The Hermits

Footnotes

Subscribe for ad free access & additional features for teachers. Authors: 267, Books: 3,607, Poems & Short Stories: 4,435, Forum Members: 71,154, Forum Posts: 1,238,602, Quizzes: 344

{12} About A.D. 368. See the details in Ammianus Marcellinus, lib.

xxviii.

{15} In the Celtic Irish Church, there seems to have been no other

pattern. The hermits who became abbots, with their monks, were the

only teachers of the people--one had almost said, the only

Christians. Whence, as early as the sixth century, if not the

fifth, they, and their disciples of Iona and Scotland, derived their

peculiar tonsure, their use of bells, their Eastern mode of keeping

the Paschal feast, and other peculiarities, seemingly without the

intervention of Rome, is a mystery still unsolved.

{17a} A book which, from its bearing on present problems, well

deserves translation.

{17b} "Vitae Patrum." Published at Antwerp, 1628.

{23} He is addressing our Lord.

{24} "Agentes in rebus." On the Emperor's staff?

{27} St. Augustine says, that Potitianus's adventure at Treves

happened "I know not when." His own conversation with Potitianus

must have happened about A.D. 385, for he was baptized April 25,

A.D. 387. He does not mention the name of Potitianus's emperor:

but as Gratian was Augustus from A.D. 367 to A.D. 375, and actual

Emperor of the West till A.D. 383, and as Treves was his usual

residence, he is most probably the person meant: but if not, then

his father Valentinian.

{29} See the excellent article on Gratian in Smith's Dictionary, by

Mr. Means.

{30} I cannot explain this fact: but I have seen it with my own

eyes.

{32} I use throughout the text published by Heschelius, in 1611.

{33} He is said to have been born at Coma, near Heracleia, in

Middle Egypt, A.D. 251.

{34} Seemingly the Greek language and literature.

{35} I have thought it more honest to translate [Greek text] by

"training," which is now, as then, its true equivalent; being a

metaphor drawn from the Greek games by St. Paul, 1 Tim. iv. 8.

{41} I give this passage as it stands in the Greek version. In the

Latin, attributed to Evagrius, it is even more extravagant and

rhetorical.

{42} Surely the imagery painted on the inner walls of Egyptian

tombs, and probably believed by Antony and his compeers to be

connected with devil-worship, explain these visions. In the "Words

of the Elders" a monk complains of being troubled with "pictures,

old and new." Probably, again, the pain which Antony felt was the

agony of a fever; and the visions which he saw, its delirium.

{44} Here is an instance of the original use of the word

"monastery," viz. a cell in which a single person dwelt.

{45} An allusion to the heathen mysteries.

{49} A.D. 311. Galerius Valerius Maximinus (his real name was

Daza) had been a shepherd-lad in Illyria, like his uncle Galerius

Valerius Maximianus; and rose, like him, through the various grades

of the army to be co-Emperor of Rome, over Syria, Egypt, and Asia

Minor; a furious persecutor of the Christians, and a brutal and

profligate tyrant. Such were the "kings of the world" from whom

those old monks fled.

{52a} The lonely alluvial flats at the mouths of the Nile. "Below

the cliffs, beside the sea," as one describes them.

{52b} Now the monastery of Deir Antonios, over the Wady el Arabah,

between the Nile and the Red Sea, where Antony's monks endure to

this day.

{60} This most famous monastery, i.e. collection of monks' cells,

in Egypt is situate forty miles from Alexandria, on a hill where

nitre was gathered. The hospitality and virtue of its inmates are

much praised by Ruffinus and Palladius. They were, nevertheless,

the chief agents in the fanatical murder of Hypatia.

{65} It appears from this and many other passages, that extempore

prayer was usual among these monks, as it was afterwards among the

Puritans (who have copied them in so many other things), whenever a

godly man visited them.

{66a} Meletius, bishop of Lycopolis, was the author of an obscure

schism calling itself the "Church of the Martyrs," which refused to

communicate with the rest of the Eastern Church. See Smith's

"Dictionary," on the word "Meletius."

{66b} Arius (whose most famous and successful opponent was

Athanasius, the writer of this biography) maintained that the Son of

God was not co-equal and co-eternal with the Father, but created by

Him out of nothing, and before the world. His opinions were

condemned in the famous Council of Nicaea, A.D. 325.

{67} If St. Antony could use so extreme an argument against the

Arians, what would he have said to the Mariolatry which sprang up

after his death?

{68a} I.e. those who were still heathens.

{68b} [Greek text]. The Christian priest is always called in this

work simply [Greek text], or elder.

{72a} Probably that of A.D. 341, when Gregory of Cappadocia,

nominated by the Arian Bishops, who had assembled at the Council of

Antioch, expelled Athanasius from the see of Alexandria, and great

violence was committed by his followers and by Philagrius the

Prefect. Athanasius meanwhile fled to Rome.

{72b} I.e. celebrated there their own Communion.

{77} Evidently the primaeval custom of embalming the dead, and

keeping mummies in the house, still lingered among the Egyptians.

{108} These sounds, like those which St. Guthlac heard in the

English fens, are plainly those of wild-fowl.

{115} The Brucheion, with its palaces and museum, the residence of

the kings and philosophers of Egypt, had been destroyed is the days

of Claudius and Valerian, during the senseless civil wars which

devastated Alexandria for twelve years; and monks had probably taken

up their abode in the ruins. It was in this quarter, at the

beginning of the next century, that Hypatia was murdered by the

monks.

{116} Probably the Northern, or Lesser Oasis, Ouah el Baharieh,

about eighty miles west of the Nile.

{117a} Jerome (who sailed that sea several times) uses the word

here, as it is used in Acts xxvii. 27, for the sea about Malta,

"driven up and down in Adria."

{117b} The southern point of Sicily, now Cape Passaro.

{118} In the Morea, near the modern Navarino.

{119a} At the mouth of the Bay of Cattaro.

{119b} This story--whatever belief we may give to its details--is

one of many which make it tolerably certain that a large snake

(Python) still lingered in Eastern Europe. Huge tame snakes were

kept as sacred by the Macedonian women; and one of them (according

to Lucian) Peregrinus Proteus, the Cagliostro of his time, fitted

with a linen mask, and made it personate the god AEsculapius. In

the "Historia Lausiaca," cap. lii. is an account by an eye-witness

of a large snake in the Thebaid, whose track was "as if a beam had

been dragged along the sand." It terrifies the Syrian monks: but

the Egyptian monk sets to work to kill it, saying that he had seen

much larger--even up to fifteen cubits.

{121} Now Capo St. Angelo and the island of Cerigo, at the southern

point of Greece.

{123a} See p. 52. [Around footnote 52a in the text--DP.]

{123b} Probably dedicated to the Paphian Venus.

{130} The lives of these two hermits and that of St. Cuthbert will

be given in a future number.

{131} Sihor, the black river, was the ancient name of the Nile,

derived from the dark hue of its waters.

{159} Ammianus Marcellinus, Book xxv. cap. 9.

{160} By Dr. Burgess.

{163} History of Christianity, vol. iii. p. 109.

{203} An authentic fact.

{204} If any one doubts this, let him try the game called "Russian

scandal," where a story, passed secretly from mouth to mouth, ends

utterly transformed, the original point being lost, a new point

substituted, original names and facts omitted, and utterly new ones

inserted, an experiment which is ludicrous, or saddening,

according to the temper of the experimenter.

{209} Les Moines d'Occident, vol. ii. pp. 332-467.

{210} M. La Borderie, "Discours sur les Saints Bretons;" a work

which I have unfortunately not been able to consult.

{212a} Vitae Patrum, p. 753.

{212b} Ibid. p. 893.

{212c} Ibid. p. 539.

{212d} Ibid. p. 540.

{212e} Ibid. p. 532.

{224} It has been handed down, in most crabbed Latin, by his

disciple, Eugippius; it may be read at length in Pez, Scriptores

Austriacarum Rerum.

{238} Scriptores Austriacarum Rerum.

{245} Haeften, quoted by Montalembert, vol. ii. p. 22, in note.

{256} Dr. Reeves supposes these to have been "crustacea:" but their

stinging and clinging prove them surely to have been jelly-fish--

medusae.

{257} I have followed the Latin prose version of it, which M.

Achille Jubinal attributes to the eleventh century. Here and there

I have taken the liberty of using the French prose version, which he

attributes to the latter part of the twelfth. I have often

condensed the story, where it was prolix or repeated itself: but I

have tried to follow faithfully both matter and style, and to give,

word for word, as nearly as I could, any notable passages. Those

who wish to know more of St. Brendan should consult the learned

brochure of M. Jubinal, "La Legende Latine de St. Brandaines," and

the two English versions of the Legend, edited by Mr. Thomas Wright

for the Percy Society, vol. xiv. One is in verse, and of the

earlier part of the fourteenth century, and spirited enough: the

other, a prose version, was printed by Wynkyn de Worde, in his

edition of the "Golden Legend;" 1527.

{260a} In the Barony of Longford, County Galway.

{260b} 3,000, like 300, seems to be, I am informed, only an Irish

expression for any large number.

{269} Some dim legend concerning icebergs, and caves therein.

{270} Probably from reports of the volcanic coast of Iceland.

{272} This part of the legend has been changed and humanized as

time ran on. In the Latin and French versions it has little or no

point or moral. In the English, Judas accounts for the presence of

the cloth thus:--

"Here I may see what it is to give other men's (goods) with harm.

As will many rich men with unright all day take,

Of poor men here and there, and almisse (alms) sithhe (afterwards)

make."

For the tongs and the stone he accounts by saying that, as he used

them for "good ends, each thing should surely find him which he did

for God's love."

But in "the prose version of Wynkyn de Worde, the tongs have been

changed into "ox-tongues," "which I gave some tyme to two preestes

to praye for me. I bought them with myne owne money, and therefore

they ease me, bycause the fysshes of the sea gnaw on them, and spare

me."

This latter story of the ox-tongues has been followed by Mr.

Sebastian Evans, in his poem on St. Brendan. Both he and Mr.

Matthew Arnold have rendered the moral of the English version very

beautifully.

{274} Copied, surely, from the life of Paul the first hermit.

{283} The famous Cathach, now in the museum of the Royal Irish

Academy, was long popularly believed to be the very Psalter in

question. As a relic of St. Columba it was carried to battle by the

O'Donnels, even as late as 1497, to insure victory for the clan.

{290} Bede, book iii. cap. 3.

{292} These details, and countless stories of St. Cuthbert's

miracles, are to be found in Reginald of Durham, "De Admirandis

Beati Cuthberti," published by the Surtees Society. This curious

book is admirably edited by Mr. J. Raine; with an English synopsis

at the end, which enables the reader for whom the Latin is too

difficult to enjoy those pictures of life under Stephen and Henry

II., whether moral, religious, or social, of which the book is a

rich museum.

{299} "In this hole lie the bones of the Venerable Bede."

{303} An English translation of the Anglo-Saxon life has been

published by Mr. Godwin, of Cambridge, and is well worth perusal.

{312} Vita S. Godrici, pp. 332, 333.

{316} The earlier one; that of the Harleian MSS. which (Mr.

Stevenson thinks) was twice afterwards expanded and decorated by

him.

{323} Reginald wants to make "a wonder incredible in our own

times," of a very common form (thank God) of peaceful death. He

makes miracles in the same way of the catching of salmon and of

otters, simple enough to one who, like Godric, knew the river, and

every wild thing which haunted it.

{330} That of the Salisbury Manual is published in the

"Ecclesiologist" for August 1848, by the Rev. Sir W. H. Cope, to

whom I am indebted for the greater number of these curious facts.

{331} I owe these facts to the courtesy of Mr. John Stuart, of the

General Register Office, Edinburgh.

{333} "History of England," vol. iii. p. 256, note.

* * * * * * *

In the 1600s, Balthasar Gracian, a jesuit priest wrote 300 aphorisms on living life called "The Art of Worldly Wisdom." Join our newsletter below and read them all, one at a time.