¹ Blessed Foillan, born in Ireland of royal stock, ennobled the nobility of his birth with the exceeding nobility of his mind. For from his very boyhood years he gave himself wholly to divine service. And grown in the increase of age and probity, while he passed unblemished through the present life, he showed himself in all things an example of good works. For he, when the patriarch Abraham heard the voice of the Lord, “go out of your land and from your kindred,” as an imitator of his faith and work gladly obeyed. He left therefore his kindred and country, so that, as a son of Abraham, he might inherit the land of promise — the land, I say, of the living. Of which he held as it were the firmest pledge, when, raised to the pontifical honour, he obtained with the blessed apostle Peter the grace of binding and loosing.

² For in the times of Sigebert king of the Franks, when Grimoald was mayor of the palace and Herkenwald as it were patrician, after the death of his brother Fursey — who, coming into France long ago according to angelic revelation, shining with illustrious virtues, was received with great honour by the same Erkenwald, and likewise honourably buried — he himself, with Ultan, the elder brother of them both, as his companion, went to France for the sake of pilgrimage. And when they had wandered through very many places evangelising, at last, the Lord leading, they obtained the fellowship of the matron Itta, then most noble of that time, and of her daughter the most holy Gertrude. And so the blessed bishop Foillan, made the companion of Saint Gertrude, continually planted in minds the sweetness of the service of faith and of charity.

³ And the holy virgin, recognising the holiness both of him and of his brother Ultan, offered to God through their hands a part of her inheritance — namely the villa which they call Fosses — that they might build a monastery for a perpetual hospice of pilgrims. The monastery being built, Ultan sat in it as rector, while Foillan gave himself to the service of the blessed virgin. And when he had passed a very great time in it, and had striven to raise the devout minds of the faithful to the height of the virtues and to spur them to the summit of perfection, when he had resolved to visit his brother Ultan and the brothers dwelling in the monastery, celebrating the solemnities of the masses and bidding farewell to the virgin Gertrude and the brothers and nuns, commending himself to their prayers, by a certain perspicacity of mind he earnestly commended to them the burial of his body.

⁴ And taking with him three brothers, while, unknowing the way, he went through a certain forest, there came a certain minister of the devil, who feigning the false humanity of hospitality prepared death for them. Nor could the deceitful device of Satan’s satellite be hidden from the man full of the Holy Spirit. And so, having his mind prepared for all adversities, keeping the night as was his custom in spiritual songs — in which, devoted to God alone night and day, he never ceased — he awaited the outcome of the matter unterrified, commending himself and his companions to divine mercy. After the completion of matins therefore, when the holy man saw his fellow-soldiers afraid, comforting them he said: “Do not, I beg you, my brothers, be troubled, do not be shaken with the dread of death: these things indeed must happen, we must stand before the tribunal of Christ. Remember, dearest sons, the Lord’s words, ‘do not,’ you say, ‘fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul.’ But if our time has drawn near and therefore the Lord now by His just judgment, though hidden from us, has delivered us into the hands of the wicked, praising Him in whom there is no wickedness, since He is just in all His ways, in the words of those who for His testament delivered their bodies to death, let us say, humble and unterrified: ‘Let us also die in our simplicity, and heaven and earth will be witnesses over you that you destroy us unjustly.’ For why should we, useless servants, dread to enter the way of death, without which no passage to the true life can be made, since we truly believe that God and our Lord Himself underwent it? Rather, blessing Him, let us ponder with attentive mind that saying of the apostle: ’the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the future glory which shall be revealed in us.’” And when he had consoled the holy brothers with the Lord’s words, the same satellite of the devil, now no longer a host but an enemy, not surrounded by much soldiery but full of many demons, beheaded the holy bishop with his companions; and seeking the hidden places of the woods, they left the bodies of the saints in a most vile place, and sold the vestments and horses of the saints in distant parts. And Foillan, God’s martyr, departed to the Lord on the day before the kalends of November.

⁵ But the virgin Gertrude, wondering at the man’s so great delay, sent messengers to the monastery to which the holy man had set out: to whom the man of God Ultan, the holy bishop’s brother, sent back such words: “Your perspicacious industry,” he said, “most prudent virgin, will see what the sign shown to me in this manner — not without the cause of a certain presage — may portend. For while I stood intent in prayers, a dove seemed to be present above me, white as snow, but with wings suffused with tawny and rosy blood, and ascending the heights in gentle flight. What these things signify, let your sagacity look into, blessed virgin; for of my dear brother’s presence no other tokens are disclosed.” Hearing these things, she at once sent messengers everywhere, who brought back responses of no certainty. But she, a three-day fast of all the brothers and nuns being enjoined, afflicted herself more than all with hunger, and pressed on in assiduous prayer, that certain tokens concerning her teacher and instructor might be given her by God. And now, after the solemnities of the vigils, an angel sent from God stood by her, saying: “Virgin Gertrude, devoted to God, He whom you piously worship has seen your tears, has received your prayers. Foillan, the faithful servant of the Lord, concerning whom you are anxious, whom He willed to be the minister of your salvation and of the grace to be increased, having faithfully discharged the office committed to him, has run the course of temporal life by a happy martyrdom, and has merited the prize of everlasting life. Going out therefore, attend diligently to the sign shown you through me, and in the place where you see the sign, you will find the body of God’s servant.”

⁶ The virgin going out at once, there was shown to her a crown of greatest splendour over the bodies of the saints, stretched from earth to heaven. Their bodies therefore being found in that place, on the seventy-eighth day after their martyrdom — which is the seventeenth kalends of February, on which blessed Fursey, his brother, also made an end of this life — it happened at that time that Grimoald, who was mayor of the palace, and Dido, bishop of Poitiers, were staying in those parts. And when for the sake of praying they frequented the saints’ thresholds, on that day when the bodies of blessed Foillan and his companions were to be carried for burial, the same bishop, after the offices of the vigils had given his limbs to sleep, received a command concerning the burial-rites of the body of the prophet Elijah. Rising, he heard the voices of those singing psalms and praising God together. And inquiring what this was, he learned that they were ministering at the funeral rites of the men of God, and so understood what had been commanded him concerning the body of the prophet Elijah. And his body was buried with the greatest honour in the monastery which his brother Ultan built upon the river called Berwina, and which from the name of the place is called Fosses. Where to this day, to declare the merit of the holy martyr, through the intervention of his prayer the prayers of the humble are heard, and the desires of those faithfully asking are fulfilled.

An account. #

¹ A certain old man, sitting in his cell and enduring temptations, saw demons manifestly, and despised them. But when the devil saw that he was overcome by the old man, he came and showed himself to him, saying: “I am Christ.” But the old man, seeing him, closed his eyes. And the devil said to him: “I am Christ: why have you closed your eyes?” The old man answered: “I do not wish to see Christ here, but in the other life.” And hearing this, the devil did not appear again.

² A certain old man persevered in fasting for seventy weeks, taking refreshment once a week. He asked of God a certain saying of the holy scriptures, and God did not reveal it to him. He said therefore within himself: “See, I have taken so much labour and profited nothing: I will go therefore to my brother, and ask him.” And when he had gone out and closed his door to depart, an angel was sent to him, saying: “The seventy weeks in which you fasted did not bring you near to God: but now, when you humbled yourself to go to your brother, I am sent to tell you the saying.” And opening to him the matter which he sought, the angel departed from him.