Books: The Hermits

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I have quoted these few instances, to show how long the custom
lingered; and doubtless hermits were to be found in the remoter
parts of these realms when the sudden tempest of the Reformation
swept away alike the palace of the rich abbot and the cell of the
poor recluse, and exterminated throughout England the ascetic life.
The two last hermits whom I have come across in history are both
figures which exemplify very well those times of corruption and of
change. At Loretto (not in Italy, but in Musselburgh, near
Edinburgh) there lived a hermit who pretended to work miracles, and
who it seems had charge of some image of "Our Lady of Loretto." The
scandals which ensued from the visits of young folks to this hermit
roused the wrath of that terrible scourge of monks, Sir David
Lindsay of the Mount: yet as late as 1536, James the Fifth of
Scotland made a pilgrimage from Stirling to the shrine, in order to
procure a propitious passage to France in search of a wife. But in
1543, Lord Hertford, during his destructive voyage to the Forth,
destroyed, with other objects of greater consequence, the chapel of
the "Lady of Lorett," which was not likely in those days to be
rebuilt; and so the hermit of Musselburgh vanishes from history.

A few years before, in 1537, says Mr. Froude, {333} while the
harbours, piers, and fortresses were rising in Dover, "an ancient
hermit tottered night after night from his cell to a chapel on the
cliff, and the tapers on the altar before which he knelt in his
lonely orisons made a familiar beacon far over the rolling waters.
The men of the rising world cared little for the sentiment of the
past. The anchorite was told sternly by the workmen that his light
was a signal to the King's enemies" (a Spanish invasion from
Flanders was expected), "and must burn no more; and, when it was
next seen, three of them waylaid the old man on his way home, threw
him down and beat him cruelly."

So ended, in an undignified way, as worn-out institutions are wont
to end, the hermit life in the British Isles. Will it ever
reappear? Who can tell? To an age of luxury and unbelief has
succeeded, more than once in history, an age of remorse and
superstition. Gay gentlemen and gay ladies may renounce the world,
as they did in the time of St Jerome, when the world is ready to
renounce them. We have already our nunneries, our monasteries, of
more creeds than one; and the mountains of Kerry, or the pine
forests of the Highlands, may some day once more hold hermits,
persuading themselves to believe, and at last succeeding in
believing, the teaching of St. Antony, instead of that of our Lord
Jesus Christ, and of that Father of the spirits of all flesh, who
made love, and marriage, and little children, sunshine and flowers,
the wings of butterflies and the song of birds; who rejoices in his
own works, and bids all who truly reverence him rejoice in them with
him. The fancy may seem impossible. It is not more impossible than
many religious phenomena seemed forty years ago, which are now no
fancies, but powerful facts.

The following books should be consulted by those who wish to follow
out this curious subject in detail:--

The "Vitae Patrum Eremiticorum."

The "Acta Sanctorum." The Bollandists are, of course, almost
exhaustive of any subject on which they treat. But as they are
difficult to find, save in a few public libraries, the "Acta
Sanctorum" of Surius, or of Aloysius Lipommasius, may be profitably
consulted. Butler's "Lives of the Saints" is a book common enough,
but of no great value.

M. de Montalembert's "Moines d'Occident," and Ozanam's "Etudes
Germaniques," may be read with much profit.

Dr. Reeves' edition of Adamnan's "Life of St. Columba," published by
the Irish Archaeological and Celtic Society, is a treasury of
learning, which needs no praise of mine.

The lives of St. Cuthbert and St. Godric may be found among the
publications of the Surtees Society.

Footnotes:

{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, &c. &c.; 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.

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