Life of St Severinus 1 part 1/4

The letter of Eugippius to Paschasius. To the holy and venerable lord Paschasius the deacon, Eugippius sends greeting in Christ. About two years ago, namely in the consulship of Importunus, a letter of a certain noble layman, addressed to a certain presbyter, was offered to us to read, containing the life of Bassus the monk, who once dwelt in a monastery on a mountain whose name is Titas, above Ariminum, and afterward died in the region of Lucania, a man very well known both to many and to me. When I learned that this letter was being copied out by certain persons, I began to ponder within myself, and also to declare to religious men, that miracles celebrated through blessed Severinus by so many divine effects ought not to be concealed.

When the author of the aforesaid letter had learned of this, with a ready mind he charged that there be sent to him by my hand some accounts of the same holy Severinus, so that, being thus furnished, he might write a little book of his life that would be of profit to the memory of posterity.

Constrained at once by this request, I composed a memorandum filled with not a few accounts, drawn from the report most well known to us and daily related by our elders, not without great sorrow of mind, deeming it unjust, namely, that while you survive, a layman should be asked by us to perform this work, upon whom the measure and color of the work might be enjoined not without a certain presumption, lest perchance, being polished only with secular learning, he might write the life in such language that the ignorance of many would labor exceedingly over it, and the marvelous deeds, which long lay hidden in a certain night of silence, would not, as far as concerns us who are unskilled in the liberal arts, shine forth through obscure eloquence. But by no means shall I seek you out, you who are as a sun shining bright, beyond the little flame of that lamp;

only do not veil from me the rays of your skill with some cloud of excuse, namely by accusing your own lack of skill. Do not, I beseech you, lash me with such harsh words, while you say: 'Why do you expect waters from a flint?' I no longer indeed expect them from the flint of a secular pavement, but from you, who, comparing spiritual things with spiritual, will refresh us from that most firm rock with the honey of prayer that flows from you: of which, even now directing a nectar-like taste of your most sweet promise, you bid me to transmit the memorandum and the accounts of the life of the oft-named holy Severinus; which, until they may deserve to pass over into the little book of your composition, may by no means offend the mind of one who reviews them. For whoever

who requires an architect for building a house, carefully prepares the necessary material. But if, while the craftsman delays, he should heap up a wall in the likeness of a mass with unpolished stones, is he to be said to have built, where no construction of the master at all has intervened, and no fortification of a foundation is duly laid down? So I too, scarcely preparing precious material for your genius by a most lowly arrangement, ought I to be thought to have written what I desire, where there exists no construction of liberal discipline, no adornment of grammatical eminence?

It has plainly a sure foundation, that of faith alone, by which it is established that the holy man shone with wondrous virtues; this I now hand over through the hands of your tongue to be set in place, intending to render to Christ the praises due from the summit of your work. Those benefits also of virtues and remedies of healings, I pray, which were accomplished by divine power either on the journey or here at the shrine of the same most blessed father, deign to append:

which, since the faithful bearer, your son Deogratias, knows them very well, we have commended to be made known by word of mouth, hoping that we shall continually speak of the name of our carrier even through the completion of your work, so that the most faithful servant of God, rich in such great virtues, just as he is exalted to the glory of the saints by his own merits through the grace of Christ, so may be consecrated to human memory by your writings. Indeed the homeland from which he came is perhaps necessarily inquired of us, whence, as is the custom, the beginning of weaving anyone's life may be taken. Of this, although I confess that I have no clear documentary evidence, nevertheless what I have come to know about this from my earliest age I shall not pass over in silence.

For when many priests and spiritual men, and also noble and religious laymen, whether natives or those flocking to him from distant regions, often hesitated, asking among themselves of what nation that man was whom they beheld shining with such great virtues, and none at all dared to inquire of him, at length a certain Primenius, a noble presbyter of Italy and a man of full authority, who had fled to him at the time when the patrician Orestes was iniquitously slain, fearing his murderers, because it was said that he had been as a father to the slain man, after many days of intimacy thus gained, at last burst forth as if on behalf of all, and inquired thus, saying:

'Holy lord, from what province has God deigned to grant such a light to these regions?' To him the man of God first replied with witty cheerfulness: 'If you think me a fugitive, prepare for yourself a price which you may be able to offer for me when I shall be sought after.' Soon adding such things in earnest: 'What does it profit,' he said, 'the servant of God to indicate his place or lineage, since rather, by keeping silence, he can the more easily avoid boasting—that sinister boasting, as it were—by which, unawares, he desires to accomplish every good work, Christ granting it, that he may merit to become a companion at the right hand and to be enrolled as a citizen of the heavenly homeland? But if you truly know that I, unworthy, desire this, what need is there for you to know the earthly homeland which you seek?

Nevertheless know this, that God, who granted you to become a priest, he himself also commanded me to be present with these men in their peril.' The aforementioned presbyter fell silent at such a reply, nor did anyone, before or afterward, presume to question the blessed man upon this matter. Yet his speech showed him to be a man wholly Latin;

of whom it is established that he had first set out to a certain solitude of the East in the fervor of a more perfect life, and thence afterward had come, compelled by divine revelation, to the towns of Noricum Ripense, neighboring upon Upper Pannonia, which were being oppressed by frequent incursions of the barbarians—as he himself, in veiled speech, was wont to relate as though of some other person, naming several cities of the East and signifying that he had wondrously passed through the perils of an immense journey. These things only, which I have reported, I always heard, even while he himself was yet living, as often as discourse arose concerning the homeland of blessed Severinus. But the accounts of his marvelous life shall be set down, reviewed in the memorandum joined to this letter with chapters prefixed, as I have requested, made clearer by the book of your mastery.

It remains that you do not cease to join your prayers to his, and do not desist from asking pardon for me. The letter of Paschasius to Eugippius. To the holy lord and ever most beloved Eugippius the presbyter, Paschasius the deacon. Most beloved brother in Christ, while you, weighing me by the eloquence of your skill and by the felicity of leisure, disdain to recount the bitternesses and the manifold occupations of sinners, I endure the loss of modesty out of regard for love.

You have sent a memorandum to which the eloquence of the learned could add nothing, and you have unfolded in a brief compendium a work which the whole company of the Church may review, since you have more truly set forth the life and character of blessed Severinus, who dwelt in the borderlands of the provinces of the Pannonians, and have handed down to memory the miracles which divine power wrought through him, to abide for lasting ages; for posterity does not let the deeds of those before them pass away with their age, so that all may hold him as present and may in a certain manner feel him dwelling with them, to whom the narration of the reading has conveyed him. And therefore, because you have uttered these things, which you asked to be narrated by me, more simply, and have unfolded them more easily, we have believed that nothing is to be added by our zeal to your labor:

since indeed we narrate one way the things we have heard, and set forth another way the things we have experienced. More easily are the virtues of masters expounded by disciples, which are more frequently suggested by the daily intercourse of the teachers. Inspired by divine gifts, you know how much of usefulness the deeds of the saints impart to minds to be cultivated unto good, how much fervor they bestow, how much purity they infuse. Concerning which matter the authority of the apostolic voice, becoming more widely known, says: 'Be a pattern to the flock!', and blessed Paul charges Timothy: 'Be a pattern to the faithful.' Whence the same apostle, weaving together a catalogue of the just with the utmost brevity, beginning from Abel, proceeds to narrate the virtues of distinguished men.

So too that most faithful Mattathias, now drawing near to a most glorious death, distributed to his sons by hereditary right the examples of the saints, that, more eminently stirred up by their admirable contests, they might in the fervor of holiness despise their own lives for the everlasting laws. Nor did the paternal instruction deceive his children; for the deeds of the men so mentioned profited so much that, armed with the most manifest faith, they overawed princes, overcame sacrilegious camps, demolished demonic cults and altars far and wide, and, adorned with everlasting garlands of the civic crown, made provision for their splendid homeland.

Whence we too rejoice that by fraternal ministry something is provided for the ornaments of the bride of Christ, not because, as I believe, in any age a more illustrious life of our elders has been lacking, but because it befits the house of the great King to have the standards of very many trophies. For true virtue is not excluded by the multitude of virtues, but is rather enlarged thereby in desired successes. I. How blessed Severinus first shone in the town that was called Asturis, both by the most wholesome exhortation to good works and by the most truthful prediction of things to come. II. Concerning the town whose name was Comagenis, marvelously delivered from enemies through him. III. That, while the inhabitants of the little town of Faviana long labored under famine, God in a wondrous manner came to their aid through his prayer. IV.

Concerning the barbarian robbers, who lost even all their weapons together with the plunder which they had long taken outside the walls of Faviana; or concerning his way of life and his outstanding humility. V. In how great reverence Flaccitheus, king of the Rugi, held him, and how he was delivered from the ambushes of his enemies by an oracle. VI. Concerning the only son of a widow of the aforesaid nation of the Rugi, whom pain had tormented for twelve years, healed by the prayer of the man of God. VII. How Odovacar, while a youth covered with very mean skins, was foretold by him that he would reign. VIII.

That Feletheus, who is also called Feva, king of the Rugi, son of the aforementioned Flaccitheus, out of fear of holy Severinus forbade his most wicked wife to rebaptize the catholics; and what peril she incurred on a certain day concerning her little son Frederic, when she had despised his intercession concerning certain matters. IX. Concerning the bearer of the relics of the holy martyrs Gervasius and Protasius, shown by a marvelous revelation of the man of God; and by what answer, when he was asked, he declined the honor of the episcopate. X. Concerning a certain doorkeeper, forbidden on a certain day to go out anywhere, soon captured by the barbarians and by them humbly restored. XI.

Concerning the miracle which happened in the fortress of Cucullae, where, when candles were kindled by divine power, sacrilegious persons who had first hidden themselves were exposed and corrected. XII. How from the borders of the aforesaid fortress the locusts, by fasting and prayer and almsgiving, with God appeased, were driven away, the crop of a certain poor and unbelieving scorner being marvelously consumed. XIII. How a candle was kindled in the hand of the servant of God as he prayed, when fire, customarily necessary for the office of evening praise, had by no means been found. XIV. Concerning the marvelous healing of a despaired-of woman, who, after a monstrous and long-lasting languor, so recovered by the prayer of the man of God that on the third day she came strong to her work in the field. XV.

How, upon the bearing-posts on the river side that supported the church, which the often-overflowing water used to climb over, the servant of God, praying, carved the sign of the cross with an axe, which sign the water thereafter never at all overpassed. XVI. Concerning the deceased presbyter Silvinus, whose corpse, placed upon the bier, after vigils had been celebrated in the night, soon opened its eyes at the voice of the one calling, begging the servant of God, at whose call he had returned to life, that he might not be deprived any longer of the rest he had experienced. XVII. How solicitous was the care he ministered to the poor; and that even the Norici directed tithes for his distribution, which, being brought according to custom, he foretold that peril threatened those who had delayed to send them. XVIII.

How the mildew, which had appeared as about to harm the harvests, was driven away through the man of God by fastings and prayer. XIX. That Gibuldus, king of the Alamanni, was shaken with great trembling in the presence of the servant of God and gave back a multitude of captives. XX. How the slaughter of soldiers was revealed to him, on account of whose bodies, to be buried, he sent his own men, who knew nothing of it, to the river. XXI. He foretold that the presbyter Paulinus, who had come to him from afar, would soon, on returning to his homeland, be ordained bishop. XXII. That, while the sanctuaries for a new basilica were being sought, he of his own accord foretold that the blessing of holy John the Baptist would be brought to himself, and that a calamity would befall that town in his absence, in which a chattering presbyter was killed in the baptistery.

XXIII. How he received the aforesaid relics. XXIV. Concerning the inhabitants of another town who, having despised the warning of him who had instructed them, were soon slain by the Heruli, because, though forewarned, they refused to leave the place. XXV. How, by letters sent into Noricum, he fortified the strongholds with fastings and almsgivings, so that the irruption of the enemy, which had been foretold, could do them no harm. XXVI. Concerning the leper who was cleansed, and who avoided returning to his own home lest he incur more grievously the leprosy of sin. XXVII. Concerning the victory which the Romans won over the Alamanni among the Batavians through the prayer of Saint Severinus, and how, after the triumph, those who had scorned to follow the one who foretold it were destroyed. XXVIII. How, while the servant of God was ministering to the poor, the oil came to increase.

XXIX. Concerning those to whom, while they were carrying garments from Noricum to be distributed to the needy, a bear in the depth of winter afforded guidance through the snows of the wilderness even to human dwellings; and how the man of God knew by revelation that they were coming with such a guide. XXX. How he foresaw that the enemy would come the following night to the city of Lauriacum, and how he could scarcely persuade the over-confident citizens to keep watch; and how in the morning, finding it proved, they sought pardon for their unbelief with thanksgiving. XXXI. How he went out to meet Feva, king of the Rugii, who was coming to Lauriacum with an army, and received the people under his own protection, that he might lead them down to the lower towns, that is, those nearer to the Rugii. XXXII.

How King Odoacar, asking that something might be hoped for from him, recalled from exile a certain Ambrosius at the letters of the servant of God; and how that same servant of God foretold to those who praised him how many years he was to reign. XXXIII. Concerning the son of one of the nobles of the king of the Rugii, who in the town of Comagenis was healed by the prayer of the man of God. XXXIV. How a certain man afflicted with elephantiasis, named Teio, was cured. XXXV. Concerning the monk Bonosus, who, while he was complaining of weakness of his eyes, heard from him: 'Pray rather that you may see more with your heart'; and who soon wonderfully obtained the gift of praying continually. XXXVI.

Concerning three proud monks whom he delivered over to Satan, that their spirit might be saved; on which matter, by bringing forward examples of two fathers, he gave in its place the truest account. XXXVII. How, by prayer in the presence of the other brethren, he marked the hour of the tribulation of his monks Marcianus and Renatus, which they endured while placed in another province. XXXVIII. Concerning the perils of a deadly pustule, which forty days beforehand he both foretold by revelation would befall the monk Ursus, and cured by prayer. XXXIX. Concerning the dwelling of that same blessed man; and a few things are also briefly indicated about his bed and his food. XL.

How, when he perceived by God's revelation to him that his passing was drawing near, he addressed King Feva and the harmful queen, nor did he cease to forewarn his own people through his pupil, foretelling that a general migration of the people was approaching, and likewise commanding that his own poor body should be carried with them. XLI. How also he made the day of his passing more plainly known to the holy presbyter Lucillus. XLII. How he solemnly charged Ferderuchus, the brother of the aforesaid King Feva, and admonished his own people. XLIII. Concerning his death, and with what admonitions, in a final and lengthy exhortation, the holy man accompanied his own to the end. XLIV.

What things Ferderuchus brought upon the monastery after his departure, and how he was punished; and how far his prophecy was fulfilled by the prosperous migration of the people, and his little body was lifted up and carried away in a cart. XLV. Concerning the healing of many infirm persons at that time, of which, passing over the individual cases, only the restored speech of one mute man is related, given back through prayer beneath the wagon in which his body still lay. XLVI. Concerning the faith of the illustrious lady Barbaria, who received it, and the meeting of the people of Naples, where, though no fewer than many were then healed of various sicknesses by different means, the healing of only three is recorded. I. At the time when Attila, king of the Huns, died, both the Pannonias and the other regions bordering the Danube were disturbed by uncertain affairs.

And first, great contests arose among his sons over the obtaining of the kingdom; for they, puffed up with the disease of dominion, reckoned their father's death to be the occasion of their own wickedness. At that time, therefore, the most holy servant of God, Severinus, coming from the regions of the East, was staying in the vicinity of Noricum Ripense and of the Pannonians, in a small town called Asturis. Living according to the evangelical and apostolic doctrine, endowed with all piety and chastity, he was fulfilling his venerable resolve by holy works in the confession of the catholic faith. While, therefore, strengthened by such exercises, he was innocently pursuing the palm of the heavenly calling, one day he went forth to the church according to his custom.

Then, having sought out the presbyters, the clergy, and the citizens, he began with all humility of mind to foretell that they should restrain the imminent ambushes of the enemy by prayers and fastings and the fruits of mercy. But, stubborn of spirit and defiled with carnal desires, they put the oracles of the one foretelling to the test, to the peril of their own unbelief. The servant of God, however, returning to the lodging where he had been received by the keeper of the church, declaring the day and the hour of the impending destruction, said: 'I depart in haste from this stubborn town, which is soon to perish.' Thence he turned aside to the nearest town, which was called Comagenis.

This town was guarded most strictly by the barbarians stationed within it, who had made a treaty with the Romans, and to no one was easy leave granted to enter or to go out. Yet by these men the servant of God, being unknown, was neither questioned nor turned back. And so, having soon entered the church, he exhorted all who were despairing of their own safety to be armed with fasting and prayers and almsgiving, setting before them ancient examples of deliverance, by which the divine protection had wonderfully delivered its people, contrary to the expectation of all.

And when, as he promised them the safety of all in the very crisis of danger, they hesitated to believe, an old man, who shortly before had been the host of so great a guest at Asturis, came; and, examined with anxious questioning by the gatekeepers, he showed by his appearance and his words the destruction of his town, adding that on the very day on which the man of God had foretold it, it had been destroyed by the devastation of the barbarians. Hearing this, they answered anxiously: 'Do you suppose it is not he who promises us God's aid in desperate circumstances?' Soon, therefore, the old man, recognizing the servant of God in the church, prostrated himself at his feet and declared that he had been delivered by his merits, so as not to undergo destruction with the rest of the townsmen. II.

Hearing these things, the inhabitants of the said town, begging pardon for their unbelief, obeyed the admonitions of the man of God with holy works, and, given over to fastings and gathered together in the church for three days, they chastised their past errors with groanings and laments. On the third day, however, when the solemnity of the evening sacrifice was being fulfilled, by a sudden earthquake the barbarians dwelling within were so terrified that they forced the Romans to open the gates for them quickly. Going out, therefore, in haste, they fled in all directions, supposing themselves to be hemmed in by the siege of neighboring enemies; and, their terror increased by God, confused by the bewilderment of the night, they cut one another down with their own swords.

When the adversaries had thus been consumed by mutual slaughter, the people, preserved by the divine protection, learned through the holy man to fight with heavenly weapons. III. At the same time a fierce famine had oppressed a city by the name of Favianis, whose inhabitants believed that one remedy alone would be at hand for them, if from the aforesaid town of Comagenis they should invite the man of God with devout entreaties. He, knowing beforehand from the Lord that they would come to him, was warned to go with them. When he had come there, he began to persuade the citizens, saying: 'By the fruits of repentance you will be able to be delivered from so great a destruction of famine.' And while they were profiting by such instructions, the most blessed Severinus learned by divine revelation that a certain widow named Procula had hidden away very many crops.

Bringing her forward into the midst, he sharply rebuked her. 'Why,' he said, 'though sprung from a most noble lineage, do you make yourself a handmaid of greed and stand forth as a slave of avarice, which, as the Apostle teaches, is the bondage of idols? Behold, while the Lord mercifully provides for His servants, you will have nothing to do with your ill-gotten gains, unless perhaps, casting into the streams of the Danube the grain you harshly denied, you display to the fish the kindness which you have refused to men. Wherefore relieve yourself rather than the poor out of those things which you still think to keep while Christ goes hungry.' Hearing these things, the woman, struck with great fear, began gladly to distribute her hoarded store to the poor.

And so, not long after, very many rafts laden with merchandise from the regions of the Raetias appeared unexpectedly upon the shore of the Danube—rafts which for many days had been bound fast by the thick ice of the river Aenus; and on the day on which, at his command, they were soon set loose, they brought supplies of food to those laboring under famine. Then all began to praise with continual devotion God, the bestower of the unhoped-for remedy—they who had believed they would perish from the wasting of long-continued famine—openly confessing that the rafts, loosed out of due season from the glacial cold, had come by the prayers of the servant of God. IV. About the same time, by an unexpected raid, barbarian robbers carried off as captive whatever they had found of men and cattle outside the walls.

Then many of the citizens, flocking together with tears to the man of God, recounted the ruin of the calamity inflicted upon them, at the same time showing the marks of the recent plundering. But he questioned Mamertinus, then a tribune, who was afterward ordained bishop, whether he had any armed men with him, with whom he might pursue the brigands more closely. He answered: 'I have indeed very few soldiers, but I do not dare to engage with so great a host of the enemy. Yet if your reverence commands it, although the aid of arms is lacking to us, we believe nevertheless that by your prayer we shall be made victors.' And the servant of God said: 'Even if your soldiers are unarmed, they shall now be armed from the enemy:

for neither number nor human strength is required where God is proved in all things to be the champion. Only go forth swiftly in the name of the Lord, go forth confidently; for, with God mercifully going before, every weak man will appear most strong: the Lord shall fight for you, and you shall hold your peace. Go, therefore, in haste, observing this one thing above all, that you bring back to me unharmed those whom you take of the barbarians.' Going forth, therefore, at the second milestone, above a stream which is called Tiguntia, they found the aforesaid robbers; and these being suddenly put to flight, they took away the arms of them all, and brought the rest, bound, as captives to the servant of God, as he had commanded. Loosing them from their bonds and refreshing them with food and drink, he addressed them in a few words:

'Go and announce to your accomplices that they should no longer dare to draw near here in their greed for plunder; for they will at once be punished by the judgment of heavenly vengeance, since God fights for His servants, whom He is wont so to protect by supernal power that the weapons of the enemy bring them no wounds, but rather supply them with arms.' And so, having dismissed the barbarians, he himself rejoiced over the miracles of Christ, by whose compassion he also promised that that town would never again experience the plunderings of the enemy—if only the citizens would let neither prosperity nor adversity draw them back from the work of God.

Then the blessed Severinus, withdrawing to a more remote place which was called Ad Vineas, and content with a small cell, was compelled by divine revelation to return to the aforesaid town; so that, although the quiet of the cell delighted him, yet, obeying the commands of God, he built a monastery not far from the city, where he began to form very many in the holy resolve, instructing the souls of his hearers by deeds rather than by words. He himself, however, would often withdraw to a secluded dwelling, which by the neighboring inhabitants was called Burgus, distant one mile from Favianis, that, the frequent throng of people who were accustomed to come to him being avoided, he might by continual prayer cling more nearly to God.

But the more he desired to inhabit solitude, the more he was admonished by frequent revelations not to deny his presence to the afflicted peoples. And so day by day his merit advanced, and the fame of his virtues grew, which, running far and wide, displayed in him the signs of heavenly grace. For the things which are good cannot lie hidden, since, according to the saying of the Savior, neither can a lamp be covered under a bushel, nor can a city set on a mountain be hid. For among the other great things which the Savior had granted him, receiving the especial gift of abstinence, he subdued his flesh with many fastings, teaching that a body nourished with more abundant food would forthwith bring destruction upon the soul. He used no footwear at all: