ON ST. GERARD, BISHOP AND MARTYR,
NEAR THE DANUBE IN HUNGARY.
In the year MXLVI.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY
Gerard, bishop and martyr, near the Danube in Hungary (S.)
BY J. S.
§ I. The Acts of St. Gerard, briefly written by a nearly contemporary author: other Acts published by Wion, which are defiled with many errors and fables: other writers on the Saint's deeds.
[ ] The ancient Acts of St. Gerard, bishop and martyr, which Surius published with the style altered at the XXIV of September, [The Life of St. Gerard, faithfully written, and to be published from a manuscript:] and from him Mabillon, Acts of the Benedictines, century 6, part 1, pag. 628, have not displeased the learned. Baillet in the critical Table at this day says they seem written with credit good enough. And Mabillon published these Acts without any censure or correction, as approved in all things. They are not of a writer plainly contemporary; since certainly they were written after the elevation of the body, made under king St. Ladislaus about the year 1083: yet they are, as far as appears, of an author so nearly contemporary that perhaps he lived before St. Gerard's death and could have seen him as a young man. For he so speaks of the translation of the body that we may justly conjecture the Life was written not long after, especially since also in the relation of the deeds he nowhere hints that he is narrating things long past, or that he is using the writings of others, but rather the contrary. There is added, to win credit for this Life, the simplicity of the style and the brevity, by which the author shows that he does not seek external ornaments, but relates what he has ascertained simply and briefly. We have this Life from a manuscript codex of the Canons Regular of the Priory of Corsendonck in Brabant, from which also at the 2nd of September I gave the Life of St. Stephen, king of Hungary. The same was printed at Cracow in the year 1511 with not a few others. And this Cracow edition agrees with the manuscript Life, except for a few faults which the lesser diligence of the transcribers or correctors has sprinkled over each. And so I shall publish the Life from the manuscript, collated with that edition, that the edition may be the more accurate. I shall also compare Surius' edition, which almost alone the modern learned have known, and shall note the chief differences.
[2] Pietro de' Natali, who began at Venice to gather a Catalogue of the Saints, which was perhaps unknown to the writers of the 15th century. and was afterward created bishop of Jesolo, in book 3, chapter 145, recited this Life in compendium, changing or adding only a very few things, so that it seems certain that no other Life served him as a guide. Antonio Bonfini and John of Thurócz, who in the XV century wrote on Hungarian affairs, do not seem to have had this Life before their eyes, nor did Długosz or Longinus, who in the same century so wrote the History of Poland as not seldom to touch the Hungarian. But the more recent historians, who employed a more diligent criticism in writing, related St. Gerard's deeds almost from the ancient Life alone: namely Baronius in the Ecclesiastical Annals alleges it alone, although in the Annotations to the Martyrology he shows that the more recent one was not unknown to him; Mabillon in the Benedictine Annals, Baillet in the Life of St. Gerard which he wrote at the XXIV of September — to say nothing of several others who treated of him more briefly.
[3] Another Life published by Wion, Another Life of St. Gerard was printed at Venice in the year 1597, and marked with this title: The Life of St. Gerard Sagredo, a Venetian patrician, from a monk and abbot of St. George Major of Venice of the Order of St. Benedict, first bishop of Csanád, and apostle and protomartyr of the Hungarians, gathered with the best fidelity from most ancient authentic manuscripts and also printed codices, and illustrated with annotations by Dom Arnold Wion, a Fleming, monk of St. Benedict of Mantua, etc. Many and great things indeed does this title promise, but no less novel. Then in the Annotations, pag. 1, the said Wion sets forth after a fashion whence he drew and published that Life, calling himself not the author but the editor and corrector. In the correction, he says, of the present Life we have used chiefly five exemplars, three manuscript and two printed. Of the manuscripts, one was furnished by the most reverend lord, Dom Antonio Grimani, from a Venetian patrician made bishop of Torcello; the two others by the Reverend Father Dom Antonio of Verona, Prior, procurator of St. George, at whose instigation and exhortation we undertook this pious labor… To these he adds a twofold edition of the ancient Life, namely the Venetian one of the year 1498, and Surius' edition. Then he says that he used also the Works of Bonfini, Nauclerus, Pietro de' Natali, and some others.
[4] which out of two, of which one is good and the other fabulous, Now of the five exemplars of the Life which Wion says he used, I judge that four were exemplars of the ancient Life, but the fifth a wholly different Life, and that a more recent one and with countless errors
and fictions defiled, which he chiefly had before his eyes, and to which he stitched several shreds of the ancient Life. This at least his words hint. And although, he says, the exemplars both of Surius and of that ancient Legend (likewise printed), and also the two manuscripts, seem a little longer, yet they are nothing else than a certain part of that Life which we now give, as it will be easy for anyone diligently inspecting them to perceive from the collation of the exemplars themselves. This indeed I clearly perceive, and therefore I do not hesitate to assert that Wion did not publish the Life of St. Gerard out of five exemplars, but mingled two Lives, the one ancient and good, the other recent and fabulous, into one, and so published a Life altogether monstrous. That mixture the following words of Wion indicate: The chief archetype seemed in some places, through the copyist's — not the author's — ignorance, mutilated and defective, and written with little Latinity: which we have supplied from the cited authors, the style and barbarous words being sometimes changed here and there where there was need, yet so modestly, on account of the author's gravity, that it may seem rather illustrated than emended. The chief archetype was mutilated and defective, if we believe Wion, and therefore he supplied it from others. But the rest are nothing but a certain part of the Life given by Wion, as he himself also asserts. For this cause therefore, out of one mutilated and another partial, he wished to give an entire one, and mingled truths with falsehoods: nay, he did not discharge the office of editor or corrector, but framed a new Life.
[5] For he did not supply the mutilated exemplars of that same Life from various exemplars, [he composed by mixing the two: the more prolix of them perhaps written in the year 1421,] but cut the ancient and full Life, which he had at least in Surius, into many parts, and interpolated them with another Life plainly ridiculous and fabulous, as will be manifest to one comparing Surius' edition or ours with Wion's Life. He took a modest beginning from the first Life, as he says in the Annotations, pag. 2, and presently several chapters consequently from that illustrious archetype forsooth. He notes indeed that it was copied out in the year 1421; but I think rather that it was then first composed, and that by an ignorant writer, since at every step he either plainly slips or narrates improbable and incredible things. In narrating he comes down as far as the year 1381, so that at least he could not have written long before the XV century, or rather wrote in the XV century itself, since he does not say that that event which he attaches to the year 1381 happened in his own time. Wion says indeed that that last chapter was probably added by another; but he adds no reason. But this does not seem likely to me, since gross chronological errors hint that the writer was much later than the events. Besides, Pietro de' Natali, who about the year 1370 composed his Work at Venice, could not have been ignorant of that Life of a Venetian Saint, if it had already then been written. But we believe that it was plainly unknown to him, since he adopted nothing from it: for he did not follow so severe a criticism as to have been willing to reject it outright. How could Pietro de' Natali be ignorant that Gerard was of the family of Sagredo, if that had already been written in so prolix a Life? But if he was not ignorant of it, how at Venice could he pass over so illustrious a Venetian family in silence? This I shall leave to be investigated by those who believe St. Gerard's family sufficiently certain: for as for myself, I confess that no fact in the whole of Wion's Life seems to me sufficiently certain except what is read in the ancient Life.
[6] But lest anyone believe this criticism more severe than is just, and by fictions, it is necessary to bring forward some things whose falsity is certain and manifest. The fabulist in chapter 2 in Wion begins thus: And it came to pass that at the command of the supreme Pontiff all Christendom prepared to set out on an expedition to Jerusalem to recover the Lord's sepulchre, being ready to fight for that same holy place. Among others the father of George (for so he had said Gerard was called at baptism), protected by God's grace, being carried away with the rest for the salvation of his soul, came to the holy place without hurt. And when the Christian army was there in prayer, and was awaiting help from heaven, each one offering to the Lord solemn and private prayers, the people of the Mahometans, trusting in their own strength, dared to hurl no small reproaches at the Christian army, having confidence in the might of their armed men, etc. Presently he attributes the victory in the battle to the Christians, and feigns that St. Gerard's father, whom he names Gerard of Sagredo, remained in the Holy Land and there died and was buried, while the Saint was a youth or a boy. How openly all these things are fictitious the studious reader will easily perceive, if only he considers that the first expedition of the Christians into the Holy Land was undertaken under Pope Urban II, or at the end of the XI century, that is, quite a hundred years after St. Gerard's boyhood, and nearly half a century after his death. Doubtless the unskilful fabulist believed that the expeditions of the crusaders into the Holy Land were begun much earlier, as he again hints in chapter 5; and thence he judged that a license of inventing with impunity was offered him.
[7] by improbable assertions Wion in the Annotations, pag. 4, adduces Platina in Sergius IV, where he hints that forty thousand Normans returned from the Jerusalem expedition when the Normans invaded Apulia. But that passage of Platina is to be counted as nothing, who out of forty Normans — whom others wrote had gone thither for religion's sake and returned thence — formed an army of forty thousand armed men. Wherefore the anachronism of nearly a whole century is most open. From these things therefore let the prudent reader gather how much account is to be made of the other things there related, while all the more ancient writers are silent: namely that St. Gerard was of the family Sagredo; that he was born on the day of blessed George the martyr, and by that Saint's patronage, and therefore was named George at baptism; and then that, when he was five years old, he was healed of fevers by St. George's patronage, and was then for that cause clothed with the regular habit in the monastery of St. George; and at last that after his father's death he began to be called Gerard, his mother asking it. No more certain is what is asserted in chapter 3, that he was chosen Prior by all when he had come to a time of more advanced age, especially since in chapter 4 he is said to have been sent to study at Bologna, and to have returned thence in the fifth year. The Benedictines themselves will be able to consider whether it seems probable that he was first chosen Prior, and, that office being well discharged, was sent like a youth to his studies. Again it is improbable what is asserted in chapter 5, that he was chosen abbot of the monastery of St. George, and presided over it some years, which Wion in the Annotations makes about nine. For in the ancient Life nothing is read of his prelacy, and in more ancient documents, to be praised in §2, he is called a monk. The time also in which they will have him to have been abbot, namely from the year 1021 until 1030, is repugnant to the said opinion, for we shall see that he came into Hungary much earlier.
[8] and ridiculous ones, and with many errors It is plainly ridiculous what is said in chapter 5, that Gerard purposed to travel also to the monastery of St. Jerome in Bethlehem, that he might enjoy the reading of his books: and of this ridiculous purpose mention is again made in chapter 7. What is narrated in chapters 5, 6 and 7 about the Saint's journey by sea first toward Palestine, then by land into Hungary, is altogether unknown to the ancients, as also several persons and many unknown places are named in them. And there are brought in, in chapter 7, dealing with St. Gerard, Maurus bishop of Pécs and Anastasius the abbot, both well enough known. But that abbot Anastasius seems to be the bishop of Kalocsa, as Wion himself observes, fol. 5. But now that Anastasius, first abbot, then bishop of Kalocsa, was promoted to the episcopate long before Maurus: for he was the first bishop of Kalocsa, whereas Maurus was not the first of Pécs, as I have shown of both at the 2nd of September in St. Stephen, king of Hungary. From these things therefore the studious reader will gather that that illustrious biographer brings in persons at his pleasure, whom he had heard flourished in newly converted Hungary, and attributes deeds to them as it pleased him. For in chapter 8 he leads St. Gerard by bishop Maurus and abbot Anastasius to king St. Stephen, to whom at the very first meeting the holy king is feigned to give the bishopric of the city of Morisena. But St. Stephen was not wont to hasten so; nor was the bishopric called Morisena from a city, but from the river Maros.
[9] The fabulist goes on after his manner in chapter 9, and makes St. Gerard tutor of St. Emeric, is defiled, and unworthy of credit. son of king St. Stephen. Presently from the prince's tutor he becomes a hermit with Maurus the monk. This Wion probably inserted from the ancient Life, and that Maurus with whom St. Gerard dwelt seven years seems to be the same as Maurus afterward bishop of Pécs. Yet, lest the Saint's eremitical life should lack fables, the biographer brings stags to him and wolves, and after other trifles brings the matter to this, that a fawn of a hind and a wolf dwell peacefully together with him. Further, in chapter 10 he produces ridiculous little fables about a fictitious prince of the city of Morisena, whom he writes was overcome by St. Stephen, and whom he calls Achtum. There is no need of great criticism for anyone to see that that prolix chapter is fabulous. I refrain from examining the rest, although other things also occur afterward which cannot be admitted as true. For what has been alleged hitherto seems to me enough for us to take no account of that Life in reporting St. Gerard's deeds. In the latter part indeed it seems much less fabulous than in the former; but I do not doubt that this happens because Wion there inserted the ancient Life into the fabulous one, and perhaps also some things from Bonfini and other writers. Of the single exemplar of that fabulous Life, which was difficult to read, Wion says: For it is intimated at the end that it was transcribed or copied in the year MCDXXI. This I am wholly persuaded is the epoch of the writing of the Life: for if it had been transcribed and had pleased at the outset, Wion would easily have found more exemplars of it.
[10] When in the year 1597 the Life had been printed which was written rather than published by Wion, A shorter Italian Life framed from the aforesaid. Guido Casoni at once began to write an Italian Life of the same St. Gerard, and published it in print in the year 1598. This writer seems to have had Wion's little Work alone before his eyes, even though he otherwise gives a prolix list of the writers who have treated of St. Gerard. But since I have shown that the fount is impure from which Casoni drew everything, the prudent reader will easily understand what is to be thought of his compendious Life. Filippo Ferrari in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy at the XXIII of February gave a brief eulogy of St. Gerard, stained with various errors,
not however from Wion, if we except the Sagredo family, but from various sources. In the most illustrious writer Flaminio Corner, On the Churches of Torcello, part 2, pag. 73, there is recited an ancient Office of St. Gerard with six lessons about the Saint. And these lessons, if we except a very few things at the beginning and end, are plainly conformable to the ancient Life. For which cause it has seemed good to reprint both these lessons and the eulogy from Pietro de' Natali after the ancient Life, that the learned Venetians may be able to perceive from Venetian documents what was formerly received at Venice concerning St. Gerard's deeds.
§ II. A supplement to the chronology of the Life from other writers, and the assertions of various men examined.
[ ] The Saint a Venetian by country, Since we do not know at what age St. Gerard was when in the year 1046 he crowned his life with a happy end, we cannot say in what year he was born. Wion in the Annotations, fol. 4, will have Gerard born in the year 986, but without any argument. If anything is to be said broadly by conjecture, we can fix the Saint's birth about the year 970 or 980: since he seems to have been at least twenty-five or thirty years old when he came into Hungary; and to have come thither about the beginning of the XI century, as we shall see. That he was given to the world at Venice, all attest with the ancient Life. I have found no writer before the XV century who affirmed anything about St. Gerard's family. Wion indeed, in the Attestations of Authors which he gave after the Life and Annotations, produces these words as Pietro de' Natali's, book 3, chapter 146 (read 145): Gerard, bishop and martyr, sprung in the city of Venice from noble parents, namely of the patrician house of Sagredo, etc. But this I do not find in our most ancient editions. For in the Vicenza edition of the year 1493 it is read thus: Gerard, bishop and martyr, sprung from the city of Venice, etc. The Lyons edition, which is of the year 1514, agrees. Neither has a word about the Saint's family. Wherefore, if perchance some later edition has the words alleged by Wion, which I do not know, I cannot doubt that they were afterward stuffed in. The first therefore who made St. Gerard sprung from the family Sagredo, or de Secretis, seems to have been the author of the fabulous Life which Wion honored too much. The same is read in the lessons of the Venetian Office; but we scarcely believe that that Office is older than the XV century; and we do not know whether that was not added afterward. From these things the studious reader will be able to gather how uncertain that opinion is.
[12] he embraced the monastic life. About the institute which St. Gerard followed before he came into Hungary, various men have written variously. Pietro de' Natali says he was first a canon, then a monk. From boyhood, he says, devoted to God, he was a canon of the church of St. Mark. With him agrees Ferrari at the XXIII of February. But that assertion all everywhere repudiate, because in the Life in Surius it is read: He received the habit of the monastic religion as a Boy. Hence Mabillon in the observations preliminary to the Life says that that opinion is repugnant to the Life. The word monastic indeed was added by Surius, and in the manuscript is read only, He received the habit of religion as a Boy. Yet more probably the habit of religion here signifies the monastic; although sometimes it is taken also for the clerical habit; especially since he was a monk when he came into Hungary, nor is he said to have followed different institutes. Mabillon, where he had said that the monastic garb was received by the Saint, subjoins these words: That this was done in the very famous monastery of St. George under John Morosini, first abbot of that same place, Venetian writers everywhere report, and indeed not without foundation. For this opinion is confirmed by our Gerard's singular devotion toward St. George, who … built his principal (church) in honor of St. George the martyr. This conjecture of Mabillon's from the church built in honor of St. George is not inept; but it cannot render that opinion certain. Meanwhile I observe that Mabillon does not praise Wion's Life for that opinion of his, nor make the least mention of the abbatial dignity asserted for him. And indeed, if among the abbots of St. George Gerard of Sagredo was the third, I judge him to be another than St. Gerard.
[13] Filippo Ferrari, praised above, says of St. Gerard: He was not the founder of the Order of the Servites, As is read in St. Anthony of Padua in his Sermons, he was the first founder at Venice of the Order of the Servants of the blessed Virgin Mary. For this opinion he praises Maurolico in his Martyrology. But this I do not find in our edition of Maurolico. Ferrari himself, however, in his appended annotation shows that his opinion cannot stand, since he confesses that St. Gerard was much older than the Order of the Servants of the Blessed Virgin Mary: for Gerard died in the XI century, and that Order was founded in the XIII century, and perhaps after the death of St. Anthony of Padua. Nothing therefore did St. Anthony write about the founding of that Order, which was made at Florence, not at Venice. Perhaps he could have praised St. Gerard here because, at his persuasion, the most blessed Virgin began to be called Lady by the Hungarians, and consequently to say that it was brought about by St. Gerard that the Hungarians professed themselves servants of the most blessed Virgin. However that may be, the reader will perceive that historical errors are scarcely produced so deformed as not to find their own lovers and patrons.
[14] The Carmelites attribute St. Gerard to their Order, and venerate him as their own at the XXIV of September. nor a Carmelite: Juan Bautista de Lezana in the Annals of the Elian Order, tom. 3, in various places disputes more things toward ascribing him to his own Order than it is pleasant to follow. The said Mabillon refutes that opinion in these words: For the rest, from these things it is plain how futile is the tradition, as they themselves call it, of the Carmelites, who do not fear to ascribe this holy Man to their Order. For that he was not a Carmelite in Italy is evident from what has already been said by us (chiefly about the Saint's date). Nor yet in Hungary: for there before his episcopate he led a monastic life in the monastery of Bél, which was under the Benedictine institute, as is established from Hartvic, Bonfini and other writers of Hungarian affairs. Nor let them say that Gerard gave his name to the religion of Carmel in Palestine. For although the author of his Life wrote that a journey to Jerusalem was undertaken by Gerard, from the same author we learn that he, when he had come into Hungary, being hindered by the blessed king Stephen, did not go further. John Trithemius, who in the Chronicle of Hirsau at the year 1019 made St. Gerard a monk of the monastery of St. Gregory in the city of Rome, Mabillon likewise corrects, and suspects that he was deceived by the affinity of the names of St. George and St. Gregory. This is certain, that he was a Venetian monk, not a Roman.
[15] Further, by the said Trithemius St. Gerard is said to have been sent by Pope Benedict into Hungary to preach the word of God to the newly converted, nor sent into Hungary by Pope Benedict. and he is rightly called a learned Man and of most holy conversation. That mission is improbable, since it is repugnant to the Life, by whose authority we know that St. Gerard did not come into Hungary with the intention of preaching the faith there, but that with other companions of his journey he might make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. But since Trithemius could designate no other Pope Benedict than the eighth of that name, who sat from the year 1012 until 1024, from that assertion it is established that St. Gerard's coming into Hungary is fixed by him between the years 1012 and 1024. With this epoch agree the eulogies in which Trithemius praises St. Gerard in his Work On the Illustrious Men of the Order of St. Benedict, book 3, chapter 239, and book 4, chapter 234: for in both places, treating of his preaching in Hungary, he says that he was famous in the year 1020, that is, according to his manner of speaking, that he preached in Hungary about that time. This epoch does not please the said Wion in the Attestations, fol. 4; but he says that St. Gerard did not come into Hungary before the year MXXX, or thereabouts. So in the Annotations, fol. 4, he fixes St. Gerard's coming into Hungary in the year 1030, and the beginning of his episcopate in the year 1037, in which he also believed that St. Stephen died. But he seems to have given such a chronology in order to make St. Gerard first abbot of St. George at Venice, and that the improbable chronology of the fabulous Life might be made conformable. Certainly I have no doubt that he strayed very far in St. Gerard's years, just as by one year he anticipated the true time of the death of St. Stephen, who died in the year 1038.
[16] The Saint's entry into Hungary cannot be fixed about the year 1030, The chief reason on account of which I judge that St. Gerard came into Hungary about the beginning rather of the XI century than about the year 1030, is taken from the institution of bishoprics in Hungary. For the erection of ten bishoprics in the kingdom of Hungary was begun in the year 1000, and in this year approved by the supreme Pontiff Silvester II, as I proved at the 2nd of September in St. Stephen the king, §24. Now among those ten bishoprics is by the consent of all that of Csanád, which in St. Gerard's time was everywhere called Morisena, and its erection is asserted in St. Gerard's very Life. Wherefore, since St. Gerard was the first bishop of Morisena or Csanád, and dwelt seven years in Hungary before his episcopate, his coming into Hungary cannot be deferred until the year 1030, unless the erection of the bishopric of Morisena also be deferred until the year 1037. But it is altogether improbable and incredible that St. Stephen accomplished so late what he had proposed to himself from the year 1000, especially since no cause or reason of so great a delay can be assigned. Besides, the Life itself clearly hints that Gerard was bishop many years before St. Stephen's death. For at num. 3 he is said to have built churches in the several cities, namely of his own bishopric, besides the chief basilica of St. George, in which he erected many things magnificently. But these and other episcopal duties, all of which are reported in the Life before St. Stephen's death, hint rather that St. Gerard lived with St. Stephen in the episcopate a full twenty or even thirty years, than only one year or two. There is added another reason from the Life, num. 9, for judging that St. Gerard was made bishop about the year 1010 rather than in the year 1037. For in the year 1041 Ovo, king or tyrant, king Peter being driven out, wished to be crowned by St. Gerard, and the other bishops consented to him, who did not do this except on Gerard's refusal. This honor seems to have been offered to Gerard because he was the senior among the bishops of Hungary, the archbishop of Esztergom being perhaps absent; so that from this too it does not remain likely that he was made bishop in St. Stephen's last years.
[17] but must be fixed about the beginning of the XI century, Wherefore, all things being diligently considered, scarcely any doubt is left me that St. Gerard's pilgrimage and coming into Hungary
happened about the beginning of the XI century, at which time frequent pilgrimages of the Gauls and Italians to the Holy Land passed through Hungary, as Rodulphus Glaber attests, book 3, chapter 1. This epoch agrees with the Life to be published, num. 2, where St. Stephen is said to have crushed the impiety of the nation and overcome the barbarous manners of the heathen, like a most valiant Joshua, while St. Gerard was dwelling in the desert of Bél; and to have made him bishop when the kingdom had attained the tranquillity of peace. These things clearly declare that Gerard dwelt in the desert at that time in which St. Stephen waged war against the dukes or princes who had taken up arms to defend idolatry. Now those dukes were, first, Koppány, duke of Somogy, who certainly had already been overcome and slain before the year 1000, as may be seen in St. Stephen, §14. War for the same cause was brought upon St. Stephen by Gyula, prince of Transylvania, whom likewise the holy king conquered and brought alive into his own power, Transylvania being subdued. This war is fixed in the year 1002 or 1003, and at least was ended in the year 1004, or sooner. Of it I treated in St. Stephen, §25. There followed not long after the Bulgarian war, in which again St. Stephen had the victory, the leader of the Bulgarians being slain, as was set forth in the same place. Either all these wars, or the two later ones, the author of the Life of St. Gerard doubtless designated: for St. Stephen does not seem to have waged other wars of that kind for the faith, since some incursions of the Pechenegs were repressed without great effort. Now, even if we should wish to protract the said wars more than the ancient writers seem to have done, it is at least necessary that we say all were finished before the year 1008. Hence therefore by a quite probable conjecture we shall fix the beginning of St. Gerard's episcopate about the year 1008. This epoch not only suffers no difficulty, but also attributes to St. Gerard a prolix episcopate, so that he could convert nations, build churches, and conveniently accomplish all that is read in the Life. That several moderns have fixed the beginning of his episcopate much later has come from nothing else than that they showed themselves too credulous of the fabulous Life and of Wion's arbitrary chronology.
[18] The place Bél, where for seven years St. Gerard led a solitary life, At Bél he dwelt alone with Maurus the monk; was in the forest of Bakony in the district of Buda; in which place St. Stephen built a monastery at the persuasion of St. Gunther the hermit, as I narrated in St. Stephen, num. 292. But there I then doubted whether the monastery had been built while St. Gerard dwelt there, and consequently whether through that whole seven years he had dwelt alone with Maurus the monk; and I referred the examination of both doubts to this place. Wherefore now I answer that St. Gerard dwelt there alone with Maurus; but that the monastery seems to have been founded after he had been promoted to the episcopate. Both things the Life seems to require: for he would not have dwelt with only one monk if he had inhabited a monastery, nor would he have dwelt alone if a monastery had meanwhile been built. But the ground of doubting, which arose for me solely from the time of St. Gerard's coming into Hungary assigned by most moderns, which I was then unwilling to examine more laboriously, is now plainly removed, after I have shown that St. Gerard came into Hungary nearly a full thirty years earlier than they would have it. Hartvic in the Life of St. Stephen, num. 21, has this about these matters: At the nod also of that same Servant of God (St. Gunther the hermit) the king devoted to God, beginning the monastery which is called Bél, enriched it with men: where Gerard the monk, coming from Venice, began to lead a contemplative life, etc. That where is not to be referred to the monastery, but to the place Bél, where it was afterward founded.
[19] The same is the sense of the words in St. Stephen's diploma for that monastery, where it was afterward built by St. Stephen which Károly Péterffy recites in the Councils of Hungary, pag. 5, where these words are read: Therefore among other things in that place which is called Bél, in the forest of Bakony, because it seemed very fit to be devoted to the divine worship, I began to build a monastery under the title of blessed Maurice, martyr of Christ, which by God's help I also completed, and with royal munificence, as I could, I enriched. In which (namely the place, not the monastery) Gerard the monk, coming from Venice, first began to dwell, etc. The word first sufficiently hints that St. Gerard's dwelling is not to be expounded of a monastery, in which many begin to dwell together, but of a place in which Gerard first began to dwell with his companion Maurus, who perhaps came to him when he was already dwelling there. Bonfini indeed, Decade 2, book 1, pag. 180, speaks of the building of the monastery of Bél and of St. Gerard's dwelling in such a way that it can be understood of a dwelling in the monastery: Where, he says, the report is that Gerard the monk, a most religious man indeed, led a contemplative life. But if Bonfini believed this, he was deceived by Hartvic's doubtful words; and he erred in that no less than in the time of St. Gerard's episcopate, which he thought was made after St. Stephen's death, because he had not had his Life before his eyes.
[20] the monastery at St. Gunther's persuasion, John of Thurócz in the Chronicle of the Hungarians, chapter 40, having reported St. Gerard's martyrdom, subjoins these words to our purpose: This Gerard indeed, a monk of Rosazzo, a Venetian by nation, who coming into Pannonia first led an eremitical life at Bél, was at last translated as bishop to the see of Csanád. These words again hint that St. Gerard dwelt not in a monastery, but at Bél, a solitary place, as his very Life most clearly has it. Finally, that that monastery was built at Bél after St. Gerard had departed thence, will plainly appear from the chronology of the Life of St. Gunther, to be given in its place. For by Gunther's counsel St. Stephen built the monastery, when he came from time to time from the Bohemian desert to the king. But Gunther began to come from Bohemia to St. Stephen too late to have been able to find Gerard in the desert of Bél. Wherefore he afterward persuaded the king to build a monastery in the place honored by so holy a Man's dwelling. For the rest, it is worth observing here in a few words that St. Gerard is named a monk by all the writers praised, by none an abbot; but from Thurócz's words another doubt arises. For by him he is called a monk of Rosazzo. Now Rosazzo is a town of Friuli, called by the Italians Rosazzo, some Italian miles distant from the city of Cividale del Friuli. Wherefore, if to anyone the authority of Thurócz seems to suffice for this, he will be able to doubt whether the Saint did not begin to lead the monastic life at Rosazzo rather than at Venice.
[21] A church consecrated by the Saint in the territory of Ravenna, To St. Gerard's deeds in the episcopate I find almost nothing to be added to the Life; and the things which are reported in the Life as done while St. Stephen lived cannot be tied to certain years, but were done little by little between the years 1008 and 1038. So the building of the monastery of St. Peter ad Vincula in the territory of Ravenna, and the consecration of the church performed by St. Gerard, cannot be fixed to a certain year. That foundation I narrated in St. Stephen the king, num. 297. Wherefore I transfer hither only a few things from St. Stephen's letters of foundation recited there. The king says that he ordered that monastery to be built at the counsel of Gerard, venerable bishop of the church of Morisena, our faithful servant, he says, and to be consecrated by the aforesaid Gerard's own hands and by the authority of the Roman Church. From these things the reader will gather that St. Gerard's authority with St. Stephen was not small, and that St. Gerard at some time journeyed into Italy. About the time I determine nothing, except that the foundation does not seem to have been made in St. Stephen's earlier years, since he then strove to fill all Hungary with churches and monasteries; but rather in his later ones, or at any rate when most of the pious foundations in Hungary had been completed. This however cannot be gathered from St. Gerard's episcopate, as it seemed to me in that place, because I did not yet believe that nearly all more recent writers strayed so far from the true chronology of St. Gerard's Life.
[22] The year of St. Stephen's death is not doubtful, since he died on the XV of August of the year 1038. Ovo seized the kingdom of Hungary in the year 1041; But what follows presently in St. Gerard's Life, num. 8 and 9, about the tyranny of Ovo, who by the Hungarians is called Aba, is referred by Baronius to the year 1042, but by Pagi to the year 1041. Inchofer in the Annals of Hungary refers the deposing of king Peter to the year 1041, but the events between Ovo and St. Gerard to the year 1042. This chronology, although at first sight it may seem strange, I judge true. We must stand, it seems, by the authority of Hermann Contractus, who lived at that time. He in his Chronicle at the year 1041 writes these things in the last place: In that year the faithless Hungarians, setting up a certain Ovo as king for themselves, attempt to kill Peter their king: who, scarcely escaping by flight, came first as a fugitive to our margrave Adalbert, his sister's husband, and thence coming to king Henry and casting himself at his feet, implored and obtained pardon and favor. These things were probably done in the summer time of the year 1041, or perhaps even at the end of the year. Thurócz in the Chronicle, chapter 36, asserts that Peter was expelled in the third year of his reign, which was completed after the XV of August of the year 1041, and teaches that an army of the Hungarians was gathered by Aba or Ovo. And so in the year 1041 Ovo strove to seize or kill Peter, and when he had escaped by flight, wished to receive the crown; but first to take out of the way those attached to Peter and hostile to himself. Certainly the slaughters of the chief men are said to have been carried out in the time of Lent, and the coronation to have followed at Easter time. These things therefore seem to belong to the year 1042.
[23] This chronology being laid down, St. Gerard's prediction is rightly explained, but his coronation and St. Gerard's prediction are of the year 1042. who declared to Ovo that in the third year a sword should be stirred up by which he would lose his kingdom and his life. At what time and in what manner this was done, the said Hermann sets forth at the year 1044, writing thus: When king Ovo had broken his oath and covenant, king Henry (of Germany) made for Pannonia with very small forces: whom Ovo, who had prepared a very great army, so despised that he let him enter the province as one easily to be killed or captured. But Henry with part of his forces swiftly forded the river Raab, trusting in divine help, and, all his soldiers hastening on every side, joined battle, and at the first encounter put to flight and laid low an innumerable army of the Hungarians; and with very few of his own lost, himself fighting most bravely, he obtained a most glorious victory on the III of the Nones of July. Presently he adds Ovo's flight and Peter's restoration to the kingdom. And after a little: Nor long after, that same Ovo, seized by king Peter, paid the penalties of his crimes, being beheaded
. It is clear that these things happened in the third year from the Easter of the year 1042, and that to that year Ovo's coronation and St. Gerard's prediction must be fixed. But the fourth year was running according to Pagi's chronology, who ought not to have closed his eyes to these things, nor so to have corrected Baronius on Peter's expulsion as himself to fall into another error about Ovo's coronation.
[24] It remains to inquire into the year in which St. Gerard passed by a glorious martyrdom to eternal life. The Saint's martyrdom is not to be fixed in the year 1047, Of the day of the martyrdom there is no question, since his festivity was fixed under king St. Ladislaus on the XXIV of September. But the year 1047 Baronius and Inchofer determine; Pagi the year 1046. Mabillon, who seems to have considered St. Gerard's Life alone, chose the year 1048 by a fairly certain error. But the two other opinions are more ambiguous. This is established from the historians, that St. Gerard was slain in that tumult of the Hungarians in which they persecuted king Peter and seized him and deprived him of his eyes, when Andrew was promoted to the kingdom by the Hungarians; nay, that that persecution against ecclesiastics was begun as soon as Andrew with his brother had entered Hungary from Russia, in which they were living as exiles. And at what time this was done, the said Hermann Contractus teaches at the year 1046, where after the earlier deeds of that year he continues thus: In the following autumn the Hungarians, mindful of their former faithlessness, set up a certain Andrew as king for themselves, and, many of the foreigners who had fought for him being slain, they assign king Peter, afflicted with various (there is added in the earlier edition: with his wife, with injuries; at last they deprive him of his eyes, and into a certain place) with his wife, to be maintained (elsewhere: they carry him off); many pilgrims also being at the same time despoiled, banished and slain there. This is the very epoch of St. Gerard's martyrdom, who was slain at the beginning of that sedition, because the faithless men who had called Andrew into Hungary wished to bring back idolatry, and to take out of the way as many bishops and other ecclesiastics as they could, Andrew conniving or dissembling, who saw that he too must be afraid if he opposed them strongly, especially since his brother Levente was addicted to heathen rites. Between the beginning of that tumult, which arose about the borders of Poland, where the conspiring Hungarians received Andrew, and the death of St. Gerard, perhaps only eight or ten days intervened, so that the conspiracy seems to have broken out in the month of September, and St. Gerard with several others to have been slain on the XXIV day of the same month.
[25] but in 1046. Baronius and Inchofer confess indeed that Andrew was called by the Hungarians in the year 1046, and that these in the same year strove to abolish the Catholic faith in Hungary; yet they fix St. Gerard's martyrdom in the following year, because of the prediction about his own martyrdom reported in St. Gerard's Life, which is said to have been fulfilled when one lustrum had rolled by and a second was beginning. But in my judgment nothing can be had from this prediction for the time of the martyrdom, since it is reported only on occasion of the other prediction about king Ovo's destruction, nor is it said that the Saint prophesied at the same time about his own martyrdom and about Ovo's destruction. Yet let us believe, as they judged, that both were foretold by the Saint at Easter time of the year 1042; it will not be necessary on that account to defer the Saint's death to the year 1047, much less to the year 1048 with Mabillon, who gratuitously interposes six years and nearly as many months between the prediction and the martyrdom. For even though lustrum, like olympiad, is everywhere expounded in the Lexicons as a period of five years, yet it generally signifies only four completed years, so that in the fifth year both the first lustrum is completed and at the same time the second begins. And so, if we believe the prediction was made at Easter of the year 1042, it was fulfilled in the year 1046, when the second lustrum from the prediction, or the fifth year, was running. If sometimes a lustrum has been taken for five completed years, as Pitiscus contends in the Dictionary of Roman Antiquities, this certainly is not invariable; nor have I found any passage adduced by him which I cannot explain otherwise. For the rest, that by no reasoning is St. Gerard's death to be deferred to the year 1047, is clear from the said Hermann, who at the year 1047 teaches that suppliant envoys were repeatedly sent to the emperor Henry, who declared that the chief authors of the crimes had already then been punished.
[26] Before we set forth the place of the martyrdom more accurately, it is pleasant to hear the writers who treated of its occasion at greater length While the Hungarians were conspiring against king Peter and all ecclesiastics, than is treated in the Life. Thurócz in the Chronicle of the Hungarians, chapter 39, treats fully of the conspiracy of the Hungarians against king Peter, and of the impious attempt of certain magnates to abolish the Catholic faith utterly. This design the impious men disclosed to Andrew only after he had come into Hungary with his brother Levente, and was in their power. The leader of the impious was called Vatha, who had drawn others to his side, and compelled Andrew, broken either by fear or by desire of reigning, to dissemble. Their first assault was directed against Peter's officers and against all ecclesiastics. Peter, having learned of the conspiracy, wished to withdraw to Székesfehérvár; but he was forestalled by the rebels and shut out. St. Gerard, according to the Life, wished likewise to set out for Székesfehérvár; but he was slain on the journey. Thurócz, praised above, Decade 2, book 2, pag. 196, says that St. Gerard with three other bishops departed from Székesfehérvár to go to meet Andrew and Levente. Bonfini, Decade 2, book 2, pag. 196, likewise joins three other bishops to St. Gerard, and writes that they wished together to meet the new leaders; but he does not say whence they came. But since Thurócz and Bonfini not seldom stray from the truth in the circumstances of events, I judge that St. Gerard's Life alone should be followed. For what is narrated in it is also of itself the more likely.
[27] Wherefore it must be said that St. Gerard departed from Csanád, his episcopal city, for Székesfehérvár. St. Gerard, setting out for Székesfehérvár, And no other reason for that journey appears than that he wished to withdraw to a safer place, having learned of the conspirators' savagery against ecclesiastics. Perhaps too he had learned or conjectured that king Peter would withdraw thither, who in fact wished to do so. Secondly, that other bishops were in Gerard's company the Life does not say; but rather hints the contrary, since it is said: On the same day a very great slaughter of Christians was made: for two bishops and many Religious men were slain. For these are not said to have been slain together, but on the same day, namely when the first fury of the conspirators was raging everywhere against all. Thurócz himself in chapter 40, by relating the varying fate of the four bishops whom he joined together, sufficiently shows that it is not likely that they were all together on the journey, as does Bonfini, agreeing with him. For Buldus they say was overwhelmed with stones, and they assign no place. Beztritus and Benetha they say crossed the river, and so came to Pest: where Beztritus was so wounded that he died on the third day according to Thurócz, or on the next day according to Bonfini; but Benetha is asserted to have been freed from the hands of the impious by king Andrew. Count Szolnok, whom the same authors join to the four bishops, is said to have been slain with the sword in the very crossing of the river. But I by no means see why they should not all have been surrounded by the assassins and slain together, if they were going together to meet the new king. And so I rather judge that St. Gerard was alone with some clerics or monks, and wished to set out for Székesfehérvár, when he was slain by the impious on the journey near the Danube, which he had to cross in order to come to Székesfehérvár.
[28] Of the place of martyrdom the Life only says that he was slain is slain on the journey near the Danube. as he was going to the Danube. Thurócz, chapter 40, says that Gerard with his companions went to the harbor of the Danube at Pest. St. Gerard could indeed have directed his journey from Csanád to Pest, that there he might cross the Danube and go on further to Székesfehérvár. But that writer presently adds: And when they had come to the aforesaid harbor (the city of Pest), etc., as though they could have come to Pest from Székesfehérvár without crossing the Danube. In that indeed he errs, and by that error shows that St. Gerard set out rather from Csanád, as the Life has it. Nevertheless Thurócz believed St. Gerard was slain either near Pest or in the city itself. Inchofer in the Annals at the year 1047 seems of the same opinion, since he writes that he was buried at Pest, and before says he was slain where he came to the Danube to cross. And this place of martyrdom at the Danube near Pest rightly agrees with the Life, since the course of the journey according to the geographical maps seems to require that one cross the Danube below Pest, or at Pest, if one journeys from Csanád to Székesfehérvár. Thurócz adds that he was cast down from the mount of Kelenföld. Which is also read in Longinus in the History of Poland at the year 1048, but it is written Kierenfeludt. Inchofer says that perhaps it is more correctly called Kelemfölde. But he does not set forth where that mount is situated, or whether he knew it. To me that casting down from a mount seems fictitious, since the Life only has it that he was thrown on the ground from an overturned wagon, and then struck with a lance. And from what has been said I gather that the Saint was slain at the Danube either near Pest, or at any rate between Pest and Kalocsa. Far astray went a certain learned man when he wrote that he was slain at Székesfehérvár. For the rest, Thurócz and Bonfini add various things to the Life about what preceded or accompanied the martyrdom. But since most are not very probable, I shall discuss them more briefly in the Annotations to the Life.
§ III. The Saint's posthumous glory from the translations of his body, his canonization, cult, miracles, etc.
[ ] The Saint's body buried, and perhaps translated in the following year Of the Saint's burial the Life has nothing, except that on the next day he was buried by the Catholics in the church of the most holy Mother of God: but Wion's Life, chapter 20, adds at Pest. Inchofer at the year 1047 writes thus of St. Gerard's burial: On the day after the martyrdom, being carried to Pest, he was laid honorably, so far as was permitted in that disturbance of affairs, in the church of the Mother of God. The first translation of the body to the episcopal city — the see which in the Life is called Morisena — is said to have been made after many days, and with king Andrew's consent. Of the very year of the translation we have nothing from these words. But it is established that the Catholic religion was restored by king Andrew, after he had obtained peaceful possession of the kingdom and the crown, by a public edict and severe laws. These laws Péterffy recites in the Councils of Hungary, pag. 14; and he says they were passed in an assembly about the year MXLVIII. Perhaps they were passed at the time of the coronation, since three bishops, surviving after that first tumult, are said to have set the royal crown on Andrew, and would not seem to have been about to do this unless he had promised the defense of the Catholic faith. That the coronation was performed in the year 1047
Thurócz, chapter 42, and Bonfini, pag. 197, write; and that epoch, from our chronology, seems quite likely and as it were certain. And Bonfini presently subjoins Andrew's laws for the Catholic faith. Wherefore I judge that in the same year or the following the body of St. Gerard was translated to Csanád; especially since the translation seems to have been made before there was a new bishop at Csanád. For the translation is said to have been asked by St. Gerard's steward, and performed by his care, not by the bishop of Csanád.
[30] What the fabulous Life in Wion has contrary to these things, chapters 21 and 22, deserves no attention, when he is said to have lain seven years in his first tomb, with the stone which had been stained with the Saint's blood, and when bishop Maurus and abbot Philip are brought in as assisting at the translation, and the abbot and the canons as contending about the place of the future burial. The very many miracles which are added I judge should no more be transferred hither: for the Life makes no mention even in general of any miracles wrought at that translation, except the incorruption of the body; but only of graces afterward obtained at Csanád. Wherefore I judge that none of them is to be transferred hither. Hungarian writers mention also the translation of the stone on which St. Gerard's blood was shed; but not without added little fables, so far as appears. That some stone was stained with the Saint's blood when he was slain, and that that stone was laid in the tomb together with the body and afterward translated, is altogether likely and credible, especially since the assassins first tried to overwhelm the Saint with stones. This therefore I would not deny, since it could easily have been omitted by the biographer.
[31] But popular tradition seems to have adorned that stone also with little fables. [and which therefore seems to have been translated to Csanád together with the body.] For Bonfini, pag. 196, has thus of it: The stone stained with the holy Man's blood could be washed clean by no flood of the Danube; although it remained there about seven years, until his relics, gathered by the priests, were laid up in a chapel at Csanád, and the stone was placed on the surface of the altar in witness of the matter. Thurócz, chapter 40, writes thus: The Danube, often overflowing above the mass of the stone on which St. Gerard's head was crushed, could not wash away the blood for seven years, until it was gathered up by the priests: and that stone is now at Csanád on the surface of its altar. These things are also read in Wion, chapter 20, and in Inchofer at the year 1047. But since the martyrs' blood is wont to be carefully gathered together with the body by those who undertake the care of burying the martyrs, I should believe that the said stone was laid in the tomb together with the body, translated with it, and at last at the elevation of the body (presently to be reported) was placed on the altar. Certainly that it remained seven years in the place of martyrdom is by no means credible. For either it was known as the stone stained with St. Gerard's blood, or it was not known as such. If it was unknown, how did it afterward become known? If it was known, by what reason shall we say it came about that for seven years it was carried off by no one — especially if the blood could never be washed away either by the Danube's overflowing or by rains? I would not dare to suspect so ill of the religion of the Hungarians as to believe that a stone venerable with the glorious Martyr's blood was so neglected.
[32] What has been said hitherto about St. Gerard's translation does not imply a public cult of the Saint, The canonization being made, the body was elevated about 1083; since on that occasion he was translated not as a Saint, but as a bishop and venerable man, to his own church. After that translation he began to bestow benefits and graces by his patronage on his clients, as the Life has it, yet not evidently, because he was not honored with a public cult, but only by the private piety of certain persons. The Saint's public cult was begun in the time of king St. Ladislaus, as the Life attests, and St. Gerard's body was at the same time solemnly elevated. That a formal canonization of St. Gerard was then made, as also of St. Stephen the king and of St. Emeric his son, I have tried to prove at length at the 2nd of September in St. Stephen, §38, where also at §37 I showed that the elevation of the bodies must be fixed about the year 1083. The cause however could have been begun earlier at Rome, and there protracted for some years.
[33] Wion, chapter 22, fixes St. Gerard's canonization in the year 1078, the Saint's solemn festivity in Hungary on the day XXIV of September: and says in the Annotations that in the fabulous Life which he had before his eyes it is set in the year 1068. But the authority of that Life is nil, and it is rightly here rejected by Wion from the epoch of St. Ladislaus, who obtained the kingdom in the year 1077; Wion's opinion also, who sets the canonization in Ladislaus' second year, is not sufficiently probable, since the reasons alleged by me in St. Stephen are repugnant to it. In the synod of Szabolcs, which was held in the time of St. Ladislaus, in Péterffy, pag. 34, among the chief feasts on which abstention from works was required, is reckoned the festivity of St. Gerard the bishop, and it is placed between the feasts of St. Matthew and of St. Michael, so that there can be no doubt that it is set at the XXIV of September, even though the day be not otherwise expressed. About the same time probably was built the chapel of St. Gerard on the place of martyrdom, of which Thurócz says thus, chapter 40: Now in that same place where his head was crushed, a church appears built beneath the mount in honor of blessed Gerard the martyr.
[34] At the same day his memory inserted in various Martyrologies, The memory of St. Gerard we find inserted in the more recent calendars at the XXIV of September, on which I have said his festivity was fixed. In the Hagenau Usuardine codex, which was written in the year 1412, at this day it is read thus: In Hungary, of holy Gerhard, bishop and martyr. Hence Belinus, Greven and Molanus inserted St. Gerard in their editions of Usuard in nearly the same words. Greven however adds: Who according to the Catalogue (of Pietro de' Natali, who errs) suffered on the VII of the Kalends of March. The author of the manuscript Florarium Sanctorum celebrates St. Gerard, not without errors, in this manner: In Hungary, in the city of Bonda (he means Buda), of St. Gerard, bishop and martyr, who, placed in a two-wheeled cart and cast down from a very high mount, completed his martyrdom in the year of salvation MXL. The author errs somewhat in the place, in the time, in the manner of the martyrdom; but these matters have already been disputed before. More briefly at the same day Galesini, Canisius and Maurolico celebrate St. Gerard. Of the same St. Gerard the manuscript Trier Martyrology of St. Martin makes mention, which seems more ancient than all the aforesaid, but without the place of martyrdom. The announcement of St. Gerard in the Roman Martyrology has sometimes been somewhat altered, and is read variously in various editions: for these words, of the family of the Sagredos, are read added in some editions of the XVII century, yet not in all of that century, and in no edition of this century which I have been able to see. Those words seem to have been added to the eulogy after the Life was composed and published by Wion, but afterward again omitted because of the uncertain grounds of that opinion about the Saint's family. I shall therefore give the eulogy as it is read in most editions, and namely in the latest, which was made by the care of our most holy Lord Benedict XIV, which has thus: In Pannonia, of holy Gerard, bishop and martyr, called the apostle of the Hungarians, a Venetian patrician, who was the first to make his country illustrious by a noble martyrdom. In the monastic Martyrologies, which the said Pontiff had printed after the Roman one, the memory of the same Gerard is likewise read on the same day, namely in the Benedictine, in the Cistercian and in the Carmelite. At Venice St. Gerard is venerated on the same day with an Office which in the year 1678 was approved by the sacred Congregation of Rites.
[35] and namely inserted in the Benedictine ones; Benedictine martyrologists have vied in announcing St. Gerard as a nursling of their Order, yet have not made him an abbot, so that they themselves do not seem to have approved the Life published by Wion. Ménard has thus: In Pannonia, of St. Gerard, bishop of Csanád and martyr: who, overwhelmed with stones by the infidels and pierced through with a lance, at last by the crushing of his head fulfilled his martyrdom. More correctly the end of the martyrdom would be ascribed to the lance. Dorgan uses these words: Of St. Gerard, bishop and martyr, and apostle of the Hungarians in Pannonia, who instituted many illustrious things in honor of the most blessed Virgin. Wion himself in the Lignum Vitæ, printed two years before the Life of St. Gerard, announces St. Gerard at this day with only such a eulogy: In Pannonia, the passion of holy Gerard, bishop of Csanád and martyr, who, overwhelmed with stones by the infidels and pierced through with a lance, at last by the crushing of his head completed his martyrdom. In the Annotations he enumerates at length the documents which he afterward used for publishing the Life; and he makes the Saint indeed of the most illustrious patrician family de Secretis, as also a monk of St. George Major, yet not an abbot: but he refutes this novel opinion in these words: Pietro da Bugiano in his monastic History … makes him abbot of St. George Major of Venice; but I judge that he was mistaken. Of his monkhood in that same monastery it is established, as Niccolò Doglioni also is author in the History of Hungary; but of an abbacy History is mute. The same afterward he again hints in other words, so that I can scarcely conceive in what way he could afterward adopt that improbable opinion. Bucelin in the Benedictine Menology celebrates St. Gerard with a prolix eulogy, in which he has adopted some of Wion's opinions.
[36] At the XXIII of February in the Prætermissi these things have been observed among us: but the translation at the XXIII of February, Of St. Gerard, bishop of Csanád in Hungary, on the borders of Transylvania, the translation of the body to Venice, whence he was sprung, is celebrated on this day by Maurolico, Galesini, Felicius, Greven, Canisius, Ferrari, both in the general Catalogue and in that of the Saints of Italy, and in the monastic Martyrologies of Wion, Dorgan, Ménard, Bucelin. Thus Bolland briefly, that all might be more examined today. Now of the martyrologists praised, Maurolico and Felicius seem rather to announce his birthday than a translation; Greven, Galesini and Canisius doubt whether it be the passion or the translation that is to be commemorated on that day. But Ferrari and all the monastic ones clearly mention a translation, and indeed that by which the Saint's body is believed to have come to Venice, or rather to Murano. Wion at the said day has thus: At Venice at Murano (more correctly it would be said, at Murano near Venice) the translation of St. Gerard, bishop of Csanád and martyr. In the Annotations he praises the Calendars of the churches of St. Donatus of Murano and of St. George Major of Venice. He adds: The History of the translation I have not yet been permitted to see: I have heard however that it exists among the Canons of the aforesaid church of St. Donatus. But he did not praise it afterward either in the Annotations to the Life: and our Janning, when in the year 1686 he was on the island of Murano, noted in his Diary, fol. 26, that no instrument of the translation exists; but that in nearly the middle of the church, on the right side as one enters the church by the chief door, there is an altar beneath which St. Gerard's
body is said to be laid, and that the feast of the translation is celebrated there on the XXIII of February; but his birthday on the XXIV of September.
[37] Yet it may be doubted whether the Saint is venerated on the day XXIII of February on account of the translation to Murano, which perhaps is not that of Murano, but an older one. and not rather on account of the first elevation of the body, made at Csanád after the canonization. Certainly the festivity of that day seems to me more ancient than the translation of the body to the island of Murano. For Pietro de' Natali at the end of the eulogy to be given says: And he suffered on the VII of the Kalends of March. In this indeed he errs, as elsewhere not seldom: but he does not seem able to have fallen into such an error unless some festivity of the Saint had been celebrated on the XXIII of February while he was writing. Besides, the people of Murano themselves seem formerly to have celebrated at the XXIII of February not a translation but the birthday of St. Gerard. For the ancient manuscript Office of the people of Murano, which Corner published in the Churches of Torcello, part 2, pag. 73, is marked with this title: On the day XXIII of February, on the feast of St. Gerard, bishop and martyr. But in the Office itself no mention is made of a translation, but the chief deeds of St. Gerard are inserted in the lessons. And so the people of Murano formerly celebrated on that day the birthday or passion of St. Gerard, perhaps because Pietro de' Natali wrote that he died on the XXIII of February. Péterffy also observes, in the Annotations to the councils of Hungary, pag. 34, that in the Calendar of an ancient Breviary of the library of Buda the feast of St. Gerard, Martyr and Bishop, is noted on the XXIV of February. Perhaps we must read the XXIII of February, since the XXIV is the feast of St. Matthias. From what has been said I gather that it is uncertain whether it be the translation to Murano, or some other more ancient one, which gave occasion to the festivity celebrated on the XXIII of February.
[38] [Although the body is believed to be at Murano, the time of the translation is unknown] Further, since no documents of that translation are to be found, we cannot wonder that nothing certain has become known about the time at which it was performed. Mabillon in the observations preliminary to the Life writes these things about it from conjecture: The sacred body of blessed Gerard was translated to Venice about the year MCCCC, and was laid at Murano in the church of blessed Mary, which now bears the title of St. Donatus, where even now it is kept. This translation is said to have been made on the day XXIII of February. Whence Bucelin could have drawn what he writes in his Menology at the XXIII of February about that translation, I truly do not see. He says, namely, of our St. Gerard: Who, venerated in a golden sarcophagus in Hungary and with great religious devotion of the peoples, being afterward granted to the assiduous prayers of his Venetian fellow-citizens, and to be transferred with great pomp to his own monastery (of St. George of Venice), being meanwhile laid at St. Donatus' near Murano, those who were urging the business of the translation having died, awaits … the honors long since decreed and merited by him. That these things might obtain credit with the prudent, they had to be proved far more accurately, and not lightly asserted. I truly prefer to be ignorant how or at what time St. Gerard's relics came to Murano, than to give credit to assertions of that kind. If there be room for conjecture, none appears to me more likely than that they were carried off from the church of Csanád for fear of barbarian enemies. The Turks, who in the XVI century occupied Csanád, could often before have given occasion by their incursions for transferring St. Gerard's relics to a safer place. The same could have been done long before for fear of the Tartars. But, since the people of Murano themselves do not know how or when they received St. Gerard's body, I cannot find it out.
[39] [and whether nearly the whole is kept there: relics from it granted to two Venetian churches:] It may also be doubted whether the people of Murano possess the whole or nearly the whole body, or only some notable parts, which after the custom were called a body — as I should the rather believe if it were established that the relics were granted to the people of Murano by a liberal gift of the people of Csanád or of other Hungarians. However this may be, some of those kept at Murano have been communicated to other churches also. For in Corner, in the Venetian Churches, tom. 8, pag. 86, where the monastery of St. George Major is treated of, in which St. Gerard is believed to have professed the Order of St. Benedict, letters are recited which attest that some relics of St. Gerard were given by Antonio Grimani, bishop of Torcello, in whose diocese Murano is, to the abbot and monks of St. George Major. The thing is said to have been done in the year 1593 in the parish church of St. Donatus, which is situated at Murano near Venice. The said bishop is also said to have drawn out the relics enclosed in a leaden casket, and to have given them liberally to the abbot and monks. But it is not added how great a part of the body is contained in that leaden casket, or of what kind or how great was that which was given. The said Corner, tom. 4, pag. 357, assigns another part of St. Gerard's relics in the Venetian parish church of the most holy Trinity, writing thus: In it there is kept … the hip-bone of St. Gerard Sagredo, bishop of Csanád and martyr, who had his birth in this same parish (as is handed down by some): which venerable bone indeed, taken from the body of that same most holy Martyr resting at Murano (the prayers of the Sagredo family intervening), was offered to the church of the most holy Trinity by the gift of Antonio Grimani, bishop of Torcello, and there honorably placed at the altar distinguished by the title of the same Martyr.
[40] The people of Prague also claim for themselves some relics of St. Gerard. others asserted in other places. For Pešina in the Phosphorus Pragensis, pag. 518, at the XXIV of September, has thus: Of St. Gerard, bishop and martyr, two notably large bones brought from Hungary in the year MCCCIV. This gift conferred on the people of Prague in the year 1304 does not permit us to doubt that some bones of St. Gerard were given to other churches also before they came to Murano. Masini in Bologna Perlustrata at the XXIV of September affirms that some relics of St. Gerard are had at Bologna in the church of the Conventual Franciscans. For the rest, with what rite at this time St. Gerard is venerated throughout all Hungary, we learn from the Missal of the Patrons of Hungary, printed at Trnava in the year 1735, in whose Calendar at the XXIV of September these words are read: Of St. Gerard, bishop and martyr, double. But because of the feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Ransom falling on the same day, it is to be transferred to the next following day, except in the diocese of Csanád, throughout which, as principal Patron, he obtains the rite of a double of the first class with an Octave.
LIFE
By a nearly contemporary anonymous author.
From the Corsendonck manuscript, collated with the Cracow edition.
Gerard, bishop and martyr, near the Danube in Hungary (S.)
BHL Number: 3426
By an anonymous author.
The Saint, a Venetian by country, becomes a monk from boyhood, The joys which this day has brought to those who partake of Christ have flowed from the merits of our blessed father and martyr of Christ, Gerard. For he, having obtained the light of this world from Venetian parents, by the grace of God going before him, began from boyhood to be devoted to our Lord Jesus Christ, and to obey the Gospel teachings in all things. For he received the habit of Religion as a Boy a, and, turning aside from the sinister way of the first parent, walking the path of the new man created according to God, already as a youth he strove to love the joys of the region forsaken through disobedience, namely of paradise. Therefore, while he led a holy life in sincerity of mind, it pleased him to visit the Lord's sepulchre, that he might follow, needy and poor, Christ who was made poor for our sake.
[2] So, having gone out from his land and from his kindred, he was making for the East, where Abraham was made rich and the father b of many nations; that he too with Abraham's seed — that is, in Christ — might possess by the labor of his pilgrimage the blessing given, like the believing Abraham. At last he came to the parts of Pannonia, [then, desiring to visit Christ's sepulchre, being detained in Hungary, first a hermit,] whose reins Stephen c, the great friend of Christ, then governed: whom the Man of God approached humble and suppliant, and, disclosing the cause of his journey, was received by him with fuller affection [*]. And when the king perceived that he breathed the good odor of Christ by his morals and by the tokens of his learning, secretly dismissing his companions of the journey, he retained this one alone against his will d, and set a guard over him. After the Servant of the Lord found himself left alone, avoiding the tumult of the people, he sought in that same region the desert which is commonly called Bél e: where for seven years, given to fastings and the exercises of prayer, he dwelt alone, except for Maurus f the monk.
[3] Meanwhile the aforesaid king Stephen, like a most valiant Joshua, afterward becomes bishop of Morisena or Csanád. destroyed the impiety of the nations g, and overcame the cruel manners of the pagans; and prepared the hearts of very many to receive the seeds of the holy faith. But the king, seeing that his kingdom had attained the tranquillity of peace, recalled the Servant of the Lord from the desert, and, adorning him with the pontifical mitre, appointed him to preach to his people. On whom the supernal goodness conferred such grace that all the inhabitants of that place loved him uniquely and venerated him as a father; and now he was held the father of many, like the patriarch Abraham. And as the number of the faithful grew, he built churches to God in the several cities: but he founded the principal church in honor of holy George, the most precious martyr of Christ, on the bank of the river Maros h: whence also he called it the see of Morisena. Which the blessed king Stephen nobly enriched with dowry gifts.
[4] The Saint's exceeding devotion to the most blessed Mother of God: In which church he erected a venerable altar in honor of the Mother of the Lord and Savior, before which he set a silver censer: for whose service he employed two men of advanced age, who should watch there continually, so that not for one hour should the odor of the incense be wanting. On every Sabbath also he fulfilled there the office of his devotion with nine lessons, as on the day of the Assumption of the Mother of the Lord, and with great heraldings of praise. He gave still more labor to mercy. And on the other days, Matins and Vespers being performed, he was accustomed to come twice with a procession to the same: which custom still endures. Further, he knew how to subject himself to the praises of the holy Mother of God with such humble deference: for whatever guilty man, secretly instructed by the holy Man's household, begged for pardon by the name of Christ's Mother i, when the name of Mother Mary k was heard, the holy Father was at once bathed in tears: and, as though he himself were the guilty one, he asked pardon of the guilty man. And he affirmed that that man would be his son if he rightly believed her to be the Mother of God. By his ruling the name of Christ's Mother is not heard from the Hungarian race, but only Lady resounds. But if it is heard, at once with bent knees and heads lowered to the earth they bow themselves: for Pannonia too was called by its holy king Stephen the Household of holy Mary. O praiseworthy prudence of these Men! who by attending to this Star of the sea directed the course of their life, so that, having regard [*] to her example, they might, as they rowed among the waves of this world, turn aside from the desires of pleasures as from a whirlpool of Scylla, and reach the haven of eternal salvation.
[5] his other virtues, But about the ecclesiastical ministries he took exceedingly anxious care. For in the summer time little vessels full of ice were set in the house of the Lord, in which a flask held the best wine that could be
found, and they kept it [] for the confecting of the Lord's Blood. For he said: That which is inwardly received through faith, is outwardly found sweet. At night-time, finally, making a leper rest in his own bed, he took an axe and went alone to the wood; and, bundles of wood being carried on his own shoulders for the chastisement of his body, he often relieved the labors of the servants who served him. For when the Man of God journeyed from place to place, he used no beast of burden, but a modest wagon, in which, sitting, he read over the books which by the grace of the Holy Spirit he had composed l. And he was often clothed in garments of haircloth and in skins made of rams' wool [].
[6] As has often happened to holy men, sometimes being hurt by his driver's negligence or by some other injury, his wonderful gentleness and humility, he fell into a slight anger, and at once ordered the man who was culpable toward him to be weighed down with scourgings and hard bonds. His ministers, obeying his command, but not forgetting the sweetness of his fatherliness, would bind the guilty man to a stake beside the road along which the holy Father was to pass: and would paint the marks of stripes on his naked back with the blood of a hen or of some other animal. But when the Man of God came up [], forgetting his own severity, leaping at once from the wagon, he hastened to the bound man [], and now kissed the stake, his arms, his hands and his bonds, now his feet: he promised gifts, if he might deserve to obtain pardon and mercy from the man already taken up. If a man had stood by then, he would have said that this Man of God, for so great humility and simplicity, was converted and made that child whom [*] the Savior set in the midst of the Disciples for imitation.
[7] Although he governed the episcopal dignity with exceeding prudence, his love of solitude, austerity of life, kindness. yet he did not forsake the desert. But near the cities to which he came to preach he had built himself a little cell in a more secret place of the woods: in which he is recorded to have passed the night bound, and to have endured many sufferings which are known to God alone. At a certain time, when he was hastening to the same king for the defense of a certain person, in a laborious m part of that region, which is fit for the use of cattle, the Man of God lodged: where about midnight a certain maidservant, while turning a millstone with her hands and grinding wheat, was soothing the hardness of her labor with a little song. Awakened at it, the holy Father, calling his servant, asks what it is. And the servant tells him how the matter stood. At once the pious Shepherd is bathed in tears: Happy, he said, is a person set beneath another's power, who thus renders sweetly her due service without murmuring, on whom he laid no small weight of money to carry.
[8] [When St. Stephen was dead, and Ovo, king Peter being driven out, usurped the kingdom,] After the blessed king Stephen had converted all Pannonia to the true light of Christ, he entitled it under the patronage of the holy Mother of God and ever Virgin Mary: and himself, on the day of the Assumption of the Mother of the Lord, loosing the microcosm n, was taken up to eternal rest. King Peter succeeded: to whom, when all the princes of Pannonia had sworn fidelity and love, one of them, casting down the king, wrongfully usurped the royal seat o. And in his reign, as the Prophet [*] says, blood touched blood, sin was heaped upon sin. Alas, in the holy days of Lent he dared to kill the most honorable men of his own council with stakes and poles, like unclean animals. Then he came to the see of Morisena, namely to the Bishop's place, to celebrate the Paschal Sacraments.
[9] But on the day of the Lord's Resurrection, when he came that the Father of that place should set the diadem on the royal head [p], he is invited by the bishops and princes through most honorable men []. And when he refused, the other bishops set on the crown: the king, adorned with a great train of clergy and people, enters the church. But the blessed Bishop, full of the Holy Spirit, covered with a white stole, he refuses to set the crown on him, and foretells his coming destruction: went up into the pulpit: and undaunted addressed the king in these words through an interpreter: The observance of holy Lent has been appointed for sinners unto pardon, but for the just unto reward. But since thou, O king, hast defiled it by the slaughter of thy sword, and hast taken from me the name of father, in that I am bereft of my sweetest sons, thou meritest today no indulgence. But since I am ready to die this day for my Christ, I will declare to thee things to come. In the third year the sword of vengeance shall be stirred up against thee, which shall take from thee the kingdom, wickedly acquired by fraud [] and by violence, and thy life also [q]. And when the king's friends, imbued with liberal letters, wondered astonished at such things, they signed to the interpreter to be silent, defending the Bishop from the king's anger and indignation: to whom the interpreter, fearing, consented. But the true Shepherd began to press and compel the interpreter who disobeyed him, saying: Fear God, honor the king, bring forth the father's words. At last the interpreter, compelled, declared the Shepherd's judgment, and bore no light fear of the king.
[10] [The Saint also foretold his own martyrdom long before, and again on the day before.] And after all these things were fulfilled, it was known by experience to all the Pannonians that the Servant of God had the spirit of prophecy. For he also foresang [r] that the greatest sedition was coming upon the nation, in which he was by no means silent about the crown of his own martyrdom. By the new sign of the Catholic faith, be marked [s] with human prudence; learn from me whether this Saint wrought in his life bodily miracles, which are common with the reprobate; or gave sight to the blind or hearing to the deaf: although even of these he was not spiritually destitute. None of these things does God require of thee. Labor by the grace of the Holy Spirit to possess this Man's humility and piety, and thou shalt have a part in the kingdom of God the Father and of his Christ. When one lustrum had rolled by and a second was beginning, the aforesaid sedition arose [t]. In which, while the Man of God was returning to the royal city of Székesfehérvár, he lodged at the church of holy Sabiniana [u], virgin and martyr, where, as the brethren supped, he said: Brethren and friends, tomorrow we are called to the supper of the Lamb of God: let us hasten without excuse: let us die for Christ [w].
[11] The preparation for martyrdom, and the Saint's slaying: And when the next day dawned, the holy Father celebrated Mass, and made the multitude that clave to him partakers of Christ's Table: and joyful went on to martyrdom. And when he had come on to the river Danube [x], behold a great crowd of the peoples pours round about, and they hurl stones at the Father sitting in the wagon: which, God protecting him, did not touch him. But on the contrary the Father set against them his blessing and the sign of the holy Cross: and at last, the horses' necks being twisted round, they overturn the wagon and cast the Father on the ground, and with great violence try to stone him. Then, after the manner of the protomartyr, before those present [y], the Martyr of Pannonia, setting his knees on the ground, cried with a loud voice, saying: Lord Jesus Christ, lay not this sin to them, who know not what they do. And when he had said this, being struck in the breast with a lance, he fell asleep in the Lord [z]. On the same day a very great slaughter of Christians was made: for two bishops [aa] and many religious men were slain: whose number and names God's knowledge alone has gathered.
[12] his burial, translation, The holy body indeed, while it lay in the place of his martyrdom, was defiled with no filth: and on the following day it was laid up by Catholic men in the church of the holy Mother of God. But at that time, after many days, the most faithful steward of the holy man went to king Andrew, that he might give back the body of the pilgrim and guest Father, and swiftly obtained it. And coming to the holy body, they found it as bright and shining as if he had completed his martyrdom on that very day: and they bore it with hymns and canticles to the see of Morisena [bb], and buried it with great reverence: where many graces [*] were purchased for Catholic men, yet not evidently until the times of king Ladislaus and of bishop Laurence, who received the see fifth from the blessed Man.
[13] Finally, in the time of the aforesaid king, it was determined [*] by a synod of the holy Roman Church the solemn elevation after the canonization. that the bodies of those who had watered Pannonia by the preaching of the faith ought to be venerated with the highest honor, and to be placed in worthy seats. And when the legate of the Apostolic See had come, and an assembly of the nobles of Pannonia had been held, the holy body was elevated, and translated on the shoulders of the king and the dukes carrying it, and fittingly laid again: where, for the merits of so great a Father, the supernal grace flashes more abundantly by the showing forth of miracles. By the bestowal of our Lord Jesus Christ, who with God the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and is glorified through all the ages of ages. Amen.
ANNOTATIONS.
of the City of Venice, book 13, fol. 227, gives a brief Italian eulogy of St. Gerard as a Venetian writer, and reviews the Latin titles of the Works composed by him thus: On the praises of the blessed Virgin, one book. Lenten Sermons, one book. Homilies for the Solemnities of the whole year, one book. Wion in the Lignum Vitæ, book 5, chapter 46, reports these from Sansovino, and adds: All which are said to exist in manuscript with Niccolò de Secretis, son of Bernardo, and a Venetian patrician. But the said Sansovino says only that the Life of St. Gerard exists with Niccolò de Secretis; not likewise the manuscript little Works. And so I do not know whether Wion learned this from elsewhere.
p. We must without doubt read adveniat or adveniret, as Surius has it: for thus the gaping sentence is made complete, and the sense altogether requires that reading. Yet I would not depart from the manuscript and the Cracow edition, in which is read advenit, but faultily.
q. The rebuke of Ovo for the slain nobles, and St. Gerard's prophecy of his coming destruction, Bonfini briefly touched, pag. 191; as also Longinus, col. 232.
r. It is not added whether this prediction, which is reported on occasion of the other, was uttered by St. Gerard at the same time.
s. This whole sentence, in which the author by an apostrophe addresses the Catholic reader, is obscure and ambiguous. He seems to wish to infer from the prophecies that miracles also, by which benefits are given to bodies, were not lacking to St. Gerard. Then he hints that he reports nothing about miracles of St. Gerard of that kind, because God does not require of Christians that they work miracles, but that they exercise Christian virtues. For this cause he says that miracles are common with the reprobate; but he could have said the same by the same right about prophecy, since in Matthew 7 ℣ 22 Christ speaks equally of prophecy, of casting out demons and of miracles: Many will say to me in that day: Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and cast out demons in thy name, and in thy name done many mighty works? And then I will confess to them: I never knew you. These things are true and certain; nor yet on that account should anything be taken from the glory of the Saints who shone with many miracles, as can easily be shown. Surius gave a clearer wording, expressing the passage thus: I would not therefore have thee, whoever thou art initiated into the Christian religion, wish to know from me by human prudence whether this holy Man in his life brought forth miracles which are common with the reprobate, whether he restored sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, etc. This too can have been the author's mind: but I rather believe that he wished to infer from the gift of prophecy that the gift of miracles is not to be doubted.
t. On the time of this sedition consult the Commentary, num. 24 and 25.
u. Of St. Sabiniana is read in the manuscript and in the Cracow edition. Surius published of St. Sabina, as Pietro de' Natali, Bonfini, Thurócz and the moderns everywhere also have it. For that reason I cannot say whether that church was dedicated to St. Sabiniana or to some holy Sabina. Inchofer at the year 1047, pag. 399, asserts that the church was of St. Sabina, a Roman matron and martyr, of whom it has been treated among us at the 29th of August. I could wish that he had clearly proved what he asserted, and had stated where it was situated. Bonfini and Thurócz place the church of St. Sabina in the village of Gyód, but of this too no one assigns the situation.
w. In the manuscript copy, moriamini ("die ye"). But the Cracow edition and Surius, moriamur ("let us die"), which coheres better with what precedes. Further, on that journey Thurócz and Bonfini join three bishops and count Szolnok to St. Gerard as companions, and the prediction of the martyrdom, which the Life has as uttered at supper, they set in the very church of St. Sabina before Mass. Let us hear Thurócz, chapters 39 and 40. Which being heard (he says, of the coming of the new king Andrew and of the Hungarians conspiring with him, whom he had said had come to Pest), the bishops Gerard, Beztritus, Buldus and Benetha, and count Szolnok, went out from the city of Székesfehérvár to meet the dukes Endre (that is, Andrew) and Levente, that they might receive them honorably. And when the aforesaid bishops had come in haste to the place which is called Gyód, there in the church of St. Sabina, before they went to the lords, they wished to hear Mass. And so blessed Gerard the bishop, clothed in priestly vestments to celebrate Mass, spoke to them words of exhortation, saying: "My brethren and fellow-bishops, and all other faithful who are here present; know that we shall today come to our Lord Jesus Christ into eternal joys with the crown of martyrdom. For I make known to you a secret of God which was revealed to me this night. For I saw our Lord Jesus Christ sitting in the lap of his most holy Mother, Mary ever Virgin: and, when we had been called to him, communicating to us from his own hand the Eucharist of his Body and Blood. But when bishop Benetha came to him, Christ drew back the Eucharist from him: whence he today will be deprived of the fellowship of our martyrdom." And after this blessed Gerard admonished them to confess their sins among themselves, and, Mass being heard, applying themselves to prayer and gladdened with a sure hope of eternal blessedness to be obtained through martyrdom, they all communicated. The same Bonfini has more briefly. But it is certain that there are many errors in these things, and many contrary to likelihood. For it is not likely that such things were done on the road, if they were journeying from Székesfehérvár to Pest, or that they all gave themselves fasting to the journey and afterward communicated. And so the Life alone is to be followed, according to which St. Gerard was journeying to Székesfehérvár with some companions of his, and in the evening foretold his coming martyrdom, for which in the morning before the journey he piously disposed himself with his own.
x. Of the place of martyrdom consult the Commentary, num. 28.
y. Præsentibus ("to those present") is read in the manuscript copy. But the Cracow edition and Surius have primus, as if St. Gerard were called the first martyr of Pannonia. But that primus is not found either in Pietro de' Natali, or in the lessons of the Venetian Office, to which these Acts served as a guide. Wherefore it is doubtful whether we should read the first Martyr of Pannonia, or before those present … he cried.
z. Nothing else is said to have been done at the Saint's slaying, except that they first wished to overwhelm him with stones as he sat in the wagon, then overturned the wagon, again assailed the Saint with stones, and at last pierced his breast with a lance. What is added to these in Thurócz and Bonfini is to be counted as nothing. Each writes that the Saint, thrown from the chariot, was carried up again by a two-wheeled cart onto a mount, and thence cast down upon the rocks, and at last that his head was crushed on a stone. The earlier overturning of the chariot could have given occasion to all these; but it is improbable that after his being thrown down other things were done than what the Life has.
aa. These are named Beztritus and Buldus in Thurócz and Bonfini. But they are not venerated as martyrs.
bb. Of this translation, and of the other following after the canonization, I have treated in the Commentary, §3, where all that follows has been sufficiently set forth.
Cracow ed. in*
Cracow ed. delectatione*
perhaps mœrens*
al. faultily respectum*
in the Cracow ed. conservabantur*
perhaps pilosis*
pervenit*
ad alligatum*
in the manuscript quando*
in the manuscript faultily princeps*
* Hosea 4 ℣ 2
Cracow ed. faultily immutatur*
in the manuscript faultily nequando*
in the manuscript faultily genere*
Surius injunctum*
EULOGY
By Pietro de' Natali
From the Vicenza edition of the year 1493.
Gerard, bishop and martyr, near the Danube in Hungary (S.)
Gerard, bishop and martyr, sprung from the city of Venice, devoted to God from boyhood, was a canon of the church of St. Mark a. But aspiring to a stricter life, having received the habit of religion, while he was going to visit the Lord's sepulchre, he came into Pannonia; where he was detained by St. Stephen, the most Christian king of Hungary, who knew him to be a servant of Christ: and, the companions with whom he was journeying being dismissed, he remained there: and in a certain desert which is called Bél he led a solitary life for seven years. After this he was promoted by the king, though quite unwilling, to the episcopate. And he, going about through the cities and strongholds of Pannonia, preached the word of the Lord. And he set his see beside the stream of the river Maros, which he also called Morisena: where he also built a church of the holy martyr George, in which he erected also an altar of the Mother of God: before which he placed a silver censer with perpetual incense, and decreed that it should always be kept there. For he venerated the blessed Mother of God very devoutly: whence also on every Saturday he appointed her Office with nine lessons to be celebrated there: which is kept until the present. He governed also the bishopric vigorously; he very often withdrew to the desert for some days: then returning to his see he administered the office enjoined on him: and applied himself continually to preaching. So when king Stephen was dead, king Peter succeeded him. And when one of the princes had invaded his kingdom and had killed very many nobles, he came to Morisena, that he might be crowned by bishop Gerard on the day of Easter. Whose coronation the Saint not only refused to perform, but would not even be present at it: nay rather he foretold to him, as an invader and betrayer of the kingdom, his own slaying, which should come after three years. Which happened as he had foretold. Then after five years,
as he was going to the city of Székesfehérvár, lodging at the church of St. Savina, he foretold his martyrdom as about to be on the morrow. On the following day, the solemnities of the Masses being celebrated, when he was beside the river Danube, being seized by the infidels, he began to be stoned. And while the stones cast at him hung in the air b, he is pierced through with a lance, and there he fell, together with very many other Christians slain with the sword c, where also he was buried. But in the course of time the renowned king Andrew d translated the Martyr's body to Morisena; where also he shines with miracles. And he suffered on the VII of the Kalends of March e.
ANNOTATIONS.
LESSONS
Of the ancient Office of the church of Murano.
From the edition of the illustrious Flaminio Corner, part 2 of the Churches of Torcello.
Gerard, bishop and martyr, near the Danube in Hungary (S.)
BHL Number: 3427
The Saint's country: his monastic and afterward solitary life in Hungary: Lesson I. Gerard, having obtained the threshold of this light from Venetian parents of the Sagredo a stock, by the grace of God going before him, began from boyhood to be devoted to Jesus Christ, and to obey the Gospel teachings in all things. For he received the habit of religion as a Boy. Therefore, while he led a holy life in sincerity of mind, it pleased him to visit the Lord's sepulchre. Going out from his kindred, he came to the parts of Pannonia b, whose reins the most Christian king Stephen then governed. Whom the Man of God approached humble and suppliant, and, disclosing the cause of his journey, was received by him with fuller affection. And when the king had perceived that he sent forth the good odor of Christ by his morals and by the tokens of his learning, having gently dismissed the companions of his journey, he retained this one alone against his will. Afterward, avoiding the tumult of the people, he sought the desert, and for seven years, given to fastings and to the exercises of composition, dwelt alone except for Maurus the monk.
[2] his episcopate and his pious deeds in it, Lesson II. Meanwhile the aforesaid king, like a most valiant Joshua, destroyed the impiety of the nations, and overcame the cruel manners of the pagans, and prepared the hearts of very many to receive the seeds of the holy faith: and, peace being given to the kingdom, he calls the Servant of God from the desert, and, adorning him with the pontifical mitre, appointed him to preach to his people. On whom the supernal goodness conferred such grace that all loved him and venerated him as a father, and he was now held the father of many, like the patriarch Abraham. And as the number of the faithful grew, he built churches of God in the several cities. But the principal one he founded in honor of the holy martyr George on the bank of the river Maros, whence also he called it the see of Morisena, which the blessed king Stephen nobly enriched with dowry gifts. In it he erected an altar in honor of the Virgin Mary, before which he set a silver censer, for whose service he employed two men of advanced age, who should watch continually, that not for one hour should the odor of the incense be wanting. On every Saturday also he most devoutly fulfilled the Office in honor of the same Virgin, as on the day of the Assumption. And on the other days, Matins and Vespers being performed, he was accustomed to come twice with a procession to the same. He knew how to subject himself to the praises of the holy Mother of God with such humble deference that, if any guilty man, instructed by the holy Man's household, begged pardon by the name of Christ's Mother, he was bathed [*] in tears, and, as though he himself were the guilty one, asked pardon, and said that he should be his son who rightly believed her to be the Mother of God. By which devotion Pannonia was called by the holy king Stephen the Household of holy Mary.
[3] the Saint's private virtues: Lesson III. About the ecclesiastical ministries he took exceeding care, for he kept the best wine that could be found for the Sacrifice, saying that this, which is inwardly received through faith, is outwardly found sweet. At night-time, making a leprous woman [] rest in his own little bed, he attended to the service of his servants. On a journey he used a modest wagon, in which he read over the books which he had composed by the grace of the Holy Spirit. And he was clothed in garments of haircloth and in shaggy skins of rams []. Although he governed the episcopal dignity with exceeding foresight, yet he never forsook the desert, for near the cities to which he came to preach he had built himself a little cell in a more secret place of the woods, in which he would pass the night, and he is recorded to have endured many sufferings which are known to God alone.
[4] Lesson IV. When Stephen had been taken to eternal rest in the heavens, his constancy and episcopal freedom, his prophecy, king Peter succeeded; and in his reign c blood touched blood. For in the holy days of Lent he dared to kill the most honorable men of his own council with stakes and poles [], like unclean animals. Then he came to the see of Morisena, namely of the blessed Bishop, to celebrate the Paschal sacraments. But on the day of the Lord's Resurrection, when the Father of that place came [] to set the diadem on his head, he is invited by the bishops and the chief men through most honorable men. And when he held back [], the other bishops set on the crown: the king is adorned [] with a great train of clergy and people, and enters the church. But the Bishop, full of the Holy Spirit, covered with a white stole, goes up into the pulpit, and undaunted addresses him: The observance of holy Lent has been appointed for sinners unto pardon, for the just unto reward; but since thou, O king, hast defiled it on the occasion of thy sword, and hast taken from me the name of Father, in that I am bereft of my sweetest sons, thou meritest today no indulgence. But since I am ready to die this day for my Christ, I will declare to thee things to come. In the third year the sword of vengeance shall be stirred up against thee, which shall take from thee thy kingdom and thy life.
[5] Lesson V. And after all these things were fulfilled, the prediction of the martyrdom, and the martyrdom itself: it was known by experience to all the Pannonians that the Servant of God had the spirit of prophecy, and had by no means been silent about the crown of his own martyrdom d. When one lustrum had rolled by, a sedition arose, in which, while the Man of God remained e in the royal city of Székesfehérvár, he lodged at the church of holy Savina f, virgin and martyr, where, as the brethren supped, he said: Brethren and friends, tomorrow we are called to the supper of the Lamb of God; let us hasten without excuse; let us die for Christ. On the next day at dawn the holy Father celebrated Mass, and made the multitude of those cleaving to him partakers of Christ's table, and joyful went on [*] to martyrdom. And when he came to the river Danube, behold a malignant crowd of the peoples pours round about, and they hurl stones upon the Father sitting in the wagon, which, God protecting him, did not touch him, against whom the Father set his blessing and the sign of the Cross. But at last, the horses' necks being twisted round, they overturn the wagon and cast him on the ground, and with great violence try to stone him. Then, after the manner of the protomartyr Stephen, the Martyr of Pannonia, setting his knees on the ground, cried with a loud voice, saying: Lord Jesus, lay not this sin to them, for they know not what they do. And when he had said this, being struck with a lance in the breast, he fell asleep in the Lord.
[6] his burial: and some other matters. Lesson VI. On the same day a very great slaughter of Christians was made; two bishops and many religious were slain, whose number [*] and names God's knowledge alone gathers. His body was defiled with no filth, which on the following day was laid up by the Catholics in the church of the holy Mother of God. When a certain wicked man, sitting at a banquet, drew hairs from his purse, mocking the blessed Man, and said to the guests: These are the hairs of that shaven beard, of him who thought to overturn us from our fathers' traditions — at once, being seized by the devil and biting his own flesh with his own teeth, he ended his life g. Blessed Gerard the bishop was martyred in the year of the Lord one thousand one hundred and sixty-nine h, on the eighth of the Kalends of October. After blessed Thomas the martyr, bishop of Canterbury, who was at that time.
ANNOTATIONS.
Life are not read, or at least in other ancient monuments.
* perfunderetur
* leprosum
* arietum
* cellulam
* palis
* adveniat
* renuente
* decoratus
* Pannoniensibus
* pergebat
* eum
* Pannoniæ
* numerum
* Dei