ON ST. GOERICUS, OR ABBO, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR AT METZ,
IN BELGICA PRIMA
In the year of Christ 642 or 643
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
The memory of St. Goericus in the sacred calendars; the Acts to be published; some chronology of his Life; the saint's lineage and posterity; his miracles.
Goëricus, or Abbo, bishop and confessor, at Metz in Belgica Prima. (S.)
BY J. C.
Of St. Goericus or Abbo, whom the catalogues set as the thirtieth bishop of Metz, the memory is frequent in the more recent sacred calendars at this day. Of St. Goericus or Abbo Thus the Hagenau, Besançon, and Lübeck-Cologne copies, and Greven, announce him among the Additions to Usuard: At Metz, of St. Goericus, bishop and confessor: a little differently our manuscript Florarium: At the city of Metz, of Goericus, bishop and confessor: more fully Molanus: At Metz, of St. Goericus, bishop and confessor, who by surname Appo was admirable for the sanctity of his life, and lovable to all committed to him. The Martyrology of the cathedral church of Metz thus celebrates our saint: At the city of Metz, the deposition of St. Goericus, bishop and confessor: but the German one of Canisius: At Metz, of the holy bishop and confessor Goericus, surnamed Appo, a brave and famous warrior, born in Aquitaine. When he had won very many victories over the barbarian enemies, he was made blind; which he bore patiently. At an angelic admonition he went to Metz, where he was healed by St. Stephen and consecrated a priest. He succeeded St. Arnulph in the bishopric, and, after he had presided over his people by example and doctrine for a long time, he slept in peace. Saussay too follows St. Goericus with a very full elogium, and his memory is commonly met with at this day among the French martyrologists. The Chronicle of Metz in d'Achery, volume 6, page 652, which was composed in the time of Stephen's sitting, as is clear from the epilogue, and therefore in the twelfth century, assigns the eighteenth of the Kalends of October to St. Goericus's decease; our manuscripts and the remaining documents oppose it, all of which record the saint's death on this day. But the credit of that Chronicle wavers often elsewhere, and here too, where it presents Goericus sitting at Metz under the Apostolic pontiffs Vitalian and Adeodatus; of whom the former did not come to the Roman chair before the year of Christ 657, and Adeodatus succeeded him afterwards in the year 72 of the same century, when St. Goericus had long since passed from among the living to the heavens; so that these things ought not to detain us. For the rest, he who in the aforesaid Martyrologies is surnamed Appo is elsewhere corruptly called Abbo, Addo, Abdo, Albo, and Adbo, and his first name too sometimes varies, since he is found called by some Godericus and Gohericus.
[2] In the Calendar which is prefixed to our most ancient manuscript Breviary, his memory in the sacred calendars. St. Goericus is also read inscribed on the 19th day of September, and there exists concerning him an Office of nine Lessons in the Breviary of the church of Toul, printed at Paris in the year 1535. Besides the common of a Confessor Pontiff, the following antiphons are prescribed: at First Vespers, at the Magnificat:
On the birthday of the gracious Father
let the heavenly union rejoice,
let the clergy chant with fervent zeal,
and so let the people's devotion increase.
Let the nation of Épinal exult,
upheld by the protection of so great a King.
At the Benedictus:
A youth praying in prison,
worn down by the burden of his chains,
sees the saint standing by him,
by whose gift his chains are loosed,
the doors stand open, the prison is compelled
to vomit forth in safety those it had swallowed,
all things are ordered prosperously,
and the guards give way to his flight,
and the beast spares him from its bite.
At Second Vespers, at the Magnificat:
O thou who with spiritual dew
most powerfully healest
the fire of bodily evil,
by thy prayer redeem us
from the fire of gehenna,
by which souls are burned.
Finally the Collect: God, who didst will that thy blessed pontiff Goericus should shine with the light of knowledge and the efficacy of preaching, grant to thy peoples, by the intercession of so great a Pastor, to obtain pardon of their sins and the everlasting joys of thy loving-kindness. This same is found the first among three prescribed with the common of a Confessor Pontiff in the Missal of Verdun published in type at Paris in 1554. The nine Lessons which are read in the cited Breviary of Toul agree word for word with our Épinal manuscript, and end in the middle of number three of the Acts to be given in the second place, at the words and he carried back home. Of the ancient cult of St. Goericus no doubt is left by the Life of Adalbero, written in the tenth century by a contemporary of his, where a church consecrated to our saint by Theodoric the First, bishop of Metz,
is mentioned, of which our Acts also make mention in the last number.
[3] His Acts have been published in Vincent of Beauvais, Surius, etc. The deeds of St. Goericus Vincent of Beauvais inserted into his Mirror of Histories, part 2, book 23, chapter 74 and following, which St. Antoninus transferred into his Historical Summa, title 13, chapter 6, §12. Surius at the 19th day of September published the Life of the same saint from a most ancient manuscript codex of the church of Utrecht, with which, on his own testimony too, that which is in Vincent's Mirror corresponds almost word for word. Of another manuscript Life of Saint-Mont the most learned Calmet makes mention in his enlarged History of Lorraine, book 9, column 412, Note l; but that too, so far as I gather from his words, differs in a few points from the aforesaid. Ruyr in the Antiquities of the Vosges subjoins to the Acts which he had read in Surius some things from traditions and from other manuscripts which, as he professes, were preserved in the monasteries of the Vosges mountains. And they are such as this: Leading his days in purity of life (St. Goericus, he says in book 5, page 71) he at length willed to follow in the footsteps of the blessed saint whom he had had as the predecessor of his institutions and as the example of his manner of life, of his healing, of his profession, and of his dignity, neglecting nothing that might conduce to Christian perfection. Therefore, gradually withdrawing himself from the affairs of the court, he retired to another solitude of the Vosges by the bank of the Moselle, where he presently built a monastery which he dedicated to St. Maurice, for the sake of his daughter named Præcia, whom he had adorned with the sacred veil of virginity. Her integrity was so great that, when she had gathered very many virgins and had presided over them under her father's institute and the Rule of St. Columban, she deserved the name of Saint, and to this day, like her Father, is celebrated with holy veneration, not only by the inhabitants, but also by others who piously visit her holy remains. These things I have recounted a little more fully, because below the discourse returns to Præcia. Meanwhile, whence he drew what he here relates about St. Goericus's withdrawal into the wilderness after he had discharged the episcopate, I do not know; certainly the remaining Acts hint that the saint was taken up to the heavens at Metz.
[4] Besides these I have at hand two manuscript copies of the Life of St. Goericus formerly sent to our elders, we have fuller ones from manuscripts, by an anonymous author, and often announced beforehand by Van den Bosch in his Commentary on the Life of St. Arnulph. To one of these, of which I have not learned whence and from whom it was taken, there is read prefixed: Collated with a manuscript of St. Maximin at Trier. It was found in the manuscript of Dom Belfort, but seemed more contracted: I have not collated it. In the margin are noted those points in which the manuscript of St. Maximin differs from the other. The second manuscript Acts were written out by the hand of our most diligent Chifflet, who has deserved excellently well of the saints, and bear this note at the head: From the monastery of Accinctum, and from a manuscript of Épinal; the variant reading of each is likewise indicated in the margin of the leaf. Calmet praises the manuscript of St. Maximin of Trier, and judges it, of those which he had seen, the best. It is by far fuller than those hitherto published, so far as I know, and with it the remaining three manuscripts commonly agree. But by what author this Life was written is altogether unknown, since he neither betrays himself anywhere nor is uncovered by anyone. It is certain that, if the whole Acts, as we have them, were written by the same man, the biographer lived after the beginning of the eleventh century: for he mentions the monastery of Épinal, which Theoderic the Elder, bishop of Metz, founded in the district of Chaumont. Certainly he who called him Theoderic the Elder must have known a younger or second one, compared with whom the other was called the Elder or senior. But Theoderic or Theodoric the Second did not occupy the see of Metz before the year 1005, as is clear from the manuscript codex of St. Vincent and from other documents in Calmet: it remains therefore that he did not write before that year, and so the biographer is certainly later than St. Goericus by almost four whole centuries.
[5] Of our two manuscript copies, the first, which has been collated with the codex of St. Maximin of Trier, perhaps pieced together from those of Surius. Both to be published. does not have at the end the epoch which is drawn from the time of Theoderic the Elder, for the whole translation of St. Goericus's body and the foundation of the monastery of Épinal is there omitted; whence it may to some seem older than the other manuscripts, about which I do not care to quarrel. Grammatical errors occur in it very many, and imperfect sentences: the things which are in the others are there narrated the same. Of the antiquity of the codices from which the copies were taken nothing is known to me. The diligence employed by Chifflet in transcribing his own copy and in marking the variant readings makes me believe that the codex which he had before his eyes was sufficiently ancient, and that the Life itself seemed to him not to be despised. With the manuscript of St. Maximin, which I shall print, it nearly agrees; I shall indicate the discrepancy and shall warn the reader in the Annotations where our anonymous manuscript ends. I shall nevertheless first set forth the Acts of St. Goericus published by Surius from a most ancient manuscript, as he testifies. They are more contracted than our copies, but whatever is read in him and in Vincent of Beauvais about St. Goericus is so like what is narrated here and there in our manuscripts that you not rarely find the same sentences and the same words. Hence it becomes certain to me that the one has been contracted or pieced together from the other: but whether Surius's were excerpted from ours, or ours grew together out of his in some interpolator, I am altogether unable to discern. There are those who in such cases lay it down as a rule that briefer biographers are nearer to the deeds; but how it is not to be taken generally, countless Acts show which occur throughout our work, and which, though fuller, are nevertheless recognized by certain signs to be genuine and to be preferred to the more contracted. Those things indeed which our manuscripts contain beyond what Surius narrates savor rather of a panegyric of luxuriant and puerile eloquence than of historical narration; but that very thing could have been the reason why Surius, or someone else whom he followed, cut them away. Finally, how much an unpolished luxuriance of style was in use in those centuries, there is no one who does not know. Therefore I define nothing here, but shall subjoin ours to Surius's Acts from the manuscript of St. Maximin of Trier, collated with the remaining three manuscripts, so that it may be easier for each to make his own judgment on this matter. But first come some things to be observed.
[6] St. Goericus came to the bishopric of Metz in the year 625 The difficulty which the time of the death and the order of succession to the see of Metz must have caused me in setting about to illustrate the Acts of St. Goericus, our Peter van den Bosch has almost wholly removed, when in the preliminary Commentary to the Life of St. Arnulph, volume 4 of July at the 18th day, page 423, §3, number 29 and following, he proved by plausible arguments that St. Arnulph was adorned with the sacred infulæ in the year of Christ 610, and after 15 years and 10 days transferred them to St. Goericus; which epoch runs out into the year 625. There remains a lighter disagreement about the year in which St. Goericus laid down the episcopate together with his life, which the aforesaid Van den Bosch also indicated, but left untouched, because he judged that nothing could thence be made out against his chronology. But the question comes to this. The catalogues of the bishops of Metz commonly grant St. Goericus eighteen years of episcopate; his manuscript Acts, and the Life of St. Clodulph, both ours, which we gave on the 8th of June, number 18, and that which Mabillon published in the Acts of the Saints of the Order of St. Benedict, century 2, page 1044, number 17, assert that St. Goericus sat at Metz only seventeen years. And these indeed might seem easily reconcilable, if you grant that the catalogues give incomplete years, but the Acts full ones. But Van den Bosch notes that the Chronicles and Catalogues, in the reckoning of the years for which the other prelates sat, add over and above the whole years the remaining months and days, which are assigned to none in Goericus's episcopate, whence he judges that eighteen years are designated as either wholly or very nearly complete. That those catalogues are disfigured by more than one error has long been known to the learned, whence there is no reason to stand safely by their credit. But I shall not grant a greater to our manuscript Acts, since they were written perhaps five centuries, as I showed above, after the holy prelate's death. Nor finally is either Life of St. Clodulph without its own faults, as Van den Bosch notes in the same place. Therefore, since the matter is one of documents of uncertain credit opposed to one another on that point, and since nothing occurs from elsewhere from which these should be preferred to those, I have assigned the year 642 or 643 as the year of St. Goericus's death.
[7] Nor can the year and the place in which St. Goericus was born to the world be certainly determined. born between the year of Christ 565 and 575: The biographers indeed write that Aquitaine was the saint's native soil; but they do not indicate any city of that very ample region or any certain place. It is likely that the holy prelate was born in the duchy of Albi, where writers relate that very many sprung from the Ansbertine family were born. The time at which St. Goericus was born the biographers no more teach, nor can it be certainly drawn out from the deeds which they narrate. I do not believe that St. Arnulph would have promoted to sacred Orders and to the infulæ of Metz a man more than sixty years old: nor does the order of what is narrated allow us to think that the saint was less than fifty when he was consecrated bishop, as will become clear to anyone who considers it. But since in the year 625 St. Arnulph withdrew from the see of Metz, and our saint came to it, he might be said to have been born between the year 565 and 575. Thus indeed he is set as a few years older than St. Arnulph, whom he succeeded in the see; but that does not seem incongruous, if he was one generation earlier than he from the same great-grandfather Tonantius Ferreolus, which must be determined from the Ansbertine genealogy, famous for many and sharp dissertations of the learned. Moreover writers confess that there is there a darkness more than Cimmerian, which so many disputations have by no means dispelled. In these I do not care to grope. Wherefore I shall touch only on those things to which our Acts compel me, namely that part of the Ansbertine genealogy by which St. Goericus is traced back to St. Arnulph, yet in such a way that I rather suppose that part itself than prove it or hold it for proved.
[8] And so among the defenders of the Ansbertine genealogy there are chiefly three opinions about the degree of consanguinity he is said to have been the son of Gamardus, by which St. Goericus touched St. Arnulph. The first is of those who hold that Ferreolus was the father of five brothers, among whom Ansbert was the grandfather of St. Arnulph, and Gamardus the brother of Ansbert and the begetter of St. Goericus. Others assign to Gamardus a son Godinus, and from him St. Goericus as grandson. Others finally invert all these things, and so weave the genealogy as to make Gamardus the father of St. Arnulph, but holy Goericus the brother of Ansbert, and thus the great-uncle of St. Arnulph. This last opinion I have thus far found no one to hold; the most learned Calmet, however, reports it in his enlarged History of Lorraine, book 9, column 412, and most forcibly attacks it on the ground that too long an age
would have to be ascribed to St. Goericus, in order that he might be understood as a great-uncle to have succeeded his own great-nephew in the episcopal see. The second the twin Sainte-Marthes follow in the Genealogical History, book 6, chapter 1; with some doubt Dominici, Cholet, book 1, chapter 26, and others; but neither does that rest on a sufficiently firm foundation, and it seems to have been merely invented among the documents which its patrons adduce, so that St. Goericus, being one degree of consanguinity further removed from St. Arnulph, may be nearer to him in time and may more conveniently succeed him; for there militates against it the letter of our St. Abbo to Desiderius, bishop of Cahors, which stands reprinted in Bouquet, Writers of Gaul, volume 4, folio 46, where St. Goericus calls Gedenus — who without doubt is that Godinus — his own brother, and who therefore cannot be set down as his father.
[9] Finally the first of the recounted opinions is embraced by the most illustrious Meurisse in the Bishops of Metz, book 2, folio 125, who was more probably the great-uncle of St. Arnulph. by Dominici in The Family of Ansbert Revived, chapter 7 and elsewhere, by our Jordan in his Critique, and by very many others, and it is the one which seems altogether to be preferred to the rest, since not a few ancient testimonies, and those of not wholly contemptible authority, support it. The author of the Life of St. Clodulph, illustrated by Henschen in our work, volume 2 of June, folio 126, chapter 1, number 2, writes thus: Arnoald had for his father Ansbert, who, enriched not only with abundance of goods but glorious with the dignity of his brothers and with a fellowship of excellence, shone forth. For they say that holy Aigulf, pontiff of Metz, was begotten of a daughter of king Clovis … Deotarius, pontiff of Arisitum, and Firminus likewise pontiff of Uzès, and Gamardus, the begetter of the holy prelate Goericus, and Remfrid, were the brothers of this Ansbert. But the Acts of St. Arnulph printed in the second place, volume 5 of July, page 444, number 19, speak still more plainly and confirm the matter in these words: Now it had happened in those days that an illustrious man named Goericus, son of Gamardus, brother of the paternal grandfather of this blessed Arnulph, had come from Aquitaine at an angelic admonition. These two testimonies of the biographers, that St. Goericus was begotten of Gamardus, are clear: he who is unwilling to stand by their credit, let him produce better ones; certainly they ought to obtain this among the prudent, that they outweigh conjectures much more uncertain and more recent.
[10] [The Acts of St. Arnulph and of Clodulph, and our manuscripts, attribute to St. Goericus the title of king,] Of the deeds of St. Goericus before he came to the episcopate some things follow to be said. If we believe our manuscripts, they were exceedingly illustrious: the anonymous biographer of Surius recounts them very sparingly, and praises only his warlike fortitude and his patience in enduring the discomforts of blindness. Ours, among many things, raises the saint through various titles of military service to the throne, joins him in wedlock, and asserts that two daughters, Præcia and Victorina, were born to him. Because the chief men of the kingdom had perceived this (says ours in number 2), they began to promote him (St. Goericus) step by step through the grades of military office: and first they adorn him with military arms and military garments and make him equal to the fathers: until, by the ancient goodness of God, after the dignity of a county, after the rank of a duchy, the last king of Aquitanian Gaul being dead, every order, every age, every condition and every sex hastens, by common assent and common devotion, to raise him, of royal stock and royal parentage, to the royal fasces, and, blessing God, who is always blessed in the good deeds of the saints, and is magnified and proclaimed a glorious God, he is lifted up and exalted on the throne of the fathers. What darkness is this? What, I ask, is the title of king, what the paternal or the fathers' throne, what the royal fasces? Dominici indeed contends in The Family of Ansbert Revived, chapter 7, that dukes were sometimes called kings and provinces kingdoms, which, from the testimonies produced by him, I am led to believe, although it happened most rarely, and that only with the bare word king or kingdom employed. But the dignity of a duke depicted with these accompaniments he has, I think, found nowhere else. Assuredly one who wished to exhibit an inaugurated monarch to his readers would hardly have clearer words with which to do it. Then in number 3 the biographer commemorates such things as to represent St. Goericus to us as regulating the laws of peace and war with sovereign power.
[11] which perhaps must be taken more broadly for the dignity of a duke, But let us grant these things to the biographer, writing perhaps at that time in which, as some contend, writers were wholly given to embellishing the Ansbertine family; certainly he here depicts for us a dignity to which our saint was promoted which surpassed by at least one grade the rank of ordinary dukes, since from it he was raised with so great an effort and by the suffrage of the chief men to some other office. That we should understand the mayoralty of the household, the prefecture of the palace, or a like dignity, is forbidden by the silence of all the historians who follow the affairs of that time closely with their pen, and who frequently make mention of such magistracies, and chiefly of those who were famous for virtue and warlike bravery. There must have been, then, some other dominion conferred on St. Goericus, in administering which he could be called king in office, as St. Arnulph's biographer speaks. But what was it? The learned writers of the History of Languedoc, volume 1, book 6, number 95, folio 327, think that St. Goericus was substituted in the prefecture of Albi when Syagrius was translated to the duchy of Marseilles. But this opinion does not stand. For besides that they contradict our biographer, who says in express words that he succeeded a dead man, they hold that Syagrius was given to the people of Marseilles in the year of Christ 625, in which same year St. Goericus received the infulæ of Metz, and therefore came to no duchy. But in their reckoning our saint undertook the church of Metz to be governed only in the year 627. This indeed is overturned by the well-established chronology of Van den Bosch: let us nevertheless grant that it is so. Therefore in the space of two years he came to the prefecture, did many brilliant things in war, was deprived of sight, gave various tokens of Christian patience, hastened to Metz to St. Arnulph, built the church of St. Peter from the foundations and completed it, was divinely healed, was initiated into sacred Orders, and finally was consecrated bishop; all of which so heaped together no one, I think, will believe to have happened in so narrow a space of time.
[12] Then these things are repugnant to what is said in the first Life, number one: he does not seem to have gone to Metz deprived of sight At that time (when the angel appeared to Goericus, long blind) Theodebert reigned in Gaul, and in the city of Metz blessed Arnulph the pontiff presided. He came to the see of Metz, as Van den Bosch proved, in the year of Christ 610. Theodebert reigned in Gaul, namely Austrasia, until the year 612, in which, after two defeats received from his brother Theodoric in the Toul country and at Zülpich, he perished. Therefore the angel's apparition happened between those two years, if any credit is due to the biographer, of the sort which the writers praised seem to hold him not the lowest. Although the epoch here assigned seems hardly able to be reconciled with the words of Desiderius, bishop of Cahors. He, in du Chesne, volume 1 of the Writers of Gaul, page 878, writes thus to our Abbo: We beg therefore that this servant of these — I could wish frequently, if possibility smiled upon it, to be present at your sacred conversations, so that, as we, under the habit of the world, in the companionship of the most serene prince Chlothar, used to relieve one another with mutual tablets, so now, that vanity being fully laid aside, we might be allowed to ruminate on the sweet precepts of Christ … therefore with poured-out congratulation I conclude, that him whom now you have consoled both with good addresses and with kindly charity, you may always hold inmost in the memory of your inward self. These things, I say, are with difficulty reconciled with the biographer's assertion, especially by those who think that Goericus held a prefecture in Austrasia, and at the same time take Desiderius's words as though it were made out from them that Desiderius lived together with Abbo at the court of king Chlothar. For it does not seem likely enough that Goericus, holding some magistracy in Austrasia, should have been at the court of a hostile king while Theodebert survived.
[13] Chlothar did not gain possession of affairs in Austrasia before Theodebert's death and the year of Christ 613, before Chlothar's reign in Austrasia. and so the companionship of Goericus with Desiderius at that king's court can seem to be referred to a time after that year: which assuredly conflicts with the biographer asserting that Goericus was deprived of sight in the time of king Theodebert, after which he certainly did not come to Chlothar's court. And so, unless you take Desiderius's words in such a way as to understand only that he, while Abbo was living elsewhere, was at Chlothar's court and was refreshed by his letters, the biographer must be judged to have erred, to whom, as an anonymous of uncertain date, it would be unfair to attribute authority and credit more than to Desiderius, a holy man and a contemporary writer, according to whose assertions the rest of the chronology flows without difficulty. For let us grant that St. Goericus frequented the court of Chlothar, who had now gained possession of the whole monarchy of the Gauls, for three or four years, that he began to labor under blindness about the year 618, and two years later hastened to Metz to St. Arnulph, and it will be understood how Syagrius could succeed Goericus in the duchy of Albi and afterwards be promoted to that of Marseilles; and the rest of the biographers' assertions will also cohere as to chronology; whereas, if you should judge otherwise, that the saint, while Theodebert was still reigning, went to Metz deprived of the use of his eyes, his long stay of thirteen or fourteen years in that place will seem less likely.
[14] His father was perhaps Babo, brother of St. Segolena. For the rest, in favor of asserting for St. Goericus the prefecture of the county of Albi there seems to make what is read in the Life of St. Segolena, written by a contemporary author and a familiar of the saint, and printed in our work, volume 5 of July at the 24th day of the same month, page 630 and following, where in chapter 4 the author writes thus: Now at a certain time, when it was the venerable day of the Litanies, which had gathered many Christians into one, there was there her own brother, a duke named Babo, strong in nobility and wisdom, who ruled the peoples dwelling through the fields of Albi. Who that Babo was, Mabillon and our Cuper did not decide, nor does it seem able to be certainly decided, on account of the tottering credit of the documents and the thick darkness thence arisen in setting out the family of St. Goericus. That Gamardus, the father of St. Goericus, was surnamed Babo, two ancient genealogies in Dominici in the Appendix to The Family of Ansbert Revived testify in the plainest words. If Babo, the brother of St. Segolena, was Gamardus the parent of Abbo, and he the same duke of Albi, then on his father's death Goericus could succeed, or, as the biographer speaks, come into his father's throne, for which the time at which it must have happened, namely the beginning of the seventh century, squares well enough. But in the same Life of St. Segolena, chapter 2, the father of Babo is called Chramsicus, and in chapter 5 his brother Sigibald a bishop: how much these names differ from Tonantius Ferreolus and from Firminus of Uzès, Deotarius of Arisitum, and Aigulf of Metz, bishops, of whom the latter are set down as the brothers of Gamardus, and the former as his father, in the Ansbertine pedigree! I confess it, nor, though not destitute of all testimony, should I wish to assert that Tonantius Ferreolus was at the same time surnamed Chramsicus, and one of the episcopal brothers Sigibald; but to those who neglect chronological series that are disturbed and in more than one place opposed to one another, I have chosen to indicate my suspicion, such as it is, so that if perhaps
they believe those documents, since they unanimously assert that Gamardus was at the same time named Babo, though they differ in the rest, they may uncover that Chramsicus and Sigibald; and since this is not part of our design, I return to the Acts of St. Goericus.
[15] St. Goericus is said to have begotten two daughters, Præcia and Victorina. What our manuscripts have about the daughters of St. Goericus is alike unknown to Vincent of Beauvais and to Surius. They are designated by express name in all the copies, and one is called Præcia, the other Victorina. The name of the saint's wife appears nowhere, nor is it expressed how the daughters finally turned out, after they had been brought to Metz by their father and confirmed in the purpose of preserving virginity. Ruyr, in the passage cited, number 3, adds to these that Præcia, adorned with the sacred veil by her parent and set over the monastery of St. Maurice, died holily there, and was in his own time venerated as a saint. Meurisse in his History, book 2, page 120, drawing, unless I am mistaken, from Ruyr or from the Acts, records it a little more freely and more ornately, and adds that, many holy virgins flowing thither and others gradually building houses round about the enclosure, from this the city of Épinal grew together. That these two daughters were born to St. Goericus we may believe our biographer, since nothing is produced from elsewhere that would weaken his testimony: but what Meurisse invents about the monastery of Épinal being founded by St. Goericus can in no way be maintained: for in our Acts, in the last number, and in the Life of Adalbero written by a contemporary, it is said in express words that Theoderic the Elder, who came to the see of Metz in the year 964, erected that monastery to God and to St. Goericus.
[16] Lest you should so interpret these things as to say that the monastery, first built by St. Goericus, was afterwards, when it was falling, restored by Theoderic, the all too clear words of both writers stand in the way, as also the Confirmation of Henry II in Calmet, volume 1, column 565, of the monastery of Épinal, which bishop Theodoric of blessed memory (they are the words of the Charter) erected there from the foundations in honor of the most holy martyr Maurice and of holy Goericus the confessor, and likewise consecrated. Things like these are repeated often in the documents which the writer praised in the same place subjoins, and nowhere is mention made of an older origin of that convent. Whence Ruyr had what he further narrates about Præcia I do not know. He calls them certain traditions and documents of the monasteries of the Vosges: but of what credit these were, who shall say? I have searched very many things in vain, so as to agree with him safely. Of Præcia in the ancient sacred calendars there is nowhere a word. In the index of the Universal Martyrology, however, this is read at the 22nd day of June: Saint Præcia (Aprincia), who is venerated at Metz at St. Clement's. These names indeed seem near enough to one another, but whether the same person is designated by them I cannot discern; for an argument drawn from mere nearness of name is not rarely weak. A few things about St. Aprincia Papebroch gave in volume 4 of June at the 20th day, from a sheet transmitted to him from the monastery of St. Clement. Then from Wiltheim's report he describes the shrine in which those sacred remains are contained together with the relics of other saints, and says that the silver effigy of St. Aprincia, with which the reliquary is adorned on the outside, represents her as an abbess of royal blood, distinguished with crown and staff. These things indeed are apt to cast no light suspicion; but would that such documents about the cult of St. Præcia, which I have learned obscurely from Ruyr almost alone, were sent to us, that something more certain might be said!
[17] Much more obscure still are the things which pertain to Victorina. is not established for us. Miracles at the tomb of St. Goericus That she is mentioned with her sister by Ferrarius, Saussay, and Arthur was said in the Prætermissi at this day; all seem to have labored under the same poverty as ourselves in proving a cult, for they bring forward nothing beyond what I have already said, and what is put forth from the Acts of St. Goericus, nor do these seem sufficient for them to find a special place among the saints according to our design. For the rest, that very many and illustrious miracles were wrought at the tomb of St. Goericus the biographer of Adalbero testifies, writing in Labbe, volume 1 of the Manuscript Library, page 682: And blessed Goericus, in our times a memorable worker of miracles, is buried there. In the Antiphon at the Benedictus prescribed in the Breviary of Toul, of which above in number 2, some things are confusedly narrated, which see there if you please. Others, and not more distinctly, the aforesaid biographer of Adalbero commemorates at folio 673. The holy confessor of Christ Goericus (he says), declaring by all the signs and prodigies of miracles what he had merited in his life and what he availed with God, his fame growing frequent far and wide, became known to peoples and nations. That therefore the glory of God might be made known, and the magnificence of his goodness shine forth more and more manifest, in all the borders of Burgundy a most evil plague invaded a very great multitude of the peoples, by which, burning in hands and feet with a pitiable punishment — this one having lost one foot, this one maimed of both, this one scorched in the middle, someone then first beginning to be burned, not coming much fiercely — hearing the rumor of the holy Pontiff, leaning on staves, or carried in carts [] from every quarter, they flowed together. He then praises the humility and charity of Adalbero, with which he washed the stinking wounds of the wretched, and concludes: These things we have said for this reason, that in one and the same matter we might proclaim two deeds of two priests most worthy of memory, and hand them on to posterity to be imitated or admired, while in blessed Goericus we showed the marks of virtues, and the marks, and in the lord Adalbero the desire and the highest love of abjection and of all human meanness.*
[18] and at the translation of his body Another prodigy which happened at the relics of St. Goericus is described in the History of the Bishops of Toul, chapter 46, in these words: Again also the aforesaid prelate of the Mediomatrici (Theoderic or Theodoric) had translated the body of the excellent confessor Goericus, and had resolved to place it in the monastery of the nuns of Épinal, where it might be honorably venerated, and for the carrying out of this had invited our pontiff (St. Gerard, bishop of Toul) to be his partner. Therefore, two shrines having been prepared in which the blessed relics might be kept, one the outer one shining with an adornment of silver coins, the other the inner one bound with a fastening of iron, the sacred pledges are carried to the appointed place, a great throng of rejoicing peoples going before and following after. But unexpectedly a sudden sadness arises, which troubled the breasts of those present, a little before overflowing with exultation; because when the lesser shrine had to be inserted into the greater according to custom, the inner one was found of an irregular size, since the improvident craftsman had incautiously arranged the two measures, and the silver cover could not be closed to the measure of a foot. All therefore being not a little saddened by this, our blessed pastor (Gerard) prepares to say Mass, and for the sadness of those present entreats the Lord with suppliant vows. But while the close of the holy Consecration was being uttered by him in a loud voice, before the words of the Lord's prayer are reached, suddenly that ill-projecting case is made firm in its place, the gaping cover, with no one pressing upon it, dashed together with a great crash, is closed of its own accord: the sadness of those present is turned into joy: it becomes beyond doubt to all that Christ was there present and favorable: which, although it can be reckoned to the merits of blessed Goericus, yet it is not incredible that the power of our holy prelate (Gerard) was present there, whose pious prayers came before the countenance of the almighty Most High.
[19] wrought: his relics at Metz. The History of the Bishops of Toul, whence these things are taken, is printed in the often-praised Calmet, volume 1 of the History of Lorraine, first edition, page 83, among the documents, and is believed to have been written by Hermiricus, who they say flourished about the end of the tenth century and presided over various monasteries. For the rest, in Meurisse and Calmet I find that the head of St. Goericus is even now preserved at Metz in the church of St. Symphorian, where the holy prelate had first been laid, but that the remaining holy remains were translated to the convent of Épinal and are held and venerated with worthy honor. In the Life of St. Romaric in Mabillon, in the Acts of the Saints of the Order of St. Benedict, century 2, page 420, it is narrated that a deacon saw St. Goericus illustrious among the heavenly ones, and receiving holy Romaric into heaven. Now I subjoin both Lives of St. Goericus, of doubtful credit, as having been written by an anonymous author of uncertain date.
Annotationselsewhere plaustris or rhedis* (wagons or carriages)
THE FIRST LIFE
By an anonymous author
Published by Surius from a most ancient manuscript codex of the church of Utrecht.
Goëricus, or Abbo, bishop and confessor, at Metz in Belgica Prima. (S.)
From the manuscripts.
[St. Goericus, having followed the soldier's calling, is afflicted with blindness,] Saint Goericus, at first indeed an excellent soldier from Aquitaine, serving the deeds of the world in body but not in vow, when he flourished in great honor before God and men, although he pursued the things that are of peace, yet whenever the harassment of the pagans a pressed hard, being the first to set himself against the enemy's battle-line, he most powerfully overcame the barbarian rage, trusting in God's help, and carried back the amplest spoils. At length he is suddenly struck with the loss of his eyes and of sight, yet, fortified on every side with the virtue of patience, giving thanks to God he said: As it has pleased the Lord, so has it been done, etc. At that time Theodebert reigned in Gaul b, and in the city of Metz blessed Arnulph the pontiff presided. Then, while the holy man Goericus rested in the silence of the night, an angel of the Lord was present, saying: Servant of the most high God, the time has come in which your sorrow shall be turned into joy, in which also the lost light shall be restored to you.
[2] Therefore set out for the city of Metz, and devoutly enter the thresholds of blessed Stephen, he is divinely healed and consecrated bishop of Metz. and there pour out prayers to God, and you shall straightway receive sight and the soundness of your whole body. And Arnulph, your dear friend and kinsman, resides there as pontiff, to whom the Holy Spirit will show beforehand that you are to be there straightway, and will make manifest whatever God is about to lay upon you. The holy man therefore, being awakened, called together his soldiers, and set out on the journey from Aquitaine to the aforesaid city. As he drew near, holy Arnulph was there, and, a prayer having been made and a blessing given, led him into his house. And he, by the intercession of holy Stephen, received sight and the fullest health of his whole body. After this holy Arnulph, seeing with the spiritual gaze of his mind that Goericus would be a most worthy successor to himself, with the clergy and people consenting, appointed him, and sought the long-desired wilderness. Therefore Goericus, who by another name is called Albo c, bound by pastoral care, formed the rest by his words and his manners; and since before his episcopate he had worn down his body with the strictest fastings, it is not lawful to relate how hard the fasts were which he heaped up, how many days too he passed without food until the next day, how many two-days' and three-days' abstinences he kept with cheerful countenance and mind.
[3] But when holy Arnulph had died in the wilderness, when blessed Goericus, He translates the body of St. Arnulph to Metz having taken with him the bishops of Toul d and Verdun, was translating the holy body to the see over which he had presided, the sun sinking toward its setting, they had by chance come upon the villa of a wicked and incestuous man e, which the bearers of the sacred relics, wishing to enter, are suddenly held back by divine power and stand still. Now holy Arnulph, while he lived, had often admonished the aforesaid wicked man to repent, and could effect nothing; therefore now he disdained to enter his lodging. But since night was at hand,
and no other villa suited to so great a multitude was at hand, while holy Goericus prayed, a certain rich man was present who said: I have a stronghold [] in this country, not indeed close enough for you, but I know that our God is present for all necessities.* And the saint, hearing this, orders the holy body to be turned thither and all to follow.
[4] He works miracles on the journey: he dies. You would have beheld such swiftness in the going that you would marvel that what you could scarcely believe to be traversed in the space of one whole day was accomplished in two or three hours. And when they had come to the villa, the man, on his servants' report, found that he had little beer. And again, filled with faith, he commits this to the merits and prayers of holy Goericus: who, seeking the aids he knew, asks God to come to the aid of his people's necessities; and so great a multitude of the people was most abundantly satisfied from a small quantity of liquid (which is scarcely credible). And the man of the Lord rested in peace on the thirteenth of the Kalends of October, on which day his feast is celebrated f, and was entombed in the church of Metz.
ANNOTATIONS.
Vincent of Beauvais reads Prædium* (estate).
THE SECOND LIFE
by an anonymous author
From a manuscript of St. Maximin of Trier, collated with manuscripts of the monastery of Accinctum and of Épinal, and with another anonymous one.
Goëricus, or Abbo, bishop and confessor, at Metz in Belgica Prima. (S.)
BHL Number: 3607
By an anonymous author.
CHAPTER I.
St. Goericus, having held dignities, loses his sight, prodigiously recovers it, and is consecrated bishop of Metz. His episcopal virtues.
[ ] St. Goericus, well instructed in piety and learning, The holy and venerable Goericus therefore, a man of great and most illustrious merit in God and in his Christ, surpassing this a nobility of so great birth by the integrity of his faith and the devotion of his piety, and beginning in the very rudiments of his boyish age to love God, since the child's most sweet disposition sought this, is committed by his holy parents [] to be imbued with the studies of letters; and because the grace of almighty God had foreseen and ordained that he should be set over his holy Church, there grew in him day by day both the marks of virtues and a very great aptitude for letters, and he was gradually flooded with the grace of God, so that he was most fully loved by God and by men. For, so far as his tender age could bear, showing zeal for fraternal solicitude, for compassion toward the sick, for assiduity in reading and prayer, for rigor of fastings and abstinence, for continuance in vigils, for subjection to his elders, and for the wages of all virtues, he made known by evident proofs to all who could know him who and of what sort he would be. And when, with the happy prayers of all upon him [], happy and blessed he gradually grew up into manly strength, and by the increase of age passed over, God presiding, into the auspice of youth, we speak the truth: he had advanced more by the summit of his virtues than by the mere time not only of hours and of monuments.
[2] So therefore, with the assent of him who assents to all things just and honorable, [he is applied to the soldier's calling, and, having obtained the title of count and duke,] namely almighty God, withdrawing from the schools, now made drunk with the fountain of all knowledge and of all most sweet wisdom, now with that living water which the Son of God promised to the saints believing in him and following him with a pure heart leaping up in him unto eternal life, now, because he had thirsted much and because after his thirst he had drunk, with living waters flowing forth from his belly — because the chief men b of his country had perceived this, they began to promote him step by step through the grades of military office. And first they adorn him with military arms and military garments, and make him equal to the fathers [*], until, by the ancient goodness of God, after the dignity of a county c, after the rank of a duchy, the last king of Aquitanian Gaul d being dead, every order, every age, every condition and every sex hastens by common assent and common devotion to raise him, of royal stock and royal parentage e, to the fasces, and, blessing God, who is always blessed in the good deeds of the saints, and is magnified and proclaimed a glorious God, he is lifted up and exalted upon the throne of the fathers. It was a marvel to see with what glory, what honor, and what comeliness he illuminated the office he had obtained and rendered it illustrious, while, by the moderation of wisdom given him by God, whatever were the marks of virtues, whatever were the just precepts of worldly affairs, he himself first fulfilling them in deed, ceased not diligently to admonish his subjects with the pious exhortation of admonitions.
[3] he gives many proofs of warlike fortitude And although he always pursued the things that are of peace toward one another and toward all, and followed peace with all men and holiness, without which he knew that no one could please God, yet whenever the necessity of war pressed in, whenever the harassment of the pagans urged (for on the right side and on the left, and, that I may say more, from every quarter the nations hostile to God — the Saracens f, the Goths, the Gascons, and the other diabolical plagues — with a most devastating whirlwind at that time were shaking the kingdom of Aquitaine and all Francia), this excellent Soldier and glorious King, setting himself first among the first in the line of battle, most powerfully overcame the barbarian rage, trusting in God's help, and, triumphing over the enemy, carried back the amplest spoils to his country and home: and it was wonderful to say, amid the great and very great throng of the world and of divers provinces and peoples, amid the causes of daily reckonings to be decided, amid the affairs of the military office to be evened out, amid the daily judgments of a various populace to be settled on this side and on that, that he was an assiduous and most true worshipper of God, and rendering most perfectly to God the things that are God's, while the things also that were of the world, by reason of the office divinely laid upon him and also by the opportunity of affairs, he, most just, handled most justly; and, as once that most holy patriarch and at the same time prophet David, worn out [*] and wearied by the diligent occupations of the world, and also pressed down and hemmed about by the manifold harassment of battles and seditions, yet never relaxing either heart or mind from the work of God, always at midnight rose to confess to God: and in the day he rendered seven times the due praises to almighty God upon the judgments of his justice.
[4] and of very many virtues, and betroths two daughters to God. And what is altogether rare, in his great eloquence he was most truthful in word, most just in deciding causes, most ready in the answers he received, most upright in faith, most sure in hope, poured out in charity, loving God with all his strength and all his heart, and studying to love his neighbor also no less than himself. Excelling most perfectly in these and such marks of virtues, and most becomingly illumined, and most acceptable to God and to men, since the royal dignity demanded [] it, he took a wife g of most noble stock, from whom, receiving by God's gift two daughters of most beautiful form, he resolved that they should persevere in the purpose of holiness, and ordained that they should keep the most splendid beauty of chastity and virginity: of whom one was called Præcia [] h, the other Victorina i. Certainly, never preferring anything to the love of Christ, but despising parents, children, fields, and whatever can be either had or desired — though not yet in body, yet already fully in mind and utterly spurning them — he preferred that his most beloved daughters should be betrothed and consecrated to Christ the Lord, their heavenly bridegroom, rather than to rejoice in the present with the fleeting and therefore vain gladness of mortal sons-in-law. And so times pass k, days pass, and the blessed man Goericus, serving the deeds of the world in body but not in vow, yet loving God with all his mind and with a true heart, made the foot of the lame, the eye of the blind, the father of orphans, the staff of the aged, and the brother of ostriches, had become all things to all, that he might gain all, and might call to the way of truth and salvation whom he could and as far as he could.
[5] But when the appointed time was now at hand in which the provision of the heavenly predestination should be fulfilled, he is tested by God with blindness and the things which the divine foreknowledge had decreed to be fulfilled through the blessed man should be made plain to the peoples and to the world, and so that the merit of the holy man, refined by the fire of sufferings and by the flames of temptations, like gold which is tried by fire, should shine and glow red on every side — as once the most blessed Job and the holy Tobias, for the summit of perfection and the increase of glory, the one weighed down by the loss of his goods and by an infirmity of his whole body even to putrefaction, the other punished with blindness of the eyes for [ on account of this it is said of him by God, there is none like him on the earth, a man just and simple, and fearing God and departing from evil*; but the other deserved to be visited and healed by an Archangel, a prince among the princes of the heavenly host] — blessed Goericus, while he flourished in great honor before God and men, before the world and heaven, and shone with great riches and much splendor of the world, and, what is greater, was most becomingly strong in sanctity and in the purpose of piety in every land, and gave off a most sweet fragrance with a good odor, by a sudden
loss of his eyes and of sight is struck down l; and, what was most grievous, amid the royal halls, amid a most abundant plenty of delights, and amid the very great throng of soldiers and of many peoples, he used the goods of present things without using them, and enjoyed them without enjoying them: and yet, most harshly oppressed and most grievously constrained by this trouble of infirmity, fortified on every side and hedged about on every side with the virtue of patience, rendering thanks to God, he blessed God at all times, and always the praises of God resounded in his mouth.
[6] He magnified God and exalted his name together, which he bears most patiently and most holily. and with blessed Job he faithfully said: As it has pleased the Lord, so has it been done; blessed be the name of the Lord: for the holy soul of the blessed man, knowing in no wise how to suffer loss of merits, but hastening through the furnace of temptations to be, not burned like chaff, but tried like gold, labored that the progress of virtues should advance in him more and more. Indeed the bounty of his almsgiving, the affability of his fraternal compassion, the instancy of his prayers, the continuance of his fastings, the night-long watching of his vigils, and the devotion of every good work boiled up day by day in the blessed man, and, sighing with all his efforts and all his prayers and every breath, he stretched toward the joys of the eternal fatherland: nor was there any space, beyond the necessary and unavoidable uses of the body, in which he did not either pray, or chant psalms, or have the sacred lessons read before him, and either fulfil whatever is appointed of the divine service, or, while they were being fulfilled, most zealously apply the ears of his heart and of his body — a man most acceptable to God, a man with whom God was.
[7] In these times, in Belgic Gaul, which is enclosed round about by the river Seine on the south and by the Rhine on the north, At an angel's admonition which from the assiduity of wars is called Belgica or Bellica m, and Francia from the ferocity of its spirits, in the reign of the most glorious king Theudebert [], in the city of Metz — which [ by another name is called Mediomatricum, since indeed, two rivers, the Moselle and the Seille, flowing round about it (for they seem almost to lick its very wall), it is set in the midst of them, like a most noble mother n. Or it is called Mediomatricum because, with the cities of Toul, Verdun, and Trier set round about, it, the mother in their midst, nourishes and cherishes her daughters with abundance of goods] — blessed Arnulph, most eminent in the things of God, resided o, who, ruling himself and his own most becomingly with wisdom and sanctity, had become known far and wide as fame proclaimed him, and shone as a most bright lamp upon the wonderful candlestick of holy Church. While therefore, to return to what I began, blessed Goericus gladly gloried in infirmities, that the power of our Lord Jesus Christ might dwell in him, for (as the blessed Apostle says) strength is made perfect in weakness, and that the grace of God in him might not be void, but might always abide in him, and that what he was should be the grace of God — when now the end of temptations and the time of rewards was at hand with happy prayers, while the holy man was resting in the silence of the night, and his limbs were relaxed [] in sleep for slumber, an Angel of the Lord is present, and opening his mouth in these words, says: The time has come, servant of the most high God, the time has come in which the sorrow of your infirmities shall be turned into joy and gladness, in which the lost light shall be restored to you brighter and purer than ever.*
[8] he sets out for Metz, Præcia and Victorina accompanying their Father, Therefore, most swiftly fulfilling what I shall say and what I shall command, set out for the city of Metz, and with pious devotion enter the thresholds of Stephen the protomartyr, marked with the blood [p] of the same holy Martyr; there pour out most intent prayers to God; beg that the offences of your youth and your ignorances be forgiven you; ask pardon of your sins for your spiritual brethren and for those near to you in Christ; and, holding a most sure faith in God, know that you shall straightway receive sight and the health of your whole body. The venerable Arnulph, near to you in flesh and blood [q], presides over the pontifical see in that same city, and adorns the priestly infulæ while he is adorned by them. To him God and the Holy Spirit, revealing your coming, will show beforehand that you are to be there straightway, and will make manifest whatever the ancient goodness of God's loving-kindness and mercy is about to bestow upon you. The blessed man therefore, being awakened, rouses his chamberlains, calls together his soldiers, orders the appointed journey to be prepared at once, and without any delay, knowing not how to suffer delay, sets out on the most beloved way. He crossed Aquitaine [r], entered Francia, and thus, with God's assent, joyfully came to the most beloved city shown to him beforehand through the angelic vision. He brought with him the most longed-for joys of his two daughters consecrated to God, namely Præcia and Victorina, upon whom, most sweetly inculcating along the way the counsels of salvation, that they should persevere in the purpose of virginity as they had begun, the loving Father urged, reproving, beseeching, rebuking.
[9] and being most lovingly received by St. Arnulph, divinely forewarned, But as he drew near to the city, blessed Arnulph comes to meet him — the glory of the world, the light of his country, the stay of the peoples, the glory of priests, a lamp to those sitting in darkness, the ornament not only of his own but of all holy churches — and rushing into kisses full of weeping for joy, and reporting that he knew, by the revelation of the Holy Spirit, whatever had been done and said, a prayer having been made and a blessing given, the holy man leads the holy man into the house which was and is the head of the city. While blessed Arnulph was managing and most holily governing the ecclesiastical affairs, divine and human, St. Goericus did not cease, by instancy of prayers and vigilance of good works, to beg for what the mercy of almighty God had promised him. Indeed the holy Angel, when by divine revelation he was forewarning the blessed man what he should do about obtaining health, suggested this among other things: that as soon as he should come to the appointed places, he should build at his own expense a church in honor of blessed Peter, prince of the apostles, and should hand over by a legal testament to almighty God the possessions belonging to him by paternal and maternal right, for the making up of the dowry of the holy church, who knows how to render a hundredfold, and that perpetually, to those who leave all things for his sake and for the obtaining of eternal life.
[10] Presently indeed, as soon as he arrived, refreshing for a very few days his wearied limbs with a little rest, and, a church having been built to St. Peter, he asks to be led to the place where the Basilica was to be built, and, blind as he was, at the dictation and teaching of the Holy Spirit, himself laying the foundations with his own hands — because he shone within and in his soul with divine light in the highest brightness — this was made plain to those present and to those to come. Work is therefore pressed upon what was begun [s], and it was wonderful to say and wonderful to see with what speed and with what prosperity the fabric of the divine work rose up with happy prayers, and spread itself out unto completion [*]. The most honorable work therefore is finished, and, as today one can behold a house most worthy of God and of all his saints, with all rejoicing and all making merry, it is completed. And this from that time is called the greater house of St. Peter [t], by reference to the other church which, built by blessed Clement, first bishop of the city of Metz, in honor of his loving master (holy Peter), is named the Lesser house of St. Peter: next to which there is a house [u] which is said by all the neighbors to have been St. Clement's.
[11] But when the work of the happy temple was completed, and the holy church, which is the bride of Christ, most abundantly endowed with very great abundance of estates, at length God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, [by the intercession of St. Stephen, whose precious relics are there preserved, he recovers his sight:] the Father [ of mercies and the God of all consolation, who comforteth us in all our tribulation, who is a helper in opportunities, in tribulation, who, before he is invoked, says, Behold, I am here] stretches forth a saving hand to St. Goericus praying and begging health of soul and body, and puts forth the right hand of his divinity to help, and by the intercession of holy Stephen, the most beloved protomartyr of Christ, restored to him the sight of his body and the inmost and fullest brightness of his soul. But when the holy man, by God's gift, whose [ eyes are ever upon the just, and whose ears are ever unto the prayers of the saints,] received light and sight, and when by continual prayers he had already fixed upon Jesus the son of David, that he should have mercy on him, and he had already said to him: Look up, thy faith hath made thee whole — it is not possible to say how great was the concourse of the peoples, how great the din of men and women running up, of noble and ignoble, of laymen and clerics, of old men, young men, and children, praising God and the holy Trinity with voices and hearts as lofty and as devout as they could, because his name alone is exalted, and his confession is above heaven and earth.
[12] But holy Arnulph, the venerable prelate, because in his days God visited his people, after which St. Arnulph, what he had long conceived in mind, and because God in his mercy had restored to his kinsman health of body and of soul, forgetting his dignity, forgetting his office, runs up, and with tears flowing down to his feet and to the ground, is present; and, binding themselves to each other in mutual embraces, they caressed and comforted one another with the loving-kindness of mutual consolation; and, a very long prayer having been poured out which the sweetness of their minds supplied, with hands joined, each consoling the other, he leads him into the episcopal house; where there was long discourse of divine things: and it was turned over with sacred words that from the very beginnings of the world many have been the tribulations of the just, and out of them all the Lord has delivered them. These things being thus accomplished, the time was at hand in which the things which the blessed pontiff Arnulph had long turned over in his mind should be fulfilled, and the affection of his holy desire should obtain its fullest effect: for not only after obtaining the dignity of the priesthood, but long before, while still set in the lay condition, wearied even by the very fasces of the palace, he had desired the solitude of the wilderness, and had wished with all his prayers, alone, to please God alone. Already by sacred admonitions and sweet addresses he had taught blessed Romaric [x] to despise earthly things and to love heavenly; already, all things being sold and whatever he had possessed being distributed to the uses of the poor, he had determined to follow Christ, that he might have a perpetual treasure in heaven, and had made him flee to the wilderness.
[13] he determines to carry out, and, leave having been obtained from the court, While St. Goericus after receiving health was devoting and handing himself wholly over to the service of God, and most faithfully making God propitious to himself by the daily exhibition of his works, blessed Arnulph sees with the spiritual gaze of his mind that a most worthy successor to himself was at hand, and that for this reason the time was at hand in which, all the garments of the world being left behind, he might, poor and naked, follow the poor Christ. Provisions being therefore prepared, he approaches king Dagobert [y], and, knocking for those things with which he had often wearied his father Chlothar with prayers, asks again and again that a discharge be given him, whereby he might freely serve God and fulfil the words of the Lord admonishing through the Psalmist, saying: Be still and see, for I am God, and might be able to imitate that same Psalmist singing to God: Lo, I have gone far off, fleeing away, and I abode in the wilderness; I waited for him who should save me. The king, whom that same venerable pontiff [z] had so imbued and so nourished with all wisdom and all honor that no one wiser than he, nor ever more illustrious, had gone before among the Sicambrian [*] nation, touched and worn down with sorrow even to a wonderful pouring out of tears, first with sweet words
strove to call him back from the intention he had begun: then, not prevailing thus, not blushing to bring in threats, first threatening to kill the son of that same venerable father [aa], he then dared to attack him with arms and the sword; but being prevented by the soldiers standing by, the queen also running between, he not only did not accomplish what he had wished, but even, together with that queen devoted to God, prostrating himself upon the ground and at the saint's feet, begged with the utmost devotion that pardon be given him.
[14] he transfers the episcopal infulæ to St. Goericus … [bb] And leave being given him and authority obtained for choosing a successor for himself, he went out, the king and queen being blessed, and hastens as quickly as he can on the journey toward his own see; and coming, he calls together the clergy and people, and admonishes them to choose a worthy priest for themselves: he announces that he can bear delay no longer without fulfilling what he had long since in his youthful age vowed to God, and that he wishes to seize the solitude of the wilderness. And as all flowed together from every quarter, ran up from every quarter, and burst into tears and exceeding outcries, you might have seen with what grief and what sorrow they bore the absence of their most sweet father, and how unworthy they judged themselves of the blessings of so great a man. But blessed Arnulph, restraining the sadness of the multitude with most loving addresses and with fatherly affability, admonishes them to do what was pressing, and to choose for their pontiff the most holy man Goericus, who was also surnamed by another name Abbo, because God had so foretold it to him; and although all were grieving at the withdrawal of their own pastor and sorrowing to the inmost of their hearts, yet, hope being recovered because a Pastor not unequal in merit was given them, they favor it with their prayers, favor it with their words, favor it with their deeds, and with hands and voices lifted to heaven cry aloud that blessed Goericus, who was also called Abbo, should be their pastor; and with human and angelic applause, heaven rejoicing and earth applauding, he is set in the episcopal chair to preside over it [cc].
[15] Happy and most blessed mother church, when, bereft of a most holy father, she deserved to receive a Pastor of no less sanctity, but of the same merit and the same loving-kindness; who forms his flock by examples and doctrine, when a saint succeeds a saint, a just man a just man! Exalted therefore by the prayers of all to the throne of the pontificate, and most becomingly wrapped about with the priestly infula, now setting at little value whatever good work he had done and reckoning it as nothing, he began to become a new man; and he who meanwhile had wholly assigned himself and his own soul to the service of God, now, bound by pastoral care, formed his subjects by his words and manners, by deeds and words, that they should do the same, and by daily preaching sowed the seeds of the divine word in the furrows of the hearts of the faithful, and most sweetly watered them with the rains of divine knowledge: and he who before his episcopate had worn down his body and limbs with the strictest fastings and excessive sparingness — it is not lawful to relate how manifold the fasts were which he heaped upon fasts, how assiduously he withdrew from his mouth and belly even the foods allowed, how many days he passed without food until the next day, and, what is greater, how not only daily but even two-days' and three-days' abstinences he kept with cheerful countenance and mind.
[16] Nor did he go about, as certain arrogant men do, with uncombed hair and unkempt face, so as to appear to men to be fasting; he feeds the poor with most bountiful alms. but with washed and comely cheeks he showed himself to those who saw him as if satisfied and exceedingly filled with all riches. With those who rejoiced he rejoiced together, with those who mourned he mourned, with the rich he was rich, with the poor he was poor, and, esteeming the goods and ills of his neighbors as his own, he either rejoiced with them or suffered with them at the losses or gains of his brethren in Christ, as though they befell himself. Scarcely ever did the rising or the setting sun see him angry; scarcely, except on the Lord's day or on the birthdays of the saints, had that same shining sun seen him eat: barley bread was almost his daily food, water his most fitting drink; celebrating the divine mysteries almost every day, he counted it a very great thing to perform it with unwearied tears and sighs proceeding from the depth of his heart; nor did he suffer his spirit, given up to God, to be overcome for any hour or moment by any sloth or by the body, without either praying, or chanting psalms, or applying himself skillfully to the benefits of his subjects, or pressing on the more earnestly to repair the ruins of the churches to be restored. The people rejoiced, the clergy rejoiced, every age and every sex rejoiced, gladdened by the continual blessings of the blessed pontiff and most happy father Goericus, always persuaded by his addresses to do well and exhorted always to advance to better things; and, blessing God, they besought him with inmost prayers that they might deserve to enjoy the long-lasting life of so great a Father.
ANNOTATIONS.
May he who now gives the rights of a Count give you those of a Duke.
It is doubtful to what dignity higher than these our anonymous author raises Goericus.
[ ]. Mediomatricum, Divodurum, Mettæ, and Metti you will find it not rarely called. The etymology which the biographer adduces of this word in the second place the aforesaid Valois laughs at; the first he does not recount, but it deserves no milder censure. Moreover the Salia or Sallia is a river of Belgica Prima, and rises from the lake of Lindre not far from Fribourg, whence by a course of about 20 miles it flows into the Moselle below Metz. Of it Fortunatus, book 3 of his poems:
On his right hand flows that which is called the Sallia.
And book 1:
Or that which comes to Metz, taking its name from salt.
He who desires more of these matters may consult Valois in the Notitia of the Gauls, and Meurisse in the historical Preface, §§1, 2, and 3.
p. On this Saussay thus from Meurisse: At Metz … in the basilica of the protomartyr there is preserved with much religious care the flint with which that famous witness of Christ was struck on the head, still stained with his blood and with some hairs stuck to it.
q. Supposing the genealogy of the Ansbertine family, I have said in the preliminary Commentary, number 9 and following, that that opinion seems more probable which sets St. Arnulph as the great-great-grandson of St. Goericus through his uncle Ansbert.
r. Thus the journey from Albi to Metz is not badly described.
s. Whatever is here narrated as done at Metz before St. Goericus was taken up to the episcopal infulæ can conveniently be bound within the space of six years.
t. The bishop of Madaura, in his work on St. Goericus, adds to these that that church is also called St. Peter at the images, in French S. Pierre aux images. Corruptly, however, as he himself judges, for St. Peter at the homages, S. Pierre aux homages. For he had found it handed down in manuscripts and traditions that in that place where the church was built the Mediomatrici were accustomed to swear fealty to the Romans and to pay tribute upon a marble tablet, which even in his own time was to be seen there. Let this observation of his be worth as much as the credit of the manuscripts and traditions on which it rests. For the rest, the Martyrology of the cathedral church of Metz announces the dedication of that church at the 16th day of November in these words: The dedication of the church of St. Peter the Greater within the house which the holy bishop Goericus built.
u. These things are to be referred to the church of St. Peter the Greater, on the testimony of Meurisse and Saussay, who subjoins: In which he (St. Goericus) instituted a college of ministers, conspicuous until now under the title of the confraternity of the canons of the Greater house of St. Peter. Moreover, what is here narrated about St. Clement as a disciple of St. Peter will come to be examined at the 23rd day of November, on which the name of St. Clement, bishop of Metz, is read inscribed in some Martyrologies. Meanwhile Meurisse may be consulted, page 1 and following, and the often-praised Calmet in the Dissertation on the bishops of Metz which is prefixed to volume 1 of the History of Lorraine, column 13.
x. Of St. Romaric we shall have to treat at the 8th day of December. What bears on this matter see in the Acts of St. Arnulph, volume 4 of July at the 18th day, page 435, number 6, and the intercalated Note of our Van den Bosch, letter f. Of the same I have treated in the preliminary Commentary, in the last number.
y. The first of that name, whom his father Chlothar had given as king to the Austrasians in the year 622.
z. He was namely detained by many cares at the court of king Chlothar: to this belongs what the contemporary anonymous author says in the Life cited above, number 16: Which being left behind (the letters which St. Arnulph had given to him), presently king Chlothar is filled with no small anguish, crying out that he was destitute of all help if St. Arnulph should cease from frequenting the palace. Moreover the Sicambri, or the Sicambrian nation, dwelling by the Waal, the Meuse, and the Rhine, are often confounded with the Franks and Austrasians, as Brower notes in Van den Bosch, Note b.
aa. The aforesaid biographer of St. Arnulph brings in Dagobert speaking thus: Since he has committed such a thing, I will cut off the head of your most beloved son, unless you stay with us. And he writes in number 5 that two sons were born to him of his wife Doda: of these St. Clodulph, whose Life stands in our work on the 8th of June, was the elder by birth. The other Paul the deacon and others call Ansegisus or Anchisus. The aforesaid biographer then goes on in chapter 2, number 18, to set out at greater length the king's fury and other matters. But Umno likewise in chapter 2, number 18, presents St. Audoenus standing by and calming the king's anger. It seems that not a few things have been transferred hither from one or the other.
bb. In all our copies some things seem to be lacking, for the sense limps.
cc. In the year 625, as our Van den Bosch proves in the preliminary Commentary to the often-cited Life of St. Arnulph.
* these are lacking in the anonymous manuscript
Anon. Theudeberico*
* the interposed words are lacking in the Anonymous.
Accinct. lassatis*
Accinct. Provectum*
* lacking in the anonymous one.
* wanting in the Anonymous
Anon. Flexerat*
Anon. and Épinal Sicambrica*
Épinal Patribus*
the remaining manuscripts ipse*
Épinal paribus*
the remaining manuscripts defessus*
Anon. majestas*
Épinal Prætia*
CHAPTER II.
St. Goericus enriches his church with precious furnishings, translates the body of his predecessor St. Arnulph, and dies full of merits.
[ ] He adorns his church with precious gifts. Meanwhile the holy pontiff Goericus, turning over in his mind and beholding in daily vision the virtue of blessed Arnulph his predecessor, which appeared in the restoring of the silver dish a which that same blessed Arnulph had once distributed to the poor, and which, in the same year in which the moneylender who was called Hugo died, was restored by king Chlothar to St. Stephen, whose it had been — desiring always to add to the house of God what he could of honor and comeliness and to provide what was useful, he took care to have made another dish of the same metal and the same weight, which even today is held distinguished with letters stamped with his name b: for the earlier dish is described in the Deeds of St. Arnulph as being of seventy pounds; and both dishes, for the divine honor, stand set on the right and on the left of the Lord's cross with a golden crucifix of wonderful brightness and size placed on high. For that, as a steward set in the house of a great head of a family, justly dispensing the wheat and the gains that are of holy Church, he might be able to lay up with God the hope of an eternal recompense, he busied himself with all his strength and with every effort to trade for an unfailing treasure and for moneys which he might carry back doubled to Christ the Lord; so that, money-changers being hired and good usury c happily traded for, since he had been faithful over a few things, he might deserve to enter, set over many things, into the joy of his Lord.
[18] he adorns his church. For while he was thought to be spending everything on the nourishment of the poor and the uses of his subjects, so much did he bestow on the building of monasteries and churches, and so many gifts and ornaments did he confer on them, that he who beheld the man's so great diligence in refreshing the poor would despair of his being able to confer anything on the churches; and again, he who looked upon his so great skill in ordering monasteries would not believe at all that he could give anything to the poor. And although by the virtue of humility he was subject to all good men, and by a pious estimate judged himself unequal in merits and inferior to all, yet he was so upright in cutting away the vices of the wicked that, if you were present and did not know him within and in his soul, you would think that he had nothing of humility and loving-kindness. In short, with the holy he was holy, and with the innocent man he was innocent, and with the elect he was elect; so that wherever he had learned that servants of God dwelt, even in more remote places, he hastened at once to be there and to be animated and kindled by their sweet addresses to heavenly desires and to the grasping of eternal rewards. For amid these sacred journeyings and amid the frequent visiting of the servants of God he most often visited holy Arnulph d, his predecessor, who, though still living in the body on earth, was already in mind and by his good manner of life among the heavenly ones, and blessed Romaric e, likewise strong in sanctity and exceeding goodness, most pious followers of the two most brilliant lights of the world, holy Elias and blessed John the Baptist, in the inhabiting of the desert and the vast solitude; and by sowing carnal things he reaped spiritual and holy ones.
[19] For because for the highest intention of eternal recompense they had left the world and all things that were of the world, and had most perfectly followed Christ God, who while living on earth had not where to lay his head, The body of the dead St. Arnulph, they were continually refreshed and sustained by the aids and support of this most holy man, namely the pontiff Goericus. Indeed, when the time came in which the wages of his labors and a blessed recompense should be granted to blessed Arnulph, and his blessed spirit should ascend dancing thither where in happiness he had stretched with continual prayers and long sighs, the heavenly pearl, taken up out of the dust of earthly contagion, was translated and set in the eternal palace. His most holy soul also, with the greatest throngs of Angels accompanying it, was led into heaven; his venerable body was committed to burial in the little church which that same blessed man, content with all poverty, had prepared for himself for serving God. As holy Romaric came with a great number of the monks and of the poor, who had always been his greatest care, and cried aloud with unutterable voices and tears, the spirit is commended to heaven, the body to earth. The most holy body of blessed Arnulph lay hidden [*] in the place in which it was laid for the space of one year: during all which time the blessed Goericus, the glorious pontiff, the renowned successor of that same holy Arnulph, was thinking of a translation, and diligently turned over in his mind how the clay of the most holy man might be carried back to his own see, namely the city of Metz.
[20] At length, a most sound counsel having been found f, he sent and summoned two venerable bishops, which had rested for a year in a small chapel, namely of the city of Toul and of Verdun; and, the clergy and monks, the rich and the poor of these three cities running together, blessed Goericus sets out on the journey to the Vosges: and the tomb being dug open, he clothes the holy body in new and most precious cloths, and lays it after the custom upon a bier g. Vigils are kept through the whole night, psalms are chanted to God, prayers are poured out, orisons are poured out. And on the morrow Masses are said by the bishops and the other priests: but the lower grades offer the accustomed oblations: and incense and the wonderful odors of many spices are kindled. There comes through the air a most sweet cloud, and the fragrance of the delightfully sweet-smelling smoke spread itself widely through the air. When those things which belong to divine worship had been performed about the body of the blessed man, and after the heavenly mysteries they had indulged themselves in bodily refreshment, and amid the feasting were giving great thanks to God, at length they take the road, from that time most happy for the people of Metz, and hasten to return as quickly as they could whence they had come. O how great a concourse of peoples! O how great a voice of those praising God! O how great a clapping of hands! O how great a din of those beating their breasts! O how great a multitude of those weeping and amid their weeping rejoicing! all of whom rejoiced that they were receiving him back, not as it were dead, but as though alive and as though speaking with them.
[21] with the greatest pomp Nor were heavenly miracles wanting, but, the merits of both priests accompanying, what the Psalmist had long before sung to God was most fully fulfilled: The Lord lifteth up the meek, but humbleth sinners even to the ground. For indeed in one and the same miracle both the merits of the holy men and the depravity of a certain wicked man became most fully known: and it was clearer than the light itself that the faithful has nothing pertaining to or agreeing with the unbeliever, and that there is no fellowship between light and darkness, or any agreement of Christ with Belial: for as they came out of the Vosges and entered the region of Chaumont h, when the sun, hastening to its setting, was already hurrying to give an end to the day, the blessed pontiff Goericus, with the rest of the multitude of the common people bearing the clay of holy Arnulph, resolves to grant a lodging and a resting-place, and orders their wearied limbs to be given to rest. But they chance upon the villa of a wicked and incestuous man, which, when they wished to enter it, while the first bearers of the holy relics were now almost entering, they stand fixed by divine power: and because a man's way is not in his own power, they discover themselves constrained by a heavenly force. Certainly, while blessed Arnulph still remained in this life, and with pastoral authority had often admonished the man whose the villa was to repent of his iniquity, and had rebuked him that he should take up the way of a better life, that he should leave off his crimes and thenceforth live chastely and honorably, he was altogether unable to effect it.
[22] he translates it to Metz, Therefore, while his blessed limbs were being carried, and the bearers were coming to the possession of that same most evil and wicked man, the blessed man, whose soul heaven now held, disdained to enter the wicked lodging; and because he now clung to him who is not only good but is goodness itself, not only just but is justice itself, he refused to enter the house of a wicked man and a sinner. Therefore, while those who carried the pledges of the holy and just man could not be moved from the place at all, the people indeed stood astounded, stupefied at the miracle: but holy Goericus, the venerable prelate, considering the matter well, said to his fellow-bishops and fellow-priests and to the rest of the people that holy Arnulph detested the fellowship of depravity, and did not deign to dwell even for the space of one night with him whom while living he could not correct. But, having no counsel whither they should turn or what they should do (for night was at hand, and no other villa suited to so great a multitude was at hand), they began to urge holy Goericus that, a prayer being poured out, God,
to whom nothing is impossible, and from whom is all counsel and all wisdom, might give help from heaven i, and would deign to grant a resting-place of quiet to those greatly wearied by the heat of a very long day; and they earnestly beseech him. While holy Goericus prayed, there was no delay before divine comfort was at hand and bestowed timely help on his faithful ones.
[23] and after miracles wrought on the journey On this journey there was present Notho, a venerable duke, most famous for wisdom and riches, who, touched by divine inspiration and kindled to faith, said: I have an estate in this country, not indeed close enough for us, but I know that our God is present for all things necessary and useful, who is able by his power to shorten a long journey, and in his loving-kindness may bring us swiftly whither we are making our way. And blessed Goericus, hearing these things, filled with joy, and knowing that all things are possible to him who believes, orders the clay of holy Arnulph to be turned thither, and commands all to follow. You would have beheld such swiftness in the going that you would think that they did not run but (so to speak) after the manner of birds, since they could not with wings, flew with their feet; and you would greatly marvel that what you would believe could scarcely be traversed in the space of one whole day was accomplished in two or three hours. They come therefore to the villa which from the name of its possessor Notho was and is called Curtis k [*]; and because the country is altogether not wine-bearing, the same duke, on his servants' report, found that he had little beer: but again, filled with faith, he commits this to the prayers and merits of holy Goericus. Holy Goericus, seeking the aids he knew, asks that God and his Christ, by the prayers of holy Arnulph, would come to the aid of the people's necessity.
[24] Not long was the prayer, and swiftly was aid given; he lays it honorably in the church of the Holy Apostles. and so great a multitude of the people was most abundantly satisfied from a small quantity of liquid, which is scarcely credible. On account of which miracle that same most liberal duke hastened to hand over that same possession, with all its appurtenances, to God and to holy Arnulph. A few days intervening, with the utmost alacrity they draw near to the city, carrying the limbs of the blessed man; and behold, a concourse of the peoples of both sexes and every age, of every order and condition, crying out that they were happy and saying: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Tapers are lighted, crosses and Gospel-books are carried out to meet them, and with great joys and applause they are led first into the city and into the house which is the head of the same city, namely the Basilica of holy Stephen the protomartyr: and the nocturnal vigils being celebrated, and on the next day Masses said with great reverence and oblations given, on the fifteenth of the Kalends of August they carry the same body of holy Arnulph to the church which at that time was called of l the Holy Apostles, and commit it to a most honorable burial. The burial being thus completed, the venerable priests and the rest of the people return to their own homes with great joy.
[25] But we have judged it useful to insert the Translation of blessed Arnulph into this little work, Not long after that we might make plain to those present and to come the solicitude of holy Goericus toward the office laid upon him, and his goodwill toward his most holy predecessor and kinsman. For when the blessed man Goericus did not suffer the people committed to him to be cheated of their own patron, but as quickly as he could was zealous to render back as a citizen to his fellow-citizens him who for the love of God and of his Christ had been made poor and a pilgrim while he lived, and after death was an inhabitant of heaven — it became clearer than the light itself with how great a force of love and charity toward God and toward his servants he glowed. Most fully approved therefore by the exercises of many virtues and most perfect merits, now made most beloved to God and to all his saints, now, by the sanctity of his life and the purity of his manner of living and the sincerity of his mind, made a fellow of the citizens above, now consummated in the fulness of good works and of days, ecclesiastical affairs being well laid down and excellently ordered, his subjects being settled in the utmost peace through the wisdom given him by God, and glued to one another by the affability of mutual love m, being touched by a trouble of the body, he lies down on that noble little bed, most becomingly adorned and decked with ashes and haircloth for the profit of his soul.
[26] And his body indeed is weighed down with weakness, but his spirit, because it had always ruled its own limbs well, stretched most vigorously toward God and toward the things that are God's, and allowed neither heart nor mouth nor hands to cease from prayer. And when for some days the weakness gradually increased, and the weight of sickness compelled his spirit to pass over whither it had always stretched, at the very moment of his passing, by no means ceasing from the divine praises, in a most happy peace and most blessed rest he, happy and blessed, rendered up his spirit to its giver and to the Creator of all creatures, and received the rewards acquired by his pious labors, being joined to all the saints and happily brought into the palace of heaven. It is not possible to relate how great was the concourse of the peoples, how great the weeping and groaning for the passing of the most sweet Father and most loving Pastor — of pilgrims and monks, of clerics and laymen, of men and women — all of whom cried out and said that they were wretched and altogether unworthy, who did not deserve to enjoy the companionship of so great a Pontiff and to use thenceforth his most kindly affability; they confessed that they knew as likely that the blessed man would receive eternal rewards for his merits and would carry back happy sheaves into the harvest of Christ; but alas for themselves, unhappy, who, bereft of such a Father, were left perhaps to be torn by the bites of the most grievous wolves, and, as they feared, lay open to the assaults of evil men.
[27] he dies on the 19th of September. Blessed Goericus departed on the thirteenth of the Kalends of October, in the 17th year of his episcopate, full of days [n] and of virtues, full of sanctity and loving-kindness, full of honor and magnificence, and was buried outside the city on the southern side in the monastery of holy Symphorian, martyr of Christ, behind the altar of Saints Crispin and Crispinian; where for the course of many years he shone with most frequent and most powerful marks of his virtues; and what, how much, and in what his most happy soul availed with God, there confessed at his sacred tomb the blind enlightened, the contracted made straight, the deaf receiving hearing, the possessed cured, the dysenteric and the fevered restored to their former health. After o many courses of years [p], Theoderic the Elder, the glorious prelate of Metz, among the other marks of good works with which he honorably adorned his bishopric, finding in the district of Chaumont a certain place suited to the divine service, between the Moselle and the mountain which, having a castle on its slope, is by an accident of the countrymen's tongue called Spinal, built a monastery, consecrating it to God and to holy Goericus, whose sacred bones he translated from the city of Metz and set with worthy veneration, and prepared a most happy patronage for his country. In all things and through all things be praise and glory to God the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, who in the unity of the Trinity lives and reigns God through all ages of ages. Amen.
ANNOTATIONS.
p. See, if you please, what I observed about Theodoric the Second, bishop of Metz, in the preliminary Commentary, number 4.
Accinct. But when the space of nearly one year was completed, the memorable blessed,* etc.
Anon. Curia*