ON ST. AICHARDUS, ALSO CALLED AICHADRUS, ABBOT OF JUMIEGES,
IN NORMANDY,
About the year DCLXXXVII.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Aichardus, or Aichadrus, abbot of Jumièges, in Normandy (St.)
BY J. P.
§ I. The Saint's name in the calendars; his ancient and present-day cult; the translation of his body; miracles and benefits.
[ ] The beginnings and the situation of the famous abbey of Jumièges in the district of Rouen have been fully described by us in tom. IV of August, pag. 76, in the Life of St. Filibert, its founder and first abbot. The Saint's memory in many calendars, yet not in the ancient classic ones, Of its second abbot we here come to treat, whom some write Aichadrus, others Aicadrus, others otherwise; but we, except where their words must be quoted, shall constantly call him Aichardus, with the Roman Martyrology, which announces him thus today: On the same day, the deposition of St. Aichardus the abbot. I do not know by what chance it has come about that his memory is missing among the older classic martyrologists, since there exist testimonies old enough and beyond doubt about his cult and public veneration, of which I shall produce one or two after I have set out a few from the more recent calendars. Chief among them are the codices of the enlarged Usuard; the Brussels one mentions him thus: In the territory of Rouen, in the monastery of Jumièges, the deposition of holy Aicadrus, abbot and confessor, who, when he had there nine hundred monks, half of them, marked out beforehand to him by an angel at night, passed to the Lord on one day. Whom he himself, following not long after, rested in peace. More briefly the Anchin codex: And of holy Aicadrus the abbot. In Molanus's codex the reading is the same as in the Roman Martyrology, if you except the name, which is expressed thus: Aichadri. To these are added our manuscript Florarium; Ferrari's Catalogue of the Saints; the Martyrologies of Saussay, of Castellanus, the Parisian and the German; the Natales Sanctorum Belgii published by Molanus; likewise the Belgian calendars of Aubert Le Mire, and generally all Martyrologies, Catalogues of the Saints, Histories and Annals of the Order of St. Benedict, in which prolix eulogies of St. Aichardus are given here and there, taken from the Acts to be examined below.
[2] [although his cult is ancient; the church of Jumièges formerly called by his name.] The chief proofs to us of his ancient cult and public veneration are, first, the words of the anonymous writer of the Life, into whose age we shall inquire in the following §, calling blessed Aichardus the patron of the monastery of Jumièges. Secondly, the words likewise of Dudo, dean of Saint-Quentin, from which we learn that the church of Jumièges was already before the year 912 called by the name of St. Aichardus. For the praised author in his Work on the customs and deeds of the Normans, composed at the beginning of the eleventh century, writes in lib. 2 in this manner: In the year nine hundred and twelve from the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, Franco the Archbishop (of Rouen) baptized Rollo (duke of the Normans), imbued with the Catholic faith of the most holy Trinity, and Robert duke of the Franks received him from the font of the Savior and imposed his own name upon him. Then the author interposes a few words, and at last, relating how the same duke of the Normans, during the seven days in which he remained in white robes, enriched various churches with gifts, he says: Robert (formerly Rollo) gave on the first day of his baptism to God and to holy Mary of the church of Rouen a very great tract of land… On the sixth (day) to holy Peter and holy Aicadrus of the church of Jumièges. So Dudo in Du Chesne among the ancient writers of the Histories of the Normans, pag. 85, and William, a monk of Jumièges in the twelfth century, transferred almost the same words into his History of the Normans in the same Du Chesne, pag. 231.
[3] A third proof of the great veneration toward our Saint is His body, on account of the impending devastation of the monastery, the care and solicitude of the monks of Jumièges for preserving his sacred body, and for withdrawing it from the sacrilegious rage of the heathen Normans, to which end they translated it elsewhere. About this translation we discoursed in tom. 1 of April, pag. 846, on the occasion of St. Hugh archbishop of Rouen; wherefore we shall here refrain from certain matters pertaining to its date, and from others there fully examined, and shall set out its order simply only and summarily, as we have drawn it from Baldric bishop of Tournai and Noyon, an author of the end of the eleventh century, in the Chronicle of Cambrai, lib. 2, chap. 29; from Orderic Vitalis, about the same time a monk of Saint-Évroul, lib. 6 of the Ecclesiastical History, and from other writers to be named.
[4] When therefore in the ninth century the Normans were pressing in and devastating everything, translated in the ninth century to Haspres, where it shone the monks of Jumièges fled with the sacred bodies of SS. Aichardus and Hugh to Haspres, a village situated midway between Cambrai and Valenciennes, which, whether at that time it belonged to the abbey of Jumièges, or whether it was afterwards granted to it only by the liberality of some prince, Baldric doubts; and then, he says, when these remained thereafter at this village, a monastery being made and monks appointed to their praise, the kind and merciful God deigned to work many, nay most famous, prodigies of power, so much indeed that no one of the neighboring magnates, or of those passing that way at any time on campaign, has dared henceforth to inflict any presumption upon it. We believe that these prodigies and benefits were the cause why the men of Jumièges could never afterwards recover those sacred pledges, however much labor they spent upon it. Jacques de Guyse relates the matter more fully in his manuscript Chronicle of Hainaut, lib. 14, chap. 6.
[5] In which period, he says, of the Normans' devastation, with many prodigies, and there, the said bodies of the Saints flashed forth at Haspres and in the neighboring parts with miracles so many and so great that the whole people of the neighboring cities was drawn to devotion toward the said Saints: whence emperors, kings, princes and counts enlarged the said cell (of Haspres) with gifts, privileges, grants and munificence. When at last the Normans and Danes were pacified and converted to the faith, then in time of peace the abbot of Jumièges with his whole community sent envoys to the cell at Haspres, that the said bodies of the Saints might be sent back to them. Upon which matters the Prior and the bishop of Cambrai, gathered with the nobles of the surrounding territories, decreed likewise to go for this cause into the emperor's presence. And the emperor decreed at last that, with certain covenants and arrangements made peaceably and harmoniously between the monastery of Jumièges and the cell of Haspres on the one part, and the emperor and both the said churches on the other, the said bodies of the Saints should remain at Haspres for ever; which has remained stable and firm to this present day.
[6] What those covenants were, by which the men of Jumièges suffered themselves to be deprived of so great a treasure in perpetuity, except a few relics, is not ascertained. Henschen in tom. 1 of April, treating of St. Hugh, conjectures that one of them was that at least some parts of the sacred bodies should be granted to the men of Jumièges. And indeed they possess to this day an arm of each Saint, as we learn from the manuscript Itinerary of Papebroch returning from Rome to Belgium, who turned aside from Rouen to the abbey of Jumièges on the XIII day of November of the year 1662, and noted that among other sacred relics there were preserved there the arms of SS. Aicadrus, second abbot of this place, and of St. Hugh, bishop of Rouen. And of these relics must be understood what is related in the Breviary of Rouen, printed both in the year 1626 and in 1736, at the XI day of April in the proper lesson of the Office of St. Hugh the archbishop, toward the end: His body, honorably laid in the basilica of the holy Mother of God Mary, was afterwards carried to Haspres, a town of the district of Cambrai, together with the body of holy Aicardus the abbot. The relics of both, brought back to Jumièges, are preserved in precious shrines and are honored with great veneration.
[7] afterwards brought back to Jumièges, Indeed in the same sense must be explained François Farin in his History of Christian Normandy, printed in French at Rouen in the year 1659, writing thus of St. Hugh at pag. 675: That sacred deposit was some time afterwards translated to Haspres, a priory of the abbey of St. Vaast in the diocese of Cambrai, to avoid the fury of the Danes, and remained there until the year MCXLI. When Orderic Vitalis, the famous historian, who in those times
flourished, says that he saw it in a silver shrine, where it was honored by the people and was preserved as the most precious treasure of the whole province. Those relics were afterwards brought back to Jumièges, where they are venerated with great honor. The words of the praised author must, I say, be explained in the sense given above; otherwise they are most apt to persuade the unlearned that the whole or nearly whole body of St. Hugh, as also of St. Aichardus, was brought back to the men of Jumièges, which is contrary to all authors generally, even those of Rouen, such as Dadré in the Chronology of the archbishops of Rouen, and Arthur du Monstier, who, in the Neustria pia published by the press in the year 1663, describing most fully the deeds of SS. Aichardus and Hugh, after relating the translation of the bodies into the priory of Haspres, at once adds: Where even now they shine with the glory of miracles.
[8] it has remained to this day. I pass over Le Mire in the Origins of the Benedictine monasteries in Belgium; De Raissius in the Hierogazophylacium; Colvenerius in the Notes on the Chronicle of Baldric, and other more recent writers, who with one voice affirm that the bodies of SS. Aichardus and Hugh rest at Haspres to this day. Nay, Henschen testifies in tom. 1 of April, pag. 847, that he beheld them on the VIII day of December in the year 1662, and Papebroch likewise in the Itinerary praised above, in these words: On the way (from Cambrai to Valenciennes) at Haspres, a priory of St. Vaast's, we saw the bodies of SS. Aichardus, second abbot of Jumièges, and Hugh, bishop of Rouen, laid in great shrines of ancient silver work. Our predecessors among the Prætermissi of the XIX day of March mentioned a certain translation in these words: The translation of the relics of SS. Hugh and Aicadrus to Jumièges is inscribed in the manuscript Martyrology of that same house in Normandy: and this is, unless I am mistaken, the commemoration of the arms of both Saints brought back; for I find no translation of relics besides that one which was made from another place to the monastery of Jumièges.
[9] Henschen likewise in the Prætermissi of the XVII day of the month of June mentions St. Aichardus from the Usuardine Additions of the Brussels codex: He is mentioned in certain calendars on the 17th of June, the words are these: St. Aichradus, abbot of Jumièges in Normandy. Who, when he had nine hundred monks, half of them, marked out beforehand to him by an angel at night, passed to the Lord on one day: whom he himself, following not long after, rested in Christ. I for my part have consulted most of the Benedictine calendars, to learn for what cause the Saint's memory recurred then, and I have found his name inscribed on that day in none, except in the manuscript Menology which is commonly called Grollus, where this announcement is found: The translation of St. Aichardus, abbot and confessor, and then there is likewise subjoined the story, though much more prolix, of the death of half the monks of Jumièges. But what translation is here designated? Is it that by which the body came from Jumièges to Haspres? I should not easily believe it, since in neither place is there any mention of St. Hugh the bishop, carried thither at the same time and for the same cause.
[10] It seems to me more probable that in the said Menology the Saint's translation is wrongly noted; perhaps on the occasion of his disciples, whom many call Saints. and if anywhere his commemoration is made, or was formerly made, at the XVII day of June, I should think this happened on the occasion of the death of so many of his disciples, whose memory was perhaps kept on the said day among the monks of Jumièges. The same seems to have been the mind of Henschen at the place cited; since after reporting the words of the Brussels Auctarium he immediately begins a discussion of the cult or veneration of those monks: The monks of Jumièges, he says, treated much with us about the veneration due to these, when we were among them in the year MDCLXII. Let it be indicated, as we then asked, if anything has been established by Ecclesiastical authority, and then they may be treated on the birthday to heaven of St. Aichradus himself, the XV of September. Nothing further about these have we been taught up to now. Yepes indeed in his Annals and other writers of the Order of St. Benedict run on at length in praise of them as holy confessors, following Fulbert the biographer of St. Aichardus in Surius, and our anonymous author, from whom the reader will learn the marvelous death of those same monks; nevertheless they do not so prove their lawful cult that it has seemed good to us to treat of them today of set purpose, either separately or together with St. Aichardus.
[11] That the chief festival of St. Aichardus is kept every year on the XV day of September, His chief festival on the 15th of September. which was the day of his death, we gather from the unanimous consent of almost all writers, ancient and recent, who commemorate him on that day. Almost all, I say; because among the auctaria of Usuard I read him noted in the Centula codex on the day immediately following, to which probably in some places his Office is deferred on account of the concurrent octave of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. We have here a proper Missal of the church of Cambrai, printed at Paris in the year 1527, in which at the said XV day the order of the Mass to be said of our Saint is prescribed. The Introit, the Prayers, the Offertory and the Communion are taken from the common of abbots: the Lesson from chap. 47 of Ecclesiasticus: The Lord gave confession to his Saint, and to the Most High in a word of glory. With his whole heart, etc.; to which is subjoined the Gradual: The mouth of the Just shall meditate wisdom, and his tongue shall speak judgment. ℣. The law of his God is in his heart, and his steps shall not be supplanted. Alleluia. ℣. I have found David my servant, with my holy oil I have anointed him. The Gospel, from chap. XI of Luke: No man lights a lamp and sets it in a hidden place, etc.
[12] About the miracles and benefits obtained by the Saint's patronage authors write most honorably. The words of Baldric, chronicler of Cambrai and Arras, we gave at num. 4; those of Jacques de Guyse at num. 5; Guillaume Gazet in his Ecclesiastical History of Belgium written in French, pag. 57: His body, he says, was carried on account of the Normans' incursion to the priory of Haspres, whither there flows a frequent multitude of visiting faithful because of very many miracles of the sick restored to health, especially of those whom he himself in his own language calls accariastes. There is a dispute about the etymology of the word accariaste or acariatre among the French Grammarians: there are those who would have it grown together out of the Greek privative ἀ and the word κάρη, head, so that it signifies a demented man, or a man without head or mind. Others prefer it derived from the barbarous-Latin word aceriaster, acariaster, whose first root is acer, acris, so that accordingly it denotes nothing else than a man of bitter, morose and stubborn disposition. Others take refuge elsewhere, and among these some judge that word to be derived from the Saint's own French name Acaire, because he is the one who drives away this evil.
[13] demented persons are restored to their senses, possessed persons are freed. It is not part of our undertaking to determine the etymologies of French words: yet I shall readily grant that acariatre, from wherever it may have arisen, is generally used to designate a bitter and stubborn disposition; but so far as it concerns our particular purpose, I scarcely doubt that by that word are meant men whose reason has been disturbed or whose brain overturned, whether by disease or by any other chance; and thus, although the etymology may perhaps have been sought a little too far from the Greek tongue, the signification nevertheless agrees well enough. For that recourse was had to our Saint in similar diseases, De Raissius too testifies in the Hierogazophylacium, pag. 242: He, he says, when invoked, brings help and aid to those laboring under headache and frenzy. The brothers of Sainte-Marthe in tom. IV of the Gallia Christiana, among the abbots of Jumièges, indicate that possessed persons too are freed by the Saint's patronage, in these words: He (Aichardus) rests at Haspres in the territory of Cambrai, honorably preserved in a silver shrine, and there together with St. Hugh the bishop he expels demons from the possessed.
[14] A heretic feigning himself possessed is punished, This very thing is confirmed by Thomas of Cantimpré, in the thirteenth century a religious of the Order of St. Dominic and, as some will have it, though others deny it, suffragan bishop of the prelate of Cambrai, in the Work which he entitled The Universal Good, or Concerning Bees, into which he inserted very many miracles and memorable deeds of his own time, and, bearing on our subject, the following, which is very marvelous. There was near the city of Cambrai a certain heretic, exceedingly crafty, who, fearing to be sought out and burned by the Friars Preachers, who at that time were burning very many in the said city, feigned himself seized by a demon, and on this account was led bound by his friends to holy Aicadrus at Haspres, who was mighty to heal the possessed, that in him they might reckon not heresy made public but frenzy. And when a certain cleric possessed by a demon and bound heard that Giles Boogris (for so he was called) was to be laid bound in the place, on the following night that same possessed cleric was by God's nod loosed. And gathering mats and straw and the benches of the church, he heaped them upon the bound heretic. But the other, believing it a game and a frenzy, dissembled, until the cleric, taking fire from a lamp, began to burn the heap, and then the heretic cried out. At whose cry the guards, awakened, when they strove to put out the fire, the cleric, snatching up a sword which he found beside the bed, violently drove them all away, and burned the heretic in the fire. And without delay, the divine judgment being carried out, the cleric appeared freed from the demon and fully sound. So the praised author, lib. 2, chap. 57, num. 68, with whom let the credit of this story rest. Certainly it was contrary to custom and to the rules of prudence to leave a sword beside the bed of a raving man; unless we suppose that he had been so well bound that the guards, fearing nothing at all from him, laid down their arms in the same place.
Annotations* Gemeticensi * al. Eligius,
§ II. The three Lives, when and by whom written, and which are to be given here.
The Life of the Saint which Surius published, The most widely circulated Life of St. Aichardus exists in Surius at the XV day of September. The author names himself Fulbert, and asserts that he wrote at the command of the monks of Jumièges, to whom he dedicates his Work. Hence probably Vossius in lib. 3 of the Latin Historians called him a monk of Jumièges, which Mabillon in the second Century of the Acts of the Saints of the Order of St. Benedict, pag. 953, says is neither sufficiently clear nor easy to determine, namely who that Fulbert was. He himself brings forward three of that name who flourished in the tenth and eleventh centuries: Fulbert bishop of Cambrai, Fulbert bishop of Chartres, and Fulbert a monk of the monastery of St. Ouen at Rouen, which last wrote a book on the miracles of the said St. Ouen; to him Mabillon attributes the Life of St. Aichardus, not only because the author calls the monks of Jumièges his Lords in the prologue, in which manner bishops would not have spoken, but especially because the style in both places, namely in the Life of our Saint and in the book of the miracles of St. Ouen, is little dissimilar, and because the same cause of both lucubrations is represented, namely an admonition received in sleep to shake off sloth and to carry out the task. And in both places it is intimated that that admonition was made as it were divinely by a certain person of venerable white hair, carrying a rod or staff in his hand, as is read in almost the same words in the prologue of the Life of St. Aichardus
in Surius, and likewise in the prologue to the Miracles of St. Ouen in our Work, tom. IV of August, pag. 825.
[16] Therefore, if the opinion of the praised Mabillon is true, the Life of our Saint compiled by Fulbert probably written in the eleventh century. is not older than the eleventh century; since the Miracles of St. Ouen were dedicated to Nicholas, abbot of the monastery of St. Ouen, who died about the year 1092, as the brothers of Sainte-Marthe show at length in tom. 4 of the Gallia Christiana, and Pommeraye in the History of the said monastery, lib. 3, chap. 7. Whence this Life has very slight authority from the age of the writer; he does indeed mention an older Life, but one, in his judgment, so inelegant that he could scarcely be induced to correct it, or rather to remake it entirely. Take his own words: To his Lords, namely the most holy brethren of the monastery of Jumièges, Fulbert a sinner, greeting. As to my being accused of having so often deferred, though so often bidden by you, to set my hand to the Life of blessed Aichardus, if it please you to examine the cause, I shall be found not unreasonably, as it seems to me, to have shrunk from the burden of so great a load. For, to confess the truth, I once ran through the text of his Life, found by me by chance, which in places I found swollen, so to speak, with empty billows of words. And if I had wished to remove these according to your command, and had left the vacant place without an addition, then, since the interrupted sequence of words would produce ill-cohering sentences, I should have left it not corrected but rather curtailed, and wholly unsuitable… I therefore, not feeling the skill of so subtle a talent to be alive in me, resolved either wholly to omit it, or wholly, if it were lawful, to remake it. But the latter seemed proud, the former arduous. For to pass over your commands was proud; to attempt what is beyond one's powers would have been rashness, not reason. He then adds that he was driven to write by the vision mentioned in the preceding num.
[17] The second, published by Mabillon, Mabillon praised above published another Life from the manuscript codices of Jumièges and of St. Vaast, older than Fulbert's, and, as he intimates, that very one which Fulbert, having it before his eyes, adorned with more polished language, and indeed in many places badly interpolated. Of its author he discourses thus: The author, a monk of Jumièges, lived a little after the disaster of the Northmen and the restoration of the monastery of Jumièges, which William, a monk of Jumièges, testifies in lib. III of the History, chap. VII, was made about the year CMXX, when William was the first duke of the Northmen. For that anonymous author calls Aicadrus our Patron in his Preface, and in chap. XXXII calls St. Hugh archbishop of Rouen the son of the emperor Charles: which opinion or fable was born at least a century after the death of Charlemagne. Nor certainly was this Life drawn up by the anonymous writer later, as is established from the other Jumièges transcript which we used, which is read to have been written out by order of abbot Anno, that is, about the year CML.
[18] does indeed bear marks, The lineage of St. Hugh archbishop of Rouen our Henschen discussed in tom. 1 of April, pag. 843, and showed that his father was not Charlemagne but Drogo, son of Pippin of Herstal and brother of Charles Martel, and fixed his death in the year 730, almost a whole century before the death of Charlemagne, who died about the year 814. Now the words alleged by Mabillon, unless the passage has met with an interpolator, prove indeed evidently that this Life was written long after the times of Charlemagne; yet the religious of the Order of St. Benedict, the writers of the Literary History of France, observe in tom. 4, pag. 480, that Mabillon and his followers on that point did not turn their minds to the whole context of the anonymous writer, from which it ought equally evidently to follow that the author lived and wrote before the irruption of the Normans and the restoration of his monastery. For after relating the death and obsequies of the monks, of whom we made mention at num. 10, and in whose midst St. Aichardus wished his own body to be laid after death, the anonymous writer continues thus in the praised Mabillon: There rejoice EVEN STILL there the holy pontiffs of God and most blessed confessors of Christ, namely Hugh, son of the great emperor Charles, archbishop of the see of Rouen, and Constantine, prelate of holy memory of the church of Beauvais, and also blessed Peregrinus, bishop of the English, together with holy Flavius, in their holy presence and worthy intercession, whose holy relics STILL remain buried in the Lord WITH THEM.
[19] whence it could be believed older than the tenth century, But the sacred relics of SS. Aichardus and Hugh were not buried at Jumièges after the disaster of the Normans and the restoration of the monastery, since, when these were pressing in, they were translated to Haspres; as Mabillon himself relates in more than one place, citing as witness Baldric in the Chronicle of Cambrai and Arras; therefore that monk of Jumièges wrote the Life before the irruption of the Normans, and consequently a whole century earlier than Mabillon would have it. Thus in substance the praised writers of the Literary History reason, and they add that the difficulty on which Mabillon relies, arising namely from Hugh's being called son of Charlemagne, is easily removed if we believe that those words were added by a copyist, as happens most frequently. I confess that, while I consider that passage of the author alone, the conclusion drawn from it appears to me so just that I should believe their opinion almost historically certain, and should think him foolish who so explained the words that the author was speaking not of the bodies but only of the relics of SS. Aichardus and Hugh, which had remained at Jumièges, or rather had been brought back thither after the restoration of the monastery.
[20] Nevertheless our anonymous author speaks elsewhere in such a manner but he has other passages also, that you not only see clearly that he was far removed from the times of the Saints, but may with reason suspect that he is later than the irruption of the Normans and the restoration of the monastery destroyed by them. Thus he has it at num. 39: On the seventh day they (SS. Aichardus and Filibert) at last came, together with the holy bishop (Ansoald of Poitiers), and with the Lord accompanying them, to the sacred place of Jumièges; where so great a number of God's elect monks, so to speak, ran to meet them, that scarcely anyone's mind would call it possible to be believed. For, as the credible report of that place bore witness, at that time the number of monks was nine hundred, and of the others, whom they called servants, fifteen hundred. And if anyone wishes to know this more truly, let him read the Life of blessed Filibert, where he speaks of the dormitory of that household, and there he will find whither he may turn a believing mind. From the former part of this passage is clear what we laid down first. For who would deny that the author is far removed from the matter which he relates about his own monastery, who, in order to make it credible, has recourse to the testimony of report?
[21] But our suspicion is founded on the second part also. whence we are forced For he appeals to the Life of St. Filibert, in order to confirm by it what he had brought forward on the testimony of report about the scarcely credible number of the inhabitants of the monastery of Jumièges; but the author of that Life, who flourished at the end of the seventh century or the beginning of the eighth, nowhere expresses a number, and where he treats of the dormitory, has nothing besides the following: A twofold house, facing toward the South, two hundred and ninety feet in length, fifty in breadth, rises for the purpose of rest. Through each of the beds the light shines through windows, and a lamp piercing the glass cherishes the gaze of the reader. Beneath are twin buildings suited to two offices. Here the wines are stored to be kept, here bright meals are prepared; and there they assemble who worthily serve Christ. For my part I find no other cause why our anonymous author should have appealed to that passage of the Life of St. Filibert, except that by the capacity and size of the buildings described there he might persuade the incredulous that what report had spread abroad about so great a number of monks and others was true.
[22] But truly, if that anonymous writer wrote before the coming of the Normans, to suspect the contrary. what need was there to have recourse to the testimony of another writer to demonstrate the size of the monastery, then still standing? For nowhere is it read to have been destroyed before the said coming of the Normans, by whom it is established, on the testimony of very many writers, to have been overthrown from the foundations. Hear William of Jumièges in Du Chesne, pag. 219: They (the Normans) attack the harbor of the Vermandois in the year from the Lord's Incarnation DCCCLI. And leaping from their ships they at once give the whole county over to Vulcan. Then, with certain things interposed: Thereafter they attack the shore of the Seine, and at Jumièges they set a siege with their fleet stationed there. Behold, they prepare a siege, because Filibert had girt the monastery with walls, on the testimony of his biographer, who writes thus: He built round about in a square towered walls rising in a great mass. But the monks or inhabitants, the words again are William's, learning of the coming of the pagans, slipped away in flight, hiding some of their goods under the earth, carrying away others with them, and, with God's help, escaped. The pagans, finding the place empty, set fire to and burn the monastery of holy Mary and holy Peter and all the buildings, reducing everything to a wilderness. This overthrow being thus wrought, the place which had long flourished with so great a splendor of honor, all being driven out and the houses overthrown, began to be a lair of beasts and birds.
[23] the anonymous author compels us. The same things are noted more briefly in the ancient History of the translations of St. Ouen in our Work, tom. IV of August, pag. 820. At last therefore, says the author, making an irruption by the wide river Seine, they (the army of the Danes) burned with fire the monastery of Jumièges with all its buildings. Likewise in Matthew of Westminster, who, setting out in summary at the year 887 the evils inflicted on the Gauls under Hastings, duke of the Normans or Danes, has it thus: Thence, directing their fleet to Jumièges, they burn the monastery of nine hundred monks. Those testimonies suffice for us to believe that the monastery of Jumièges continued in that extent of site and buildings in which it was erected by St. Filibert until the irruption of the Normans; and since our anonymous author lets us doubt whether he ever saw it in that extent, we can consequently doubt also whether he lived and wrote before the said irruption; especially when his text alleged against Mabillon can at least somehow be explained, and thus Mabillon's own opinion about the biographer's age be retained.
[24] Judgments But, you say, is that Life then of such value that the learned have labored so far to determine its date? I answer that neither on this point are they agreed among themselves. Mabillon, however openly he does not bring out his own view, must be supposed to have made much of it, since he judged that Fulbert must be corrected according to it, and that the opinions of earlier writers must be abandoned, especially where the question is about our Saint's Chronological order and the year of his death, which some had referred to 680 of Christ, others to 684, others to 690, indeed even to 720; but he himself, on the authority of the anonymous writer, fixed the year 687; and in this he has had as followers all the more recent writers whom I have seen, not even excepting those with whom the same anonymous writer is of very slight authority. Among these Baillet in the critical Table prefixed to the month of September pronounces thus: His Life (that of St. Aichardus), nearly two hundred and fifty years
after his death, was drawn up by a monk who was flourishing at the beginning of the tenth century; because it is the most ancient, it is more tolerable than all that have hitherto been published, but it has no great authority.
[25] of more recent writers The praised writers of the Literary History of France freely acknowledge that there are errors in the anonymous writer's work, and grave ones; yet they contend that greater authority is due to him; because after an attentive reading of it no one can deny that the author was furnished with genuine documents, so as to set out the circumstances of the events in the manner in which he did. I confess that this author, later by fully two centuries than the events, everywhere depicts particulars in such a way that a contemporary writer, an eyewitness and ear-witness, a companion and sharer of the secrets, could not set out the smallest details more distinctly. But whether from this greater authority is due to him, we do not yet see. For, first, his very defenders disapprove of the more prolix speeches and exhortations with which he strove unseasonably to adorn his material, and which, with the rather frequent conversations of the persons among themselves, make up the greater part of it. Secondly, according to the same writers he takes delight here and there in marvelous things, and seems to have been given over to credulity more than is lawful by the rules of right criticism. Let us add, thirdly, that although he is believed to have been furnished with older and trustworthy documents, we suspect that he used them more freely than was fair, indeed that he added, altered, and invented very many things according to his own bent and judgment.
[26] He himself gave occasion for that suspicion, when he indicated that he had before his eyes the Life of St. Filibert, and our own judgment about the authority of the Life to be published here. and yet did not hesitate to depart from it — unless perhaps he had another, written by a nearly contemporary author — where he relates at what time and on what occasion St. Filibert substituted St. Aichardus for himself as abbot in the monastery of Jumièges. For what the other relates as done after St. Filibert's exile of nine years, after the founding of the monastery of Noirmoutier in the borders of the Poitevins, and after the departure from life of Ebroin the Mayor of the Palace, at whose hands the same Filibert had suffered much, all this our anonymous author sets out in such a way that you would believe it to have happened at the beginning of the persecution and exile, and long before Ebroin's death, as the reader will more clearly perceive in our Annotations, when we shall set words against words. As for the style: it is rendered obscure and inelegant not only by the longer and badly twisted senses, but also by solecisms, barbarous and unusual words, and other faults of speech of this kind, which, because they are rather frequent, I shall pass over unremarked and leave to the reader to correct. Finally, to say nothing of the longer conversations of which I spoke above, and the frequent accounts of banquets and refections, which make the narrative gloomy, indeed at times ridiculous, our anonymous author's work pleases me so little that I believe it is scarcely to be preferred to the Fulbertine Life published by Surius on any other title than that of antiquity. I shall give it from an ancient parchment codex which once belonged to the abbey of Vaucelles, and is marked among us P. Ms. 158. Its reading differs in many places from Mabillon's edition, in some places more correct, in some even more faulty, as will be seen in the margin and in the Annotations.
[27] The Life written by Fulbert we shall pass over, and shall substitute for it another much shorter one from a manuscript of St. Salvator of Utrecht. To this we append another, shorter, by an anonymous author of unknown date. It contains scarcely anything besides bare facts, and not even all of those which are related by others. The style is altogether simple; but from no mark do I detect the author's condition or age: the order, however, which he kept in relating the deeds is so conformable to that which Fulbert observed that I doubt whether the latter had the shorter Life before his eyes, or whether this was extracted from him. The former the said simplicity of style somewhat urges, but the words of the same Fulbert quoted at num. 16 likewise dissuade, by which he plainly signifies that the Life which he had found was more prolix. But he could have had both the more prolix one and this shorter one, although he did not indicate it. Certainly in more than one place Fulbert's narrative differs so greatly from the fuller Life of our oft-mentioned anonymous writer that he must be said either to have been helped by other documents, or to have invented certain things without foundation and cause. For the rest, we here give no foretaste concerning St. Aichardus's native country, parents, year of birth and of death, or the like; because these particulars are sufficiently drawn out from the Life of the earlier anonymous writer, on whose credit we are compelled to set them forth, since better documents are lacking to us.
Annotations* Gemeticensis * rather XXXIII
A SUSPECT LIFE
by an anonymous monk of Jumièges.
From a manuscript codex, collated with Mabillon's edition.
Aichardus, or Aichadrus, abbot of Jumièges, in Normandy (St.)
BHL Number: 0181
By an anonymous author.
PROLOGUE.
Since many are the deeds or miracles of God's Elect, hidden away in secret by the sloth and dullness of men, and since none of those on whom God has undeservedly conferred a breath of wisdom and knowledge strives to labor at this, that for the love of God and of his Saints he may accomplish something useful in return for so many spiritual gifts; I marvel why he does not call to mind this which the Wisdom of God says: Hidden wisdom and a concealed treasure, what profit is there in either? For concerning such and so great a matter he ought assuredly to receive that word of consolation, however slothful he be, which the Scripture says elsewhere: Open your mouth, and I will fill it. And: Lord, you will open my lips, and my mouth shall announce your praise. Here ends the Prologue.
ANNOTATION.
That Prologue, which in our codex breaks off in that manner, is continued, either by the author or by an interpolator, in Mabillon's edition by the following words: For if God, the inbreather of spirits, has ministered the will to anyone, assuredly the power too, for his good will, will not straightway be lacking to him; but he who makes the tongues of infants eloquent, and daily opens the mute mouth, and once granted a brute animal to speak, he too will deign to open his mouth also, namely that of the man who fears God, so far that he may say to the Lord: Come, kindly Spirit. By which grace let us together humbly entreat the Lord, the minister of all good things, that he may open someone's lip for the writing of the Life of Blessed Aicadrus, lest so great a dignity and blessedness should seem to be covered with silence, which will seem useful to many, and nearest of all, as I think, to monks. All frequent praise, which by skilled men is called glory, belongs especially to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, which Trinity flows back into the Unity of almighty God. For this is that of which the Psalmist says: This glory is to all his Saints. For in this we praise and venerate those glorious men, who by living well and working rightly conquered the kingdoms of the world; by the intercession of all of whom we ask that the Lord may grant us understanding and increase our faith for relating something about blessed Aicadrus our patron, so that a reward may thence grow up to us from God, and that from him we may obtain a continual intercession for so slight a labor. Likewise our codex lacks the old division into chapters, which we append from the same Mabillon after the Prologue.
HERE BEGIN THE CHAPTERS,
Concerning the virtues or Life of our most blessed Father, abbot and confessor.
Chap. I. Of the parents and birth or first training of Blessed Aicadrus. II. How he came to learn letters. III. Of the leave obtained from his master, and how he revisited his parents. IV. How, coming to the holy place, he shore the hair of his head. V. How he conducted himself in his fourth lustrum. VI. How the purpose of building a monastery clung to his mind. VII. How he came to the holy place, and holy bishop Ansoald with him. VIII. Where lord Aicadrus submitted himself to the patronage of Blessed Filibert. IX. How the Saint of God conducted himself in his sixth lustrum. X. How his fame came to the knowledge of Blessed Filibert, and how the latter sent his messengers to him. XI. Of the reception of Blessed Filibert's messengers. XII. How, their errand accomplished, they returned home. XIII. How Blessed Filibert went after the holy Man. XIV. Of the reception of Blessed Filibert afterwards by lord bishop Ansoald. XV. Of the address to holy Aicadrus. XVI. How those two most holy men appeared in a vision to blessed Aicadrus of God. XVII. Of the coming of the lord bishop and of Blessed Filibert to Quinciacum. XVIII. Of the banquet of God's Elect. XIX. How St. Aicadrus ordained another abbot in his own place. XX. Of the setting out of the servants of God and of the faithful. XXI. How he came to Jumièges. XXII. How lord Aicadrus took up the place of government. XXIII. How the power of prayer had been given him by the Lord. XXIV. Of the tree cut down by a demon. XXV. Of the trimming of his hair. XXVI. Of the man Astasius, how he handed over Tortoniacum to God and to St. Peter at Jumièges. XXVII. How Aicadrus, the saint of God, hung his gloves on a sunbeam. XXVIII. Of the horrible shade seen by the blessed Man of God. XXIX. Of the calling of the faithful. XXX. How an angel of the Lord came to the Man of God. XXXI. How the Man of God prayed. XXXII. Of the admonition of the Man of God, and the absolution given, and the holy Viaticum, and likewise of the death of the Saints. XXXIII. Of the burial of the Saints. XXXIV. Of the vision and the address of the angel. XXXV. How St. Aicadrus lived three years afterwards, and of his most holy death.
CHAPTER I.
The Saint's native country, parents, education, monastic profession, virtues, and the building of the monastery of Quinciacum.
[ ] Born of noble parents, he is handed over to a master Blessed Aychadrus, then, born of the region of Aquitaine and from the suburb a of the city of Poitiers, was begotten, according to the greatness of this transitory age, of a noble father Anscharius and a mother Ermena b. For his said parents, anointed as it were with a most sweet liquor by this celebrated birth, after the Boy was weaned handed him over with the greatest diligence to be educated by a certain wise and most famous man, Ansfrid by name, an upright monk of the monastery of blessed Hilary of the aforesaid city, whose learning and holiness were so great that without doubt anyone dwelling with him would see nothing but holy things, and would do nothing but just things: and such religion had grown up in him that he was called a new c Martin by his fellow citizens on account of his sanctity. And when the Boy had been received by so great a fatherly care, he bade him sit with the other scholars. And because his early training was still most tender, listening to the other boys seemed to that master more useful for him in his first little flower than the teaching of the liberal letters.
[2] to be instructed. Yet what he did at the outset must not be passed over in silence. Being asked by his master what was his first desire for learning in that matter, he answered by divine instinct: Of those things which are God's, my lord and master, tell me first; afterwards remember to instil into me the things of the countryside. For those things which are God's remain untransitory: but those which are worldly are held to be perishable and ruinous. When this word was heard, the thing seemed marvelous to his teacher. But what in later time
he would do, he made to be as had been asked of him from boyhood. He was then a child of ten years when he sat in the school at the first bench d. Then, learning for two years those things which he had asked of his master, he began now to flourish and to send forth, as it were, most sweet fruits, and, from those things which were God's, nectar-like odors. And afterwards, passing from virtue to virtue, when five years had gone by, it seemed that he was already a master, and sat among the foremost of his fellow scholars. For the strength of religion had already passed into him, even as a failing of love for this age had begun in him.
[3] Meditating the monastic life And then, having obtained leave from his master, he revisited his parents, and, like a most prudent bird, prepared to fly on high. For hearing of the fame of religion in the place which by an ancient name was called Syon e, where the lord and holy confessor Jovinus f rests with the pledges of other Saints, he attempted to go thither, desiring to pluck some fruit of profit from their honey-flowing flowers. Then, having begun the journey, he came to the holy stronghold, and being received there with all honor, he went through the holy places and altars, praying for his own sins and those of others, and, worthy in body and worthier in mind, he took care to fulfil this holy work carefully.
[4] Finally, asking of the abbot of that holy place, together with his parents g, he withdraws into the monastery of Ansion, that he might be able to dwell for some time in their holy fellowship, and by living might imitate the holy religion by which that blessed family lived, he received this favor and leave from the abbot in charity, and, received into the holy lodging and taught the holy institutions of the Rule, he laid aside the hair of his head, and, taking up the sweet yoke of Christ and his light burden, he gave over his own limbs to their sweet embraces. And there how the Man of the Lord conducted himself at the beginning, the blind and the lame and very many others weighed down with infirmity bore witness of their own accord at that time through the streets, villages and churches, and mightily called upon the Lord Jesus, Savior of all, for so great a blessedness granted to the faithful people.
[5] For being freed by his sanctity, the Lord being favorable, and he shines with miracles. they could not cover with silence those things which the kindly Lord had willed to be made public for the merit of so great a Man, to be recalled thereafter by the faithful; because it is written: It is honorable to confess and to reveal the works of God. And such was his religion there in his youth that no one of the old men could be made equal to him, although he was held of high merit among the foremost of that blessed family, since he had been a mirror of good works not only to those glorious athletes of God to whom he had joined himself h; but also, by all set in the neighborhood, he was graciously called a new angel by all.
[6] For he had now passed three i lustra, and in holy manners he kept watch in the temple of that kindly monastery like a young Samuel. Spurred to perfection by an unknown voice, And so on a certain day, while dutifully performing the said obedience, he heard someone, not knowing who was there, saying: The Saints shall go from virtue to virtue. Hearing which voice, astonished, he began to marvel and to run this way and that; and finding no one there, he gradually forced himself into a measure, and with clear voice replied: The God of gods shall be seen in Syon. And what companion of the faithful would wish to doubt that this voice, sent through by an angel, had been heard by him for this, that that Saint might for this reason be held the holier, and might for the rest remain safer and firmer in his holy purpose by the grace of exhortation? Yet in his life he wished this to be made known to no one, except only to a certain holy man for the sake of confession, lest that voice should be kept hidden and covered from the devil.
[7] Meanwhile he began earnestly to consider how he might offer to God some little gift out of his own means and on his own land, for himself and his fellow soldiers. he treats with his parents about building a new monastery, And when he had made this known to his father and mother — for both were assiduous worshippers of God and rooted and grounded in firm charity — they said: We give you thanks, Lord Jesus, who have granted so great a solace to our common infirmity and to us who are undeserving, and have given such a mind to our only Son. We ask therefore, O good Savior of all, that you confirm this our common counsel, and bring it through to fulfilment: since in your disposing rests the end and the beginning of this matter. And if this is pleasing to your will, let our counsel be strengthened in you and through you with your good pleasure.
[8] When this speech was ended, they said: Behold, Son, we offer to the Lord God and to St. Peter the apostle and to blessed Filibert the excellent abbot a part of our hereditary right, and on an estate obtained from them, our Quinciacum, which duly falls to you when we depart from this life l; where let the worthily now memorable abbot Filibert build a new church in honor of God and of holy Peter the apostle, and set there a few monks, true servants of God, to serve the Lord, and at the expense of all our revenues; and let so acceptable a gift be made to him that it may be a common remedy for our souls. And so, with wagons loaded, they came to that same place; and because the blessed man, namely Aychadrus, was fully instructed in the liberal studies, he was also not ignorant of the canons; for he had read that no one should build a church in another's bishopric or raise an altar without the leave of his bishop. Accordingly he went to Ansoald m, a man of good memory, the illustrious bishop of Poitiers, and most humbly made known to him the purpose of his mind, worthy and pleasing to God, and most willingly asked his counsel, that it might be strengthened by his holy authority.
[9] with the bishop of Poitiers cooperating, he completes the work; And the lord apostolic man, perceiving that this will in the Saint of God had been conferred by God, cleaved with all his effort to his holy desire, and not only granted him leave according to the will of his mind, but himself also, mounting his horse, hastened at once with his faithful men to carry out this work, on this understanding, namely, that he should both build the holy work together with him at his own expense, and consecrate the foundations of that house with his holy blessing. Coming to the place, they first gave thanks to God, and then set their holy hands, together with the rest of the fellow workers, to beginning the holy work. Nor indeed did the aforesaid pontiff of God make an end of this sacred work before he had both brought the holy oratory of God to complete perfection together with the Saint of God, and had it dedicated in honor of the kindly and most glorious Mother of God Mary.
[10] then, the dedication of the church having been celebrated, Which done n, they both worthily gave praises to God and dutifully completed the celebration of Masses. But afterwards, God's work being finished, they both gave themselves to bodily refreshment. And when the meal had been passed with hymn-singing, the reader who had read at the holy table added at the end of his lesson that word of David: This is the day which the Lord has made, let us exult and be glad in it. On hearing which, the saints of God, namely Ansoald the worthy pontiff of God and Aychadrus the monk of worthy blessedness, became the more cheerful; and with bodily gladness, together with the fear of God, they loved one another. And so that holy day, God ministering, remained joyful between those twin Men.
[11] he subjects himself and the monastery to the institute of St. Filibert: For on the same day the man of God Aychadrus, in the presence of the glorious lord bishop Ansoald, made himself over to the patronage of blessed Filibert, vowing himself and Quinciacum itself to the service of God o. And when the evening synaxis together with the office of Compline had been performed, bidding one another farewell, that night, God helping, they rested in peace; until, at cockcrow, beginning again the night office, they carried it through to the end. But afterwards, the holy work being brought to its holy conclusion, at the third hour of the day the holy pontiff enriched the blessed Man with pledges of the Saints: and then, each bidding the other farewell, they fell together into a holy kiss. And when prayer had been made between them, the lord pontiff returned home; and the Saint of God then remained in his hereditary house as at the beginning, about to devise useful things.
[12] by the exceptional holiness of his life For his sixth lustrum had now passed in him; and he who before in boyhood and youth had transferred himself wholly to the meekness of innocence or to holiness was now at this time shown to be another man by all who knew him. And rightly, since he had already come to the measure of the fullness of Christ; he had bound himself wholly to the contemplation of another man. And thenceforth he began to live with such frugality that no one saw him again refreshed with food and drink, and none thought him drowsy. For he was wakeful in prayers; upright in chastity; and generous in charity. And what more is there to say? He was given to all as a mirror of good works, so to speak, according to the Apostle, both to angels and to men.
[13] So it came about that all who dwelt in the city [q] he draws others to himself. flocked to his teachings, and drew spiritual honey from his honey-flowing mouth. Fifteen monks too from neighboring places, whom he knew to be more approved in sanctity and more shining in good repute, he drew to himself by exhorting and encouraging them, entreating them that they should remain without interruption in the accustomed holiness of religion, after the manner of the holy monks living there under the holy patronage of Filibert, and that they should live blamelessly in their holy purpose, as the Rule taught; so that they might both live to themselves after the manner of Saints pleasing to God, and might be able by living well to offer an example to others. And the said little monastery began again to grow in good repute, until, for its most holy continence and its abundance of religion, the said monastery was called excellent among the most renowned places of the Saints. And because a lamp set upon a mountain cannot be hidden, the fame of the most blessed Man began to grow so much that the whole region of Aquitaine rejoiced at his most holy manner of life.
ANNOTATIONS.
Since the new grace surpasses the ancient law.
Where rudis gratia is taken for the new or Gospel Law, and is opposed to the old. The sense of ours therefore can be that that man received this name because on account of his exceptional sanctity he seemed to be a new
or a second St. Martin: and probably for the same reason St. Aichardus is called below a young Samuel. For the rest, Fulbert in Surius prefixes to these things a dispute of the father and mother about choosing the Son's state of life, in that the former desired to hand him over to worldly warfare, the latter to consecrate him to the divine service according to a vow conceived beforehand: which quarrel was decided when the holy Boy intimated to his father that it was fully determined by him to serve God alone. Something similar is related also in our shorter Life, which see at num. 1.
p. Mabillon: And what more is it necessary to say?
q. Ibid. Whom he had had in the neighborhood. Other changes of words of lighter moment I sometimes neglect, lest the margins be too much filled.
* discendæ * Mabil. locuto * ibid. didascali. * ibid. is added trahere * ibid. & * Mabil. ubi ubi * ibid. retorsit * ibid. construxit * ibid. constituit * ibid. eo is lacking * ibid. die orta * ibid. is added & erat * ibid. contemplative * ibid. factum * Filiberti
CHAPTER II.
St. Aichardus confirms his subjection when messengers are sent by St. Filibert.
[ ] St. Filibert sends two monks from Jumièges to Quinciacum, Now there was dwelling in those days a man of good disposition and most holy manner of life in a certain most renowned monastery, outstanding in all holiness and resources, named Jumièges, the aforesaid Filibert by name, worthy of God and most famous of all the Saints in Neustria; to whom, when the knowledge of the blessed Man came, with ardent love and fervent affection he took pains to send his own men as messengers to his sanctity for the sake of brotherhood and love: so that they might love one another, and in the exercise of sacred prayer might each entreat the Lord for the other, and might be present in spirit as brothers, though a long expanse of lands held them divided in body. And because the Holy Spirit is divided through a sevenfold grace, that same holy man, namely blessed Filibert, diligently sought the spirit of counsel and of piety, that it might graciously come down to the ears of the heart of the aforesaid most blessed Aychadrus, and inflame him with its holy ray in brotherly love, so that at the coming of his faithful men those two excellent Men and athletes of God, joined afterwards as bone and flesh in their sacred bodies by the holy breath, might remain united together, so that they might sing together that word of David: How good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell in unity; and that those two candlesticks, which were as yet divided far apart, might now be shining together for the profit of the souls of the faithful b.
[15] Two holy monks, therefore, were sent to make this haste, of which Aichardus, forewarned by an angel, one of whom was called Sidonius c, the other Predo, both of them vigorous and fitting men of outstanding sanctity, and eagerly and swiftly within a few days they fulfilled the obedience laid upon them. Nor is there any doubt that with them that same angel was a companion on the journey who once carried the prophet Habakkuk from Judea into Chaldea to the Babylonian pit, to the seer Daniel sitting unharmed in the pit of lions, without delay. But because the divine Spirit runs everywhere without delay, through the prayers of blessed Filibert, one day before the messengers reached the place of St. Peter, there appeared by night to the blessed man Aychadrus an angel of splendid countenance, addressing him thus: Hail, Teacher of those rewarded by God d, and most faithful intercessor of the faithful. For on account of your most holy intercession, in which you labor unceasingly for the flock entrusted to you and for God's faithful, a reward remains laid up for you by God. Nay rather, be without doubt; for on the day on which this night shall dawn, there will come here to you two most holy monks to bring a divine message. And because you have always affectionately kept the twofold love of God and of neighbor on your lips and on the altar of your heart, behold, a fellowship conferred by God now comes to you. And although you still remain unaware of this matter, yet in the holy fellowship of the blessed family of Jumièges, and of its patron and elect of God Filibert, you shall be loved from the heart as an only son and shall be joined to them. Wherefore remember to embrace the messengers with all charity, and hold Filibert, God's holy one, who sent these excellent men to you, with the utmost diligence in worthy honor, as a father e.
[16] he receives on their arrival with great charity This spiritual address being ended, at once the two olive trees who had been sent arrived and reported those things which had been divinely laid upon them by God's holy one. Hearing which, the said holy Aychadrus of God, a monk supreme in religion, at once at their most holy coming adored the Lord and rendered worthy thanks to God, who had directed these weights of charity to his Servant from distant parts. Thereafter, having received the monks, he led them to the house of the audience chamber, and washed their feet, and afterwards, after the celebration of Masses, led the said excellent men with the utmost reverence to the holy refection.
[17] and with festivity; And the household of that place, coming rejoicing to meet them, adored the Lord, who had been worthily received in them, and kissing one another with a holy kiss they wept for joy, saying with one voice: May the charity of brotherhood, which never suffers division, remain in us your homeborn servants, O Lord, and may the God of peace and of love be always both in us who are present and continually in those who are absent. And when Amen had been said by all, they came to the table, and, a blessing being given and the reading begun at the same time, they began to feast with thanksgiving in the Lord, who had joined his servants together in that holy banquet. And the reader who read to the brethren at this holy feast recited the Epistle of blessed Paul the apostle, saying: Let hope, faith, charity remain in you f, and the rest. Which reading both suited the Abbot and offered an exhortation to the holy family.
[18] and, when they had been led in by prayers, After this, the holy banquet being ended and a hymn sung, sitting together they spoke many useful things on both sides, which both stirred up an indissoluble love, with the Holy Spirit breathing, and furnished to some a sighing weeping even to little streams of tears. And so, staying there in holy conversations one day and a second and a third, those who had been sent were busily treating of provisions for the return: and when the venerable Abbot learned this, refusing with the love of brotherhood he declined with tears, saying: Peace be with you, brothers; far be it from you to speak so: for rest has not yet been given to the hooves of your horses, and at the same time our
kindliness has been granted no opportunity. Wherefore we earnestly ask your unsevering mind that you stay with us at least thirty days, drawn by the love of the twofold charity and by the perpetual refreshments of blessed Filibert, our kind father.
[19] that for some time For it is not right, most beloved Brothers, that your consoling hope should return from us so quickly, which will come to us undeserving, the little servants of your father, gladly to minister to your sanctity. For flesh is not separated from bone in any man without pain, nor can our inextricable love toward your most kindly affection, which remains fixed in the hearts of our people, be separated by so slight a motion from our tender inward parts. For we are your bone and flesh. Wherefore stay with us these few days without human anxiety, in the love of brotherhood, with holy conversations; and afterwards, enriched with the Lord's blessing, you shall carry back the service and subjection of us all to our common lord, the most blessed Filibert, entreating that we may remain under this burden until with God's help we deserve to see one another. For we are ready to obey the subjections of our lord father Filibert, as his sanctity shall command, and as the will of Jesus Christ our Savior shall determine: for in him, as the Apostle says, we both move and are.
[20] So the disciples of the blessed Man, having heard these holy entreaties, they might stay there, after thirty days gave their mind to this holy address, and for the said interval, as had been asked by the Saint, they most humbly bowed their necks with every bond of subjection, persevering in the bond of all blessedness. When at last so many days of sacred affections were ended, they spoke, at God's nod, of obtaining leave, as though about to set out on the morrow. They spoke of it anxiously too, and with intent mind determined it. Seeing which, the holy man and blessed Abbot, with all the community of that sacred place, although unwilling, nevertheless gave assent to this wish; and when all things had been prepared that were needful for their journey, taking farewell of one another sorrowfully, they dismissed them with a holy kiss, entreating that things might go prosperously for them in the way of justice, until they should reach their own lord as they desired with happy joy.
[21] Many too from among them, going out from the monastery on the same day, escorted them by the Abbot's command, he sends them back to St. Filibert, speaking with those holy men many useful things about what they should conveniently have on the way, or should also report to the lord by whom they had been sent. And then, taking farewell of one another meanwhile, they dismissed them in peace, and in the fear of the Lord, to set out for their own home with desirable joy. And as they went, those two blessed men aforesaid sang psalms to each other on their happy course, saying to the Lord: Direct our feet into the way of peace, O Lord, and heap up salvation for us in your name by leading us, that we may report to your promises, and to our lord, things lovely to him with all soundness of heart. And so, God helping, they returned home with prosperous course as swiftly as possible.
[22] But blessed Filibert, perceiving in spirit their coming, to whom, forewarned by God too of their return, three days before they reached his holy presence, told the brethren who dwelt with him in sacred prayers, saying: Truly, brothers, let us give thanks to almighty God according to the measure of our littleness, as is fitting; since the day after tomorrow, God assenting, we are to receive back his servants, our brothers, whom we sent to the parts of the region of Aquitaine for his service, if life remain our companion. For I saw this night in spirit their angel, whom I believe to be the companion of their journey, standing before me and saying to me: Let joy in this remain to you, Servant of God, and fitting exultation; for those servants of God whom you committed to me to be guarded on the way I shall the day after tomorrow restore safe and unharmed to your keeping again, to serve you. For in this praise and joyful laudation befit God.
[23] For this could not be hidden from this just man and new prophet, who many times, as is read in his Life, made known such things to his brethren by foretelling them, [and coming with his own to meet them, they set forth the outcome of their embassy.] which afterwards the outcome of the event proved true. Then, when the third day came, as the servant of the Lord had foretold to his household, those two athletes of God who had been sent by him returned home with happy step. At whose sacred coming not only the lord abbot, but also the whole flock and the rest of the household, ran rejoicing to meet them, happily chanting: Blessed are they who come in the name of the Lord. And so, received by the holy father as was right, they reported all that had been enjoined upon them by blessed Aychadrus. And the man of the Lord, hearing this, rejoiced beyond measure at their words, and rendered fitting thanks to God for those things which he had heard reported by them.
ANNOTATIONS.
* Mabil. septiformis * ibid. inclamabat * ibid. Patris * ibid. ita ei * ibid. pro commisso grege * read Filibertum * Mabil. Hospitali * ibid. celebrationem * ibid. servis is lacking * ibid. lacrymose * ibid. equitum * ibid. vestræ * ibid. subvenit * ibid. affectum * perhaps teneris * Mabil. sacrorum affectuum * ibid. familia * ibid. subvenirent * iterum * Mabil. sancto is added * ibid. eorum is added * ibid. stantem is lacking
CHAPTER III.
St. Aichardus is chosen successor of St. Filibert in the abbey of Jumièges.
[ ] St. Filibert, setting out to the bishop of Poitiers, And not long after, that same blessed man Filibert, knowing in the Lord those things which were turning in the mind of blessed abbot Aychadrus, for the sake of his holy errand a, having as swiftly as possible prepared all that was necessary on the way, and ordered all that was convenient for the brothers in the monastery and suited to their religion, and having taken companions from his holy fellowship, himself bidding farewell to the brethren and commending them to the Lord, set out to Ansoald bishop of Poitiers, a man of good disposition and outstanding in all sanctity. And the coming of blessed Filibert, that most excellent abbot, could not be hidden from Ansoald: but as swiftly as possible, with all praise and fitting veneration, he ran to meet him far from the city with all the adornment of the church; at which place, at the coming of these Saints, who can conceive in mind how great was the gladness, and how great the praise of the clerics singing with a great spectacle?
[25] So all the adornment of the church, and every age of the faithful dwelling there, took part in this holy spectacle and desirable sight, he is received honorably and did not delay to set out with these two most holy men as far as the house of prayer. Then the said two twin Saints of God, namely Ansoald and Filibert, having gone through the oratories, by praying and making worthy prayers together, rendered praises to God, who worthily confers worthy things on those who ask, everywhere on those who live in the Lord. When at last the sacred ceremonies of words were ended, Ansoald of good memory, the aforesaid bishop, received holy Filibert of God with fitting hospitality, and, calling to mind that word of the Apostle: That not first what is spiritual, but what is animal, then what is spiritual b, they came together to a great banquet. Feasting therefore with joy on the good things conferred by God, they touched upon one another with great turns of syllogisms and with questions, and always blessed the Lord, who not undeservedly grants prosperity to his servants and drives away adversities by helping them with their holy prayers.
[26] And after the celebration of that holy feast, a hymn having been sung, and, the cause of his journey being set forth, the servants of God gave themselves to holy conversations, in which discussions the blessed man Filibert professed to lord Ansoald the endeavors of his mind, and those things which hindered him in the journey he had begun. For there were two matters which seemed to press upon blessed Filibert; one evil,
which he was unjustly suffering from the apostate Ebroin; the other, which at an angel's dictation he had arranged for himself by coming to the island of Noirmoutier for the sake of building a monastery. But about a third c it was not for him to keep silence in secret, which seemed the greatest of all, that the blessed family of the sacred monastery of Jumièges had not been able to bear the absence of their father without the government of another master, lest so great a flock should be endangered like a ship in shipwreck on a billowy river.
[27] And when these things had been plainly shown, the excellent abbot, He asks a successor for himself at Jumièges, with the anxieties of his holy mind, turned to the aforesaid prelate, the glorious bishop Ansoald, and said with holy tears from the heart: For to you, Ansoald, man of God, in this business, and for these irremediable sighs of mine, if it shall cleave to your will, the Spirit breathing, a reward remains laid up by God, and on the day of recompense an inextinguishable light shall shine. For behold, within your holy sheepfold, most blessed father, in our place which is called Quinciacum, there has been intimated to me by God, if it shall please your holy fatherhood, a happy recovery. For which I earnestly ask your holy beneficence, that in this most just support you stretch out your hand to me and relieve one weary, whom a long pilgrimage has led hither to you under angelic guidance, as I judge. I beg also your most holy munificence, since everything hangs on your most just providence, that in this our common exercise you grant to me, as to your unworthy fellow servant, both leave beforehand to carry out this desirable work, and take care to impart the further help of proceeding beyond your diocese when the endeavor is accomplished. [namely St. Aichardus: the bishop, consenting, determines to set out with him for Quinciacum.]
[28] And not to draw out this speech further: there is here in our aforesaid place of Quinciacum, under the shadow of your holy rule and of our patronage, a servant of God named Aychadrus, a man of just merit, as the report of the people testifies, a true lamp burning and shining: him I ask of the kindness of your goodness, that you may join and couple him to me, your faithful servant, for the solace of my labor, and, as another Philip, may confirm him with your holy fellowship as far as the place of my littleness, entrusted to me by God. At this blessed Ansoald, bent to mercy by the worthy petitions of the man of God, rising, adored the Lord, and rendering thanks to God answered the man of God: Farewell, most blessed father, with your holy proclamation and all that is turning in your holy purpose: and I shall be your companion and comrade of the journey and of exhortation with all affection, and I wish that you may resolve it speedily. Yet I ask your inextricable brotherhood that this night and tomorrow you grant rest to your body, and that thereafter, with God's help, you take care to carry through this desirable wish, once begun, to a worthy completion. For I shall be the companion of your labor and the helper of your conveniences. There will be no further delay in me. The day after tomorrow, therefore, we shall set out together for Quinciacum, to perform the service of God, whatever shall please him.
[29] Aichardus learns of their coming from an angel. For on that same night there appeared in a vision to blessed Aychadrus those two most holy men, namely Ansoald the bishop and Filibert the excellent abbot; the one bearing to him, under the name of bishop, a pastoral staff, the other the rule of blessed Benedict, saying to him with one mouth: Rise, our Brother chosen by God, and receive this gift which is sent to you by God through his servants; namely the pastoral staff, that by it you may correct errors and bring back those who stray to the right path without stumbling; the book too, that you may keep by regular institution what is written in it, and may bid those subject to you, instructing them piously with all constancy, to make trial of these things most intently. And that holy Athlete of God, awaking from sleep, said: Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth. And so at last he began to meditate on these things with wakeful mind, entreating that the kindly God would turn this whole presage to good. But he wished this to be made known to no one, except only to a certain spiritual man, privy to his secrets.
[30] And when the next day had passed, the aforesaid two twin men, [The bishop with Filibert, being led into the monastery with the highest veneration,] clothed with a twofold love, fellow citizens of the Apostles and members of God's household, came to Quinciacum, carrying peace and bearing with them the things that were of peace. Dismounting from their horses, they sought holy prayers; at whose most holy coming the Abbot and the whole family of that sacred monastery, running to meet them with cases of the Gospels and pledges of the Saints, praised the Lord in common, saying: Blessed are they who come in the name of the Lord. Then, entering the church with devout prayer, they went round those holy altars, among other things entreating the Lord that his good angel might direct their way. And rising from their holy prayers, the lord Abbot received them in holy lodging, in the manner in which Lot is once read to have received the two angels.
[31] And when these three were sitting in the name of the holy Trinity, an exhortation to the monks being first made, the man of the Lord, Ansoald bishop of Poitiers, began thus: Hail, lord Aychadrus, man of God, with those subject to you: for peace we announce to you all, and we wish that unanimity may be toward you. For taking it from him, we bring it to you, who spoke in his worthy promises, saying: My peace I give you, my peace I leave with you. If therefore we shall perceive that charity, which is Christ, remains in your inward parts, and that you are firm in the safeguard of peace, what faithful man will dare to call you strayed from the true faith? Finally we have learned that the hope of eternal life has long flourished in your holy souls, and we behold you carrying in your hands fragrant and beautifully sky-blue fruits from those very flowers. If therefore, according to the Apostle, you hold these three happy gifts, namely faith, hope and charity, fixed in your hearts, who can doubt that you are perfect men? And because we have ascertained this for certain, we pray that the God of peace and love may always remain with you, and that he himself may swiftly crush Satan under your feet, and that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ may everywhere make its dwelling with you, so far that from your light an inextinguishable light may remain with us.
[32] And when the lord Abbot Aychadrus and all his holy disciples had answered Amen, He leads Aichardus to take up behold, a certain monk, coming, invited them to the meal. Hearing which, the lord bishop at once promised that he would remain thus without food until he should receive an acceptable word about each of his petitions; and he added: Now then, kindly father Aychadrus, since you have striven to answer Amen with your holy solace to my little prayers, I beg that now, as swiftly as possible, obeying almighty God, you may amicably confirm the sacrifice of oblation for your spiritual answers, since you are amicable. For the gift of the Holy Spirit, echoed by you a little above, may not be understood as a matter of chance toward the Saints. Since, according to the Apostle e, the spirit of discipline will flee what is feigned, and will withdraw itself from thoughts that are without understanding. From your holy light therefore, according to the indissolubility of your word, God assenting, we shall see light, and in your holy ray you will convert to God many sons of Israel of the sacred family of Jumièges without any excuse. For the hand of the Lord is still stretched out, that it may avail for saving things, and his ear is truly understood to be open for sinners on behalf of all who rightly believe.
[33] Then blessed Aychadrus, having heard these wrestlings, is reported to have answered blessed Ansoald of God: If this word, the governance of the monastery of Jumièges, most holy father, seems to have been conferred by the kindly God, it cannot be dissolved. For I, however little I am, desire to be reckoned as a weak servant of God among the countless servants of God's servants. Let your holy word therefore prevail, chosen father; for I profess that, as you shall command, I am to be reckoned by your judgments and to obey your petitions, as your fatherhood shall command and your sanctity shall order. Let therefore the will of the Lord be done; and let this precept of your blessedness be directed into his hand, and let this my vow be made an acceptable sacrifice to the Lord.
[34] and, refreshment being taken, And because the kingdom of God is not at every time within reach, those three elect of his, hastening with holy fear to the banquet, happily sang, as above: This is the day which the Lord has made, let us exult and be glad in it. And the saints of God Ansoald and Filibert with their companies were like Moses and Aaron among his priests, and blessed Aychadrus after the manner of Samuel among them, and all their holy family, like David, sang praises to the Lord, with the Gloria repeated at the end and Alleluia added. And when the banquet was now almost over, and its courses had been carried through to the end, the voice of those exulting gave praises in common to the Lord, who had joined so many precious men in his holy fellowship.
[35] he consoles the monks of Quinciacum, grieving at their Father's departure. For Filibert, the most powerful abbot, famous in God's service, had not made an end of his holy solicitations: for he pressed the bishop, that athlete of God, as before, to determine forthwith about the journeys to be made on the holy road ahead. For in the family of blessed abbot Aychadrus grief had now grown heavy, when they heard that he was to set out with the men who were pressing him, and to pass to higher things in this world, whose mouth had long before by its holiness carried him to heaven. For there was in the company of God's elect a solemn joyfulness and unspeakable glory, who had indeed learned that the Man would set out with them for the fatherland where at that time the praise of Christ and unfailing eloquence were sprouting. Then the precious Ansoald, bishop of the Lord, bade the brothers dwelling in that place come as swiftly as possible to the house of refection: and he himself, coming afterwards with lord Filibert and blessed Aychadrus, surrounded by their holy fellowship, offered with his own holy hand a cup sufficient for all, with a blessing, exhorting them that in true peace with joy they might always take their delight in the Lord, disposing in his mind to set out happily on the morrow. And when the holy hospitality had been carried through to the end with all cheerfulness, the Saints of God gave themselves a little to sleep, passing the night there in the fear of the Lord in all holiness.
ANNOTATIONS.
what our anonymous author, wretchedly confounding the order of events and of times, pretends at the beginning of this chapter, and here proceeds to explain with many roundabout turns, namely that he might obtain St. Aichardus as his successor in the abbey of Jumièges. For according to the Life of St. Filibert, to which, as compiled by a nearly contemporary writer, much greater authority and credit belong, the setting of St. Aichardus over the men of Jumièges was not dealt with at this time, but after nine or ten years. Here for you is the true occasion of St. Filibert's setting out, and the order of events contracted into a summary. St. Filibert had roused against himself the anger of Ebroin the Mayor of the Palace, a deserter of the monastic life and a persecutor of holy men; this, however, the latter at first dissembled, not daring perhaps to avenge himself by open force, but by snares and the hidden machinations of false witnesses he at last brought it about that Filibert was cast into prison for a falsely charged crime by St. Ouen, bishop of Rouen, with whom Filibert had before been in favor. A little after, his innocence being recognized, Ouen both freed the holy abbot from prison and sent him, furnished with letters, into Aquitaine to Ansoald bishop of Poitiers, where he might be safe from Ebroin's persecution. These things happened about the year 674. And Ansoald, having most lovingly received Filibert, not only granted him leave to build a monastery on Herium or Hero, an island of the Aquitanian sea, but also enriched it with many estates. In the meantime St. Ouen, against the protests of the men of Jumièges, set over them as abbot Chrodobert, and when he was soon taken from among the living substituted another named Ragertrannus; and finally, when Ebroin was slain about the year 681, he recalled Filibert and restored him to his former dignity. Yet Filibert, preferring the monastery of Noirmoutier to that of Jumièges, after a short time returned to Ansoald, and, received with great joy — the words are those of his own biographer — he went on to the monastery of Quinciacum, which too is built in a noble place; whence that holy man, the old errors being driven out, had filled it with monks, where Christ is continually praised by his servants among the Saints; and there, having taken counsel, he sent one chosen of his disciples, Aicadrus by name, a fitting man, to Jumièges, that he might be substituted in his place in the pastoral office; and although the monks grieved at the bodily absence of their former father, yet those present fulfilled by the grace of the holy man his decrees, and promised obedience to that same Aicadrus. So that biographer at chap. 3, in our Work, tom. IV of August, pag. 79 and 80: where there is not a word about the angel at whose dictation, according to our biographer, St. Filibert had determined to build the monastery of Noirmoutier; nor any mention either of the apparition of that same Saint together with the prelate Ansoald made to St. Aichardus, which ours relates below at num. 29. But he perhaps had before his eyes another life of St. Filibert, which the biographer of St. Austreberta mentions in our Work, tom. 2 of February, and in Mabillon's third Benedictine Century, as compiled by an inept and unskilled author.
* Mabil. peractis * ibid. Dei is added * ibid. sancto * perhaps perlustrando * Mabil. benedicentes * Mabil. negotio * ibid. Dei is added * ibid. sollicitationibus * Mabil. oro * ibid. firmitatem * ibid. abbati is added * Mabil. vestris * ibid. a via fidei * ibid. perspicimus * ibid. dignis * ibid. qui * ibid. cum * ibid. salvare * read ferculis deductis * Mabil. compererant
CHAPTER IV.
The Saint's journey to the men of Jumièges; the beginnings of his government, miracles, visions.
[ ] A successor having been appointed for him at Quinciacum, Then on the morrow, when all the holy setting-out had been prepared, the oft-named man of the Lord, namely blessed Aychadrus, relying on the counsel of the just, with the consent of his father Filibert, resolved to ordain in his own place as abbot one of his fellow soldiers, a fitting man and rich in sanctity, named Probus; whom he led to the holy hands of lord Ansoald his bishop, and, commending him, they praised him as worthy of the lordship of the aforesaid office. And he, being soon ordained abbot and made a father of the family by the holy prelate, took up the place of government of the said monastery of Quinciacum by the command of blessed Filibert, and all who dwelt there promised him obedience regularly, on the commendation of the bishop and of the lord father Aychadrus, and gave themselves to be his subjects of their own accord.
[37] The Saint with Ansoald and Filibert And without long delay afterwards, and when the solemnities of Masses had been celebrated, after the breaking of bread, the flock being commended to the Lord, they sought a prosperous journey, and the way of salvation with happy success and timely joy. And as these three Saints of God walked, they enjoyed eternal gladness in him who promised his own that all things are possible, and rendered fitting thanks to him with happy harmonies of psalmody: and they went to the appointed place which the Lord had prepared for his servant Aychadrus for his countless merits, which grew gloriously day and night in his holy manners and in his happy deeds. And truly exceedingly blessed was the society of these elect of God, because in them no mortal could discern which seemed to be the first among them, which the second and the third: but, glued to one another in holy charity, they figured the Trinity in their holy companionship.
[38] For on the same day with the course they desired they made for the city of Poitiers, first directs his journey to Poitiers, where the Lord had appointed the see for the man of God Ansoald. But of what sort and how great their reception there then was, there is no need for a human tongue to set forth. And the gift of Charity, which never falls away, he had long before provided for his Saints by the command of the man of God, bishop Ansoald. On the next day at last in the same place the lord bishop with his holy men made a collect for them b, and on the third day, when it had been brought into light, the holy camp moved, about to set out for the appointed places whither the Holy Spirit was to lead them: Paul saying: Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. And in another place the holy Scripture: You were their leader, O Lord.
[39] and from here And so, drawing their holy feet from the thresholds of exile and of holy pilgrimage, on the seventh day they came at last, together with the holy bishop, and with the Lord accompanying them, to the sacred place of Jumièges; where so great an army, so to speak, of God's elect monks ran to meet them that scarcely anyone's mind would call it possible to be believed. For, as the credible report of that place bore witness, at that time the number of monks was nine hundred, and of the others, whom they called servants, fifteen hundred. And if anyone wishes to know this more truly, let him read the Life of most blessed Filibert c, where he speaks of the dormitory of that household, and there he will find whither he may turn a believing mind. But about the reception of the holy bishop and of the Servants of God in that same place there is no need either to labor; since, as three Angels received in the name of the holy Trinity, they ministered light and eternal light at their coming to the Saints of God d, enjoying which they shall reign in eternal rest with the Lord.
[40] Likewise, too, about blessed Aychadrus of God there is no need here to make any mention, to Jumièges, because both in the aforesaid book of blessed Filibert the commendation of the place is found, and it is found written how he was ordained abbot, and that all the order of the monks of that holy place harmoniously promised him obedience and all subjection. But how blessed Filibert together with the holy bishop Ansoald conducted himself there, and what solace he left to the lord abbot Aychadrus and his brothers, and how, on returning to the island of Noirmoutier, he dismissed them all in peace and holy quiet, if anyone desires to examine this, let him read his Life, and there he will find about such matters what he seeks e. And because there is no need to make anything laborious of these things, let us return to the work we have begun, of relating about the blessed man of God Aychadrus, the Lord helping.
[41] Finally, having taken up the place of government, how holily the Saint of God lived in it, where, taking up the government, he excels in virtue and how great charity and love or virtue of frugality abounded in him, a human tongue is not able fully to relate: since, according to the Apostle, he had taken care to give no offense to anyone from himself, lest he should seem to bring blame on the ministry entrusted to him by God; but in all things to show himself blameless, as a minister of God and a trusted steward of the family committed to him. For he was given to much patience, assiduous in vigils, frequent in fastings, upright in chastity, and outstanding in every virtue of holiness. Indeed he had been made all things to all men, that he might gain all, and might double the talent committed to him by the Lord. And because more perfect things always follow perfect men, the Man of the Lord began, like a lamp kindled by the Holy Spirit, to grow in virtues, and to form the mind of good men in holy pursuits, and with perpetual love to love all with the bond of charity. And not only for those of the household, as the authority of the Apostle bids, but for strangers too, to be solicitous in every way that they might remain bound to the modes of perfection, and to refresh with holy administrations those whom any want had touched.
[42] For he had foreseen in his youth, as it were in a vision in spirit, that he would be made a minister of holy charity to all who were fit, and be obeyed by all. and shines with miracles. Almighty God had already given him for his holy merits no small power, so far that he healed the sick, held by various weaknesses, by his holy prayer, and, after the manner of his master the lord and most blessed Filibert, commanded the fevered by the word of God that they should be sick no more; and these things, at God's bidding, all succeeded prosperously with happy fortune, so to say, without any interval of time. For he was present as a helper to him for the carrying out of this necessary business f, who, coming to Simon's mother-in-law, stood over her, commanding the fever, and it left her. And he of whom the Psalmist says: A helper in opportunities, in tribulation.
[43] And so the Saint of God, passing from virtue to virtue, on a certain day hastened together with the brothers to the work of obedience; and as he was standing there a long while together with them, He frees the Brothers from the snares of a demon. he saw in spirit, sitting above a certain tree which is called an apple tree or fruit tree, a foul angel, and holding an axe in his hand to cut the tree down, wishing that some of the brothers should perish by its fall. Then, calling to himself the brothers who were standing in that place beside the tree, he showed them the snares which he had seen prepared by the wicked one; and coming with them to the tree he set against it the sign of the Cross, and the evil,
which was threatened by the faithless one, he stilled with his holy binding. And so, when the third day had passed, the brothers, coming together to the same work of obedience, saw the aforesaid tree as though kindled with fire, and the scar which the devil had made with the axe gaping open, and its fruits made black like burning coals: for it was the season of Autumn, in which all earth-born things are wont to ripen.
[44] Rebuked by a demon for a tonsure made on the Sabbath Besides, we have judged this too worthy to be committed to memory, that on a certain day which is called the Sabbath, on which monks are wont to renew what is new g, the Saint of God bade a certain monk, his steward, to trim the hair of his holy head with the shears: and he, at once hastening to fulfil what had been commanded by the holy Father, the shears being brought, took care that it should be done with the utmost reverence, since it was unlawful to transgress. And on that day it was about the ninth hour past, and the most attentive Steward of holy souls, being forestalled and occupied with other cares, by no means then committed this to his holy zeal for the keeping of the observance. What more? The recorder of evils and reviler of men, the devil, at once mixed himself reproachfully into this work, and, remaining hidden in a corner of the house, wrote hastily as if on a little parchment.
[45] he publicly asks pardon of God. And this, by the provision of almighty God's kindly foresight, could by no means be hidden from the Saint of God, but the Man of God, turning his face to him, said: What thing has willed you, crafty one and hateful to God, to be summoned hither? Have you rashly entered our hiding places of your own accord or driven by your dark furies, that here you might spy out something found out, which God forbid? Then that bloody cunning one answers in turn: This which I see here being done unlawfully, Servant of God, at your bidding, at an unfitting hour, in your service, against the commandment of your Christ, this I in every way reprehend, and add to my little charter; for the ninth hour is past, and it is not lawful to work. To this the excellent Servant of God is reported to have answered: Even if the ninth hour is held to be past, in this which I have here done unjustly in my own body, I myself have sinned. Yet let the work, ill begun by me, be left now unfinished; but do you return to your own and to your torments, and cease to disquiet the Worshipper of God. At which voice the tempter straightway departed.
[46] And the Servant of God Aychadrus, fleeing wholly in the fear of the Lord to the church of blessed Peter the apostle, before all the brothers sought pardon in the Lord's presence for this crime committed, prostrating himself wholly with mournful face on the pavement of the church, entreating the almighty Lord with many tears and a contrite heart that for this sin committed his soul might not perish in the foul and pit-like Tartarus: and after these things, that the blessed Man might deserve to obtain pardon in this matter, having received penance, he committed himself wholly to the kindly Lord, binding himself by a corrigible vow that his mind should no more be shaken by so slippery a downfall h. And so, while the same Servant of God prayed for his faults, with the Lord's favor he both deserved to obtain pardon, and the cutting of his hair no longer appeared on his holy head.
ANNOTATIONS.
* Mabil. sanctis * ibid. Domino * ibid. laudabat * ibid. provisione * i.e., mandatum * Mabil. glutino is added * delegata erat * Caritas * Mabil. inerat * ibid. promiserint * ibid. illic * ibid. omnibus * ibid. quidquam * ibid. decreverat is added * read multum patientiæ * Mabil. perfecti viri * ibid. omnibus * ibid. in nexu * ibid. obedire * ibid. tenentem * ibid. volentem * read quas * read prunarum * Mabil. terrena * ibid. visum * ibid. explorares contagia
CHAPTER V.
Various prodigies and marvelous visions; the death of half the monks of Jumièges.
[ ] A donation made to the Saint's monastery. Neither must this be passed over in silence, that a certain nobleman from the parts of the Poitevins, from the village of Tortoniacum, Astasius by name, coming to the blessed Man, handed over to God and to holy Peter at Jumièges, and also to the saints of God Filibert and Aychadrus, his goods situated in the said village of Tortoniacum, with all their integrity, for the remedy of his soul: and also made himself over to the service of that same place for the love of God and to gain everlasting life; and laying aside there the hair of his head, he took up the sweet yoke of Christ and his light burden: then, being made a monk also, he submitted himself to the disciplines of the Rule; and afterwards, as long as he remained in life, he remained holily with the Saints.
[48] While he prays, So on a certain day, when the brothers had again gone out to the work of obedience, as the rule teaches, the lord Abbot himself with two spiritual brothers took pains to turn aside to a certain place apart, that he might do something more privately after his custom, and might intercede with the Lord, as he was accustomed, for the flock entrusted to him. For already in the foresight of our kindly Lord Jesus Christ the Holy Spirit had determined this, that the sanctity of the blessed Man should at last be made plain to the world, which for a long time could not shine forth to the worldly men set in the neighborhood on account of their unworthiness. It was no longer fitting that a lamp burning and shining should remain hidden under a bushel, which, being now set upon a lampstand in the sight of almighty God, had scattered the rays of its kindliness in brightness not only for itself, but also for all committed to it by God. And so he went forward, holily chanting the Psalms with the said two brothers, and always, wherever the end of a Psalm fell, making a genuflection: and so it happened that as they sang they came to a certain wallowing-place, and made the end of the canticle.
[49] he hangs his gloves on a sunbeam, and is surrounded by an unwonted fire. And presently, drawing his gloves a or mittens from his hands and hanging them on a sunbeam as on the branch of a tree, he made after his accustomed manner the bending of his knees b before the Lord, and holy prayers to the Lord: in which genuflection, as those testified who were present at the exercise of this holy prayer, a globe of fire so encircled the holy Man on every side that neither of these two saw the third, until the holy prayer of the Man made the end desirable to his sanctity. And when it was done with worthy prayer, the true Servant of God, rising from the ground, the sunbeam restored the gloves which he had commended to God. And when the Servant of God learned this, he would not attribute this gift of God to his own merits, but to those of the others who stayed with him in this vision. Yet he charged them by the word of God that they should reveal this to no one during his life, and should not judge that it was done by the merit of his righteousness. And because it is honorable to reveal and confess the work of God, that kindly God himself, who at his holy Transfiguration willed Moses and Elijah to appear with him, himself also assigned these two brothers to this Servant of his for a testimony of this holy matter.
[50] By the sign of the Cross and holy water he puts a demon to flight; It is indeed worthy also to commit this to memory, that on a certain night that excellent Shepherd, keeping the divine vigils over the Lord's flock, with all the brothers asleep in bed except the watchmen, saw in the southern quarter d a horrible shade of no small size, wishing to put out the accessible lamp which was ministering light to the servants of God. Seeing which, the Athlete of God fortified himself, walling himself with the defense of the holy Cross, and against this deadly temptation, ever sprinkling it with holy water and carrying with him the wood of the holy Cross, he made ready to come. And because there is no part of God with idols e, at the coming of the Servant of God the most foul shade took to flight, and fleeing this way and that, since by the medicine of the holy Cross and the sprinkling of holy water the circuit of the dormitory was fortified, it went out through a glass window, driven by the Servant of God, and the holy family, God protecting, remained unharmed.
[51] against whose snares, warned by the Saint, Then the Father of the family and beloved of God, blessed Aychadrus, foreseeing by the Spirit of God, when the night and morning office had been celebrated, enjoined the brothers to remain three days in holy abstinence, and, clothed in ashes and haircloth, to entreat the kindly Lord by praying and fasting with holy prayers, that the malignant spirit might not hurl his darts among them, so that, being freed from his death-bringing temptations, they might be able to serve the Lord in all holiness and justice, unharmed and clean. And the brothers, obeying this command of the lord Abbot with unanimous mind, fulfilled with devout mind as swiftly as possible what had been commanded, asking of the kindly Giver of all that under his holy guardianship they might deserve to be fortified with the unconquerable shield of his protection.
[52] And because it had found under a most gentle Father that that holy sheepfold was fortified against every whirlwind of iniquities, the monks fortify themselves they entered upon this whole counsel among themselves with holy deliberation, that from that day forward, from the least even to the greatest, the whole flock with holy profession, without any stumbling block of sins, bending to every good, should wholly follow the Master, saying: Under the shadow of your wings
protect us, O Lord. And again through the Prophet: Let us serve the Lord in holiness, and he will free us from our enemies. At last, all those servants of God being united among themselves with so great an effort, on the morrow they all sought in true confession the true physician of souls, preparing themselves to receive all that God should will to command, whether good, under the covering of the holy Fathers, or evil, for the most just punishment of their offenses.
[53] The lord Abbot too, receiving this profession of all with happy joy, by the exercise of various virtues, offered, both he himself and the family entrusted to him by the Lord, with all devotion of heart, an acceptable sacrifice to God, entreating the kindly Lord that it might deserve to be carried up with an odor of sweetness in his sight by the hands of the holy angel, as a rewardable gift of another Melchizedek. And so the holy people of that place, laden with the virtue of spices, at last armed with the spiritual sword, unwarlike as they were, are to receive an unfading crown from the kindly Jesus on the day of examination, about to enjoy the reward of eternal recompense. And because unfeigned charity by no means suffers division, the Apostle saying: Charity never falls away. And likewise: Who shall separate us from the charity of Christ? tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or the sword? What mortal set in the number of the faithful can hold it in doubt that the Spirit of love, or of perfect charity, which passed unchangeably with blessed Filibert from place to place, remains everywhere joined by the continual love of God together with this family committed to him by God and to his holy patronage, as though by hereditary right? For those whom holy charity has joined in the service of God, no long expanse of lands could set apart on account of any pressing peril.
[54] Now we read that blessed Paul the apostle, thrust into prison at Rome, [helped in this by the prayers of the absent Filibert. The chief virtues of our Saint.] and also set at Ephesus, wrote instructing the nations, and that all obeyed him without hesitation. Namely, the patronage, together with his holy intercession, which blessed Filibert, the athlete of God, had while dwelling in the body with this family entrusted to him by God, this he took care to minister unceasingly to this clergy, present in spirit by praying through the Holy Spirit — and would that he might minister it in God! Amen. For God does not forsake those who hope in him. Yet, leaving these things aside, let us return to what went before. For holy Aychadrus had begun to be strong in virtues so much that every gathering of monks set round about flowed together to him, desiring to draw from his most holy mouth some honeyed things or streams of holiness, which might afterwards deserve to become for themselves and for others timely for a remedy. For he was given to all sparingness, pure in sobriety, frequent in prayers, and wakeful all night with assiduous vigils, benevolent in all goodness, kindly to his subjects and timely to all; and it was necessary that he whom holiness had bound should also have the fear of temptation come upon him.
[55] After an exhortation given to his own So on a certain day, when all the brothers had been called to him, among the rest of the topics of his discourse he charged them that all should remain of good mind in all holiness, and should be watchful in prayers, lest the thief, coming, should find them asleep, according to the Apostle who says: See your calling, brothers, for he who calls you is not far off. For behold, he is near, at the doors. Wherefore let us look within ourselves, brothers, and cleanse our hearts, that when he comes he may find us ready. Now on a certain night, when Compline had been sung, the lord Abbot fortified all with his holy blessing, and, commending them to the Lord, came with them to the sleeping quarters, not that he might give himself to sleep, but that he might keep watch from a distance in prayer over the Lord's flock. And so, when the brothers had been settled in their place, he went round the whole dormitory, surveying it, and stationed himself in the appointed place for the Lord's guard, chanting this prayer: Receive, O Lord, our prayers, and surround this holy sheepfold with the wall of your guardianship, that, all adversity being driven off, it may be always a dwelling of safety and peace. Through the Lord.
[56] an angel appears with a demon to him as he prays apart, When at last the prayer was ended, and Amen said for confirmation, he turned himself to the Lord with all his strength, beginning the Psalms of David from the beginning. And carrying this through in a tearful spirit, he began to transfer himself to higher things, and in the sacred solemnities of prayers to exalt his heart with spiritual things, always adding at the end of a Psalm: You have protected me, O God, from the assembly of the malignant, from the multitude of the workers of iniquity. And so, ever more ardently watching in holy entreaty until the still hour of the night, he saw at the door of the house as it were two angels, one clothed in a white garment and adorned with all gentleness; and the other foul and shaggy like some beast, all fiery with dread, having flaming eyes, and holding in his hand a black rod, the angel saying to him: Behold, power is here given you by the Lord to strike bodies, not souls; yet your sword shall not rage to the point of consummation; since this temptation has not been stirred up for their guilt, but for the correction of many who are still unbelieving. Yet stay a little in this place, and do not stretch out your hand against anyone; but on returning do what I shall have commanded you.
[57] and foretells to him And leaving the malignant pestilent one, the good angel of the Lord hastened quickly to the place in which the Man of God had passed the night watching over the flock. Seeing which, the Saint of God fell prostrate in the form of a Cross, entreating the kindly Lord that he would kindly turn away his hand from his family, lest what the Lord's hand had planted should perish by a diabolical disease. And the messenger of God, coming to the Servant of God, addressed him kindly: Hail, Servant of God, do what you are doing; let not your lip now cease from entreating the Lord for yourself and for the flock committed to you through the Lord. For he himself sent me to you, Saint of God, whom you love with all your heart, and in fidelity to whom you labor watching over this flock. Wherefore do not be afraid beyond measure, nor let it terrify you beyond measure; since this predestination before God is not for the damnation of the souls of these faithful men, but for the remedy of God's elect, who are now to be called from this holy assembly to the reward of eternal life, which has been prepared for them by the Lord for their worthy merits, and for those of blessed Filibert, their excellent father, through Jesus Christ.
[58] For the multitude of this holy people has grown, and half of it is now to be taken up i. the impending death Yet this has been granted by the Lord to this holy place, through the intercession of the Saints who exercise patronage here, that no one of this holy assembly shall perish hereafter from this pestilent disaster which is now to come to pass here, the Lord so disposing. Wherefore now take comfort, Servant of God, and together with these forestall the face of the Lord in confession, that, with the struggle of the contest at hand, you may deserve victoriously to bear the palm of exultation against the enemy in the sight of the Lord. For today and tomorrow this holy multitude is to set out from the troubles of this perishable age to the Lord, and on the third day, as the day turns to evening, it shall be consummated with a happy consummation in the Lord. When therefore this holy angelic conversation was ended, and as the holy one withdrew further from the Saint of God, they began as swiftly as possible to fulfil the command of God, which could not be transgressed.
[59] Seeing which, the Man of the Lord fell in the place where he had stood, of half in holy prayer, weeping and greatly rending himself, entreating with great severity of mind the most kindly Lord that he would not make a consummation in his house, which was made over to holy service: and he added: I beseech you, most gentle Lord, turn your anger away from your servants, for your mercies are many, more than those of men; remember, I pray, Lord, that we are flesh, and yet, though we are wounded by the exceeding stings of our offenses, we do not deny you, our common Lord. For we are yours. And so I, your last servant, Lord, am the very one who deservedly must perish in this wickedness, if this has been determined by your kindness. For I, your creature, Lord, have sinned; since I did not, as I ought, entreat your omnipotence for this holy flock. For which grace turn your anger upon me, your wretched Servant, and spare this guiltless flock, that at least a remnant may be saved. For it is not yours, Lord, who judge all flesh, to destroy all your inheritance, which you have redeemed with your precious Blood.
[60] Then the Saint of God, rising from the ground, mournful and covered with ashes and bathed in tears, of his monks; after he had prayed to the almighty Lord, turned to the angel, standing between God's mercy and his judgment, and said: How long, Lord, shall your sword rage? As he was saying this, the Saint of God heard a voice brought to him: It is enough, let the hand of the striker now cease: for the Lord has heard the prayers of those who cry to him. And immediately the holy angel did not appear. And when the Man of God learned this, the doors being opened, he fortified himself and the whole flock with the seal of the holy Cross, and afterwards, the signal being struck, he invited all to the church, that they might there sing the Psalms of David to the Lord, as the custom of the Church and the order of the faithful teaches. And this, by the working of the Holy Spirit, so came about that suddenly, as within a single hour, all alike, gathered into one, came together in the choir, and none seemed to be missing from the number and rank. And truly it is not to be wondered at, since that same angel of light, who by visiting them on that very night had invited them to sup at the Lord's supper with him and their contemporaries, that same one also made them all fly together religiously in God's service within the moment of a single hour.
[61] Then, the night and morning office having been performed together, the lord Abbot and excellent Athlete of God addressed them all thus: whom he, having called them together The Lord of peace be with these brothers, and his angel with your spirits. Come now, beloved brothers, after the accustomed manner, as I said above, be of good mind, and watch in the Lord, and take care to amend your ways, as the kindly Lord shall grant, and render your souls purged of their own secret things by pure confession, and also receive the holy Viaticum, that is, the partaking of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, with chaste body and clean heart in your holy bodies, for the defense of your souls; and because you have labored happily in the Lord's vineyard, come, that you may receive the day's denarius in the evening; so that, coming together with him to the Lord's supper, you may eat it happily without stumbling. For behold, he who calls us is at the doors. Wherefore let us see to it that, when the thief comes, he may find us watching: and setting out to them the whole confession and the truth of the matter in order, he said: For today, brothers,
and tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, may you deserve worthily to eat with the Lord the supper to which you have been called. Let no one, therefore, brothers, seduce you in any way; but render yourselves now as ready as though you were to sup happily with the Lord this night.
[62] he duly disposes for death, The Man of God had not yet finished the words mentioned above, and behold, the faces of the holy men had already appeared livid with the disease that had been sent upon them: one admonishing another about the right way and about their going, as the discourse of the blessed Man had set forth above in his relation. And then the Saint of God spoke thus to them all: Brothers, act now swiftly, as Paul the apostle admonishes; be strengthened in the Lord and in the might of his power; knowing that your labor is not empty before the Lord: and because the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the future glory which shall be revealed in us, run to the light while you have time, lest the darkness of death overtake you. Seek therefore, according to the Prophet, the Lord while he can be found, and call upon him by holy confession while he is near. As he said these things, they prostrated themselves at the feet of the blessed Man, asking pardon from the Lord and holy absolution through pure confession; and all, both with the lord Abbot and with one another, from the least to the greatest, confessing their sins to each other tearfully, and praying with holy prayer for one another, they received the holy Viaticum with contrite heart and spirit from the holy Father in these words, that it might be for them salvation and protection in eternal life with the Lord.
[63] and, when they were dead, as had been foretold, And when they all answered Amen, there was given them by their kindly Father the kindly absolution of their misdeeds and a happy blessing, together with holy leave to depart to the Lord, with whom may they live and reign now and through everlasting ages, to reign with him, Amen. When this sorrowful discourse was ended, the blessed people began at about the third hour of the day to hasten to the appointed end, none being spared before another, but as the old man so also the man of middle years, and as the young man so also the little boy l. Every age in the funeral of death obeyed the disposition of divine foreknowledge; and so it happened as was foretold above. And there fell half of this holy family, to the number of four hundred and forty-five m, within the number of three days n, as had been foretold above by the holy angel. And then, God taking pity, his fury was turned to mercy, and Christ, the life of all, made an end of the funeral.
[64] And that whole region rushed at once at the hearing of the destruction of the holy place, entreating in common the kindly almighty Lord that he would turn this most bitter weeping into joy by the bestowal of his kindly clemency, he commits them to burial in the same place, and that the remaining people might, with his cooperation, be able to have a return again with their soundness to the desirable state. Then the lord Abbot, together with that gathered people of God, resolved to hasten unceasingly the obsequies of those holy bodies worthily, as he could, and carried the work begun through to its completion. For thus, as is known to many, he buried all those elect of God in one cemetery in stone sarcophagi honorably, as is the custom of the Church, with the fear of the Lord, and gave order that after the day of his own death he should be laid with them in peace in their midst.
[65] In which place, by the merits of those Saints and with the cooperation of God's grace, where afterwards the bodies of other Saints were laid. many and unspeakable miracles have been shown forth, whose death is exceedingly precious in the sight of the Lord. There rejoice even still there the holy pontiffs of God and most blessed men, confessors of Christ; namely Hugh, son of the great emperor Charles, archbishop of the see of Rouen, and Constantine [p], prelate of holy memory of the church of Beauvais, and also blessed Peregrinus, bishop of the English, together with holy Flavius [q], in their holy presence and worthy intercession, whose holy relics still remain buried in the Lord with them; by the intercession of all of whom we ask to be protected from all temptations of enemies and defended from perils, with the help of Christ himself, who both conferred everlasting glory on them and willed them to be invited by his holy calling to the banquet of his holy supper, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns God through all the ages of ages. Amen.
ANNOTATIONS.
p. Mention of this bishop and of the following one is made by us among the Prætermissi of the 15th day of June in these words: The translation of SS. Constantine and Peregrinus, bishops, is inscribed in the proper Calendar and Martyrology of the church of Jumièges in Normandy. But who they are we cannot make out. Of Constantine's see we are taught by our biographer, as also of Peregrinus's, at least under the general notion of England. With the biographer agrees a manuscript Martyrology, cited without indication of place or age by Mabillon in the third Benedictine century, part 2, pag. 629, in the Additions and corrections to the second Century, in the following words: In a manuscript Martyrology, on the XVII of the Calends of July, in the territory of Rouen, in the place which is called Jumièges, the translation of the most holy confessors, namely Constantine and Peregrinus, of whom the one is read to have held the pontifical see of the church of Beauvais; but the other is said to have been a bishop of the English. Supposing the truth of these, Constantine must be he whom the published lists of the bishops of Beauvais assign to the sixth century; but who that bishop of the English named Peregrinus was, we cannot make out either, since he appears nowhere else. But neither have the published calendars hitherto claimed Constantine for themselves. See the following letter.
q. Of St. Flavius, bishop of Rouen, who lived in the fifth and sixth centuries, we have treated in the month of August at the 23rd day. About his relics and those of the two prelates just named, the praised Mabillon at letter p notes the following: That the relics of these Saints were buried in the ground when the storm of the Northmen was at hand, an old codex of Jumièges teaches us in these words: "Welpo was the last abbot before the overthrow by the Danes, with whom the monks, fleeing, carried away with them some of their goods, but hid some in the earth and concealed them in the chapel of St. Clement. Before the altar of St. Filibert there still lies hidden St. Flavius, archbishop of Rouen, whom, when certain monks wished to raise him, a most dense cloud coming over that place, and the abbot forbidding, they left untouched. Between the churches of St. Peter and St. Salvator, in the middle place, they laid two shrines of SS. Peregrinus and Constantine. Their names were revealed by a certain man of Jumièges who was living at Rome and had fled thither from Jumièges." Note the last words, and gather from them that not only the Life which we give here, but also the other documents cited, in which the names of SS. Peregrinus and Constantine are expressed, were written after the irruption of the Danes or Normans, on account of which without doubt that man had fled from Jumièges to Rome.
* Mabil. solito is added * ibid. pro grege * ibid. sui meriti * read coacta * Mabil. tuere * ibid. levamine * ibid. repirio * amore * i.e., semovere * omnes * Mabil. tentatio divinitus * Mabil. exhortationum * ibid. adest * ibid. Domini commorando * ibid. lecto * ibid. tota conversione * ibid. a * ibid. tenentem * ibid. dicens is added * ibid. hæc res * ibid. est is added * ibid. & licet nimiis * add se * Mabil. videte * ibid. morborum * disposuit * Mabil. illic
CHAPTER VI.
The Saint's last deeds and happy death.
[ ] Mourning for his own Blessed Aychadrus, then, exceedingly afflicted in body by so unweighable a grief of miseries, and weighed down with the greatest sorrows, began without ceasing to call upon the Lord the consoler, that he would kindly hold back the punishment of his own offenses and of those of the remainder of his family, and would grant them a corrigible effectiveness. And persisting again together with those subject to him, days and nights, in holy vigils and pure prayers, with no small abstinence added as well, and half alive, forgetting worldly glory afterwards, he turned himself wholly to the Lord, continually entreating him in his omnipotence that of his own soul and of those of his
people he would grant them a saving abundance, lest they should be given further as prey to the enemy, but that rather in his mercy he would receive their souls, which he knew in spirit were soon to be called away to another life; and, hanging upon this in a happy sigh, the blessed Man clung wholly in mind to heaven, having deliberately spurned the ruinous fellowship of the world.
[67] For he had heard, among other things, that his most holy teacher had died, and St. Filibert's death, and he was gripped with exceeding grief of heart. All the adversities of this ruinous age seemed to him a to be rushing, most wretched, as it were into an irreparable precipice; since, while they had remained in this life, the one had ministered a companionable protection to the other; Filibert namely by his patronage, like a charioteer b steering the ship on a billowy sea without danger of shipwreck; Aychadrus like a bow-officer c going before, taking care lest the ship, suddenly coming to harbor, should suffer some injury on the rocky shore. For blessed Filibert, like Moses, led the people entrusted to him, as though in the desert of Sinai, and Aychadrus, at his bidding, like Joshua, remained in the tabernacle, faithfully performing the guard committed to him. For both, as true Israelites, like the said Moses and Aaron, in those things which were God's, without any murmuring, offered at the fitting season the measure of wheat to the family enjoined upon them, the Lord bestowing it.
[68] So blessed abbot Aychadrus, deprived of these and other solaces, as when a prop of support has been taken away, is refreshed by an angelic vision, groaned altogether in grief for so twofold a loss, and everywhere appeared pale and tearful to all who trusted him, as though dead beforehand in his bodily strength. But the almighty God, the restorer of the grieving, who from the beginning of the world willed always to minister a consoling hope to his faithful set in straits, after the manner of Job and Tobit, did not suffer this Servant of his either to perish by long-lasting perils. And an angel of the Lord, sent by God's kindness, coming at once to him on that very night, clothed in a white garment, greeted him, saying: Let there be joy to you, Servant of God, and glad exultation; for behold, in the time of your distress the Lord has sent me to you to bring the message of his kindness, that by resuming the constancy of consolation you may repair your strength; since, set in the contest, you have fought well, and without failing have finished the course, and amid the temptations brought upon you have kept the faith.
[69] [and learns that they have been given to heaven, and knows beforehand that his own end is not far off.] For which reason there is laid up for you by the Lord a crown of justice, which the Lord will render to you on that day of recompense, on which he will reward not only the prizes of your blessedness, but also all his faithful for the deeds of their own. For we read, Saint of God, that bodily tribulation, if it is in patience, shall be crowned. Therefore take comfort now in him who sent me to you, and act manfully, since the Lord has conferred his holy clemency on those whom he has received into his house from your flock and from those committed to your keeping; and blessed are they, since forever and ever they shall praise him. And as he says in another place: Blessed are they whom you have chosen, O Lord, they shall dwell in your courts. Then, Saint of God, fight like a good soldier in the contest of your struggle, and do not fear; for the time of your calling is not far from you. Wherefore act manfully and do not lose confidence; may the Lord be with you, and with all committed to you, Elect of God.
[70] He prepares himself for death, And when that angelic address was ended, presently the Father of the family, after the morning office, bidding farewell to his brothers and being kindly greeted in return, reported both things to them, both the death of the blessed father Filibert d and the angelic address, and charged them, as was his custom, that they should remain of good mind, and should always seek help from the Lord, so that, remaining in holy religion and good work, they might live acceptably before God and blamelessly before the world, always entreating the Lord that at least a remnant of them might be saved. And because nothing happens on earth without cause, he exhorted this same thing, that they should bear their Father's departure more lightly, and should accomplish his holy obsequies by celebrating them worthily, so that that Servant of God might intercede for them with the kindly Lord, freed from bodily troubles, who many times, while full in body, had guarded them from the malignant enemy.
[71] which after three years he happily undergoes. When at last these admonitions had been laid aside, the brothers, as had been commanded them by the holy Father, poured out assiduous prayers to the Lord for blessed Filibert, as was fitting, and with many tears wept for his absence for a very long time; always talking with one another about their holy memories and calling to mind his manifold graces of kindnesses. After this blessed Aychadrus lived three years in holy works, accomplishing a worthy course in much abstinence, and ministering to the brothers in holy charity e; and when all had been ordered that would be useful for them after his departure, having made confession and received the holy Viaticum, he bade farewell to all with a holy kiss given; and then, commending them to the Lord, amid the words of prayer, on the seventeenth of the Calends of October f he passed to the Lord, to receive from him everlasting glory, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives forever and ever. Amen.
ANNOTATIONS.
So not whither he wished, but whither the force of the wave carries him, I see the helmsman has given sails to the vessel.
little firm is the former part of the argument brought forward by Le Cointe; but let us grant it to be most firm; by what documents will he prove the other part, namely that Hugh afterwards took the monastic habit while Aichardus was abbot? We read nothing akin to this in the Chronicle of Fontenelle; nothing in the Life of St. Hugh, although it is most full of other errors and anachronisms, written by Baldric bishop of Dol, and published and exploded by Arthur in the Neustria pia; nothing in either of our anonymous writers and Fulbert, the biographers of St. Aichardus; nothing, finally, in any ancient writer; so that accordingly Le Cointe's reasoning proves nothing either for deferring the Saint's death beyond the years assigned by others.
* Mabil. sustentationis * Mabil. scriptura is added * ibid. fuderunt
A SHORTER LIFE
By an author of unknown name and date.
From a manuscript of St. Salvator of Utrecht.
Aichardus, or Aichadrus, abbot of Jumièges, in Normandy (St.)
BHL Number: 0183
From a manuscript.
Born of noble parents, he takes the monastic habit; Holy Aycardus was born of the city of Poitiers in Aquitaine, of a father Anscharius, a soldier, and a mother Ermena, both noble. His mother was generous to the poor, and, when she was pregnant, vowed that the Boy should serve God a, which the Boy also desired when grown, although his father, a veteran under king Chlothar b, was arranging that he should serve as a soldier in his place. After this the Boy, instructed in letters, entered the monastery of Ansion. And an angel of the Lord sent the blind and the lame to him, and they were healed; and although he himself asked that they should tell no one, yet the demons cast out through him from the possessed cried aloud. He heard in solitude a voice from heaven: They shall go from virtue to virtue. And he himself answered: The God of gods shall be seen in Syon. This he kept secretly and chastised his body the more c.
[2] he is substituted as abbot for St. Filibert at Jumièges; But when holy abbot Filibert was rebuking Ebroin because he was an apostate from Luxeuil, and holy Filibert was therefore suffering persecution from him, he arranged with holy Ouen d, bishop of Rouen, that Aycardus should be established in his place e. When therefore the brothers were laboring in the field, sowing for the future, it happened that a certain great stone was being moved from there. But the devil with a fiery axe cut a great tree under which the brothers were; but holy Aycardus from afar made the cross and cried out that the brothers should flee. And when the brothers asked the cause, he said that the devil had wished to kill them by means of the tree, he who had killed Adam; and he showed the black scar in the tree, from which a sulphurous stench came forth, and its ripe apples were like black coals, and when pressed with the hand were like ashes, and stank: and the brothers wished the tree to be cut down, but the Saint let it be, so that the brothers might always cautiously fear snares.
[3] But on one occasion the devil, hastening, gathered up the hair of Aycardus, shaved rather late on the Sabbath. he puts demons to flight. He often by night, with the cross and holy water, put the devil to flight, and once he saw that the devil could not enter the dormitory, because it had been blessed and sprinkled. The devil wished to break the lamp by throwing a stone, but holy Aycardus put him to flight with the cross, and he, going out through a window that had not been sprinkled, broke the glass with a stench. And when the brothers asked about this on the following day, the Saint told them the cause: he taught the brothers to be watchful against the devil, who goes about like a lion, adding: Blessed is the man who is always fearful, that his end may be good, lest he suffer shipwreck in the harbor, or, returning from battle, be slain in the gate; lest the finished building fall from above or from below; lest the seed perish at the harvest, or the vintage.
[4] And it happened that once, while he was praying, his gloves hung in the air, as is read f of holy Filibert his predecessor. There were in that monastery nine hundred monks, Solicitous for his flock and fifteen hundred serving them; whence holy Aycardus, old and feeble, doubting what he should do, did not dare to resign his office, as someone advised, nor to lessen the number representing the nine choirs of angels. Whence he persevered, a victor of years, a shepherd solicitous for the flock g, that God might either preserve him still in life, or take away the sheep before him, lest afterwards they should stray from God.
[5] By night, when the brothers were in the dormitory and he could not sleep for solicitude, by night he hears an angel disputing with a demon, as he was singing psalms he saw in the south h a white angel with a rod, and Satan opposite, horrible with sparkling eyes: and the angel said to Satan: What do you seek? Nothing here is yours. He answered: Did we not conquer the first parents, and so we conquered the Jews, who were seventy years in Babylon, and persuaded them to kill Christ? The angel said: How do you dare to name Christ, whose death is the life of the faithful and your death and torment? The first parents were conquered through disobedience; but here is obedience, humility, charity; therefore they are citizens of Jerusalem, and shall not be led into Babylon, like the Jews, transgressors of the Law. Satan said: Shall I then depart empty? The angel answered: You shall have here the office of purging them for their salvation and your own confusion, through the sight of your horrible face. Satan said: I would rather flee than profit them without gain to myself. All these things the Saint heard.
[6] And the angel said to holy Aycardus: Do not fear from what has gone before, and knows beforehand of the death of half his monks, but take comfort, because your prayer has been heard, and your brothers shall be enrolled to follow the Lamb. And therefore tomorrow morning tell them to purge their conscience by confession, and to redeem the short time by strict penance, and by the communion of Christ's Body to prepare themselves for the supper of the Lamb; half of the brothers has now been enrolled, whom I shall touch with my rod. Then holy Aycardus said: O that I might go, a Father with his sons, old and feeble with the younger! The angel answered: You must labor yet a little in the Lord's vineyard, and then you shall enter the tomb in abundance, as a heap of wheat is brought in in its season, and the brothers who have gone before you shall run to meet you, receiving you with psalms; nor shall your rewards be lessened, but they are sure and shall be increased. Then the Saint saw the angel touching with his rod the brothers who were to die; and he marked them; and when he saw that the angel wished to depart, he said: Who will guard us from this terrible enemy? He answered: Fear nothing, because he cannot harm Christians; but by the terror of his appearance he will purge the dying. Then the devil, knowing these things, also departed.
[7] which, when they had duly prepared themselves, When the angel had departed, in the morning, the brothers being gathered, the Saint asked what they had seen in the night. Some said that they had been called and were going to the Pasch in a most precious temple; and these were the ones who were to die. Others said that they had been called to the supper of the Lamb, not at once, but when they should be called later, that is, after a greater probation. Then holy Aycardus said openly who were to die at the angel's sign. Then these, falling to the ground and beating their breasts with their fists, hid nothing of their own property, and so for three days those who were to die wept, fasting on the fourth day; and those who remained also wept, because they were being left behind: yet it was a mourning that gladdened, on account of the hope of glory.
[8] befell them on the fourth day. On the fourth day therefore, after the Mass, all, being absolved, communicated, and kissing one another in peace, went with their Father to the chapter house: and he appointed for each of them guardians who sang psalms. And the faces of the dying shone, as though they were rising again. Some died at the third hour, some at the sixth, others at the ninth, and the rest about Compline, all of whom were incorporated into Christ. And for eight days their obsequies were solemnly performed. Certain of the brothers too grieved much that they were not also called to glory, either because they were very old, or because they had served God as soldiers from their youth, or because they had conquered in many contests by mortifying the flesh.
[9] The Saint consoles the survivors But holy Aycardus consoled them to wait long-sufferingly, and in the acceptable time to serve God gladly, and not to cast away his grace, nor to go against his will, nor to wish to live less or more than pleases God; because God, who gave the spirit, will call it back when he wills: as he said to Moses: Go up into the mountain of Abarim, as Aaron on mount Hor, etc. i. And Aycardus said: The brothers have gone before to prepare a place and dwellings, that they may pray for you and receive you into eternal tabernacles: for the thief on the cross too, although he came late, received in the vineyard a denarius with the first Fathers: therefore be patient too until the coming of the Lord, because you know neither the day nor the hour; and take pains to be found pure and ready, watching, with the wedding garment and lamps prepared.
[10] [and he himself, grieving, is refreshed by an angel, and is warned of his coming death.] After this the Saint wept for himself, saying: Why did I come to govern this great charge, and did not leave it to a stronger man? Why did I pray for relief through the death of the brothers, unless it was lest after my death they should go astray? And now I can be consoled, because they are saved. But the angel said to him: Why do you weep? Ought you not to be ready, like Abraham, to offer your son? Or do you wish, with Pharaoh, to hold back the sons of Israel in Egypt, and Christ's soldiers, that they may not be crowned? Take comfort, because out of fatherly charity you prayed for the salvation of those who are saved: it would likewise have pleased, had you prayed for all the others too; and now, relieved, you can govern the rest, and shortly the time of your reward will be at hand. In sign of which you shall hear today the news of the death of Filibert your predecessor, who has passed to the joys of heaven.
[11] Then holy Aycardus gave thanks to God, and commended the remaining flock to God, Aichardus, having diligently instructed the monks, dies. aspiring after those who had gone before. He instructed the brothers too that they should be united in love, and should resist the devil with the holy Scriptures, and be prudent as serpents. Against pride let them think of the fall of the devil; against envy, that by the envy of the devil death entered into the world; against anger: In your patience you shall possess your souls; against avarice, the punishments of the rich feaster; and this also against gluttony, and what the Lord said: Watch, lest your hearts be weighed down with surfeiting and drunkenness; against lust, that the unclean shall not possess the kingdom of God; against evil-speaking and much speaking, how sin will not be lacking; against despair: I do not will the death of the sinner, but that he be converted and live: and in whatever hour the sinner shall groan, I will remember his iniquities no more. No one shall be crowned unless he has striven lawfully k. With these and other words he consoled the brothers for seven days. On the seventh day therefore a violent fever seized him, and he asked pardon of the brothers, and, admonishing them again about charity, gathered his feet upon his haircloth bed, and, with eyes lifted up, expired on the XV day of September.
ANNOTATIONS.
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