CHAPTER XLVI.
Barbaria, a lady of rank, venerated Saint Severinus with pious devotion. She and her late husband had known him well by reputation and through correspondence. When, after the death of the saint, she heard that his body had with great labor been brought into Italy, and up to that time had not been committed to earth, she invited by frequent letters our venerable priest Marcianus, and also the whole brotherhood. Then with the authorization of Saint Gelasius, pontiff of the Roman see, and received by the people of Naples with reverent obsequies, the body was laid to rest by the hands of Saint Victor the bishop in the Lucullan castle, in a mausoleum which Barbaria had built.
At this solemnity many afflicted by divers diseases, whom it would be tedious to enumerate, were instantly healed. Among them was a venerable handmaid of |109 God, Processa by name, a citizen of Naples, who suffered from a severe and troublesome sickness. Invited by the virtues of the holy corpse, she hastened to meet it on the way; and when she approached the vehicle in which the venerable body was borne, immediately she was free from sickness in all her members.
Also at that time a blind man, Laudicius, was startled when he heard the unexpected clamor of the people singing psalms, and anxiously asked his household what it was. When they replied that the body of a certain Saint Severinus was passing, he was moved by the spirit, and asked that he be led to the window; from which one possessed of sight could behold afar |110 off the multitude singing psalms and the carriage bearing the sacred body. And when he leaned forth from the window and prayed, straightway he saw, and pointed out his acquaintances and neighbors one by one. Thereupon all who heard him wept for joy and returned thanks to God.
Marinus too, precentor of the holy church at Naples, could not recover his health after a terrible sickness, and suffered from a constant headache. In faith he leaned his head against the carriage, and immediately lifted it up free from pain. In memory of this benefit, he always came on the anniversary of the saint's burial and rendered to God thanks and the sacrifice of a vow.
I have related three of the numberless miracles which were wrought on the arrival of the saint through his mediation and virtues. Let it suffice; though many know of more.
A monastery, built at the same place to the memory of the blessed man, still endures. By his merits many possessed with devils have received and do receive healing through the effective grace of God; to whom is honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.
Illustrious minister of Christ, thou hast the memoir. From it make by thy editorial care a profitable work. |111
Paschasius the deacon to the holy and ever most beloved priest Eugippius.
Dearest brother in Christ, thou measurest me by the measure of thy skill, eloquence, and happy leisure, and disdainest to consider my vexatious employments and manifold imperfections. Yet through the contemplation of thy love I sustain the injury to my modesty.
Thou hast sent me a memoir to which the eloquence of the trained writer can add nothing, and in a short compendium hast produced a work which the whole church can read. The life and character of Saint Severinus, who dwelt in the provinces bordering on the Pannonias, thou hast portrayed with much faithfulness; and thou hast handed down to the memory of future generations, to remain through long ages, the miracles which divine virtue hath wrought through him. The deeds of the good cannot perish with time. All persons to whom thy narrative shall bring Saint Severinus shall have him before them, and shall perceive that in a certain sense he dwells with them. And |112 so as thou hast told very simply, and explained very clearly, these particulars which thou didst ask me to narrate, I have thought it best not to try to make any addition to thy work. Indeed, it is one thing to relate what we have been told, quite another thing, to draw from the stores of our own experience. The virtues of teachers are particularly visible in their daily life, and consequently are more easily depicted by their pupils. By God's gift inspired, thou understandest the value of the deeds of the saints for the improvement of the minds of the good: their profitableness, the fervor they impart, their cleansing power. On this point we have the authority of the well-known words of the apostle, "being ensamples to the flock;" and Saint Paul commanded Timothy, "be thou an example of the believers." For this reason Saint Paul compiles a concise catalogue of the just, and, beginning from Abel, recounts the virtues of distinguished men. So also that most faithful Mattathias, as the days drew near that he should die a glorious death, distributed to his sons as an inheritance the examples of the saints; that fired with sacred zeal by the wonderful battles of the saints, they might hold their lives as naught in the defense of the eternal laws. Nor did the sons find the father's teaching false. For so greatly did the deeds of the elders profit them, that with most manifest faith they terrified armed princes, overcame the camps of the wicked, overthrew far and |113 wide the worship and altars of demons, and decorated with perennial garlands they provided a civic crown for their glorious country.
For this reason also I rejoice that through a brother's service something is provided for the ornaments of the bride of Christ; not that at any time, as I believe, have there been lacking illustrious examples of the elders, but because it is fitting that the palace of the Great King should have the standards of many victories. For true virtue is not obscured by the multitude of virtues, but yearns for their increase, and is enlarged thereby.
[Footnotes moved to the end and renumbered]
1. A.D. 509.
2. I Corinthians, ii, 13.
3. Orestes was by birth a Roman provincial of Pannonia. Priscus (Bonnae, 1829), pp. 146, 185; Jordanes, De Rebus Geticis, 45; Anonymus Valesianus, 38.
4. J. H. von Falckenstein neatly expands the metaphor in his appreciation of Severinus. Geschichten des grossen Herzogthums und ehemaligen Königreichs Bayern (Munich, etc., 1763), i, p. 78.
5. Fugitivus. For the Roman law in regard to fugitive slaves and their recovery, one may consult W. W. Buckland, The Roman Law of Slavery (Cambridge, England, 1908), pp. 267-274, and the Codex Theodosianus, x, 12, Si vagum petatur mancipium.
6. "Quo ipso non obscure indicabat, magno se ortu, et cujus indicium jactantiae serviret." Marcus Mansitz, Germania Sacra (Augustae Vindelicorum, etc., 1727-55), i, p. 80.
7. Matthew, vi, 3.
8. Matthew, xxv, 33.
9. The detailed account of the early life of Severinus, given in Theo Sommerlad's Die Lebensbeschreibung Severins als kulturgeschichtliche Quelle, pp. 62-68, needs mention only by way of caution. Sommerlad carries ingenuity to a great excess.
10. "It is exceedingly doubtful whether the request was seriously meant. Similar expressions are very common, which are no more than polite phrases." Wilhelm Wattenbach, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter (6th ed., Berlin, 1893-94), i, p. 49.
11. The place names in the ablative form, Asturis, Comagenis, Favianis, etc., mark the tendency of the provincial Latin to develop into Romance dialects.
12. In 453.
13. Noricum Ripense. Rodenberg renders by the German equivalent, Ufernoricum. In the translation of Professor Hayes, Ufernoricum, both here and in Chapter XI, becomes ' Upper Noricum,' which is not a happy guess.
14. Probably on the site of the present Klosterneuburg, a little above Vienna.
15. Custos. The office is not to be confounded with that of janitor or doorkeeper ( ostiarius ) mentioned in Chapters X and XVI, below. Isidorus Hispalensis, De Ecclesiasticis Officiis, ii, 9, says: "Custodes sacrarii, Levitae sunt. Ipsis enim jussum est custodire tabernaculum, et omnia vasa templi . . . praeferentes speciem gravitatis." In his Regula Monachorum, 20, he describes somewhat more fully the duties of the position in a monastery church: " Ad custodem sacrarii pertinet cura vel custodia templi, signum quoque dandi in vespertinis nocturnisque officiis; vela, vestesque sacrae, ac vasa sacrorum, codices quoque instrumentaque cuncta, oleum in usum sanctuarii, cera et luminaria."
16. Near Tulln.
17. A euphemism. Marcus Velserus justly remarks, " Quam misera et deplorata illis temporibus harum provinciarum fuerit conditio, ex uno isto foedere satis superque colligi poterat, nisi reliqua omnis in id argumentum conspiraret." Opera (Norimbergae, 1682), p. 667.
18. I think it probable that this is the earthquake mentioned in Anonymus Cuspiniani, Chronicon (in Thomas Roncallius, Vetustiora Chronica, Patavii, 1787, ii, col. 124) under the year 455: "eversa est Sabaria a Terraemotu VII. idus septemb. die Veneris "; and in the same words, and under the same year, in the Excerptum Sangallense (in Karl Frick, Chronka Minora, vol. 1, 1892, p. 422). Sabaria was in Upper Pannonia, about seventy miles southeast of Comagenis in a straight line, or ninety-two Roman miles by road. Antonini Augusti Itinerarium, pp. 233 f. Wesseling.
The date of this earthquake as given in the chronicles clearly cannot be correct. The Friday before the Ides fell, in September 455, on the 9th, not on the 7th. I suggest accordingly that, following C. F. Roesler ( Chronica Medii Aevi, Tubingae, 1798, i, p. 341), we make the obvious emendation, and read "V. idus Septembres die Veneris." Theodor Mommsen ( Chronica Minora, Berlin, 1892-98, i, p. 304; in Monumenta Germaniae Historica ) suggests the reading "IV.," "nisi in anno erratum est"; but he cannot be right. One might, it is true, reach his result by using inadvertently a table like that in Sir Harris Nicolas's The, Chronology of History (London, 1835), p. 49, which contains the dominical letters for 4000 years after the Christian era, according to the New Style. The New Style, however, does not apply to the fifth century.
19. On the Danube between Tulln and Lorch; perhaps near the site of the present town of Mautern.
20. Colossians, iii, 5; Ephesians, v, 5. Of these passages the former is of course the one to which direct reference is made. Bolland, Sauppe, Rodenberg, Knoell, and Mommsen, all have followed Surius in giving only the reference to Ephesians, which is purely secondary.
21. Matthew, xxv, 35-42; Salvian, Adversus Avaritiam, iv, 4: "Christus . . . cum esurientibus esurit . . . quid ais, o homo, qui Christianum te esse dicis, . . . Christus esurit, et tu delitias affluentibus paras? "
22. The Inn.
23. "Calidis Severini precibus solutae." Andreas Erunner, Annalium Boicorum Partes III (ed. nova, Francofurti ad Moenum, 1710), col. 118.
24. Exodus, xiv, 14.
25. Georg Kaufmann says, "Seine Wohnung war eine Zelle, oft auch eine Höhle." Deutsche Geschichte bis auf Karl den Grossen (Leipsic, 1880-81), ii, p. 25. I find this cavern only in Kaufmann's work.
26. Favianis was long identified with Vienna by an erroneous tradition. Joannes Cuspinianus, the great sixteenth century scholar, believed that his estate in the suburbs of Vienna comprised Ad Vineas and the cell of Severinus. Austria (Francofurti, 1601), pp. 55, 69:
"Villam enim S. Severini, ubi cellam habuit pius pater S. Severinus, jam ego possideo, ubi nobilissima crescunt vineta, arboribus illic desectis ac purgatis. ... a sancto Severino patria lingua Severin appellatur."
Cuspinianus calls Severinus "second apostle of Austria" ( secundarius Austriae apostolus, alter Australium apostolus ), the first being Quirinus, and reckons him among the six patron saints of that country: the martyrs Quirinus, Maximilian, Florian; Severinus; Colman the Irish pilgrim; Margrave Leopold III the Pious. On p. 70 of his Austria is printed a poem by Joannes Stabius, "In Sanctos Austriae Patronos Precatio," in forty-six hexameter verses. The poem contains, however, nothing which seems to have individual reference to Severinus, unless it be in vv. 32-38:
"Praesidio semper secura sit Austria vestro.
Morborum omne genus, quae corpora nostra fatigant,
Infandumque malum, crudelem avertite pestem.
Sit flavae Cereris, laeti sit copia Bacchi:
Tartareo sonitu reboent nec classica Martern,
Sed Pax alma ferens ramum felicis olivae
Illustret terras, soror et Concordia mitis."
27. It will be noted that the monasteries founded by Saint Severinus were in the immediate neighborhood of cities. F. W. Rettberg calls attention to this fact, and to its accordance with the monastic rule of Saint Basil the Great: with which, he suggests, Severinus may have become familiar during his wanderings in the Orient. Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands (Göttingen, 1846-48), i, p. 231. Compare E. C. Butler's article "Basilian Monks," in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (11th ed.).
28. Wolfgang Lazius, using a singular figure, says that "from this monastery, as if from the Trojan horse, went forth almost all the bishops of Noricum." Vienna Austriae. (Basileae, 1546), p. 54. Lazius gives a list of these bishops, which Marcus Hansitz handles very roughly. Germania Sacra, i, pp. 74, 85 ff. [Note to online edition: there is no note 2 on the page in the printed text].
29. Matthew, v, 14, 15.
30. Jordanes ( De Rebus Geticis, 55) says that the Danube " freezes so hard that it will support like a solid rock an army of infantry, and carts and sleds, or whatsoever vehicles there may be."
It is probable that modern regulation of the current of the Danube by engineering works has had a tendency to prevent the formation of extensive ice fields. Yet even now the stream is frozen annually in Lower Hungary throughout several long stretches, which at the height of the frost can occasionally be crossed with carts or sleds. In Bavaria, Austria, and Rumania, field ice docs not form every winter. Yet it sometimes happens even at Vienna ---- most recently in January, 1901 ---- that the ice is strong enough to allow foot travellers a safe passage across the river.
I am indebted to the Imperial-Royal Central Bureau of Hydrography at Vienna for the information contained in the above paragraph. One may consult also Anton Swarowsky's essay Die Eisver-hältnisse der Donau in Bayern und Osterreich von 1850-90, in Geographische Abhandlungen, edited by Albrecht Penck, Band v, Heft 1 (Vienna and Olmülz, 1801); and, for notices of the great frosts of 821 and 1076-77, Fritz Curschmann's Hungersnöte im Mittelalter (Leipsic, 1900), pp. 94, 121.
31. It may be noted that in Eugippius the expression 'the apostle' always refers to Saint Paul. Eugippius never bestows upon Severinus the appellation 'apostle of Noricum' ( apostolus Norici or apostolus Noricorum ), later so common.
32. Ephesians, i, 4.
33. A genealogical table of the Rugian royal house may be of service. Numerals in parentheses refer to the chapters in which the individuals are mentioned.
Flaccitheus (5, 8, 42). | ------------------------------------- | | Feletheus, or Feva (8, 22?, 31, Ferderuchus (42, 44) 33, 40, 42, 44) married Giso (8, 40, 44) | Fredericus (8, 44)
Feba, named in Chapter XXII, is probably the same as Feletheus, or Feva.
34. A comparison of this passage with the reference, in Chapter VIII, to Queen Giso's attempt "to rebaptize certain Catholics," makes it evident that the Rugii, or at least their sovereigns, were, like most of the converted Germans of the fifth century and even later, Christians of the Arian sect. The fact that the Rugii were Arians while the provincials were Catholics cooperated with the difference of race to produce a lack of complete sympathy and understanding between them. On the other hand, it was entirely natural that the Rugii, as Christians, should assume the position towards the provincials that we find them occupying more and more, of protectors against the depredations of the German tribes that remained heathen: Alamanni and Thuringi (Chapter XXXI, below, etc.); Heruli (Chapter XXIV); no doubt also the Franks and Saxons, whom Ennodius ( De Vita Beati Antoni, 12-14) names in connection with the Heruli as devastators of the Pannonias during the ninth decade of the fifth century ---- cruel as wild beasts; turning a populous land into a desert; worshipping gods who, they believed, could be propitiated only by human victims; slaughtering clerics by preference, as the sacrifices most acceptable to their divinities.
Dr. Julius von Pflugk-Harttung's vividly worded description of life in Noricum in the time of Severinus ( Allgemeine Weltgeschickte, iv, p. 231) is somewhat confusing, because of his failure to point out clearly this distinctive position of the Rugii. He says, " They and their neighbor-tribes, Thuringi, Heruli, Alamanni, and Goths, came from beyond the Danube in uninterrupted forays." There is no mention in the Life of 'forays' on the part of the Rugii, except in the strictly technical sectarian sense of the confiscation of the monastery plate and furniture (Chapter XLIV); on the contrary, they themselves suffered from plundering raids, as the next paragraph shows. Dr. Pflugk-Harttung's reference to the Goths (Ostrogoths) is also not to the point. They lived, not beyond the Danube but in Pannonia, on the Roman side of the river (Jordanes, De Rebus Geticis, 50). Further, they were Christians, partially civilized, and usually in alliance with the Romans against their barbarian enemies. After the death of Attila there appears to have been only one period, comprising a few months of the year 473, in which the Ostrogoths were hostile to the Western Empire ( ibid., 56). It is to that time that we may very reasonably assign their attack upon Tiburnia in Noricum Mediterraneum (Chapter XVII).
It is regrettable that The Cambridge Medieval History, i (1911) repeats the false view of the position of the Rugii. Mr. Ernest Barker, the writer of chapter xiv therein, "Italy and the West, 410-476," says (p. 420) " The Rugii . . . appear in the history of the time . . . as vexing with their inroads the parts of Noricum which lay immediately south of the river. The Life of Saint Severinus . . . describes their depredations "; and again (p. 425), " Parallel in some ways to the position of Marcellinus and Aegidius is the beneficent theocracy which Saint Severinus established about the same time in Noricum, a masterless province unprotected by Rome, and harassed by the raids of the Rugii from the north of the river."
35. Jeremiah, xvii, 5.
36. In lectulo tuo. Rodenberg renders auf deinem Lager: Professor Hayes has "in thine own camp."
37. I Corinthians, vii, 25.
38. Adolf Harnack discusses the early conceptions of the Christian religion as a warfare, and of the Church as a military organization, in the first part of his essay Militia Christi (Tübingen, 1905). An illustration of the length to which these conceptions might be carried is afforded by the biography of a disciple of Severinus, Ennodius's De Vita Beati Antoni. Antonius, 'warrior of Christ,' decides to forsake his Alpine hermitage and to join the 'regiment of the isle Lerina' (see note to Chapter XLIV, below) of 'the army of the saints.' "That veteran battle-line is ever watchful, and repulses the enemy, after transfixing him with many blows. They number their triumphs by the wars which the devil wages against them. They are not afraid, when the shrill battle-trumpet announces Satan's onset, and urges to the fight. Daily combat ever makes soldiers skilled and brave, while a long peace relaxes them."
39. Max Büdinger offers some excellent remarks on Giso's strongly marked character. Oesterreichische Geschichte (Leipsic, 1858), i, p. 49.
40. "Ausa etiam Catholico ritu ablutos, sacrilego Arianorum fonte denuo lustrare." Johann Adlzreitter, Annalium Boicae Gentis Partes III (ed. nova, Francofurti ad Moenum, 1710), col. 120.
41. There is an account of Gervasius and Protasius, the martyrs of Milan, in Tillemont's Ecclesiastical Memoirs (English translation by Thomas Deacon, London, 1731-35, ii, pp. 61-67).
42. Adopting Velserus's reading subrepere.
43. Severinus was not the first to adopt this laudable attitude of caution in dealing with supposed relics. Sulpicius Severus, De Beati Martini Vita, II, tells that Saint Martin, finding no clear evidence as to the contents of a tomb supposed to be hallowed by the remains of martyrs, prayed for a divine revelation. " Then he turned to the left, and saw close at hand a foul and savage ghost. He commanded the spectre to tell his name and desert. The spectre made known his name, he confessed his crime; he had been a robber, put to death for his wicked deeds, honored by the blunder of the mob; he had nothing in common with martyrs; they were in glory, he was in torment. The bystanders heard the spectre's voice, but did not see his form. Then Martin related what he had seen, and ordered that the altar which was there should be removed from the place. So he set free the people from the error of that superstition."
44. Genesis, xix, 26; Luke, xvii, 32.
45. That this is here the meaning of aedituus is shown by the Table of Chapters, where it is represented by ostiarius. The office of aedituus in the pagan temple, however, corresponds rather to that of custos in the Christian church (see Chapter I, above), being a position of some dignity. Ausonius, Commemoratio Professorum Burdigalensium, x, 22-30, speaks of Phoebicius, a professor who had been Beleni aedituus. DuCange gives the definition "Aedituus, Ostiarius, gradus ecclesiasticus; cui aedis sacrae custodia incumbit, custos ": an impossible one, since ostiarius and custos are quite different officials. The word never really became naturalized in Christian literature. Paulinus of Nola uses it, it is true ( Epistolae, i, 10; in Migne's Patrologia Latina, vol. lxi, col. 158); but he was a friend and correspondent of Ausonius.
Theo Sommerlad, Die Lebensbeschreibung Severins als kulturgeschichtliche Quelle (Leipsic, 1903), p. 33 , fails to notice that Eugippius uses aedituus and ostiarius interchangeably both at this place and in Chapter XVI, below, and accordingly wrongly considers aedituus equivalent to the ecclesiae custos of Chapter I.
46. The country along the Danube was probably then, as now, rich in orchards. Exposilio totius Mundi et Gentium, 57; A. A. Muchar, Das römische Norikum (Grätz, 1825-26), ii, p. 186.
47. These organized bands of robbers appear again early in the sixth century, beyond the Danube (Jordanes, De Rebus Geticis, 58; Amédée Thierry, Histoire d'Attila et de ses Successeurs, Paris, 1856, i, pp. 288 f.); and, about 570, in Pannonia, under the name of Skama&reij (Menander Protector, Bonnae, 1829, p. 313).
48. Castellum. Knoell considers that the word is equivalent to 'town' (oppidum). But in Chapter XVII Eugippius contrasts the terms, saying 'towns or castles' ( oppida vel castella).
Not forgetting that in the Vulgate castellum is the regular rendering for the Greek kw&mh , 'village', I am inclined to think that the proper meaning in the Life is 'fortified town', or perhaps one might say 'fort' in the frontier sense of a fortified settlement. See Du Cange, Glossarium Mediae el Infimae Latinitatis, s. v.; and compare Salvian, De Gubernatione Dei, v, 44.
49. Now Kuchel.
50. Amédée Thierry interprets these as " sacrifices humains, pour apaiser la destinée." Récits de l'Histoire Romaine au V Siècle (Paris, i860), p. 148. It is doubtful if we are justified in pushing specification so far. Any heathen rites would have appeared 'abominable' both to Severinus and to Eugippius. A Christian writer who wishes to accuse pagans of human sacrifices is likely to make the charge in so many words. Ennodius does so ( De Vita Beati Antoni, 13) in speaking of the heathen barbarian tribes ---- Franks, Heruli, Saxons ---- who were ravaging the Pannonias at this time or a little later.
Mention was made above (Chapter V, note) of this passage in the Life of Antonius. Though Ennodius speaks of 'the Pannonias,' the connection makes it clear that his account is intended to apply also to Noricum, particularly the territory about Lauriacum. Antonius was nephew of Constantius, bishop of Lauriacum, who is named below (Chapter XXX), and after the death of Severinus remained at Lauriacum under the protection of his uncle until the latter's decease.
51. According to Marcellinus Comes, Chronicon, "numberless battalions of locusts wasted the harvest of Phrygia " in 456. Accounts of the devastations of these insects in 873 (throughout Europe) and in 1195 and 1242 (in the Austrian lands) may be found in Curschmann's Hungersnöte im Mittelalter, pp. 100 f., 157, 175. In 1242, if we may believe the chronicler, " Locusts of huge size invaded Austria in such numbers, that they consumed most of the vineyards and orchards, and moreover gnawed to pieces horses and cattle feeding in the fields."
52. Joel, ii, 12.
53. Joel, ii, 15, 16.
54. Juvao or Juvavum, now Salzburg.
55. " Rarissimus praeter exspectationem hic usus erat, si scriptorum auctoritas in hac re omnino quidquam valet." M. H. Morgan, "De Ignis eliciendi Modi's apud Antiquos," in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, i (1890), p. 38.
56. A similar miracle is related of Alveus, or Alneus, a Gallic saint of the sixth century. " One night he arose for the early morning vigils, and entered the church with the rest of the brethren. They found that the lights which usually burned there were out. Saint Alveus kneeled in prayer. The disciples searched for a light; but they could find no fire. The hour was already late, and the disciples reminded the saint of the lateness of the hour. Presently he rose from prayer, and made the sign of the cross above the waxen taper. The taper was kindled instantly through the excellence of God and the merits of the saint, and gave a splendid light for all who were in the building." Acta Sanctorum, September, iii (1750), p. 808.
57. In the Notitia Dignitatum Quintanis appears as a garrison town, commanded by the praefectus alae primae Flavii Raetorum. It is now represented by Osterhofen.
58. Eugippius, whose earlier years were spent in the Danubian lands, tells of conditions there as he remembers them many years before the close of the fifth century. Raetia Secunda then included, nominally at least, the plain country between the Alps, the Inn, and the Danube; Raetia Prima, the whole central Alpine region. It seems clear that at the time of his writing (511) Raetia Secunda lay entirely in the Alps, and comprised the eastern part of the old Raetia Prima; while from the level country to the north, subject though it might be to the more or less shadowy overlordship of Theodoric the Ostrogoth as successor of Old Rome, all vestiges of the provincial name and administration had vanished. E. A. Quitzmann. Die älteste Geschichte der Baiern (Brunswick, 1873), p.123.
59. The gratitude of the catechumen recalled to life by Saint Martin was greater in proportion as his reception in the other world had been different. Sulpicius Severus, De Beati Martini Vita, vii, 4-6.
An engraving which represents this scene is mentioned in the Preface. There is another in J. H. von Falckenstein's Antiquitates et Memorabilia Nordgaviae Veteris (Schwabach, 1734-43), i, tab. vii, opposite p. 202. The latter is of especial interest in that it portrays the two doorkeepers or janitors in military costume one of them leaning upon a huge battle-axe.
60. Paul Viard, Histoire de la Dîme Ecclésiastique (Dijon, 1909), gives an excellent account of the origin of tithing in the early church, and also (pp. 44 f., 49) discusses this passage at length. Some of his conclusions may be briefly stated as follows. The only references to tithes in the Gospels (Matthew, xxiii, 23; Luke, xi, 42; xviii, 12) are in rebuke of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. The Christians of the first four centuries did not recognize the Jewish tithe. They did in some instances acknowledge the tax of the first fruits. Insistence upon the tithe begins to appear about the end of the fourth century. In the East, its champion was Saint John Chrysostom (In Matthaeum Homilia lxiv ( lxv ), in Migne's Patrologia Graeca, lviii, col. 615). In the West, it was advocated in two forms. Jerome (Explanatio in Malackiam, iii, 7, in Migne's Patrologia Latina, xxv, coll. 1568-1571; and Epistola ad Nepotianum de Vita Clericorum et Sacerdotum, in Migne, xxii, col. 531) considers that the ancient law is still in force, and that the proceeds of the tithe should be for the support of the clergy. Augustine likewise (Sermones, lxxxv, 4, in Migne, xxxviii, col. 522) holds to the obligation of the tithe, at least upon the conscience, using the text Matthew, v, 20, " except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees "; but he directs it to the support of the poor. The later development of church polity, finally crystallized into definite enactments at the second council of Mâcon in 585, was a compromise between these two views. Severinus, on the other hand, follows Saint Augustine. "Probably," says M. Viard, "he did not speak of the tithe in the exact sense of the word; he wished merely to call forth the charitable gifts of the communities that he evangelized. It is very probable that the saint thought, in doing this, to revive the ancient tithe, modifying it, however, according to the needs of the moment and his personal disinterestedness. The biographer has exaggerated this thought of his hero in order to make it appear an actuality."
61. Here, as elsewhere when he uses the word without a modifier, Eugippius means Noricum Mediterraneum, the interior or southern province, of which Tiburnia was the chief town.
62. Teurnia in inscriptions. Now Sanct Peter im Holz, near Spital.
63. The siege of Tiburnia may well be assigned to the year 473. See Chapter V, note. It is then probable that the surrender of the collection of clothing was an important, though hardly a decisive factor in restoring peace between the citizens and the ragged Goths; who, according to Jordanes ( De Rebus Geticis, 56), entered upon the campaign because food and clothing were beginning to fail them. "Minuentibus se deinde hinc inde vicinarum gentium spoliis, coepit et Gothis victus vestitusque deesse: et hominibus, quibus dudum bella alimoniam praestitissent, pax coepit esse contraria; omnesque cum clamore magno ad regem Theodemir accedentes Gothi orant, quacumque parte vellet ductaret exercitum."
64. The chief town of Riverside Noricum. Now Ens, or the small place Lorch, near Ens; authorities differ. At the time of the Notitia Dignitatum Lauriacum was defended by a strong garrison of soldiers, under the praefectus legionis secundae, and by a squadron of the Danube flotilla.
65. Caesar Baronius supposes that this chapter and passages in Sidonius Apollinaris ( Epistolae, vi, 12) and Gregory of Tours (Historia Francorum, ii, 24) relate to a general famine, which, he believes, afflicted the northern provinces in 475. "Quae Gallias vexa vit dira fames, aeque afflixit Raetios, Noricos, et alios Boreales populos his finitimos." Annales Ecclesiastici, a. 475, sects. 30-35. There seems, however, no sufficient reason for linking the dearth at Lauriacum with that in Gaul, in the winter of 474-75, of which Sidonius and Gregory speak. The latter was caused, not by the fault of the season, but by the depredations of the Visigoths.
66. Now Passau.
67. Saint Augustine ( De Civitate Dei, xviii, 18) tells of the corn, called Retica annona, sent from Italy for the supply of the soldiers in Raetia: "dicebat . . . narrasse quae passus est, caballum se scilicet factum annonam inter alia jumenta bajulasse militibus, quae dicitur Retica, quoniam ad Retias deportatur."
68. The cohors nova Batavorum, according to the Notitia Dignitatum. The town, that is, was a military station, and took its name from the garrison.
69. It would indeed be an evidence of an extensive fame, were we able to accept Mr. Hodgkin's ingenious conjecture as to the source of the penultimate name of the celebrated philosopher and poet Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, who was born at Rome probably during the eighth decade of the fifth century. Italy and her Invaders, iii (1885), p. 523 (or 2d ed., 1896, p. 471): " Severinus was no doubt given to him in honour of one of the holiest names of the fifth century, the saintly hermit of Noricum."
70. Now Innstadt.
71. Sanctuaria. Reliquiae is also used with the same meaning; as, for example, three lines above. The relics need not be of any great extent. Gregory the Great gave orders on at least three occasions that sanctuaria or reliquiae of Severinus himself should be furnished for the consecration of churches or oratories. Epistolae, iii, 19; ix, 181; xi, 19. This was a hundred years after the saint had been securely buried.
72. Probably Hunimund, king of the Suevi, whose raid into Dalmatia and hostilities with the Ostrogoths are described by Jordanes, De Rebus Geticis, 53-55. Eduard von Wietersheim, indeed, in his Geschichte der Völkerwanderung (2d ed., Leipsic, 1880-81), ii, p. 324, expresses the belief that the coincidence in name is purely accidental. But if the Hunimund of Eugippius was not Hunimund the Suevian king, who was he? Eugippius through his whole work is perfectly definite in his identification of persons. He names in all some fifty characters, aside from those mentioned in the Bible or in the church fathers. Each is carefully labelled with the appropriate word or phrase, except two, Stilicho (Chapter XXXVI) and Hunimund. It is a fair inference that Eugippius left these names unqualified ----just as, for example, one would now in similar references that of Napoleon or of Blücher ---- because no label seemed needed, either for Stilicho, the great general of the Western Empire, or for Hunimund, king of the Suevi, a principal leader in a war, not yet remote in time, that had devastated Central Europe for years.
We may infer from the smallness of the force under the command of Hunimund that the attack on Bojotro was made after the destructive overthrows of the Suevi by the Ostrogoths; perhaps in 474 or 475. The sequence of Eugippius's narrative points to the same date.
73. Schlügen.
74. F. W. Rettberg believes that Severinus may have owed his foreknowledge of barbarian raids to secret information received from his friends among the Germans. Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands, i, pp. 232 f. This view is held also by Felix Dahn. Gelehrte Anzeigen (Munich), 21 Sept. 1859, coll. 270 f. Reinhold Pallmann declines to accept it. Die Geschichte der Völkerwanderung (Gotha, etc., 1863-64), ii, p. 400, n. 1.
George Thomas Stokes remarks that Severinus "seems to have been gifted with some kind of second-sight, similar to that which Adamnan's Life of St. Columba claims for the Celtic saint of the following century." Smith and Wace's Dictionary of Christian Biography, iv (London, 1887), p. 627.
75. With the view of Severinus may be contrasted that of Saint Ambrose, Epistolae, xviii, 30: " deam esse victoriam crediderunt [pagani], quae utique munus est, non potestas: donatur, non dominatur, legionum gratia, non religionum potentia "; "they have believed Victory to be a goddess, which is in truth a gift, not a power; is bestowed, and does not rule; comes by the aid of legions, not by the power of religion."
76. There is some measure of justice in the comment which Pallmann makes upon the conduct of Severinus in this instance. "With his words of discouragement Severinus divided the strength of the citizens. Through his disheartening view of things, he brought a part of them to despair, without helping in the least the others who did not join him; rather, weakening them. So was the strength of the brave citizens of Passau paralyzed." Die Geschichte der Völkerwanderung, ii, p. 307. It would not, however, be fair to make this citation from Pallmann without quoting also the passage (ibid., pp. 400 f.) in which he sums up his opinion of the saint and his public activities. "It is a strange, noble, powerful figure, this monk. ... A political head would certainly have acted wholly otherwise than Severinus. We do not know whether he would have had better success. Yet it was a piece of good fortune, that in the disastrous time after the death of Aëtius, when on every side the dissolution of the Empire, like the death of a human body, was beginning at the extremities, and the provinces one by one were renouncing their connection with Italy; when we see Gaul independent under Aegidius, Dalmatia under Marcellinus, that in Noricum, if no general arose, yet at least a pure and lofty spirit sought to do the works of righteousness."
77. Mark, x, 45.
78. Matthew, vi, 5.
79. II Kings, iv, 2-7.
80. At an earlier date Noricum was celebrated for its export trade in clothing. Expositio totius Mundi et Gentium, 57.
81. The friendliness to the righteous of beasts usually wild and savage is a common feature in early Christian narratives. See the index to Heribert Rosweyde's Vitae Patrum (2 d ed., Antverpiae, 1628). There are instances of lions serving as guides in Rosweyde, pp. 231 a, 816 a; and of a wild ass in the same capacity, p. 229 a.
82. The best life of Constantius is by Marcus Hansitz (Germania Sacra, i, pp. 82-87). Hansitz believes that much of the success of Severinus in his work must have been due to the cooperation of Constantius.
The 'archbishopric of Lauriacum' is a mediaeval forgery, long since wholly discredited.
83. James, v, 16.
84. That this exodus was a partial one only, is indicated both by the laws of probability and by Ennodius's Life of Antonius, 10-14. Antonius remained under the protection of his uncle, Constantius, bishop of Lauriacum, for some time after the death of Severinus.
85. This chapter is apparently out of the regular chronological sequence. Chapter XXVIII presupposes the abandonment or destruction of all the towns on the Danube above Lauriacum, including Bojotro. It is, however, the opinion of Fallmann ( Geschichte der Völkerwanderung, ii, pp. 393 f.) and of Julius Jung ( Römer und Romanen in den Donauländern, Innsbruck, 1877, p. 214) that there really was no break of the sort indicated by Eugippius in the continuity of occupation.
86. I Corinthians, v, 5.
87. Faulinus Mediolanensis, Vita Ambrosii, 43.
88. Dialogi, i, 20, 7.
89. We shall not be far astray if we suppose that the 'horrid pride' of which the three monks were guilty was some form of insubordination. The relation between humility and obedience in the monk is discussed by H. B. Workman in his essay, The Evolution of the Monastic Ideal (London, 1913), pp. 68-74. "The third fundamental idea of Monasticism," he says, "first specifically introduced by Pachomius, was the renunciation of the will. This is sometimes called obedience, sometimes humility; in reality, from the Monastic standpoint the two tend to become one. The two are related as cause and effect; they are different aspects of that complete self-renunciation which is higher than any mere outer surrender. The man who has nailed his inner self to the cross cannot be otherwise than humble; while the humble man will show his humility by a perfect obedience."
90. The couch of Saint Anthony, the great Egyptian monk, was likewise a mohair rug; to which, in his case, a rush mat was added. Athanasius, Vita Beati Antonii Abbatis (Evagrius's translation), p. 38 a Rosweyde.
91. Palladius ( Heraclidis Paradisus, 35) tells a like story in praise of the Egyptian monk Paphnutius Cephala: "De quo tale refertur praeconium, quod per octoginta annos numquam habuerit duas simul tunicas."
92. Eusebius ( Ecclesiastica Historia, ii, 17; Crusé's translation, London, 1851, pp. 56 f., corrected) quotes Philo Judaeus, De Vita Contemplativa, in regard to the asceticism of the Therapeutae of Egypt. " None of them " (he says) " takes food or drink before the setting of the sun, since they judge that the search for wisdom should be prosecuted in the light, while it is appropriate that the necessities of the body should be attended to in the dark. Whence they assign to the one the day, and to the other a small portion of the night. But some of them do not remember their food for three days, when influenced by an uncommon desire for knowledge. And some are so delighted, and feast so luxuriously on the doctrines so richly and profusely furnished by wisdom, that they forbear even twice this time, and are scarcely induced to take necessary food even for six days." Eusebius considers that under the name of Therapeutae Philo describes the early Christians. Valesius (notes to Eusebii Ecclesiastica Historia, edition of 1672, p. 34) believes the contrary. The matter is yet under discussion. H. B. Workman, The Evolution of the Monastic Ideal, p. 90, especially note 1.
The association of eating by night with asceticism appears to have survived, in a singularly altered form, in the religious body organized by George Rapp in Wurtemberg on the model of the primitive church, and later established at Harmony, Pennsylvania. See The Atlantic Monthly, May, 1866, p. 535.
93. The learned Bavarian historian, Johann Adlzreitter, floridly enlarges this conversation to three times its length in Eugippius, and makes it the most prominent feature in his long and curious summary of the Life. Annalium Boicae Gentis Partes III (1710), coll. 124 f.
The comment of A. F. Ozanam upon this interview, though quoted with approval by Montalembert ( Les Moines d'Occident, i, p. 261) and Charles Kingsley ( The Hermits, p. 238), is more rhetorically effective than just. "The history of invasions has many a pathetic scene: but I know none more instructive than the dying agony of that old Roman expiring between two barbarians, and less touched with the ruin of the empire than with the peril of their souls." La Civilisation Chrétienne chez les Francs (3d ed., Paris, 1861), pp. 41 f. It requires a certain amount of naïveté not to see that the saint's prime concern in his warnings is rather the tranquillity of the provincials than the souls' welfare of the royal couple.
94. Genesis, 1, 25.
95. Instances where saints are said to have predicted the day or even the hour of their decease are not rare in the mediaeval narratives; but, as compared with the present account, they are usually vague and perfunctory. A casual examination of a volume of the Acta Sanctorum taken at random ---- September, iii ---- reveals three cases, on pages 58, 293, and 806.
96. There is a life of Valentine in Matthaeus Rader's Bavaria Sancta (Monad, 1615-27), i, ff. 24b, 25, 26a, with a fine engraving representing the saint in his arboreal retreat.
" Rura Valentinum tutantur, et oppida pellunt.
Fas regnat ruri, regnat in urbe nefas."
Valentine is also mentioned by Venantius Fortunatus ( Vita Sancti Martini, iv, 644-648):
" Si vacat ire viam neque te Bajovarius obstat,
Qua vicina sedent Breonum loca, perge per Alpem,
Ingrediens rapido qua gurgite volvitur Aenus.
Inde Valentini benedicti templa require,
Norica rura petens, ubi Byrrus vertitur undis."
97. Pleurisy.
98. Genesis, xlix, 1-33.
99. Hebrews, xiii, 7.
100. I Chronicles, xxviii, 9; Romans, viii, 27.
101. Ephesians, i, 18.
102. II Kings, vi, 17.
103. Psalms, li, 17.
104. Homo saecularis. The same contrast of saecularis and monachus is made by Saint Jerome, Epistola ad Paulinum de Institutione Monachi: "Saecularium, et maxime potentium consortia devita. Quid tibi necesse est ea videre crebrius, quorum contemtu Monachus esse coepisti? " Opera (Paris, 1693-1706), iv, 2, col. 566. Homo saecularis cannot here be rendered 'layman'; the monks themselves were reckoned laymen ( laici ) until the seventh century.
105. Acts, xx, 32.
106. Psalms, cl, 1, 6.
107. Locellum: in the next chapter, loculum. André Baudrillart, in his biography, Saint Severin, Apôtre du Norique (Paris, 1908), p. 192, speaks of this coffin as "une sorte de chapelle portative ou d'oratoire," and represents the monks, throughout the removal to Italy, as 'praying and singing in it day and night.' This monstrous misconception may serve as a sufficient sample of the insouciance with which M. Baudrillart has performed his task.
108. Islands play an exceedingly large part in the history of monasticism in the Occident. The islands of the Mediterranean, the isles of Dalmatia and of the Tyrrhenian Sea, swarmed with monks: not to mention other well-known examples. Lucas Holstenius, Codex Regularum Monasticarum (Augustae Vindelicorum, 1759), i, p. ix; Sulpicius Severus, De Beati Martini Vita, vi, 5; Rutilius Namatianus, De Reditu suo, i, 439-452 (Capraria: "Squalet lucifugis insula plena viris "); Hilarius Arelatensis, De Vita Sancti Honorati, iii, 16, 17, in Migne's Patrologia Latina, vol. 1, coll. 1257 f. (Lerina).
The encircling watery barrier answered a threefold purpose. It served as protection alike against the enticements of the world, the sword of the barbarian, and (according to the popular belief) the assaults of demons.
109. A long and entertaining account of a triumph celebrated by Odoacer at Rome after his victory, given by A. Thierry in his Récits de l'Histoire Romaine au V° Siècle, iii (Paris, i860), pp. 352 ff., is purely a product of Thierry's luxuriant imagination. His invention is, however, unsuspectingly accepted as historical fact by Leopold von Ranke ( Weltgeschichte, iv, 1, Leipsic, 1883, p. 377) and J. B. Bury ( The Later Roman Empire from Arcadius to Irene, London, 1889, i, p. 289).
Paulus Diaconus (De Gestis Langobardorum, i, 19) says that Odoacer put Feletheus to death. As to Giso's fate we know nothing beyond what is declared by Eugippius. Thierry's statement (Récits, p. 352) followed by Bury ( Later Roman Empire, i, p. 289), that she was "thrown into a dungeon," rests on no authority.
110. Perhaps now Sistova, in Bulgaria.
111. Julius Jung ( Römer und Romaner in den Donaidandern, p. 205) believes that the exodus was less general than the words of Eugippius would seem to imply. Whatever may have been the case with respect to the Roman population of Riverside Noricum, it is obvious that there was no general withdrawal from Noricum Mediterrancum, where the provincial organization was still in operation in the time of Theodoric. Cassiodorus, Variae, iii, 50; Quitzmann, Die älteste Geschichte der Baiern, p. 123.
112. Probably the present Macerata di Monte Feltre, south of San Marino.
113. Thomas Hodgkin ( Italy and her Invaders, in, Oxford, 1885, pp. 190 f.; or 2d ed., 1896, pp. 172 f.) seeks to identify Barbaria with the widow of Orestes and mother of Romulus Augustulus. On this point see Jung's Römer und Romaner in den Donauländer, p. 134; and Max Büdinger's Eugipius, eine Untersuchung, in Sitzungsberichte der kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Vienna), philosophisch-historische Classe, xci, 1 (1878), pp. 802 f.
114. Now Pizzofalcone.
115. Two more translations still awaited the body. October 14, 903, the Lucullan castle was abandoned through fear of the marauding Saracens. The remains of the saint were borne in solemn procession to the great Benedictine monastery of Saint Severinus, within the walls of Naples. Joannes Diaconus Neapolitanus, Martyrium Sancti Procopii, in Octavius Cajetanus's Vitae Sanctorum Siculorum (Panormi, 1657), ii, p. 62, reprinted in L. A. Muratori's Rerum Italicarum Scriptores (Mediolani, 1723-51), i, 2, pp. 271 f.; and the same, printed from another manuscript, under the title of Translatio Sancti Severini or Historia Translationis, in Acta Sanctorum, January, i (1643), pp. 1100-1103, and reprinted thence in Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores Rerum Langobardicarum et Italicarum Saec. VI-IX (Hannoverae, 1878), pp. 452-459. ----It should be noted, however, that Luigi Parascandolo, in his Memorie Storiche-Critiche-Diplomatiche della Chiesa di Napoli (Naples, 1847-51), ii, pp. 253 f., doubts the authenticity of this narrative, which, he thinks, owes at least its present form to the labor of some Benedictine monk living in the monastery of Saint Severinus at the time of the revival of learning.---- Descriptions of the monastery, now for the most part secularized and occupied by the Royal Neapolitan State Archives, and of the church of Saints Severinus and Sosius connected with it, may be found in Napoli e i Luoghi Celebri delle sue Vicinanze (Naples, 1845), i, pp. 233-243, and in the current guidebooks.
Here the remains of Severinus reposed for many centuries, not in the large church, but beneath the great altar of the smaller primitive church, or chapel, connected with it. The inscription on the great altar is given in Acta Sanctorum, January, i, p. 499:
"Hic duo sancta simul divinaque corpora Patres Sosius unanimes et Severinus habent."
According to Sebastian Brunner ( Leben des St. Severin, Vienna, 1879, p. 170), the following inscription was found in the crypt when it was opened in 1807: "Divis Severino Noricorum in Oriente Apostolo et Sosio Levitae B. Januarii Episcopi in Passione socio Templum ubi eorum SS. Corpora sub Altare majori requiescunt et Apostolico indultu cum oblatione sacra purgantes animae liberantur."
The fourth removal was on May 30, 1807, after the dissolution of the monastery under the French domination, to the town of Fratta Maggiore, a few miles north of Naples. Stanislao d'Aloe, in Napoli e i Luoghi Celebri dette sue Vicinanze, i, p. 240 (d'Aloe errs as to the date); G. A. Galante, Memorie dell' Antico Cenobio Lucullano di S. Severino Abate (Naples, 1869), p. 41; Brunner, St. Severin, pp. 167-172. There was, it would appear from Brunner's account, some ecclesiastical as well as civil authority for the removal of the remains. Nevertheless Dr. Galante considers that they were " fraudolentemente rapitoci " (p. 41), and in his dissertation (pp. 41 f.) strongly urges their return to Naples. "Cives Fractenses," he writes me under date of March 20, 1914, " non S. Severini, sed S. Sosii corpus repetebant, et occasionem nacti expulsionis Monachorum e coenobio et templo Severinianio, prope Archivium Magnum, corpora utriusque simul quiescentia rapuerunt, et ad oppidum suum transtulerunt, ubi nunc in majori templo Fractensi quiescunt. Quamvis Monachi postea redierint, haud curae fuit, sacra lipsana repetere. Superioribus annis ego null uni non movi lapidem ut corpus S. Severini Neapoli restitueretur, sed frustra; praecordia tantum sanguine intincta, et quatuor ossa restituta sunt, quae nunc in templo S. Severini asservantur."
From 1807 to 1874 the bodies of Severinus and Sosius lay in a small chapel near the parish church of Fratta Maggiore. They were then removed into the church, to a new chapel, where the coffins, placed on either side the altar, were covered with red velvet, and distinguished by the gilt letters S. S. M. (Sanctus Sosius Martyr) and S. S. A. (Sanctus Severinus Abbas). Brunner, St. Severin, pp. 179 f.
116. Paschasius here imitates Sulpicius Severus, De Beati Martini Vita, Praef., i: "Quid enim esset, quod non amori tuo vel cum detrimento mei pudoris inpenderem?"
117. I Peter, v, 3.
118. I Timothy, iv, 12.
119. Hebrews, xi.
120. I Maccabees, ii, 49 seq.
121. I Maccabees, iii, 8; v, 44, 68; x, 83 f.
122. Revelation, xxi, 2, 9.
123. "As one lamp lights another nor grows less, So nobleness enkindles nobleness."
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