CHAPTER IX.
Not only was the servant of God endowed with the gift of prophecy, but also his diligence in redeeming captives was great. For he applied himself with eagerness to the task of restoring to their native liberty those oppressed by the sway of the barbarians. |49
Meanwhile he instructed a certain man, whom with wife and children he had redeemed, to cross the Danube, and seek out an unknown man at the weekly market of the barbarians. Divine revelation had shown him the man so clearly that he told even his stature and the color of his hair, his features, and the fashion of his clothing, and showed in what part of the market the messenger was to find him. He added that whatever the person, when found, should say to the messenger, the latter, returning in all haste, should report to him.
So the messenger departed, and to his astonishment found everything even as the man of God had foretold. He was amazed to find the man Severinus had described; who then questioned him, saying, "Thinkest thou that I can find someone to conduct me to the man of God, whose fame is everywhere spread abroad? I will pay what price he wishes. For long have I importuned the holy martyrs, whose relics I bear, that sometime my unworthiness may be freed from this service, which hitherto I have maintained not out of rash presumption but by pious necessity." Then the messenger of the man of God made himself known to him. Severinus received with due honor the relics of Saint Gervasius and Saint Protasius the martyrs, placed them in the church which he had built within the monastery, and committed them to |50 the care of the priests. In that place he assembled the relics of vast numbers of martyrs; but he always acquired them on the strength of a previous revelation, for he knew that the adversary often creeps in under the guise of sanctity.
He was asked to accept the honorable office of bishop. But he closed the matter with a determined refusal. It was enough for him, he said, that, withdrawn from his beloved solitude, he had come by divine direction to that province to live among the pressing, crowding throngs. Nevertheless he wished to give a pattern to the monks, and urged them to follow earnestly in the steps of the sainted fathers, and thence to gain instruction in holy conduct. They must strive, he admonished them, that he who hath forsaken parents and the world look not back and desire the allurements of worldly display which he had sought to escape. On this point he referred to the |51 terrible example of Lot's wife. He admonished likewise that the incentives to lusts must be mortified in the fear of the Lord; and declared that the fires of sensual delights cannot be conquered, except through the grace of God they be quenched in the fountain of tears.