ON BL. THEODORIC THE GERMAN, PRESBYTER AND CONFESSOR, OF THE CARMELITE ORDER, AT VENICE IN ITALY,
About the year 1377.
SYLLOGE.
Theodoric the German, presbyter and confessor, of the Order of Carmelites, at Venice. (Bl.)
BY C. G.
What our Elders sometimes lamented, namely that there had not come into their hands the Acts of very many illustrious men, ascribed to the Saints or Blessed, who made the sacred Order of the B. Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel illustrious by the outstanding examples of their virtues, For lack of Acts, perhaps we too would not undeservedly have to lament about the Life of Bl. Theodoric, if this, as Lezana in the Annals of the Carmelites at the year 1377 says Seger Pauli testifies, had in fact been written by John Grossi of Toulouse In the Little Work on the Saints of the Carmelite Order: for since this writer, inasmuch as he held the general mastership of the Carmelite Order from the year 1389 up to the year 1430, and consequently was nearly contemporary with Bl. Theodoric, who died about the year 1377, as they say, could have had most of his deeds excellently ascertained, just as a Life of our Blessed written by him could not but be esteemed most highly, and as the offspring of an author endowed with the greatest authority be inserted in our Work on the Acts of the Saints, so also its loss could not but be borne with distress. But whether the said John Grossi in fact accomplished this, or wrote a history of the deeds of Bl. Theodoric sufficiently prolix to be fitly called a Life, is made doubtful by this, that the same Seger Pauli, citing the written Life of our Blessed, brings forward very few things which are not read in the Compendium of his deeds composed by the same master general in part II of the Viridarium of the Carmelite Order.
[2] never written, there is exhibited only For, on the testimony of Lezana, Seger Pauli, in his Observations on the Calendar of Mechelen, which comprises various holy men of the Carmelite Order or men illustrious for the fame of holiness, gathered nothing else from the Life cited by him than that Bl. Theodoric was made from a lay brother a cleric and presbyter, and worked six miracles; but these miracles, one excepted, are likewise read in the said Compendium or Elogium of the Blessed one's deeds already exhibited [Vol. I, part II, p. 140, no. 603, p. 265, no. 1099 and vol. II, p. 736, no. 2550.] in the Speculum Carmelitanum by the Rev. Fr. Daniel of the Virgin Mary; for which reason I now suspect that Seger Pauli, when he says that the Life of Bl. Theodoric was written by the said master general, designated nothing else than the very Compendium or Elogium of his deeds composed by the same John Grossi. I confess indeed that from this Elogium it is in no way drawn out that Bl. Theodoric, before he became a cleric and priest, was a lay brother or conversus, as Seger Pauli gathered from the Life cited by him, and that hence also it is hinted to some extent that the said Compendium of deeds is different from the Life cited by Seger Pauli; but the editor of the same Viridarium, the Rev. Fr. Daniel of the Virgin Mary, warns in the preliminary Note of the same Viridarium that the old MS. exemplars of the Viridarium of John Grossi, in which that Compendium exists, and its Venetian edition, which was produced in the year 1507, do not agree with one another: what, therefore, if some exemplars existed fuller than others, and Seger Pauli used one such fuller exemplar, and in it, what was not had in the other exemplars, read that Bl. Theodoric at the beginning of his religious life was a lay brother or conversus? However that may be, since the Life of the Blessed cited by this author, if it is supposed distinct from the Compendium of Acts composed by John Grossi, could not be brought to light by the Reverend Fathers Daniel of the Virgin Mary and Lezana, both writers who most diligently searched out the ancient records of their Order, and was unknown to all the other writers of the same Order whom I consulted, we think it will by no means be found by us either, and in its place we here exhibit from the Viridarium of John Grossi, published in part II of Vol. I of the Speculum Carmelitanum, the Compendium of the Blessed one's deeds, or his Elogium.
[3] a brief Elogium of the Blessed. St. Theodoric, German by nation. Taming his flesh daily, he wore an iron breastplate over his bare skin. Whence: Wearing iron next to the flesh for long, and he spurned vain things
with the heart; at length the heavenly light filled the Saint. This Saint, having asked and obtained the licence of his superiors to leave his own province, came to Rome for the sake of pilgrimage, where he did many miracles. For he mercifully freed a certain noble girl, gravely vexed by a demon, in the presence of the senator of the city of Rome with various companions. At length, fleeing the glory of the world, he came to the city of Siena, where first, in the presence of many, he restored hearing to a certain deaf man; and secondly, while he was preaching the word of life to the people, a certain woman was present at his preaching, and, desiring to see some miracle of the Holy Man, at the elevation of the Body of Christ she saw the Trinity in confirmation of her desire. Afterwards, coming to Florence, he healed entirely a certain lame girl who had no straight limb. And in the convent of Venice, where his Body rests gloriously, shining with many miracles, he departed from this light on the 19th day of the month of October. And a certain blind woman, touching and wiping her eyes with the cape of the Holy Man, received her sight. Many frequent miracles are done by the merits of this Holy Confessor, to the praise and glory of the Maker of all things, in the very church in which his glorious Body rests, which are very beautifully painted there.
[4] Certain other things which are narrated about the same A similar Elogium, but somewhat more compressed, is had by John Paleonydorus, a Hollander, who died at the beginning of the sixteenth century, in the Fasciculus tripartitus, published likewise in part II of the Speculum Carmelitanum p. 220, no. 932., and Paleonydorus was followed by Diego Coria in the Chronicle of the Carmelites, Biscarretus in the Palmites Vineae Carmeli, and other writers of the Carmelite order here and there; but Philip Metius relates certain singular things in Lezana, vol. IV of the Annals p. 693., in these words: Blessed Theodoric, formerly provincial of Germany, when he had visited the most reverend prior general residing in the Holy Land, returning by land and sea worked such (divine grace intervening) miracles that he was called by the mouth of all the apostle of the Holy Land. He was a wonderful tamer of his flesh; for over his bare body he wore an iron breastplate daily. He was remarkable for charity towards the brothers and piety towards God. And when he had well discharged his magistracy, he at length closed his last day in the convent of Venice in the year 1310, excelling in miracles both living and dead. The Venetians enjoy his intercessions even in these times of ours.
[5] are fabulous. As magnificent as these things are, so I would wish some more ancient author to be produced who would confirm them; but this neither could the said Lezana accomplish, who speaks thus in the Annals at the year 1377: Who this General was, whom (Bl. Theodoric) visited in the Holy Land, and how he is said to have died in the year 1310, when Paleonydorus, Coria, Munos and Biscarretus, indeed Philip of St. James in the Catalogue of illustrious Men of the Order, says he died about this time (namely the year 1377), we pass over for now, until clearer things become known; nor do I think it will be accomplished by anyone: for in the year 1238, as Papebroch teaches in vol. III of May At the 16th day of May, p. 654, no. 4., the migration of the Carmelite Order from the East to the West was decreed and begun, and seven years after, or in the year 1245, the prior general Alan, passing from Syria and the Holy Land, for the greater part occupied by the Turks, into Europe, was received in the convent of Aylesford in England, and there, Alan abdicating, Bl. Simon Stock was substituted by the fathers gathered in Chapter, who thereafter, as was decreed in the said Chapter, always remained in the West, nor did any prior general afterwards stay in the East, whom consequently Bl. Theodoric, who died, if we believe Metius, in the year 1310, if the other writers, about the year 1377, could not have gone to visit in the Holy Land. It can also be doubted whether our Blessed was in fact provincial of the Carmelites throughout Germany, since he is reported among them neither by the said Paleonydorus, book III, chapter XIII, who reviews certain provincials of Germany, nor by Lezana, who from the General Chapters held from the year 1348 up to the year 1373 enumerates several in vol. IV of the Annals p. 691.; surely the sole authority of Metius cannot render this undoubted to us, the other writers of the same Carmelite Order being silent, to whom we also adhere as regards the time of the Blessed one's death rather than to Metius alone opposing all the others.
[6] The Blessed became famous for many miracles, But although the narration of Philip Metius seems from what has been said to have some fabulous circumstances, yet from the said John Grossi and Paleonydorus above it is certain that our Blessed, from the laying of the foundations of the religious life (he did this, as I read in the MS. Notes on the Acies bene ordinata of Philip Visitantinus, and as is believed by the Carmelites of Cologne, on the testimony of Gelenius, book III, Syntagma 43, On the Greatness of Cologne, in the convent of Cologne), held a very austere manner of life, an indication of which is the iron breastplate, which was also frequently used by the Camaldolese monks, as may be read in the Life of Bl. Dominic Loricatus published at the preceding day, which he wore over his bare flesh, and that he also came to such holiness of life as God deigned to make attested to the world, in life as well as after death, by frequent signs of miracles, in part reviewed in the Elogium given above at no. 3; in part, I say, reviewed, because many others are asserted to have followed soon after his death, also touched on generally by Marco Antonio Alegre de Casanate in the Paradisus Carmelitici Decoris in these words: At Venice at length (Bl. Theodoric) rendered his spotless spirit to Christ. There, his Body's remains remaining incorrupt, honoured with great veneration, famous for miracles after death, the blind receive sight from him, the deaf hearing, and every weak person returns safe from his sepulchre, and even by the slightest touch of his mantle many wonders are worked by God. Similar things are had by Philip of the Most Holy Trinity, History of the Carmelites, chapter V, and by Peter Wemmers in the Chronicle of the same Order p. 616., who also adds that, on account of the frequent miracles which were done at his sepulchre, he was always held for a Saint, how true which is is clear even from this, that, as by the said John Grossi and Paleonydorus, so also in the old Speculum Carmelitanum, printed at Venice in the year 1507, he is called Saint, and by all the other writers of the Carmelite Order whom I consulted he is distinguished with the title of Saint or Blessed.
[7] and enjoyed public cult, To the Carmelite writers are added Miraeus in the little work On the Origin and Increase of the Carmelite Order, Gelenius in the Sacred and Pious Fasti of Cologne, and Molanus, who in the Auctaria of Usuard in Sollerius has thus at this day: On the same day, of St. Theodoric, Confessor of the Order of Carmel. Nor is it to be doubted that, the miracles soon after his death growing frequent at the tomb of the Blessed Man, his public veneration also began soon, at least in the church of the Carmelites at Venice, and thereafter was so greatly increased that it seemed good at length to the General Chapter, gathered at Rome in the monastery of St. Martin in the year 1564, to extend it to the whole Carmelite Order, by whose order these words were inserted in the Calendar of the Breviary published in the same year, at the 15th day of October: Of Theodoric, confessor of our order, Double. Surely that the cult of our Blessed did not take its beginning from this decree of the general chapter, but that it had already flourished long before the said general chapter was held, is persuaded by an old MS. Calendar of the Convent of Mechelen, written before the year 1500, indeed most probably, as he observes who transmitted a copy of it to our Elders, about the middle of the fifteenth century, in which at the 19th of October it is read thus: Of Theodoric, confessor, not bishop, of our order: this is likewise persuaded by a sufficiently ancient MS. codex from the library of the duke of Altemps on the origin of the Order of Mount Carmel, cited by Lezana, which places our Theodoric among the Saints or Blessed of the Order to be painted in white capes: nor would the principal Fathers of the sacred Carmelite Order, gathered in the general chapter in the year 1564, seem likely to have decreed so solemn a cult for Bl. Theodoric throughout the whole Order, unless his public veneration, begun long before at Venice and continued, had incited them to it.
[8] which today, as we are taught, no longer flourishes. Further, the Carmelites long since ceased to observe that very decree by which the Fathers gathered in Chapter at Rome sanctioned that the Feast of our Blessed be celebrated with double rite, and to recite the ecclesiastical office of him: namely after they were bound by the pontifical precept of Gregory XIII to recite a Breviary corrected according to the norm of the Roman Breviary amended by the Council of Trent, in which no office of Bl. Theodoric exists; but the correction of the said Breviary was made for this reason only, that it, uncertain and apocryphal writings being removed from it (the words are of the said Pontiff in the decree of approbation of the corrected Breviary), and the less approved sermons of the Fathers struck out, the Antiphons and Responsories also placed according to the order of Scripture, might agree with the Roman Breviary; and consequently the same Pontiff, prescribing to the Carmelites the Breviary corrected in this way, by no means wished to abrogate all cult accustomed to be paid to the Blessed. And so, just as the aforesaid precept of the Pontiff does not stand in the way of the sacred Remains of Bl. Theodoric having been able to be held in veneration thereafter too, so also it ought not to have prevented us from giving him a place in our Work, yet with the title of Blessed rather than of Saint, because his cult does not seem to have been propagated outside the sacred Carmelite Order. I would wish now to bring forward certain particulars about the public veneration, most probably still shown today to the Blessed Man, and therefore I gave letters to the Rev. Fr. Prior of the Carmelites of Venice, asking to be taught by him about it; but thus far we have not received an answer, wherefore we are compelled here to make an end, about to bring forward more in the Appendix of this volume, if we are opportunely taught these things. Thus far I had written, when I receive letters from Venice full of all courtesy, by which the very Rev. Father J. Agostino Barcella, ex-provincial and prior of the convent of Venice, deigned to teach us, beyond expectation, that no traces survive there of the public veneration certainly paid formerly, as is clear from what precedes, to Bl. Theodoric.