor those who saw, because they understood and approved it to be matter, in the eyes distilling that matter testified to be a coagulated rheum, to be cured by no human art, nor by any unction to be washed away.
[38] After human refuge therefore being despaired of, the Divine help was to be sought, which to men distrustful of themselves is supreme and excellent, for eliminating every inconvenience. And who would so esteem the person and age of a little tiny infant, that first he should descend to her compassion, and finally ascend for her in prayers to the divine majesty? There was none of men, who in this so great messenger of prayer to be carried (great I say as to God) could or merited to be brought, except St. Evermar: who now having nothing of man, because yet at some time he was a man, willingly condescends to human things; and because God is a spirit, he himself made spiritual, for men faithfully invoking him intercedes with him. led to the church of St. Evermar, To his church therefore the girl is brought: and first by complaints, finally by the prayers of the parents struck, and on the contrary by the sole pain of the girl invoked, more quickly to the one grieving than to those beseeching and complaining he is inclined: yet to each not hardened against compassion. There is moreover something which in the Saints is not detected, and yet in all is praised. Men are praised, that by prayers and tears they are brought to pardon; but the Saints are praised, that the pain of the heart, the dejection of the body being beheld, prayers not awaited they help: yet to each they are never argued to be implacable, but because they are joined to the pious God, thence they draw that they prevent all prayers and satisfactions with piety. But sometimes, that they may make men fearful of God and of themselves, before they hear them, they await their prayers and tears.
[39] The messenger of prayer therefore being carried to God, imposed on himself (which neither by motion nor by approach of body he did, but voluntarily: she recovers sight and full health: for his will joined to the will of God, there finds and sees for himself whatever is to be done) he reformed the girl with her brow happily eyed, the blindness being driven away he illuminated her, and kindled all the people to the praise of God, from whom he received all that he bestowed and attended to them. And so the girl, while she recovered, was restored to herself: for she had lost herself hidden by blindness; nor accommodated to any thing, she lay hidden absorbed in the whirlpool of infirmity: but each, that is the blindness and the infirmity, the blessed Martyr driving them away, both the blindness sent her forth exposed into the light, and the whirlpool of infirmity vomited her up absorbed.
[40] Concerning this Saint we have soon said whatever was to be said, not whatever was to be written have we written; but as much as he willed us to know, who all that he did it is established does not ignore. Running down through him we have come thus far, but running back to him there let us return, when made a Martyr, I will not say he died, but he triumphed. c We have passed over on what day triumphing he passed; whence it is greatly to be feared by us, lest on that very day his praise being suppressed, The natal day, on which the Martyr died, long lay hidden: he lose this which is to him and the other Saints in the Church most celebrated, the Birthday of his name, which also is to them the increment and monument of their rising glory. For the Saints, born of a mother, and from this assigned to Christ, follow the general condition; but loosed from the flesh, more happily through death they are born, because more to live in Christ they never die. But their death called the Natal, is reckoned by the name of great novelty and admiration: and since death interpreted expresses bitterness to those dying, to the Saints by the nativity begun in the heavens it grows sweet. There is therefore to be demonstrated by us the term and day of his passage, and then we shall terminate the course of our work: attesting at the end of that work, not so much ours as his, that him dying in body by the natal beginning of the soul the Lord glorified; and beatified him in the heavens for his past life, by which living well he pleased him. There is to be demonstrated, I say, how the day of his martyrdom, from the time of his passion unknown, a special and singular
property did not have, nor on it by men was there jubilation with the Angels, to whom because not found out but infused is the knowledge of all things, the notion of it God preserved for them, which he always showed to them to be seen in himself: and therefore to them alone in the praise of the holy man it was special, and to no one of men, God reserving to himself and the Angels this secret, was it shared.
[41] A driver on the 1st of May At some time a certain man on the Kalends of May with a loaded cart came near that place, which above we have said is called Maritimus, in the nocturnal hours; who, an inhabitant of the village d Althera, by night devising that this short space between Rutten, and that same Althera was beset by the occurrence of no terror from the wonted passage, constantly hastened to his home. Which being passed, he saw a sporting battle of stags, farther off he beholds a great frequency of stags running together against one another, and by this harmless concourse rather to play with themselves than to attack; and rather jokingly to whet themselves to mutual favor, than spiritedly to dash together with blows or bites. Besides, by no weariness the assault of the delightful contest being interrupted, they continued what they pursued by love; and charity being preserved mutually they recoiled into themselves as if hurt, and soon ran together to themselves as if enraged. In this conflict you would see a glad and conspicuous solidity of affectionate grace: and since for the reason that they were animals of one kind by nature, consequently these sports agreed with them, more could be noted in them human unanimity, than the nearness of the ferine kin.
[42] That cart-driver was astonished, and forgetting the governance of the oxen, and terrified fled far off: unmindful too of his own victuals placed on the vehicle and following; with the goad retained for his defense, he yields backward: and no abrupt place being observed, through all the by-ways now rushing now leaping up, aided only by the strength and agility of his body to flee, in sense and reason for taking counsel for himself he was wholly deserted: the shadow of night too supplied if anything for terrifying him was less at hand; and yet to the opposing darkness he committed himself, distrusting and trusting: distrusting indeed, because by their blindness they closed for him the way of fleeing; but trusting, that from the monstrous, as he thought, prodigies covered they hid him with the mist, and covered him with a blind veil. Which was his only refuge, he hoped to be protected by the goad: and not seeing whom by the pricking of the goad he should keep off from himself, he beat the air everywhere; thinking, that although first close at hand he struck none, at some time in the striking of any phantasy pursuing him his goad would not err. One of the stags pursues the fleeing man; and swifter than he who in a certain manner flew away with winged or feathered feet, avoiding the versatile vertigoes of the goad whirled about, thrust itself into his face bloodless with pallor and disturbed with terror.
[43] by the pursuing stag He is struck not now by fear alone, but also by horror, nor now does he find himself with himself, nor even does he understand himself snatched by ecstasy: and even if it had happened that he was gnawed by the teeth of the stag (which yet, namely to devour a man, is not of stags) at its bites he would not have groaned. The stag only standing by, and now and then accosting him by the touch of its head; he little by little his spirit and vigor being resumed is restored to himself: and the dread not yet removed, he wondered that he had found the same one, whom he remembers, to have been with him, when for fear he believed, that into the nocturnal darkness it had vanished: who meanwhile would not have felt fear, if to the ferine teeth as food to be chewed he had come. Each stood still, immovable to withdraw: the man, because in the presence of the beast he wavered, compelled to halt, like a trembling reed at the blast of the wind: the beast, until he breathing again and attentive to hear should be rendered whole, namely intellectual to approve what he should hear, memorial to retain what he should understand, rational to examine what by hearing and understanding he should have retained.
[44] Then the stag, an eloquence divinely infused into it, (for not from nature, ignorant of speaking, do these animals have anything in this part like man) expeditiously and plainly spoke to him: We are not portents, nor prodigial monsters, nor have we advanced to terrify you, nor (since we are wild and there are for us the pastoral shrubs of the thickets and the leaves of the forests) do we feed on the flesh of men; nay, because they are for our dread, we withdraw ourselves from their meeting. Moreover even, since we are brutes, and, so to speak, unofficial animals, we have undertaken this night imposed on us by God as vigilant, and as a watch for the holy man Evermar; and as you saw, but terrified did not see through, according to the discipline by which we are instituted from our nature, he understands that on that night a sport was instituted by them, we jest with this holy man of ours by such play; and this on the night, on which more licentiously and more with impunity we come forth from our lairs, that with nocturnal sports in his service in our manner we may be free, because to human assemblies by day we, dreadful, are not mingled: and this, it said, we do on this night, which in its cock-crowing or before-dawn saw St. Evermar before the morrow of his martyrdom's day, lying down in this place; and below the lying-down, when the following day had now grown warm with the sun, the enemy coming over struck with the sword; and his soul taken up into the heavens it exalted. The unknown therefore until now day of his martyrdom, that on that day St. Evermar crowned went to heaven: know to be the morrow: which we signify to be true from our prelude, which the church of Rutten thenceforth on the Kalends of May annually should observe memorial and festive. Having spoken these things it recognized its nature and grew mute, and to the others peacefully playing it restored itself: whose play-contest, until it grew light, most joyfully carried on, the grace being received from him for whom they had passed the night discharged, departed. But that messenger of this legation, the oxen with the cart being led back home, what he had heard and seen made known to the people of Rutten, and this matter supported by truth then grew warm from the belief of many: but little by little neglected hanging and idle, as doubtful, faded from all memory.
[45] Those who wish these things to be despised for [e] falsity, and that a dumb animal having spoken ought not to be feigned, let them be brought to faith of the truth by examples: which because it is established are confirmed by the testimony of the holy books, and strengthened by the antiquity of time, the faith of the deed confirmed by examples cannot be refuted as false, nor weakened as doubtful. In like manner the things which we have said can by their likeness be defended, that is both of the ass of Balaam, against her seated rider by asking and answering indignant; and of the camel, for SS. Cosmas f and Damian speaking; and of the Lion, defending St. Mammes g the Martyr more by human reason than by its own strength; and by the comparison of many others they are able to be protected and fortified. By the patronage of which examples if this our story, which will be said to be feigned by us, cannot be aided, let it not be imputed to us, but to the public testimony of the village of Rutten, from which we have received the matter of this thing; which even if they were false, for amplifying the name of so great a Martyr patronizing them, ought wholly not to be condemned. We do not condemn, says Jerome, the error which descends from the piety of faith: so neither is it to be condemned, nay it is good to embrace, if anything not truly but doubtfully is erred concerning the Saints, the author leaves it to the judgment of the reader. which yet the purity of faith being preserved is next to the true; nor for peril to be rejected, nor for fear of any vice thence creeping in to be removed from public hearing. To have contradicted therefore and piously felt concerning this holy Martyr, for the piety of those loving him, according to the aforesaid witness is to be borne; while the piety itself can be excused, that neither against the holy Martyr himself by shameless falsity has it sinned; nor has it given to weak minds, by the assumption concerning him of this which is doubtful, by its example the protection of patronage for erring. To none therefore do we violently thrust to believe what we have said: but if he loves St. Evermar, since it is necessary; to his birthday, which by the testimony of the common people we have pursued, let him pre-entitle the aforesaid day, that is the Kalends of May, with us by the celebrity of so great a martyrdom: but if he refuses to consent to these things which have been said, we ask, love being preserved to the holy Martyr, until by a better testimony he concede to the truth, not by detracting, but meanwhile by bearing, let him suffer us to rely on our opinion.
ANNOTATIONS.
e The MS. felicity.