Acta Sanctorum, July II, pp. 582–598. Rendered into modern English; marginal summaries omitted as they merely repeat the text.

Preliminary commentary #

§ I. The monastery of St Disibod’s Mount and its vicissitudes.

1. Disibodenberg, or the Mount of St Disibod (also called Dysibod), was once famous for a distinguished abbey under the rule of St Benedict. Tossed by various misfortunes, it was overthrown and destroyed in the tenth century; afterwards it began to be rebuilt and was given to a few priests, then to twelve canons. These being transferred elsewhere at the beginning of the twelfth century, it returned again to Benedictine monks, was then handed over to Cistercians, and finally devolved by reversion to secular canons, who enjoy possession of it to this day. The site is described by the author of the Life at no. 16 and more specifically at no. 21, where she defines its bounds by the rivers flowing past it — the Nahe and the Glan. The words of Trithemius in book 5 of his Compendium of Annals, under Clovis king of the Franks, son of Dagobert, sum the matter up in fewer words: “Also St Disibod, monk and priest, in the diocese of Mainz, in the county of Spanheim, two miles from Kreuznach and one from the monastery once mine at Spanheim, leading a hermit’s life, built a monastery of monks in that place near Sobernheim, where the Nahe and the Glan meet — a monastery that bears his name today.” The Glan discharges itself on the right into the Nahe, which then flows into the left bank of the Rhine at the town of Bingen — from which, not far off, St Hildegard, who wrote the Life, spent the last part of her holy life.

2. You have, cursorily tasted, what is deduced more fully in the Life of St Disibod, particularly in chapter 4, and by no means to be neglected. Notable events are treated at nos. 42 and 43: a great pressure of war occupied the province in which the abbey was situated — namely the county of Spanheim and the neighbouring regions — and either the terrified princes and peoples, or the destroyers themselves, levelled the high and inexpugnable mount…

3. No one hitherto has dared to seek, let alone determine, the date of that most disastrous destruction and lamentable ruin, since the author of the Life narrates all these things in the most confused fashion. I think I have at last tracked down what I sought, so that some light may shine. The “many succeeding times” after Charlemagne easily lead us to the tenth century, to which we must certainly advance if we are to find that Bishop of Mainz whom Hildegard depicts in dark colours as the principal author of this invasion. Marianus Scotus opportunely supplies him at last, writing thus under the year 976 on Willigis: “He also restored the divine office on Mount St Disibod with canons, which Hatto his predecessor, or the archbishop Rupert of this same see, had destroyed, the monks being driven out.” These statements agree remarkably with Hildegard’s history, and that bishop is most clearly designated who is elsewhere sought in vain. Since Hatto, the immediate predecessor of Rupert, died in the year 970 according to the same Marianus Scotus, having possessed the see but a short time, the destruction of the monastery of Disibod must be assigned to about the year 968, Otto I ruling the Roman empire from 961 — whom beyond doubt the bishop of Mainz and the other persecutors of the monks deceived with fabricated accusations and charges.

4. The piety of Count Liuthard, mentioned above at no. 50 — who, for the glory of the holy Trinity and in memory of St Disibod, arranged that three priests should serve God there and endowed them out of his own property with sufficient necessities of the present life — may be assigned to about the year 970, so that those priests administered the divine office in that place until, after certain years had revolved, a certain archbishop of the see of Mainz, pious, humble and contrite in heart, ascended the same mount, and, humbly bowing his knees at the tomb of the blessed Disibod, bitterly grieved that he had been made great and rich from possessions unjustly taken from the same saint. Making a vow to God, he disposed twelve canons after the number of the Apostles, to serve God and the aforementioned Patron there day and night.

5. The “revolution of certain years” asserted by Hildegard must be contracted into a few, if Marianus rightly taught us that the divine office was restored there with canons by Archbishop Willigis in 976 — which the author of the Life indicates somewhat more plainly by the words already quoted by us, though keeping the bishop’s name silent.

6. To the norm of these events must be reconciled what Trithemius in his Hirsau Chronicle under the year 1108 seems to have somewhat confused, when speaking of the restoration of the aforementioned monastery he says: “In these times also Ruthard, the venerable archbishop of Mainz, desiring to restore the desolation of the most ancient monastery which St Disibod — formerly bishop from Ireland and a pilgrim for Christ — had built in the county of Spanheim in the time of Pope Gregory I, near the town of Sobernheim, at the confluence of two little rivers of which one is called the Nahe and the other the Glan, devoted both expense and spirit to the holy business. For that abbey had once been very rich and endowed with many possessions, but a certain archbishop of Mainz obtained it from the emperor of his time and miserably dissipated it: for he gave the lands and possessions of the monks to his soldiers in benefice, and converted all that he found to an alien use, until little by little the abbey was almost wholly desolate. When at last the monks failed for want, he installed a few secular clerks, under whose occupation the place remained pitifully fallen for many years.” These things, I say, are to be distributed according to the sequence already ordered above; and by those secular clerks must be understood the canons of Willigis, who remained in occupation and desolation of the place for a whole hundred and thirty-two years.

7. Through that long exile of the monks from their abbey, the truth of St Disibod’s prophecy was plainly manifest, whereby he had foretold to his sons at no. 32, trembling in spirit, that they would suffer great pressures and tribulations. For after the expulsion of 968 the tribulation lasted even to the year 1108, until the divine purgation gradually withdrew its scourges somewhat. For when it pleased the Holy Spirit, in His secret counsel, to inspire another bishop of the see of Mainz — so that the often-named place should recover the splendour it had received at its first rising, as Hildegard relates more fully toward the end of no. 51 — here Dodechin unfolds the involved reckoning of times; and from him, I think, Trithemius quoted above and soon again below received his account. These are Dodechin’s words for the aforementioned year 1108: “In this year also a new monastery began to be built on the Mount of St Disibod. For Burchard of pious memory, abbot of St James’s at Mainz, whom the lord archbishop Ruthard had first set as abbot over the church of blessed Disibod, laid the first foundation stone, by command of the aforementioned prelate, on the second Kalends of July.”

8. Plainly consonant with these are the things Trithemius reports in the same Chronicle for the same year 1108: “At the same time Burchard was abbot of the abbey of St James near Mainz, sent there from the Hirsau plantation together with Erchenbald formerly by St William — a prudent man, most religious with singular devotion. To him Archbishop Ruthard committed the restoration of the aforementioned monastery of the blessed Bishop Disibod, supplied the expenses, and provided all necessaries. This Burchard, in the aforementioned year, on the last day of June, laid the first stone of the foundation on the mount for the church which is seen today; and transferring the monastery from the foot of the mount, where it had been before, to the mount where it now is, built it in a short time and magnificently completed it. When monks of St James’s were placed there, he had charge of both monasteries and fulfilled the office of a good shepherd in each.” From this Burchard began the series and succession of the abbots of Mount St Disibod, among whom Fulchard, third abbot of St Disibod’s, is noted by Dodechin to have died on the Ides of November 1136, the fourth, Conrad by name, succeeding him — in whose time the recluse Jutta lived, who had been enclosed on that mount for more than twenty-four years, the mistress and instructress of St Hildegard, by whom we have learned the written life of our saint.

9. To this belong the things which the same Dodechin carefully records for the following years. First, under the year 1138 he writes: “In this same year, on Good Friday, the Kalends of April, after matins had been celebrated, the sepulchre of our most holy Father Disibod was at once opened by the brethren, in the presence of venerable persons — namely the lord Conrad, fourth abbot of that place, the lord Gerard, the dearest abbot of St Maximin, and the lord Bernhelm, first abbot at Spanheim, with the whole congregation of that church — and the relics of the same Father were carried out one by one by a brother. They were found in the old monastery, where they had been deposited by the lord Archbishop Willigis.” For the following year 1139 he has again: “The relics of St Disibod were translated on the Kalends of November from the old church into the new monastery, with all solemnity.” Finally under the year 1143: “In this year, in Indiction 1, the new monastery on Mount St Disibod was dedicated, and the high altar by the lord Henry, archbishop of Mainz, in honour of our Lord Jesus Christ and of His glorious mother and of blessed John the Evangelist and of our most blessed Father Disibod, confessor and bishop. In the same year and on the same day an altar in the porch of the monastery was dedicated by the aforementioned archbishop in honour of the most victorious Cross and of St John the Baptist. In the same year and on the same day the relics of our Father St Disibod were deposited by the aforementioned prelate, on the Kalends of October, in a stone tomb behind the high altar, placed in two leaden caskets — the smaller containing the bones, the larger the ashes.”

§ II. The saint’s deeds, age, country and profession.

10. As for the last thing that can be added here, Dodechin noted under the year 1155 that the lord Conrad, abbot on Mount St Disibod, died on the Nones of July, and that the lord Helingerus succeeded him. I wished to record this because it was by order of this Helingerus that Hildegard testifies she wrote the life of St Disibod in the year 1170, at which time the Benedictine monks continued in peaceful possession of the recovered property.

11. We said at the outset, when we began to treat of the saint’s deeds, that the life of St Disibod was composed by the virgin St Hildegard in the year 1170, at the command of Helingerus, fifth abbot of the mount named after the saint. We also mentioned her before, that in the same abbey of St Disibod she had as mistress and instructress the blessed Jutta, under the fourth abbot named Conrad; and that she was afterwards transferred nearer to the Rhine, where she built a nunnery of virgins on Mount St Rupert, over which she presided with the highest repute of sanctity, most famous through her Volumina in the age of St Bernard and afterwards to almost the whole Catholic world, as will have to be told more fully on her feast-day, 17 September. That life of St Disibod is the only one edited by Surius, commonly cited everywhere, and endowed with such authority that it is reckoned divinely revealed. So she herself testifies at no. 16: “After the visions set forth in the book of the Rewards of Life… from divine piety and wisdom I heard a voice from heaven saying thus.” And again at no. 52: “These things which have been set forth were manifested through the Holy Spirit, to the glory of His name and to the memory of the aforementioned patron, and for the correction of men who hear them, by true revelation.” A wonderful assertion of Hildegard indeed, concerning a confused and intricate narrative, endowed with no true marks of history — which Mabillon did not judge worthy to occupy a place among the Acts of the Saints of his Order. “She amplified the deeds of Disibod,” he says, “in almost commonplace passages.” — St Hildegard.

12. I have often and carefully gone through that very long composition, both in our manuscript received through Rosweyde from St Maximin’s at Trier, and in Surius’s edition itself, more licentiously polished or, as others say, corrupted. Nowhere did there appear to me even slight indications by which the prerogative of revelation could be ascribed to such a composition — no more than to any other legends of saints of that kind; unless you were to call certain sayings of Sacred Scripture “revealed” which the holy author expounded with a singular interpretation, the whole being spent in expounding moral doctrines. If you tear these away from the rest of the work, that history, such as it is, could be circumscribed in very few words — at least in the part where the saint’s own deeds are narrated. Examine diligently, I pray, that long and rather gloomy discourse; weigh the several chapters, including the moral ones — I am mistaken if you find anywhere anything to which the name of revelation belongs. For the things which she could and ought to know about the existence of Mount St Disibod, on which she had previously lived, and about its various fortunes and vicissitudes, were not to be learned by revelation, since all those things were well enough known and commonly reported to the monks of St Hildegard’s own place.

13. I would indeed have wished that in that vision, of whatever kind, the several epochs of the successions and calamities had been shown to her more distinctly; likewise that they had unfolded to us St Disibod’s cradle, parents, and episcopal see, and indeed the whole ordered series of his age and fortunes — about which she seems to have been anxious only so far that the whole tradition comes down at last to what she had herself preconceived from what was often read, and which she amplified in almost commonplace passages. Not to do again what has been done, nor to stir up controversies long since agitated — let the reader see what Papebroch long ago disputed about visions and revelations of this kind in his Responses to article 20 of the Exhibition of Errors falsely fastened upon him. Unless someone thinks the whole matter is to be despatched by a more summary way, and rightly doubts whether that congeries of things, at least as it has come down to us, is Hildegard’s own and genuine work, and not rather afterwards augmented and amplified by some interpolator, and reckoned among the other revelations of that saint, taken from elsewhere and somehow approved — concerning which it is not pleasing to enquire further in this place; nor indeed does it seem worth the labour.

14. Besides this most widely circulated life written by St Hildegard, I found another among our papers, of which no one has ever yet made mention. For as the famed Mabillon noted (Benedictine century 3, part 2, p. 498): “Besides Hildegard… none of the ancients whom I have read makes mention of Disibod except Rabanus Maurus and Marianus Scotus.” And certainly that second life, transcribed for us by our Fr John Gamans from a parchment passional of the abbey of Böddeken, is not of such account that it deserves to be mentioned or much praised. I call it a cento, embellished perhaps by some monk of Mount St Disibod — or rather, handsomely compiled from the Acts of other saints, its beginning almost taken from the Acts of St Kilian and other matter scraped together from all quarters. The chief part of the whole narrative hangs on the description of King Dagobert’s hunt, who, with his men marvellously pursuing a hind for three whole days, ascended the mount which the man of God inhabited, and found him lurking there in his hut, and was received by him at a frugal meal — during which the beast, hard pressed and wearied by the hunters, withdrew to the saint. It then tells how Disibod tamed the hind and gave it as a gift to the king, whereupon it followed him everywhere like a house-dog.

15. On the other hand, the king, admiring the prodigy and not ungrateful, is said to have granted to the asking saint as much land, for his own use and that of his successors, as he could ride round upon a pack-donkey from daybreak until the evening hour should come — all of which the king confirmed by a deed written in his own hand. These things and more the plagiarising writer chose to filch from other legends which there is no need to enumerate here. I pass over the rest, equally childish and so childishly and verbosely cobbled together that I do not judge it worthy of serious reading. If I conjecture rightly, these things will have been gathered in the twelfth or perhaps fourteenth century by someone ignorant of the older life of St Hildegard — seeing that he records the most diverse things wholly alien to this author’s sense. This can also be gathered, it seems, from the few miracles appended by that more recent legend-writer, which, since they were unknown to St Hildegard, who records other far more ancient ones, must have happened and been written after her death — which fell in the year 1180. Hence, unless I am mistaken, it is manifest that both the legend and the miracles must be referred to ages nearer to our own. Only the aforementioned miracles therefore we have judged should be taken from there and appended, of which the writer asserts himself to be a witness, narrating by long digressions and windings what could most conveniently have been contracted into a few lines.

16. And so to Hildegard alone must be referred the whole substance, such as it is, of the Acts of St Disibod — whose age she has marked with no sign, save only this one: that if we follow her, he must be pronounced older by a whole hundred years than Marianus Scotus wrote, and than others following him everywhere, who dare not declare him more ancient than the seventh century. Christopher Brower in his Annals of Trier writes thus under the year of Christ 639: “To these saints whom he had named they add Disibod, who — if he is indeed the one of whom Trithemius tells — came from Ireland, distinguished by the insignia of the episcopate, into the county of Spanheim through desire of pilgrimage; and not long after the death of the lord Benedict built a monastery there. Be in no doubt that he is more rightly referred to earlier times.” Nor is Trithemius’s authority great or consistent here, since elsewhere he removes the death of St Disibod to the year 700. The whole difficulty arises from St Hildegard’s phrase at no. 13, where, bringing the saint into Germany, she says that he heard the good and sweet report of the religion of blessed Benedict, “who had most recently passed away” and had left very many lovers of his rule. Since therefore St Benedict winged his way to those above in the year 543, if “most recently” is taken in the stricter sense, St Disibod cannot have outlived the sixth century.

17. The manuscript Annals of Trier would favour this opinion, in which Mabillon says he found that Ingobert, Disigoth, Wandelin, Karilef and others were famous upon the hill of Cologne or St Paul’s in the pontificate of Magneric — they would favour it, I say, if the authority of those annals were great, or if it were established that by “Disigoth” our St Disibod is designated. For since Magneric is said to have held that see from about 573 to 593, it would beyond doubt remain that St Disibod should be reckoned to have flourished in that century. Sirinus, in his manuscript commentaries most obligingly communicated to me by the Irish Franciscan Fathers of Louvain, adduces Menard to the same view (On the Origin and Growth of the Order of St Benedict, p. 860), where he says: “St Disibod the Irishman, who came into Germany a little after the death of St Benedict, founded his monastery under the rule of St Benedict. St Hildegard testifies this in his life” — which Trithemius seems to have followed when composing the Hirsau Chronicle, where under the year 1138, treating of the translation which we reported above from Dodechin, he asserts that the holy man founded the monastery of his order on the summit of the mount not long after the death of the holy Father Benedict. But of Trithemius more below. I pass over other writers of the same opinion, relying solely on the authority of St Hildegard — which was not judged by Colgan, Mabillon, Cointius and very many other most learned men of such weight that it should be preferred to Marianus Scotus, or to his continuator and interpolator Dodechin.

18. For the chronicle of Marianus speaks thus under the year 674: “Ireland, an island full of holy men — from which our blessed Father Disibod, having renounced his bishopric, departed with several companions and inhabited this place, and here deserved to be venerated by the faithful in divine praises before God.” All these words cannot be ascribed to Marianus but to Dodechin; for it is as certain that this monk lived on Mount St Disibod as it is certain that Marianus was never a recluse in that place. So the evasions of Sirinus and others are vain, aimed at weakening the authority of the chronicle — which alone seems decisive in the present matter — as Colgan acknowledged in his unpublished work on the apostolate of the Irish among foreigners, plainly holding that the death of St Disibod, absolutely and according to the mind of Marianus who mentions it neither earlier nor later in his chronicle, should be referred to the year 674, and hence his migration from Ireland to the year 633 or the following — “which year,” he says, “the death of St Benedict did not so very long precede, if we interpret the words of the ancients kindly”; so that the Hildegardian passage at no. 22 seems capable of easy explanation. But if you deny that those words can bear so great a latitude, certainly the aforementioned chronicle of Marianus, rather than the vague phrase of Hildegard, will always seem to me the more to be trusted. “Hildegard, abbess of Bingen,” says Cointius under the year 674, no. 99, “is not of such authority among us as Dodechin, who governed the monastery of St Disibod with the title of abbot.”

19. Whatever Trithemius may have said otherwise elsewhere, he agreed with Dodechin when in book 5 of the Compendium of Annals, as we also reported above, under Clovis king of the Franks, son of Dagobert, he writes thus: “Also St Disibod, monk and priest, in the diocese of Mainz, in the county of Spanheim, two miles from Kreuznach and one from the monastery once mine at Spanheim, leading a hermit’s life, built a monastery of monks in that place near Sobernheim where the Nahe and the Glan meet, which today bears his name.” We repeat these words, cited above for another purpose, here again so that it may be evident that Trithemius did not think the same everywhere. Clovis II died according to Labbé in the year 662, or as others say a little earlier — certainly beyond the middle of the seventh century. Disibod, on Hildegard’s testimony, faithfully served God on his mount for thirty years. Nothing therefore prevents, says Cointius, Disibod from coming into the aforementioned region under the aforementioned Clovis, but neither can the year be determined when he ceased to live. Whatever the case in both points, Cointius goes on, Disibod flourished in the splendour of sanctity and of divine signs… — and in the chronicle of Marianus he was, before his death, the father of many monks. That place is today called Mount St Disibod, and is inhabited by Cistercians, after our brethren inhabited it for more than three hundred years from the time of the holy Father Disibod. His life was written by the blessed Hildegard, abbess of the nunnery of Bingen, whose feast is kept on 8 July(?). He flourished about the seven-hundredth year of the Lord. You now perceive clearly enough that Trithemius wavered in the age of St Disibod.

20. Arnold Wion in his notes to his monastic martyrology for 8 July makes Trithemius the voucher for some things he never asserted. The first is that he attributes to him that St Disibod migrated from this world on that same day, 8 July. For Trithemius in the words just cited says only that his feast is kept on 8 July — which for various reasons might have been done in Trithemius’s time and afterwards changed. Again Wion is in error when he writes under Trithemius’s name that St Disibod was monk and abbot, whereas it is manifest that the aforementioned Trithemius asserted nothing other than that he was “the father of many monks” — which is most true, although on Hildegard’s testimony he can be called neither abbot nor properly monk, but a true anchorite and solitary, who had not received the habit of monastic religion which his congregation used, as she herself most expressly declares at no. 30. In this Wion was not astray: that from the cited passage of Trithemius he affirmed that St Disibod flourished about the seven-hundredth year. The same view is followed and defended by Ferrarius, Wilson, Mabillon, Castellan and others — which differs so far from ours that it would be worth the trouble to contest it.

21. From the fixed epoch of his death you will conveniently order the preceding age if you remember that he was made bishop in his thirtieth year, administered the church committed to him for ten years, was a pilgrim for another ten years, and at last settled on his mount for thirty years — so that plainly he reached the end of this present life in the eighty-first year of his age, as at no. 35. The author of the life, St Hildegard, and Dodechin have so expressly marked the saint’s country that the Scots labour in vain to snatch him from the Irish. As for the dignity: Rabanus bestowed on St Disibod only the title of Confessor, as will appear from his words in the following paragraph — from which arises the suspicion, says Mabillon, whether the name of bishop may have been fastened upon him (as has happened to very many others). But we have shown elsewhere that the name of bishop was not so rare in Ireland at that time that it could be inferred from Rabanus’s silence that it had been fastened upon him. Here the learned man may rely on Hildegard and Dodechin, who most expressly assert that he was a bishop before he withdrew from Ireland into Germany. That he is wrongly called abbot and monk we have already sufficiently shown: for the saint so ordered his life that by the strictest austerity he set before himself the ancient hermits Anthony and others to imitate, showing the way to the brethren gathered under his government by his example; and he so poured out the rays of his sanctity on every side that even while living he was honoured as a saint — certainly from his pious death he at once obtained the veneration of the heavenly ones, as remains to be shown somewhat more distinctly in the following paragraph.

§ III. On the saint’s cultus from martyrologies and other monuments.

22. In the foregoing we have gathered various scattered things referring to the cultus and ancient veneration of St Disibod, and chiefly those concerning his various elevations and translations which we recorded after Dodechin and Trithemius — from which the old religious cultus shown to him on that often-named mount is plainly established. The author of the life, St Hildegard, confirms it further when she tells how the fame and glory of his sanctity, while he yet lived, was spread and made common through the whole neighbouring region, also recounting miracles wrought in great number — so that it seems impossible to doubt the public veneration shown to the saint immediately after his happy death. That it was not diffused further abroad is sufficiently testified also by the aforementioned legend, which thereafter was received and common — at least after the sacred body was raised by St Boniface from its first sepulchre and placed in a more fitting place, about the year 740, as may almost be supposed. Meanwhile it is plainly astonishing that so great a splendour of sanctity lay hidden in other regions as it were under a bushel, so that it never came to the notice of the classical martyrologists. Bede, Florus, Ado, Usuard and Notker I could easily excuse; but that Wandelbert, the monk of Prüm and therefore a nearer neighbour, was ignorant of St Disibod is harder to believe.

23. Therefore among the ancients only Rabanus Maurus mentions St Disibod — not on this day, 8 July, but on 8 September, under this formula: “And in the suburbs of the church of Mainz, the natal feast of St Disibod, confessor.” We have already observed above with Mabillon that the dignity of bishop was passed over by Rabanus — not thinking, however, that the saint must be deprived of that character, which we believe Rabanus did not know, since he would have known him only as an anchorite, the episcopal dignity being wholly neglected because of the mountain solitude which he inhabited for thirty years. For that he truly possessed it the chronicle of Marianus so expressly affirms. Further, by “the suburbs of the church of Mainz” — let me say it here in passing — are designated not the suburbs of Mainz itself but the tract or territory, the diocese, of the aforementioned church, as occurs elsewhere also. Whether Rabanus there properly calls the day of his death “natalis,” or rather indicates the solemnity of a translation more festively celebrated in his time, you will not easily distinguish; the author of the life, St Hildegard, most clearly referred the natal feast itself to this day, 8 July — to which the Liège-Cologne edition of the Additions to Usuard has restored him: “On this day, of blessed Disibod, bishop and confessor”; from which he passed into Greven and Molanus, although the latter mentions him again on 7 September, where he copied the words of Rabanus.

24. The monastic writers Wion, Dorgan and Menard do not all think alike. The first places him on 8 July: “On Mount St Disibod, of the bishop who, his bishopric being left, was made father of many monks in the monastery of the diocese of Mainz, in the county of Spanheim — which place was afterwards called Mount St Disibod from his name, and famous for miracles, he rested in peace”; things copied almost by Bucelin, who promises more elsewhere. On this day, however, the aforementioned Wion not consistently enough announces: “In the Trier district, St Disibod, bishop and confessor” — noting that he treats of the same man whom a little before he had much more rightly placed in the diocese of Mainz. Dorgan wrote on 8 July: “The translation of St Disibod, bishop”; on this day simply: “St Disibod, bishop and confessor” — meaning that the natal feast is here indicated. Menard mentions St Disibod neither on this day nor on 6 September, but on 8 July has: “On Mount St Disibod, the deposition of the same Disibod, bishop, who, his bishopric being left, was made father of monks in the diocese of Mainz.” Those who contend for 8 September — like Mabillon and Castellan — rely here certainly on no slight authority, that of Rabanus. Trithemius went before those who assigned him to 8 July — with Saussay, Wilson’s Englishmen, and the Scot Dempster who ascribes the saint to Belgium, treating on this day of his translation in the Trier district and linking other translations to various days. It has seemed good to us to prefer this 8 July with the author of the life, on which he is also noted by Canisius, Ferrarius and the Irish calendars; by Camerarius alone he is assigned to 7 July.

25. The words of Trithemius from book 3 On Illustrious Men of the Order of St Benedict, ch. 98, were reported above at no. 21. I wonder that Trithemius testifies his feast is kept on 8 July — unless perhaps some translation made more solemnly on that day is commemorated, of which we have also spoken abundantly in the first paragraph. To gather here the various eulogies of St Disibod from Ghelen and others I do not think worth the labour; the Acts themselves will afford a panegyric long enough, amplified and adorned beyond measure. Nor is there need to repeat the words of Dodechin. Saussay deserves a hearing in his Supplement for 8 July — at least so that those things in which he strayed from the right may be refuted. This is his eulogy: “At Mainz, of St Disibod, an Irish bishop, who, having renounced the episcopate and left his country, that he might become a perfect cultivator of humility, professed himself a monk for the love of Christ in a suburb of Mainz, and so became illustrious with splendours of divine grace that on the death of the abbot he was, though resisting, put in his place by the vote of the brethren. Directing them in all religious discipline, and inciting them to every virtue more by deeds than by words, he transformed them, with Christ’s inspiration, into the fulness of evangelical perfection.” In these few words Saussay sins many times. For St Disibod neither lived in a suburb of Mainz, nor ever professed himself a monk there, nor was put in place of a deceased abbot — all which are diametrically repugnant to his Acts. Nor is the rest of the eulogy free of fault; let us append the sequel.

26. “Then, spiritual offspring being happily begotten — the father of many sons, the worker of many prodigies — he migrated to the pleasant dwellings of the heavenly city, for which he had ever sighed. The series of his angelic conversation the blessed virgin Hildegard, abbess of Bingen, described with pure mind and candid hand; his memory the King of glory honoured with great manifestations, and the church of Mainz, enrolling him among her Tutelars, has ever since followed him with perpetual cultus, and has gladly distinguished by his name the church and the abbey over which that faithful steward once presided.” So far the Gallican martyrologist — who, although he here seems to cite St Hildegard as the voucher of his statements, certainly never consulted the legend written by her, since he heaped up such diverse and alien things about St Disibod. Nor is it true that the church of Mainz enrolled him among her Tutelars — the Tutelars of Mainz are SS Martin and Boniface — nor does that church usurp any proper office of St Disibod that I know of; certainly it was not custom to usurp one, as is manifest from the many ancient breviaries and calendars extant in our museum. We may therefore safely assert that in his more ornate panegyric Saussay piously supposed many things which indeed might have happened, but which are in no way established as having happened or been customary.

27. Less digested and more inept are the things which John Wilson thrust into the light; in his English martyrology for 8 July the text runs: “On the same day, in the diocese of Mainz in Upper Germany, the deposition of St Disibod, bishop and confessor, who, born in Ireland and a monk of the order of St Benedict, was ordained bishop of Dublin in that same kingdom; which dignity being resigned, he crossed into Germany to preach the Christian faith, and was made abbot of a certain monastery of the aforementioned diocese of Mainz, where in great sanctity of life and miracles he consummated his blessed days, about the year of Christ 660.” I have sought in vain from which Wilson could have drawn such things — certainly things unworthy that the famed Sirinus should illustrate them in his commentaries, while he fashions for us a bishop at Dublin even in the times of St Rumold, who cannot be called bishop of that city, preceding its institution by nearly three centuries. No less discordant is the resignation of the episcopate, where all monuments cry out that he was driven from his see; and also the abbatial dignity in some monastery, as he supposes.

28. But there is yet truer matter. Before the saint’s arrival in Germany, certain things are told which are sufficiently plausible; but in what place today, or by whom, they are preserved… The plate described by Wilthemius is of gilt bronze. On the upper plate Christ is in a round circle, with A and Ω added on either side; (the writer meant “on the right,” unless the first draughtsman transposed the sides). There stands St Disibod in the clothing of a bishop, his name written. Behind him is St Clement with his name. On the right (on the other side) SS Gislialdus and Salustius with their names — these three were companions of St Disibod. Before Christ, outside the circle, Hildegard bends her knees and bows, holding a book — namely the one she wrote on the life of St Disibod. At the top of the other plate St Disibod sits on a throne, his name written. Below him are two tonsured monks with the cowl joined to the tunic, suppliant and kneeling.

29. That they are suppliant I recognise, for the raised face sufficiently shows it in the appended design; but in what posture Wilthemius observed them kneeling I do not so easily perceive. In whatever position, gesture and dress you contemplate them, it is certain that our drawing — a copy sent to us, which the famed Wilthemius testified answered most perfectly to the original — most perfectly represents it. Let us continue the rest of the letter. From the depth a label rises as far as St Disibod with these letters: “O FATHER! WHAT SHALL IT BE, WHEN WE LOSE You AS SHEPHERD?” Opposite, from St Disibod, another label descends: “IN THE HUMBLE PLACE OF THE ORATORY, WHERE I SERVED GOD ALONE, BURY ME.” It is credible that both sentences are taken from the primitive life which Hildegard wrote and Surius corrupted. In the right plate (to us the left) St Disibod stands three times, vested pontifically, with his name thrice added; in the highest place a dumb man before him, in the next lower a dropsical man before him, in the lowest a leper. On the lowest plate St Disibod is buried by a priest with cope and crozier, and on either side stand cowled monks, but with long beards. The characters and figures smack of the seventh century(?). In the four corners are the evangelical animals in circles, which the engraver, like the rest, diligently and accurately imitated. Now let us explain what Wilthemius passed over.

30. In Wilthemius’s copy, after the manner of the original, each thing is distinguished by its colours, which here could not be so perfectly rendered, though they may be distinguished by those skilled in heraldry. You will note then that in the original three colours are chiefly shown — yellow, green and blue. The yellow, in which all the human figures are depicted, designates gilding; the rest of the encaustic work is so formed by lines and transverse parallels that these express green, those blue — and indeed the very beard of Salustus or Salustius is figured. The upper inscription, written on the circle surrounding the image of Christ, doubtless makes this sense: “Be mindful of Your Church.” If you ask to what use that plate ever served, I will suppose what Papebroch somewhere left written: namely that with these plates was adorned the book of the life of St Disibod written by St Hildegard about the year 1170. Certainly it is in no way doubtful… whether these plates were once set apart for sacred uses, either separately or together… For it is not ascertained by me; they were brought here and displayed for this purpose only — that the ancient cultus of St Disibod might be demonstrated, since I think Wilthemius rightly judged the characters and figures to smack of the twelfth century. Curious investigators of such curiosities will observe other things, as Papebroch observed of old.

31. Wilthemius also conjectured rightly that it is credible both sentences described in the icon are taken from the primitive life — not indeed according to the single letters of the words, but according to the sincere substance of the matter, which you will find at no. 34. But what of those three other companions of St Disibod — Gisliald or Gillilald, Clement, and Salustus or Salustius? It is plain that saints are here most openly declared, taken from the Hildegardian legend at no. 10, where they are expressly named in this manner: “who were three, of whom the first, namely the elder, was called Gillilald, the second Clement, the third Salustus — who had come with him out of Ireland.” St Hildegard abstains from every title of veneration, mentioning them by name in this place only — so that of them only this one thing is handed down to memory, that they accompanied St Disibod into Germany. Whether they adhered to St Disibod even to death, whether they led his singular eremitic kind of life or rather that of monks, what they did before and after their teacher departed this life — St Hildegard has recorded so little that in the whole remaining course of the narrative she has not mentioned them even by a word, as I have said. Not slight, I confess, is the authority of so ancient a monument, that they too should be reckoned among the saints; but since I have hitherto found no memory of them in approved calendars, I abstain for the time being from joining them to St Disibod, until they occur elsewhere in things which more clearly prove the heavenly honours to be assigned them. Should you object Camerarius, who announces on 18 August “St Salustius followed St Disibod out of Scotland,” and on 26 June “St Gisualdus, confessor, companion of St Disibod,” I shall easily reply that it is indeed true that those two with Clement (whom I wonder Camerarius neglected) followed St Disibod into Germany on Hildegard’s testimony — but that writer is not of such authority that he can coin saints for us on the sole title that they accompanied a saint; as I have noted elsewhere, the Irish are too liberal in canonising all who are recorded to have been joined to St Patrick either by fellowship or by blood, unless it is otherwise established that cultus was legitimately shown them. Now it is time to append the life of our saint.

The Life #

By St Hildegard, nun. From the manuscript of St Maximin’s, Trier. #

Chapter One — The saint’s family; his parents driven out by tyrants; his progress in letters; election as bishop; abdication and departure from his country. #

1. In a mystic vision, as God willed, at the petition and command of my prelates — namely Hebigerus [Helingerus] the abbot and all the brethren serving God on the Mount of blessed Disibod — I was looking upon the life and merits of the same blessed Father; and after the visions set forth of the book of the Rewards of Life, in the year of the Lord’s Incarnation 1170, Frederick ruling as emperor of the Romans, under the oppression of the Apostolic See, lying for nearly three years on the bed of sickness, from divine pity and wisdom I heard a voice from heaven, waking in body and mind, saying thus: “The elect of God, Disibod, inspired from his infancy by the Holy Spirit, like blessed Nicholas and blessed Benedict and those like them, with eager heart thirsted after every good that he saw and heard. Therefore of him it may be said: ‘Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings you have perfected praise, because of your enemies, that you may destroy the enemy and the avenger.’”

2. Which is to be understood thus. In the good affection of infants not yet having speech, and of those who ought rather to suck milk than to work wonders — You who are Lord of all did bring to perfection the praise of Your name, when You often wrought Your marvels in them: namely, when you did so inspire them, not yet having full marrow, that in speaking and acting they uttered many things unwittingly; and when you did strengthen others with such fortitude, against the laws of the flesh, that tending with their whole desire toward heavenly things they did not exercise the offices of the flesh by sinning. In these things let no one seize on doubt, because the serpentine guile could not do these good and holy things in those blessed ones; for you did these things “because of Your enemies” — that is, the lost angels — so that to their confusion they might see Your power in childish ignorance; and “that You may destroy the enemy” — namely him who in all goods denies You — “and the avenger” — that is, him who casts the stones and darts of his impiety against Your words and miracles by censuring them.

3. These evils prevailed nothing in the aforementioned blessed men, since they spoke the things that are right; for God in blessed Disibod from his infancy to his decrepit age wrought in His gifts — so that his childhood did not play in wickedness, his youth did not burn in wantonness, and the maturity of his old age did not look to the left. For he so left all the pomp of this world in heart and body that some affirmed him thereby foolish, some vain, some wandering, and some wonderful in his works, saying: “What is this that this man does?”

4. Now the parents of blessed Disibod, mighty in the liberty of the world, had drawn their origin from the excellent stock of the Irish; yet they did not possess the pomp and glory of the world in superfluity. Therefore certain of the tyrants, swelling with pride, when they had subjected very many in the same region to themselves by tyranny, strove also to oppress the parents of this blessed man — he being then a boy — and to subject them to their sway. But they, not unmindful of the freedom of their stock, refusing the hard and unjust subjection, withdrew from them and betook themselves far to remoter parts of the same region; and by a certain river which is poured out of the sea, together with their son blessed Disibod and all their substance, they took up their dwelling in a certain town, where they commended him to religious men to be imbued with letters and the other liberal arts.

5. And he, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, committed to a good memory with capacious wit the good things he heard from his teachers, and by this made no small joy to his parents labouring in the affliction of exile. So this boy, profiting from day to day and growing in body and sanctity, ascended from study to study of good works by praying and giving alms — so that to all he could hear or learn of God he hastened with his whole desire; and so, by the degrees of the virtues and the increase of his age, the several holy orders being received, he reached the degree of the priesthood when he was thirty years old. Which having received with the fear of the Lord, he did as a good spicer who plants all manner of spices and aromatics in his garden, ever studious that his garden be green and not dry.

6. For in these studies the same saint was mindful of the words of Wisdom where it is said: “I have gathered my myrrh with my aromatics.” Which is to be understood thus: I, who ought to toil in just works, offer to God with good intention the mortification of my flesh, since for love of Him I desire to become a pilgrim to vices and to flee their common uncleanness and to have no fellowship with them; since in the aromatics of the virtues I hasten to love and venerate Him, the true God — since the love of heavenly desire shall not fail from my heart, He helping. In this right and holy will this saint was as it were dead to the world, so that many, seeing these things, made as though they knew him not, and abhorred to remain with him, because he compelled himself wholly to serve the spirit and not the flesh.

7. And since in virtues of this kind he laudably served God, and on this account was pleasing to those who loved God, it happened that certain of them who knew the honest manners and the life of sanctity of blessed Disibod unanimously chose him for their bishop. But certain others, whose life and conversation were reprehensible, forbade this to be done, saying: “What does it profit that a silent and un-speaking man, not knowing the people, should be made master?” … To justify the needy and the poor. Which is to be understood thus: the just man, who for God’s sake has reduced himself, should sanctify himself in all his works as needy and poor — because the just…

8. But God looked upon this blessed one, as Scripture… He had hidden him from the common people, but manifested him to those diligently seeking Him; from where, although some were astonished, He willed him to be master and bishop.

9. And when this blessed one was compelled by the more prudent to undertake the aforementioned burden, crying out that he was unworthy of so great a dignity, he drew back hands and feet with all the force he could; but nevertheless, by them pressing and prevailing who feared God, even unwilling — yet by divine ordination — he was set in the episcopal seat. In which the happy bishop himself began to cry out and teach the justice of God, and warned all whom he could to be subject to God; and what he had been imbued with from his infancy through the Holy Spirit he now manifested in teaching, and showed them good examples of sanctity and virtues in himself with paternal affection. Now some, for the merit of the virtues which they saw in him, loved him and desired his doctrine with the attentive ear of the heart; but others, who had cast God behind their back, cried out raging against this saint: “This man lives as though he were not a man; therefore he compels us also to live inhumanly. And who can hear him?” And they afflicted him with many injuries.

10. But he gathered to himself a few faithful men who afforded him consolation and help. And he afflicted his heart daily for God, saying: “O Lord God, I Your servant prostrate myself before Your compassion, doing what you have commanded; for you know that I desire You alone; therefore I trust that you will sometime fulfil my desire, as it is written: ‘Delight in the Lord and He will give you the petitions of your heart.’” Which is to be understood thus: O man, who were conceived and born in sins, delight — against the inclination of the flesh — in the precepts of Him who created you, bringing back to memory who He is who delivered you. When you have done this, He will give you what you ask, since you do not ask the things that are to be asked, but showing Him the affliction of your heart with humbled spirit, and crying and grieving, you shall constrain yourself as a beast of burden to labour at the things that are right. And so they who have repented and have studied to amend their evils in this manner are more prudent than the sons of light, because these would not nor did this. For it is pleasing to God that a man should have a hard war against himself and against the dragon, so that to him who has this, God will speedily fulfil both prayers and desires — as He also did in blessed Disibod, who had hard wars as long as he lived in the body, but happily consummated them with a good end.

11. Meanwhile, while this saint presided over his people in words and examples in the faith of the aforementioned dignity, a great derision, a great schism boiled up in all that region — some resisting the Old and New Testament and denying Christ, others pursuing the heresies of heretics, others apprehending the sect of the Jews, others cultivating the sect of the pagans; others burning to live not humanly but in the confusion of cattle, in base lust; others having discipline indeed for humanity’s sake, yet in nothing studying to do good. Blessed Disibod, opposing himself manfully and fearlessly to these greatest errors and confusions, sustained many reproaches and many injuries; and when he had borne this present life for ten years without the eradication of those same evils, and with peril even to his body, at last being wearied, he said to God in his prayers with great lamentation: “O God and O Judge of all holy men, what profit is it to me to labour with this people, which transfixes Your justice with rabid bites?” At last the favourers of the aforementioned errors, with the people entangled in those same errors, seeing that this blessed man did not consent to their errors and depravity but rebuked them constantly everywhere without fear of death, set many snares for him; and at last, the troop of unbelievers being banded together, they expelled him from his seat, afflicted with many contumelies. But he, preferring to serve God in quiet rather than to tarry longer without fruit of profit, gathered to himself a few religious men, and the seat of his dignity which he had ruled strenuously and religiously for ten years, his country and all that he had, he left for Christ’s sake — saying that it profited neither himself nor others that he should remain there, where so great unbelief had grown with the hardness of iniquity — and with a glad mind undertook the pilgrimage which he had long desired, for life eternal.

Notes: (a) Of this legend, written from a mystic vision or revelation, we treated in the preliminary commentary from no. 12. The author does not explain her meaning clearly enough, but we have been unwilling to change anything; the edition of Surius may be consulted, more polished. (b) We also said above, in the place cited, that certain sayings of Sacred Scripture are expounded by St Hildegard with a singular comment; to weigh these scrupulously is not for our forum — but whether interpretations of that kind belong to true revelations, let the judgement be others’. (c) All that is here recorded of the saint’s family, his parents’ flight, etc., is obscure; but this is plainly wonderful — that they settled by a river “which is poured out of the sea,” unless it indicate some estuary or river-mouth into which the sea’s tide at stated times drives back the waves. The rest, to say it once, both here and in what follows, must be reduced to commonplace. (e) Some have guessed that by the parts of that region Dublin is designated — that St Disibod was bishop there in those times — which Wilson and Sirinus thought could be adopted. But we rejected such anachronisms above. (f) What are you to understand in so great a confusion of things? Sirinus took occasion from there to enquire whether the Pelagian heresy had sprouted again in Ireland at that time; but if the author had wished to indicate that, she would have spoken somewhat more distinctly. (g) You see this whole chapter, amplified in so many words, can be contracted into these few historical facts: St Disibod, born in Ireland of noble stock, piously educated and instructed in letters, was consecrated priest in his thirtieth year; then raised to some bishopric, after enduring many snares and persecutions from the impious, was at last expelled by the same.

Chapter Two — The pilgrimage into Germany; the instruction of the people by the Rhine; the solitary and austere life on the mount; the beginnings of the monastery and miracles. #

13. When blessed Disibod had gone out of Ireland, having wandered through many regions and carefully surveyed many places, seeking the repose of his soul, he came at last into Alamannia, where indeed he found a hard and fierce people; and there, being wearied, fixing his steps for some time, while he gave to that people words of salvation and examples of sanctity, many hearing him loved him, but many cared neither to hear nor to love him. And while he made delays in the same province, deliberating with himself where he might turn aside, he heard the good and sweet report of the religion of blessed Benedict, who had most recently passed away and had left very many lovers of his rule; and so, by the admonition of the Holy Spirit, he knew that his desire was not yet fulfilled — that desire which he had long had, namely to associate to himself some truly perfect men of religion from the people formerly committed to him. For this cause he went on again from places to places, and found neither in the places nor in the manners of those peoples what pleased his soul.

14. Then he began to weep and to pray, saying: “Bow down, O Lord, Your ear and hear me, for I am needy and poor” — which is to be understood thus: Condescending to my tribulations, bow down, You Lord who are ruler of all, the ear of mercy, and hear the words of my prayer, since I am needy in soul through faintness of mind and poor in body through the contrition of afflictions — I who ought to follow You, to love You above all things. Remember therefore that from my infancy I have studied to serve You, and that for Your love I have ever loved poverty and the contempt of the world. Then God, on account of the greenness of his good desire, receiving these prayers, poured into his mind a sweet consolation of quiet, as dew falls upon the grass; and also in a vision of the night by a certain showing manifested to him that a place fit for his vow was to be found by him sometime. For to this blessed man God, as He did to His other beloved who desired Him with their whole love, seemed to be present with them — seeing, speaking and hearing — on account of the great and good intention wherewith they faithfully directed their whole heart toward Him.

15. The Holy Spirit also withdrew from him all the fabled fame of vainglory which is in many men, who pray and fast in simulation according to their own will — when they unjustly seek something from God, in which, if anything happens to them as they will, they hold it as it were for a showing from God. If any such there be, they shall be scattered like stubble by the wind. But when a man mortifies himself to vanities, in them he takes as it were sleep; and then pride and vainglory and the acquiring of honour from peoples, and the other vices, are bound by the power of God, lest that man be turned away from the love of the nature of his Creator by their suggestions in any wise.

16. But blessed Disibod, rejoicing in the hope of his good desire because he knew it would sometime be fulfilled by God’s help — when he had heard good report of the people remaining on this side of the Rhine in the parts of Gaul, namely that that people was indeed hard but yet held the ecclesiastical religion devoutly in its living — he was weary of the mockery of the scoffing people and, scarce waiting, directed his journey swiftly to the end of the Rhine; and turning aside from there and going through pathless places, he came to the river Glan, and crossing it saw a high and wooded mount, which he ascended after ten years of his pilgrimage; and there, wearied, sitting down and resting, he said to his companions — who were three, of whom the first, namely the elder, was called Gillilald, the second Clement, the third Salustus — who had come with him out of Ireland, being touched by the Holy Spirit: “This shall be my rest.”

17. For when he had then gone through the same mount all around and carefully considered all its slopes, its pleasantness pleased his soul more and more for dwelling — because both its height would afford difficult access to those coming, and the little rivers flowing on either side would give refreshment of body to those remaining there. And he prayed, saying: “O Lord, who dwell above the heavens and rule the deep, I pray that the pleasantness of this place may be turned into the pleasantness of souls, for it is fitting that in this place a faithful people should faithfully serve You.” And saying this, he marked out for himself a habitation on the descent of that mount toward the east, for convenience of water; and beginning strenuously the manner of life he had long desired — by praying, watching and fasting — he led a solitary life, hard and austere.

18. But his companions who were with him, lest they should have any joy in one another, built their dwellings each apart, at a distance from him. And it is to be known that for some time they were sustained there on the roots of herbs, having no other food. Now that mount in circuit, with the woods adjacent to it — places both passable and impassable — was at that time more than a mile, belonging not to one man but to the fellow-provincials, lesser as well as greater. From where it happened that the people who often saw him going about in the same wood, whether for catching game or for fishing or for cutting what was needful for him on every side — after some time, moved by divine inspiration, came to him from desire, and each one brought him what he needed; to whom he gave words of salvation…

19. Since men… he often kept in his heart the things which the fathers of old had done, who had lived on this food — that by their example he might constrain his body from soft and delicate foods, lest he be deceived by the ancient serpent. And the more this blessed one afflicted his flesh, the more God multiplied His grace with him; from where very many sick and weak were brought to him, whom the Holy Spirit through his merits suddenly healed — which he nevertheless, humbly dreading, fled the praise of men as much as he could.

20. And when the fame of his sanctity flew through all this province, the people proclaiming it, certain God-fearing men came to him and built him a little oratory on the descent of the aforementioned mount toward the east, in which he might celebrate the divine offices with his own — so that both they and others coming for God’s sake might receive from him there the words and pastures of life. But others toward the west, in the plain at the foot of the same mount, cut down the thorns and thickets, and prepared gardens and pastures and little huts for the blessed man there. From where also, on account of the thickets which were cut down there — which in the vulgar tongue are called stumpen — the place itself was first named Stupenheim [Sobernheim]. Many also came to this blessed man from far regions and commended their souls to him in good faith and hope — which the peoples dwelling in the same province, by divine instinct, bewailed, and said they had been negligent in this matter, since God, to the glory and honour of His name, had visited that place through His saint whom they, having him near them, neglected to visit and to honour more often with their substance.

21. From where it happened that the princes and the other nobles and rich, together with the rest of the people inhabiting those lands, offered to the same blessed man and to his posterity the mount itself with all its bounds, extended in length and breadth beyond the rivers flowing past, namely the Nahe and the Glan, as aforementioned — because they saw the marvels of God in him; so that there a holy congregation of good men being gathered, the necessaries of the present life might suffice without want. And with common voice and cry they said: “Praise to You, O Lord God, for that you have deigned to send us this Your saint.” Which offering being accepted, that blessed man was much afraid, remembering that in the episcopal burden he had before sustained very many adversities from the nations; and, his knees bent to God, he prayed that the same offering might rise, the Spirit granting, to fruit and the increase of souls.

22. Then day and night, burning in his heart, he considered how — as he had had it in the desire of his mind for very many years past — he might gather religious men and men of austere life; and how God willed that a spiritual congregation should serve the Creator in that place. And, the Holy Spirit inspiring, he set all the devotion of his heart upon the conversion and doctrine of blessed Benedict, who had already passed to God and had left certain blessed men, faithful ministers of his holy institution, still living and surviving in those times; and to far regions where the same manner of life religiously and ardently flourished he sent messengers with humble supplication for them — who should plant the vineyard of the Lord of hosts according to the doctrine of the aforementioned Father, who had established a rule suitable to a spiritual people out of the whole life of the saints, the Holy Spirit teaching.

23. And so he drew to himself very many religious men of the same manner of life, for whom he bade build both an oratory and fitting dwellings on the brow of the same mount, on account of the difficult access, toward the east — namely lest they should henceforth be troubled by the people, and lest perchance their rigour and religion should be turned to softness and sloth by the daily coming-together of visitors. But he himself, that he might be ready for all occurrences, and that he might satisfy all the comers in rendering answers according to their quality — remained solitary on the descent of that mount toward the east, in the dwelling and oratory which he had prepared for himself, as aforementioned. And the congregation of those brethren increased both according to God and according to man; and whatever they were to do or to have was done by the command or permission of this holy man, and they exercised the common life according to the institution of blessed Benedict.

24. For the pious father Disibod was studious that his congregation, by the custom of the law instituted for it, should be so composed and firm that the devil could not prepare a pit of vices in it, and could not transfix it with his darts and separate it apart — and that it, terrible through the restraint of vices and like an army set in array, should appear to the devil and to men in the concord of the virtues. For he wisely taught it to fight in humility against the hostile troops of the aerial spirits, and to shun the vanity of pride and the arrogance of mind in the delight of this world; and he diligently set before them the praise and glory of the victor who has lawfully contended and then kept himself well in the guard of right circumspection. With a rampart also of rigour and of the strictness of all spiritual discipline he moated and fortified it, lest the devil should secretly and suddenly rush upon it — knowing that he has the greatest zeal to rush upon a spiritual people, and that he rejoices much more if he has overcome a spiritual man according to his will of depravity than if he had conquered many seculars: since he sees him made like himself when he falls from heavenly desire, even as he himself through pride fell from heaven.

25. In this manner this saint began to gather and strengthen his sons. When secular men saw this, they ran together from all that province, and whatever he began to work and do in his necessities they zealously completed with goodwill. From where it happened that that blessed congregation was multiplied in twelve years to the number of fifty perfect brethren. For in those times few men of this manner of life were found, and none entered upon this way unless proven. But the Holy Spirit, who had planted this congregation, watered it also — as when dew falls upon a fat field — so that whoever was found in it under discipline ascended from virtue to virtue and had no hindrance from the ancient deceiver: because where the Holy Spirit Himself is in His marvels, there the same ancient enemy will be afraid and will not dare to enter; but whatever he has secretly sown there, the Holy Spirit treads again underfoot to his confusion. And the merits and sanctity of blessed Disibod were followed by the signs and miracles of God, which were also renewed again and again without weariness, since God will ever make new things.

26. For a certain man whose tongue, through excessive infirmity of his body, had been so weakened that he could not utter human words, came to him from far parts and besought him tearfully by nods and signs of his hands, as he could, that he would help him in this trouble before God. And the pious Father, a prayer being made over him, feeling the grace of God present and remembering the Lord’s example where He made the dumb to speak, breathed into the mouth of this man, saying: “In the name of Him who said to the dumb man ‘Ephphatha’ — and he began to speak — to you, O bond of infirmity which have weakened the tongue of this man, I command that you be loosed and depart hence; and that you hinder his tongue from speaking no more.” And immediately the bond of his tongue was loosed, and he uttered human words aright, and gave thanks to God and to this saint.

27. Which being done, a certain dropsical man also, swollen with a wondrous tumour, was brought by the hands of his friends to the same saint, and with many tears outpoured sought the health of his body from him. But when he hesitated a little and affirmed himself unworthy of so great a deed, at last, overcome by the prayer of the suppliants, he entreated the almighty Lord for him and, touching him with his hands, blessed him; and so the disease through the grace of God gradually disappeared from him.

28. And a certain leper also, distorted with hideous skin, came to him and, after first pouring out prayers for his infirmity, threatened with words that he would never depart from him until he was restored to health. This blessed man, moved at last by the man’s importunity, led him into his dwelling and kept him with him for some time; and pouring out prayers for him again and again, he made him return to his own people sound and having fair flesh of his body. And the Truth itself, which then saw and did these things, brought them out here into the open by itself, when men knew it not.

Notes: (a) Here is another decade spent in wandering through regions; but where in the world he went, where he made any stay, the author of the life nowhere declares. (b) If the saint wandered through so many regions, no doubt he could hear the fame of St Benedict elsewhere also. How that phrase “who had most recently passed away” is to be taken and explained, you have in the preliminary commentary from no. 17. (c) Of the site of the mount and of the often-built and destroyed monastery enough has been said at the beginning of the commentary; of the three companions, at the end. (d) The Germans know Stauden for thickets, from where “Staudernheim” should have been formed; Trithemius perhaps expressed the place’s name better, cited in the commentary at no. 20, where he writes Sobernheim; but in the appendix of miracles you will again read Studernheim. (e) This miracle and the two next following are shown in the plate represented above.

Chapter Three — The subjects’ veneration of the saint; the growth of the abbey; the prophecy of its coming destruction; his death, the fragrance of odours, the burial, and the various cures afterwards. #

29. Moreover the signs and miracles done through him were manifold — in the blind and the lame and the weak, and in those possessed by the devil, and also in those who had lost their senses by a tempest of evil humours — who were brought to him from far and near parts; and they were all healed through him, because the power of God was in him. For the same servant of God lived among his own as a hermit — which life is the root of the monastic life, because the men of that conversation, wholly withdrawn from the world, live in solitude with the praise of angels; and their life is so laborious that very many could not sustain it for frailty of body as well as of mind, if they should enter upon it improvidently and suddenly. In this strictness the blessed Father himself living strengthened his subjects to every good work by doctrine and example, as a man who makes a burning fire burn more — and they neither sought nor wished for another master while he lived, especially since by his precept they had among themselves those who should direct them to the rightness of their manner of life without offence and murmuring.

30. Now the habit of monastic religion which his congregation used he had not taken; for he had indulged to his subjects a milder manner of life according to the rule of blessed Benedict than he himself had — and this he did lest, if he were like them in habit yet not in the hardness of his own [life] in vigils… nor in this did he seek any… In the office of the altar also, from the time he was expelled from his see until… according to the custom of the poor which pertained to the same place…

31. …a long and broad circuit was established, they offered the sweetest odour and rumour of their conversation — whatever they had of lands and substance, or hoped to have left over, they offered to the holy and blessed Disibod without any retraction, and built little farms in the aforementioned wood here and there for their use.

32. And when the saint of God had now laboured long there, and when the powers of his body had almost failed through excessive labours, he foretold to his sons, trembling in spirit, that in such prosperity and security as they had for a time come to without offence, they could not always endure; but that they would suffer many and great pressures and tribulations — because the devil, whom they had often derided in great confusion by living well, would labour with the utmost zeal to disturb them also and their posterity in the great derision which he strove to make among the people. Yet he consoled them piously and abundantly, saying: “I, in the sighs and grief of my heart, have laboured hitherto with great desire that I might not see your tribulation while I live in this world — which also I trust in the Lord will so be done. But know that after my death, which will press more swiftly — since the powers of my body are already failing — and after the tribulations which you shall suffer, your latest times shall be better and more prosperous than the former; so that in all things necessary for soul and body you and your posterity shall then abound more than while I lived.”

33. When they heard these words they wailed with great grief and tears, since they understood that his end was at hand. And this rumour went out among the people and stirred many to see him; from which they also heard him and commended themselves to his prayers and sanctity — to whom he, giving warnings of salvation and words of blessing, commended also his sons and the place given to him; and that they might fix this more attentively in their hearts, he did not hide from them that his end was at hand. Then they, hearing that the term of his life was at hand, gave many groans with mournful voice, and as long as he lived visited him more often than was their custom. But how he knew his end he opened to none, except certain few religious men who knew almost all his secrets — to whom he had also said that it had been manifested to him by an angelic showing; and this he hid from the rest, since he concealed all his works as much as he could, lest they be in praise of men(?).

34. And when he had faithfully served God for thirty years on the aforementioned mount, and had supplied to his brethren all the necessaries of the present life in full — wearied now more by labour than by age — he began to sicken, because the powers of his body had wholly failed; and, all the brethren being called together, he named a Father to them, whom — they then for the first time asking it while he yet lived — he set over them, and to whom he committed all things; since in times past he had refused that a Father be set over himself, because they had ever followed the same saint as their Father. And he also showed them the place of his burial, and commanded that they should bury him in the humble shelter of his oratory, in which he had served God alone — which they, weeping, promised so to fulfil in great grief. And sorrowing, they recounted one by one all his good works and doctrine, and wailing bitterly cried: “Alas! alas! what shall become of us when we lose you, the defender and consoler of our bodies and souls?” And as the thirsty hart desires the fountains of water, so they desired to have him longer — which before, for the joy they often had with him, they had not sought to fix in their hearts.

35. At last, the pain growing heavier, the brethren being again called together, he made known to them, as he could, that his end pressed; and after many labours and many tribulations, in the eighty-first year of his age, on the eighth Ides of July [8 July], he received the term of the present life and rendered his spirit to the Lord, whom he had faithfully served, while they stood by. At his departing there at once followed the sweetest odour of balsam, and as it were the odour of myrrh and frankincense and of all aromatics; and very many signs were there done. And through all that province the report flew most swiftly that blessed Disibod had migrated from this life; from which a great multitude of men, hastening to his funeral, desired both to be present at his burial and to see the signs which God did there. And the sweetest odour which had appeared at his departing lasted about his sepulchre until the thirtieth day after his departure — in which days also seven men possessed by malign spirits, thirty lame also, and many blind and deaf, and very many others wearied with various languors, touching his sepulchre, were truly healed through the grace of God.

36. And because these signs were many, and because the men of that time used to have signs, they fixed them the more arrogantly in their hearts(?). And the people seeing this said: “God has shown us greater signs and more miracles after this blessed one’s death than while he lived; therefore we also trust that by his merits we shall be delivered from all our perils.” But because of these signs, which were then done there and afterwards done there in all things through the grace of God, many rejoiced more and more negligently than they ought — therefore God withdrew them for their correction. For the Holy Spirit does not will that a man should glory in the miracles done by Him, but that with fearful praise the glory be attributed to Him alone who has the power of doing them. For God so distinguishes the works of His saints as He also constituted creatures — namely, that to some He grants good works and sanctity without signs, and to others He attributes good works and also great miracles; and to others He gives by His grace that through their good examples many may be converted to Him — even as He discerns the sun for the day and the moon and stars for the night in their seasons.

37. He has also filled the whole circle of the earth with birds and reptiles and the other growing animals, so that it is in no wise void in any necessity; from which also it admonishes everything to its offices in that monastery which pertains to man(?). For each several creature is multiplied in its kind, as God commanded it in the first constitution; but that which is irrational succours man by ministering, since the householder who is man cannot rule his house without help and ministry. But God made man alone to live of a reasonable and living soul; therefore his breath fails not, as the boughs of a tree fail not, because God poured knowledge into him — so that thinking what he wills he utters, and what he has in mind he afterwards multiplies with crying voice and reasonable word, as leaves also are multiplied on a tree.

38. But the irrational creature has not the knowledge of reason, and is therefore windy and passes away; but man, being reasonable, through knowledge recognises utility and loves it and draws it to himself, and in the same knowledge sees what is evil and hurtful, and fears it and flees it and keeps himself from it. And in these two — fear namely and love, which he has in the knowledge of good and evil — he guides himself everywhere, as also a bird flies with two wings. For he alone is formed to the image and likeness of God, since God created him to work according to Himself; from where where his conscience lifts itself to the good, there through the grace of the Holy Spirit help comes to meet him. In this distinction, as aforementioned, God placed all creatures; and because He made man to His image and likeness, therefore He gave him full knowledge above every mortal creature.

39. And since his flesh has an end and a defect, therefore his soul can only have the power to perfect good from Him who is without end. Now those who have persevered in good to the end ascend to God in heaven, and there the cherubim reckon up all their good works before the throne of God; and then the face of God looks upon them as upon purest gold and upon most precious and noblest stones. Therefore all the heavenly harmony sings a new canticle over them; and so the Holy Spirit ever makes new things in the works of the saints. But those who have persevered in evil imitate the lost angels who fell from the glory of heaven for their wickedness; and so through squalid vanities they lose the reward of eternal life.

40. For God poured into man the full knowledge of reason, as aforementioned, because He foresaw also that man through it could overcome the devil — since man through good knowledge knows evil, and through evil knows good; and therefore with most victorious war he fights against that same ancient enemy, that he may conquer him and possess the place which he lost — which he could in no wise do unless he had full knowledge; since what man knows by cognisance, from this he can scarce contain himself but that he sometimes turns himself to it by choice. But if dark shadows have ascended into the heart of man so that man savours in his flesh that he can sin, and if he then chooses sin and perseveres in it impenitent, he shall be made like to him who departed from the brightness of light that he might fulfil the desires of his own shadowy property — on account of which the pains of hell arose.

41. But the blessed man desires to do what he does not savour in his flesh, and asks help from the Holy Spirit that he may look into the mirror of sanctity. And as a man considers his face in a mirror, in which nevertheless he is not, and amends as far as he can what he sees unworthy there — so the blessed man desires through faith to work good works in this way, to the confusion of the devil, against his flesh; and what the flesh does not dictate to him, that he works. And so, overcoming himself with his desires in the hardest and strongest wars, he shall possess the charity which the lost angels had. For God so constituted creatures that man may complete his works with them; from which He has also imbued certain men in this way, that they build holy edifices and gather others to serve God — whom nevertheless God very often, according to His pleasures, permits many and various vicissitudes to touch; which He tolerates, yet does not at once send His vengeance upon them. But where the Holy Spirit builds in edifices and in men — even if they have lived negligently in sins — if anyone there by contumacy makes destruction for his perversity, the fire of the Holy Spirit speedily burns him in zeal and in judgement.

Notes: (a) From this it is plain that St Disibod was neither a monk of the order of St Benedict nor an abbot, as we have noted more than once above. (b) Hence it need not seem wonderful if Rabanus did not know that he was a bishop. (c) Of these things see what was said in the commentary. (d) The sense of these words has already been rendered as cut in the aforementioned icon: “In the humble place of the oratory, where I served God alone, bury me.” (e) These were rendered thus: “O Father! what shall it be when we lose you as shepherd?” (f) The writer means, I think, that the miracles were so frequent that men exulted over-insolently in them and gradually thought little of them, as is sufficiently gathered from what follows. (g) Where this long digression tends, or why it was brought in here — I am mistaken if anyone has sufficiently discerned.

Chapter Four — The dispersal and return of the brethren; the translation of the sacred body by St Boniface; the ruin of the monastery, and its fortunes and vicissitudes. #

42. …they fled upon it with great haste before it was occupied by enemies, against the will of the brethren serving God there; and fortifying it with strong walls they made dwellings in it, trusting that both through the merits of blessed Disibod and through the fortifications of the same mount they would be delivered from the cruel tyranny.

43. But on account of the multitude and restlessness of those men who had occupied the mount, the congregation of brethren serving God there could not remain in quiet nor serve God in rightness; and therefore by the counsel and request of the same princes and men those brethren divided themselves into far regions (for they promised them that after those tribulations and labours they would bring them back honourably) — except certain few and perfect men who betook themselves to the tomb of the blessed man, their patron, that they might keep it in honour, who also were of such perfection that they cared nothing either for the world or for their life. Now the aforementioned affliction did not last for many periods of years, but this province was liberated from the tyranny of the invading enemies by God’s help. Which being done, those who had occupied the same mount, remembering their promise and beholding also the fear of God, sought out the brethren of the aforementioned congregation wherever they could, and brought them back with great honour, and gave them all that they had there gathered and there built, with greater possessions and ampler allods than they had had before.

44. From where it happened that, according to the words of blessed Disibod which he had foretold while living, their latest times became after his death and after their tribulations better and more prosperous than they had been before — so that even from far regions very many, spiritual as well as secular, came there and sought and received counsels and helps both for souls and for bodies from them. But God purged those blessed men for their negligences as often as it was fitting — as He also did then when they rejoiced over the signs and miracles done through the merits of the aforementioned holy Father more and more negligently than they ought; from which also they did not appear henceforth in such frequency as they had been custom before. But where the works of the Holy Spirit are seen and recognised and yet are turned into a display, there the same Holy Spirit examined that same offence with judicial penalty to the uttermost farthing.

45. And when signs and miracles at the sepulchre of this blessed Father had ceased to be done — though his posterity religiously kept his transit to God for many years — at last they, sighing and groaning within themselves, by divine prompting remembered that God had withdrawn His hand in prodigies for their past sins, and that they had not amended. And they said to one another: “What are we doing, torpid in negligence, that we do not venerate this saint, when God has done very many miracles and good things for us on account of his merits?” …the elders and wise men of the same province approaching, and taking counsel of them…

46. …with the consent and authority of Boniface, bishop of the see of Mainz, they fixed a time and day on which they should raise the bones of blessed Disibod, and they published that day through all the people of that land. And when the appointed day had come and a multitude of the people had run together, the aforementioned bishop being present, they approached the sepulchre of the holy man and with great veneration took up his bones and ashes; and they transferred them from the shelter of the oratory where they had been entombed into the monastery built almost toward the west of the same mount, with praises of hymns and great cries of the peoples, after very many years since his migration to the Lord, and honourably laid them in the place prepared for this.

47. But God, who knows hidden things, again manifested the merits of His saint there — so that on the same day, while these things were being done, a certain dropsical man and other sick persons afflicted with various infirmities were healed; and, what is more remarkable, the sweetest odour which had appeared at his passing appeared again with wonderful fragrance that whole day. From where it happened that the people of that province afterwards frequented both the annual day on which these things were done and the day of his migration to the Lord, coming to his sepulchre with great veneration of prayers and oblations. And so the brethren of the aforementioned congregation lived in peace for very many years, and served God and blessed Disibod without offence in quiet — so that the people greatly loved and blessed them and stood by them everywhere with help and with their goods; and therefore they became rich in money and in many possessions.

48. At last, very many courses of very many years and kings being past, the greatest wars arose again with the provincials of the aforementioned region. Therefore the elders, with the princes of the same land, approaching the emperor — namely Charlemagne, who at that time had taken up the Roman empire — said that it was not fitting that those who ought to serve the spirit and not the flesh, God and not the world, should possess the riches and pomps of the world in superfluity, as those did who were on Mount St Disibod, while they themselves, oppressed by wars and straits, had not riches and resources from which they might serve the kingdom and profit themselves. The emperor wisely received their words and wisely dissembled, saying that he would by no means withdraw from those brethren either their allods or the other resources which the faithful had conferred on them. Having received this answer they restrained themselves from their begun intention.

49. When therefore this emperor had died, and very many other times succeeding one another had passed, again a tyranny of cruel wars arose which grew so strong in cruelty that even certain cities adjacent to the Rhine were destroyed by those same oppressions. Therefore the nobles of the aforementioned province, who were of the progeny of the aforementioned princes — the bishop of the see of Mainz being joined to them — themselves also approached the emperor who then held the empire and made the aforementioned complaint, crying more bitterly, saying that they had no store of resources from which they might serve the empire and defend their life, since those who lived on Mount St Disibod possessed their allods and their parents’ — and that they knew not from which this was. Which the same emperor having heard, he gave assent; and the other princes and judges being convoked, he willingly enquired as it were under judgement by what tradition and confirmation the possessions of allods so far and wide had been conferred on the brethren.

50. But they, understanding the emperor, and blinded by envy and malice, produced many false and unjustly composed testimonies, and said that the aforementioned brethren held those possessions — which they had possessed for very many times without complaint — unjustly and without imperial sentence and concession. Therefore by the judgement of judges unjustly judging, an imperial sentence being given and licence accepted from the same emperor, the proclaimers of the aforementioned complaint, together with the aforementioned bishop who was the chief author of this invasion, disturbed the possessions and allods pertaining to the Mount of blessed Disibod and the boundary of the same mount — divine vengeance permitting — with the cruellest invasion and abstraction. By which persecution and vexation the brethren dwelling there, troubled and dismayed and wholly stripped and terrified by the horror of the pressing wars, left the same mount wailing with great lamentation and betook themselves to alien places wherever they could.

51. And lest they should have hope of returning, their dwellings were even razed to the ground by the aforementioned invaders as they departed — except the sanctified place in which the bones of the aforementioned saint had been entombed after his translation. But lest the same place should remain wholly desolate of the divine office, those who were the authors of this destruction set one priest there who should rule the people dwelling near — to whom they assigned food and clothing, scarcely sufficient, out of the revenues pertaining to the same place; and so this place long remained in desolation of this kind. At last, after many courses of years, a certain pious and noble man, count of the aforementioned province, Liuthard by name, devoted indeed to the world and surrounded with very many riches, seeing the aforementioned high and fair mount desolate, was pricked by divine grace and sighed; and for the glory of the holy Trinity and in memory of St Disibod, disposing that three priests should serve God there, endowed them out of his own substance with sufficient necessaries of the present life.

52. And afterwards also, certain other years being revolved, a certain archbishop of the see of Mainz — pious, humble and contrite in heart — ascending the same mount and suppliantly bowing his knees at the tomb of blessed Disibod, bitterly grieved that he had been made great and rich out of the possessions unjustly taken from the same saint; and making a vow to God, he disposed twelve canons after the number of the apostles, to serve God and the aforementioned patron there day and night — to whom also he caused to be resigned, as far as he could, the allods pertaining to the same place. And so the divine purgation gradually withdrew its scourges somewhat, but had not yet perfected this in full. Accordingly, when it then pleased the Holy Spirit in His secret counsel, He inspired a certain man prudent in worldly affairs who also presided over the see of Mainz, and made him thirst that the often-named place should recover the splendour which it had received at its first rising. For he did as a prudent householder who divides his substance among his sons with charity: the canons remaining on the aforementioned mount he kindly settled in other places suitable to them, and religious men who should live in great discipline according to the rule of blessed Benedict, and in whom all good should be perfected by holy living, he restored there. Which being done, he looked upon them in the embrace of his heart — and as a blessed man in largess, he ministered to them alms of the substance and of the substance which he possessed, as far as he could. And so this congregation suffered very many scourges then and afterwards by divine permission — as they who were there before often suffered, and as it often happens now to those dwelling there in the scourges of God, and as it will be afterwards when the same dwellers there shall have deserved it. Now very many foolish fabulations concerning all the aforementioned causes run and are told among the people through the varieties of many vicissitudes, which the Holy Spirit does not gather; and therefore they are scattered like stubble. But these things which have been set forth were manifested through the Holy Spirit, to the glory of His name and to the memory of the aforementioned patron, and for the correction of men hearing them, by true revelation — from where neither is anything to be added to them from former opinions, lest the words of Him who Is be turned to mockery.

53. Therefore it is also to be considered what God has wrought in men from the first man until now. For when Adam first fell, he became a pilgrim out of paradise; and because he fell through a vile creature, therefore God willed that creatures should be offered to him, as an infant is first nourished with milk. But afterwards he offered sacrifice, and opened the mouth of man to the food of justice, as a boy also is fed. But when the same Son of God ascended into the heavens, He filled men with the fire of the Holy Spirit and taught them to fight with vices and concupiscences, and so to sacrifice themselves to God — so that men also do according to those who have left themselves and the world for the love of God; and as others also are studious to do, who in the ardent desire of the saints have chosen to live in strong harmony, as man takes his food… as the Son of God put on humanity, offering Himself to the Father… He shall fully appear to His faithful ones, and then the ancient enemy shall be confounded in full, because he shall be able to profit neither himself nor others, nor to give glory to any. These words true Wisdom set forth; but I, a poor little woman, lying on the bed of my sickness, saw and heard all these things, and began and finished to write them; but God has power to raise me from my bed if it shall please Him. Amen.

Notes: (a) Of this first migration of the monks from their mount, here confusedly described, and likewise of the other vicissitudes that followed, enough was said in the first paragraph of the commentary; likewise of the elevation of the sacred body by St Boniface and the other translations — so that it is useless to heap up more annotations here. (b) St Hildegard here expressly notes a double festival; but, what is to be wondered at, she does not mark the day on which that first elevation was made or is celebrated.

Miracles #

From a parchment passional of the abbey of Böddeken, of Canons Regular of St Augustine, in the diocese of Paderborn. #

1. In the village of Studernheim there was a certain woman very poor in substance, who had lovingly reared an only daughter — not with opulence of things but after the wonted manner of mothers, who, loving tenderly, fix their whole soul upon an only child. When she had reached the age at which she could be under the bond of matrimony, she was struck by a sudden calamity of misfortune, afflicted with the calamitous trouble of gout — so that not only did she go lame on her foot, but with her hips adhering, she could in no wise enjoy the use of walking, unless she were held up by the forked support of a crutch. This evil therefore troubled the mother for the daughter with exceeding grief, and she was straitened with such misery of bitterness that it would scarce be discerned which was punished with the heavier pain: for the daughter bore the wounds of the deadly passion patiently, but the mother was immoderately ulcerated by the sword of grief raging within. After this storm of mourning had beaten upon her for a length of time, at last — those who pave the thresholds of the saints especially seeking the asylum of the blessed confessor of Christ Disibod, that they might merit to be sheltered by his merits in the harbour of desired health — she fixed a sound resolve of mind and went there with her; and there, wetting the very pavements with the most abundant effusion of tears, they prayed that they might deserve to be placed as in a port. When the vigils had been consummated, at the approach of slumbrous night they returned by the retraced path. Then sleep rushed upon them, which on the mother’s part… The most holy man, crowned with a gleaming stole, seemed to stand by the girl, and first to touch the place of the pain and at last to unknot the bonds of the inflicted suffering. Roused by this vision, she secretly called her mother and, addressing her with soothing words, carefully explained what she had seen and how she had been made whole. Who then could conceive how great and of what kind was the gladness that arose, when the mother saw her daughter unburdened of the whole load of sickness? I think indeed that equal joy and exultation entered her mind, as if the life-giving spirit had anew supplied all the parts of a dead body for its animation. Wavering then between hope and fear, a foolish notion stole into her unsavoury mind — whether she should disclose the deed or shade it with the silence of taciturnity: for on the one hand she feared to be convicted of lying, on the other to deserve punishment. Suspended in this anxiety she had little care what she should do, for no sure reason showed the way of keeping silence. When morning came, therefore, report shook off the silence; and not only did this rumour resound through the neighbouring houses, but it filled the assemblies of the law-courts all round about with manifold joy, and all who had heard praised the Saviour’s clemency in the merits of the blessed confessor and excellent bishop.

2. A certain girl was so miserably contracted by the disease of paralysis that she enjoyed the office of almost no member; but there remained in her at last the rare faculty of speaking and a slight spark of seeing in her eyes — the other sinews being wholly enervated and unfitted for human use, so that whatever natural need required, her parents’ diligent care used to supply. Hence the parents, ulcerated by grave solicitude and sadness, knew not what they should do. At last a good plan occurred, as it seemed: that the suffrages of the saints should be sought, by whose patronage they hoped their daughter could be relieved from her infirmity and restored to her former health. Without delay they sought the asylum of blessed Disibod with most humble devotion, took their daughter with them, and placed her beside his sepulchre — not at all doubting that the hoped-for health would immediately be at hand through the blessed man’s succouring merits, according to God’s mercy. Already a little time had passed, and suddenly the girl, crying out, called her parents; and spreading her hands to heaven she tried to rise, and with her strength recovered stood upon her feet, and with staggering steps tried to walk as though upon another’s soles. And the parents, seeing the miracle, were suffused with a shower of tears for joy, the more exhilarated because they saw their daughter, whom they had brought as it were dissolved limb by limb, walking with firm steps and health recovered; and they poured forth inexhaustible praises to almighty God in the most glorious merits of blessed Disibod, by whose patronage it was granted them to carry back the sheaves of exultation. Afterwards we saw her as a recluse for thirty years, and we observed in her an unaccustomed abstinence: for she not only abstained from flesh, but took care not knowingly to take crumbs of bread for food. If anyone mixed a little flour into the foods by which she was nourished, as a test, she could not digest it without grave pain.

3. Among the noted miracles which the God of hosts wrought for blessed Disibod’s merits, there occurs another like this miracle which we have tasted, to be commended to the memory of our most eager and of all the faithful. In the village near the mount which is named Berwitere, a certain girl was held by the dire sickness of paralysis — so loosened in all the structure of her limbs that she was thought a useless corpse; and because she was dead on every side and palpitated only with breath, her friends’ diligence alone provided the necessaries of life. Her parents, wearied by long labour and administering all necessaries zealously, at last began to languish for weariness, and preferred that she had already yielded to nature rather than that she had lived so miserably — lest they be wearied longer with such labour. And when they had long grieved that they saw her able neither to live in full health nor to die by a certain end, they hastened to the suffrages of blessed Disibod together with their daughter; and there sowing the seeds of prayers with tears, they did not doubt they would reap the desired joy. While they tarried there a little time, see, the desired health was at hand, which relieved the girl, long tortured by grief, of all infirmity, and drew the cloud of sadness from her parents’ hearts. Indeed the tongue long bound is spread abroad; the misted eyes are cleared in bright light; the hardened ears are unclosed; the enervated hands are restored to health; the feet are made firm in natural step — and so the whole helplessness of the members, divinely procured, returned to full health through the glorious merits of the holy Father. And the girl’s kinsfolk and the crowd standing by, seeing the corpse they had brought strengthless marvellously reformed to a natural mass, resounded magnificent praises to the King of heaven, without ceasing venerating the blessed man’s merits, who made them return the more joyful.

4. A certain man reared in the aforementioned village and known to the same girl is said to have been afflicted with a double cause — namely with want of necessaries (without which even the just are not nourished) and with weakness of the limbs (which often brings reward to those who bear it, because whom the Lord loves with fatherly affection He chastens, and He scourges every son whom He receives). He, hearing the fame of the blessed man’s powers, did not prolong the space of tarrying but went to the place speedily; and entering the temple he poured out tearful prayers to the Lord, and what he had in vow and hope he obtained through the patronage of the servant of God. On the same day, since it was Good Friday, no small multitude had come together from the neighbouring fields, which after the wonted manner desired to be expiated from the stains of lesser faults by confession and penance, that on the holy day of Easter they might receive the Eucharist the more purely. But he, when he saw the people approaching to salute the Cross with humble devotion, was at once prostrated on the ground; and, his knees bent, he rolled himself forward as he could, and having obtained pardon, as he arranged to go back half-footed, at once the wood bound to his ham, that he might walk more easily, fell off — and in the people’s sight he appeared sound.

5. Among the other powers of the blessed man which the hand of the Lord wrought through his merits, a noble deed comes back to memory, to be admired through all past ages; and since we ourselves saw it, we have judged it wicked to cover it with the colour of silence — the more so because it seems to be enough that the deeds of the saints are often ruminated, rather than, their savour being first tasted, that they be despised in oblivion. When the celebrated solemnity of the natal feast of our blessed Father Disibod returned, a very great multitude of both sexes flowed together for the feast-day after the wonted manner, from the far parts of the adjacent provinces — some for prayer, some for receiving health or for any other business. Among these companies was brought a poor little girl whom the disease of dropsy had afflicted with so grave a pain that she could scarce walk. And as the sun was verging to its setting, she was uncertain where she should turn or what place especially of hospitality she should approach, since the dwellers in the place were unknown to her and the nearer villages were far distant — so that if she set her mind to seek them, perhaps the steep way would hinder, and the weakness of her body, and the darkness of the opaque night. What she should do, however, she knew not; yet having received…

[Here the miracles break off; the file passes into the commentary of the next article, on St Kilian of Würzburg — concerning which Nicolaus Serarius deserves well, says Canisius, whose historical and dogmatic notes to Surius’s life (1598) treat the origins, name and cause of the city of Würzburg.]