Part 45 (1/2)
From St. Ambrose, Exhort. Virginit, c. 12, and l. 3. de Virgin. c. 6 Tillemont, t. 5, p. 259.
FOURTH AGE.
ST. AMBROSE boasts of this saint as the greatest honor of his family.
St. Soteris was descended from a long series of consuls and prefects: but her greatest glory was her despising, for the sake of Christ, birth, riches, great beauty, and all that the world prizes as valuable. She consecrated her virginity to G.o.d, and to avoid the dangers her beauty exposed her to, neglected it entirely, and trampled under her feet all the vain ornaments that might set it off. Her virtue prepared her to make a glorious confession of her faith before the persecutors, after the publication of the cruel edicts of Dioclesian and Maximian against the Christians. The impious judge commanded her face to be buffeted. She rejoiced to be treated as her divine Saviour had been, and to have her face all wounded and disfigured by the merciless blows of the executioners. The judge ordered her to be tortured many other ways, but without being able to draw from her one sigh or tear. At length, overcome by her constancy and patience, he commanded her head to be struck off. The ancient martyrologies mention her.
ST. WILLIAM OF MALEVAL, H.
AND INSt.i.tUTER OF THE ORDER OF GULIELMITES.
From l'Hist des Ordres Relig., t. 6, p. 155, by F. Helyot.
A.D. 1157
WE know nothing of the birth or quality of this saint: he seems to have been a Frenchman, and is on this account honored in the new Paris Missal and Breviary. He is thought to have pa.s.sed his youth in the army, and to have given into a licentious manner of living, too common among persons of that profession. The first accounts we have of him represent him as a holy penitent, filled with the greatest sentiments of compunction and fervor, and making a pilgrimage to the tombs of the apostles at Rome.
Here he begged pope Eugenius III. to put him into a course of penance, who enjoined him a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in the year 1145. In performing this, with great devotion, the saint spent eight years.
Returning into Tuscany, in 1153, he retired into a desert. He was prevailed upon to undertake the government of a monastery in the isle of Lupocavio, in the territory of Pisa, but not being able to bear with the tepidity and irregularity of his monks, he withdrew, and settled on Mount Pruno, till, finding disciples there no less indocile to the severity of his discipline than the former, he was determined to pursue himself that rigorous plan of life which he had hitherto unsuccessfully proposed to others. He pitched upon a desolate valley for this purpose, the very sight of which was sufficient to strike the most resolute with horror. It was then called the Stable of Rhodes, but since, Maleval; and is situated in the territory of Sienna, in the diocese of Grosseto. He entered this frightful solitude in September, 1155, and had no other lodging than a cave in the ground, till being discovered some months after, the lord of Buriano built him a cell. During the first four months, he had no other company than that of wild beasts eating only the herbs on which they fed. {394} On the feast of the Epiphany, in the beginning of the year 1156, he was joined by a disciple or companion, called Albert, who lived with him to his death, which happened thirteen months after, and who has recorded the last circ.u.mstances of his life.
The saint, discoursing with others, always treated himself as the most infamous of criminals, and deserving the worst of deaths; and that these were his real sentiments, appeared from that extreme severity which he exercised upon himself. He lay on the bare ground: though he fed on the coa.r.s.est fare, and drank nothing but water, he was very sparing in the use of each; saying, sensuality was to be feared even in the most ordinary food. Prayer, divine contemplation, and manual labor, employed his whole time. It was at his work that he instructed his disciple in his maxims of penance and perfection, which he taught him the most effectually by his own example, though in many respects so much raised above the common, that it was fitter to be admired than imitated. He had the gift of miracles, and that of prophecy. Seeing his end draw near, he received the sacraments from a priest of the neighboring town of Chatillon, and died on the 10th of February, in 1157, on which day he is named in the Roman and other martyrologies.
Divine Providence moved one Renauld, a physician, to join Albert, a little before the death of the saint. They buried St. William's body in his little garden, and studied to live according to his maxims and example. Some time after, their number increasing, they built a chapel over their founder's grave, with a little hermitage. This was the origin of the Gulielmites, or Hermits of St. William, spread in the next age over Italy, France, Flanders, and Germany. They went barefoot, and their fasts were almost continual: but pope Gregory IX. mitigated their austerities, and gave them the rule of St. Benedict, which they still observe. The order is now become a congregation united to the hermits of St. Austin, except twelve houses to the Low Countries, which still retain the rule of the Gulielmites, which is that of St. Benedict, with a white habit like that of the Cistercians.
The feast of St. William is kept at Paris in the Abbey of Blancs-Manteaux, so called from certain religious men for whom it was founded, who wore white cloaks, and were of a mendicant Order, called of the Servants of the Virgin Mary: founded at Ma.r.s.eilles, and approved by Alexander IV., in 1257. This order being extinguished, by virtue of the decree of the second council of Lyons, in 1274, by which all mendicants, except the four great Orders of Dominicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, and Austin friars, were abolished, this monastery was bestowed on the Gulielmites, who removed hither from Montrouge, near Paris, in 1297. The prior and monks embraced the order of St. Bennet, and the reformation of the Congregation of St. Vanne of Verdun, soon after called in France, of St. Maur, in 1618, and this is in order the fifth house of that Congregation in France, before the abbeys of St. Germany-des-Prez, and St. Denys.[1]
Footnotes: 1. Villefore confounds this saint with St. William, founder of the hermits of Monte Virgine in the kingdom of Naples, who lived in great repute with king Roger, and is commemorated in the Roman Martyrology, June 25. Others confound him with St. William, duke of Aquitaine, a monk of Gellone. He was a great general, and often vanquished the Saracens who invaded Languedoc. In recompense, Charlemagne made him duke or governor of Aquitaine, and appointed Toulouse for his residence. Some years after, in 806, having obtained the consent of his d.u.c.h.ess, (who also renounced the world,) and or Charlemagne, though with great difficulty, he made his monastic profession at Gellone, a monastery which he had founded in a valley of that name, a league distant from Aniane, in the diocese of Lodeve. St. William received the habit at the hands of St.
Benedict of Aniane, was directed by him in the exercises of a religious life, and sanctified himself with great fervor, embracing the most humbling and laborious employments, and practising extraordinary austerities, till his happy death in 812, on the 28th of May, on which day his festival is kept in the monastery of Gellone, (now called St. Guillem de Desert, founded by this saint in 804,) and in the neighboring churches. See, on him, Mabillon, Saec.
Ben. 4, p. 88. Henschenius, diss, p. 488. Bultea p. 367. and Hist.
Gen. du Languedoc par deux Benedictins, l. 9. Many have also confounded our saint with William, the last duke of Guienne, who, after a licentious youth, and having been an abettor of the anti-pope, Peter Leonis, was wonderfully converted by St. Bernard, sent to him by pope Innocent II., in the year 1135. The year following he renounced his estates, which his eldest daughter brought in marriage to Louis the Young, king of France; and clothed with hair-cloth next his skin, end in a tattered garment expressive of the sincerity of his repentance and contrition, undertook a pilgrimage to Compostella, and died in that journey, in 1137. See Ordericus Vitalis, Hist. Norman. et Armoldus Bonae-Vallis, in vita Bernardi; with the Historical Dissert. of Henschenius on the 10th of February; and Abrege Chronol. des Grands Fiefs, p. 223.
{395}
SAINT ERLULPH, BISHOP AND MARTYR.
SEVERAL Scottish missionaries pa.s.sed into the northwestern parts of Germany, to sow there the seeds of the faith, at the time when Charlemagne subdued the Saxons. In imitation of these apostolic men, St.
Erlulph, a holy Scotchman, went thither, and after employing many years with great success in that arduous mission, was chosen the tenth bishop of Verdun. His zeal in propagating the faith enraged the barbarous infidels, and he was slain by them at a place called Eppokstorp, in 830.
See Krantzius, l. 3. Metrop. c. 30. Democh. Gatal. episc. Verd.
Pantaleon, &c.[1]
Footnotes: 1. This saint must not be confounded with Ernulph, a most holy man, the apostle of Iceland, who flourished in the year 890; on whom see Jonas, Histor. Islandiae.
FEBRUARY XI.
SS. SATURNINUS, DATIVUS,
AND MANY OTHER MARTYRS, OF AFRICA.
From their contemporary acts, received as authentic by St. Austin, Brevic. Coll. die 3, c. 17. The Donatists added a preface to them and a few glosses, in which condition they are published by Baluzius, t. 2.