thus, content always to walk with bare feet even in the depth of winter—which in those regions grows numb with a more savage frost—he gave a singular proof of patience. To prove the immensity of that cold, the Danube is known to be a witness, so often congealed by the excess of ice that it even affords a solid passage for wagons. Yet he, exalted by such virtues through the grace of God, would confess with deepest humility, saying: 'Do not suppose that what you see is of my own merit: it is rather an example for your salvation. Let human rashness cease; let the haughtiness of pride be repressed. That we may be able to do any good, we are chosen, as the Apostle says: who chose us before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish in His sight.
Pray rather for me, that the gifts of the Savior may profit me, not for the heaping up of condemnation, but for the increase of justification.' These things and the like he was accustomed to utter with weeping, instructing men by a marvelous example of humility; fortified by the foundation of which virtue, he shone with so great a brightness of the divine gift that even the very heretical enemies of the Church honored him with most reverent services. V. For Flaccitheus, king of the Rugii, began to waver in the very beginnings of his reign, having the Goths from lower Pannonia vehemently hostile, by whose countless multitude he was terrified. He, therefore, would consult the most blessed Severinus in his perils as a heavenly oracle.
Coming to him, while he was being more violently troubled, he lamented that he had asked of the Gothic princes a passage to Italy, by whom he did not doubt—since this had been denied him—that he would be killed. Then, therefore, the aforesaid man received this answer from the man of God: 'If one catholic faith bound us together, you ought rather to have consulted me concerning the perpetuity of life: but since you ask, anxious only about the present safety, which is common to us, listen, that you may be instructed. You will be troubled neither by the abundance nor the hostility of the Goths, because, they soon departing, you, being secure, shall reign in the prosperity you desired: only do not pass over the admonitions of my humility. Let it not, therefore, irk you to seek peace even with the least; never rely upon your own strength.
'Cursed,' says the Scripture, 'is he who trusts in man and makes flesh his arm, and whose heart departs from the Lord.' Learn, therefore, to beware of ambushes, not to set them: for indeed you will pass away with a peaceful end upon your couch.' And when, enlivened by such an oracle, he was departing in joy, news being brought to him that a band of robbers had taken captive some of the Rugii, he at once sent to consult the man of God. He, by the Lord's revelation, forewarned him with holy commands not to pursue the robbers, saying: 'If you pursue them, you will be killed. Beware lest you cross the river and, with unwary mind, fall into the ambushes which have been prepared for you in three places:
for a faithful messenger will soon come, who will make you more certain concerning all these things.' Then two of the captives, fleeing from the very abodes of the enemy, related in order those things which the most blessed man had foretold by Christ's revelation to him. And so, the ambushes of his adversaries being frustrated, Flaccitheus, increased with more prosperous gains, ended his life amid most tranquil circumstances. VI. After these things, however, a certain man, a Rugian by race, worn down for twelve years by an incredible pain of the bones, had lost all soundness of his limbs, whose intolerable torments had become known on every side to his neighbors, most notorious by their very long duration.
And so, the variety of remedies availing nothing, at last his widowed mother brought her son to the holy man, placed upon a vehicle; and, laying him down despaired-of before the door of the monastery, she begged with continual weeping that her only son might be restored to her unharmed. But the man of God, perceiving that great things were demanded of him, moved with weeping, said: 'Why am I oppressed by a false opinion? Why am I deemed able to do what I cannot? It is not of my power to grant things so great: yet I give counsel, as one who has obtained mercy from God.' Then he charged the woman that she should bestow something on the poor according to her means. She, without delay, swiftly stripping off the garment she had put on, hastened to divide it among the needy.
Hearing this, the man of God, marveling at her fervor, charged her again to cover herself with her own garments, saying: 'When your son shall have gone home with you, the Lord healing him, you will fulfill your vows by your deed.' Therefore, a fast of a few days being appointed according to custom, and prayers being poured out to God, he immediately healed the sick man and sent him back to his own home, walking sound upon his own feet. And when afterward he was present at frequent fairs, he displayed the stupendous miracle to all who saw it. For some said: 'Behold the man who had been wasted away with the putrefaction of his whole body.' But others entirely denying that it was the same man, a pleasant contention arose.
From that time, therefore, when health was restored to the despaired-of man, the whole nation of the Rugii, frequenting the servant of God, began to render the homage of congratulation and to ask aid for their sicknesses. From other nations also, to whom the fame of so great a miracle had come, many desired to see the soldier of Christ. Out of which devotion, even before this deed, certain barbarians, while they were proceeding to Italy, turned aside to him with a view to obtaining his blessing. VII. Among whom was also Odoacar, who afterward reigned over Italy, then in most lowly attire, a young man tall of stature, had come. And when he had stooped down, lest he should touch the roof of the most humble cell with his head, he learned from the man of God that he was to be glorious. To him also, as he was bidding farewell:
'Go,' he said, 'to Italy, go, now covered with the meanest skins, but soon about to bestow very much upon many.' VIII. Feletheus also, the king who was likewise called Feva, the son of the aforementioned Flaccitheus, following his father's diligence, began to frequent the holy man for the sake of the beginnings of his reign. Him a wife, savage and harmful, named Giso, was always drawing back from the remedies of clemency. She, therefore, among the other contagions of her iniquity, even attempted to rebaptize certain catholics; but, the holy man not consenting out of reverence for Saint Severinus, she desisted as soon as possible from her sacrilegious intent. The Romans, however, she oppressed with harsh conditions, and commanded some even to be carried off across the Danube.
For when on a certain day, coming from a village near Favianis, she had ordered some to be transferred to her across the Danube—men, namely, to be condemned to the servitude of the basest ministry—the man of God, sending to her, begged that she should let them go. But she, boiling over with the brands of feminine fury, ordered most harsh replies to be carried back. 'Pray,' she said, 'for yourself, servant of God, hidden away in your cell: let it be permitted to us to ordain concerning our own slaves what we will.' Hearing these things, therefore, the man of God said: 'I trust in the Lord Jesus Christ that she will be compelled by necessity to fulfill what she despised with perverse will.' And so swift correction followed and laid low the spirit of the arrogant woman. For she had shut up under close custody certain barbarian goldsmiths for the fashioning of royal ornaments.
To these the son of the aforesaid king, a very little child by the name of Fredericus, on the very day on which the queen had despised the servant of God, stirred by childish impulse, entered in. Then the goldsmiths set a sword to the breast of the infant, saying that, if anyone should attempt to enter to them without the protection of an oath, they would first run the royal child through and afterward slay themselves, since indeed they promised themselves no hope of life, worn out by their long imprisonment. Hearing these things, the cruel and impious queen, her garments torn in grief, cried out such things: 'O servant of the Lord, Severinus, thus, thus are the injuries inflicted upon you avenged by your God!
This vengeance for the contempt of me you asked for with poured-out prayers, that you might avenge yourself upon my own flesh and blood!' And so, running about with manifold remorse and pitiable lamentation, she confessed that she was struck by the vengeance of the present blow on account of the wickedness of contempt which she had committed against the servant of God; and at once, dispatching horsemen, about to seek pardon, she sent back also the Romans whom she had carried off on that same day—those for whom she had despised the one entreating her—and the goldsmiths, receiving immediately an oath and releasing the little child, were themselves likewise released. Hearing these things, the most reverent servant of Christ rendered boundless thanks to the Creator, who for this reason sometimes defers the prayers of those who ask, that, while faith, hope, and charity increase, lesser things being sought, He may grant the greater.
For this the omnipotence of the Savior wrought, that, while the savage woman subjected free persons to servitude, she was compelled to restore servants to liberty. These things being wonderfully obtained, the queen at once, hastening to the servant of God with her husband, showed him her son, whom she confessed to have been delivered from the brink of death by his prayers, promising that she would by no means henceforth oppose his commands. IX. Great also was the diligence of the servant of God, endowed with the grace of prophecy, in redeeming captives. For he insisted the more zealously on restoring to their native liberty those harassed by the dominion of the barbarians.
Meanwhile, to a certain man, redeemed together with his wife and children, he gave command to cross over the Danube, that he might seek out an unknown man in the fairs of the barbarians, whom he had learned of so fully by divine revelation that he even indicated the marks of his stature and the color of his hair, the look of his face and the fashion of his clothing, and showed in what part of the fairs he would find him; adding that, whatever the person found should say to him, he should on his return make known to him more speedily. Setting out, therefore, he found everything just as the man of God had foretold, and marveled. He, then, being questioned by that same man whom he marveled to have found, heard him saying: 'Do you suppose I can find a man who, for whatever reward he should wish, might lead me to the man of God whose fame is everywhere spread abroad?
For it is now a long time that I have been suppliantly imploring those very holy martyrs, whose relics I bear, that I, unworthy, may at length some day be released from such a ministry, which up to now I have borne not by rash presumption, but by a religious necessity.' Then the messenger of the man of God presented himself to his sight ................... Who, receiving the relics of the holy martyrs Gervasius and Protasius with the honor due to the saints, placed them in the basilica which he had built in the monastery, with the office of priests. In which place he gathered the sanctuaries of very many martyrs, which, however, he always obtained with revelation going before, knowing that the adversary often creeps in under the name of holiness.
Being asked also to receive the honor of the episcopate, he concluded with a predetermined response, saying that it was sufficient for him that, deprived of the longed-for solitude, he had come by divine appointment to that province, in order to be present amid frequent throngs of the troubled. About to give a rule to the monks nonetheless, he more carefully admonished them to cleave to the footsteps of the blessed fathers, by whom instruction in holy conduct might be acquired; and that care should be applied lest he who has left his parents and the world should, by looking back, long for the allurements of worldly pomp which he had avoided; and to this he set forth the terrible example of Lot's wife.
He used also to recall that by the fear of the Lord the incentives of lusts are to be mortified, and he asserted that the fires of bodily delight could not otherwise be overcome unless they had been extinguished by the grace of God through the fountain of tears. X. Now a certain man by the name of Maurus was the sacristan of the basilica of the monastery, whom the blessed Severinus had redeemed from the hands of the barbarians. To him one day the man of God gave command, saying: 'Beware lest today you go off anywhere: otherwise you will not be free from imminent peril.' This man, therefore, contrary to the command of so great a father, at the persuasion of a certain worldly man, going out at midday to gather fruit at the second milestone from Favianis, was soon carried across the Danube by the barbarians as a captive, together with his persuader.
In that hour the man of God, while he was reading in his cell, suddenly closing the book, said: 'Seek Maurus quickly.' And when he was found nowhere, he himself, crossing over the streams of the Hister as quickly as possible, swiftly pursued the robbers, whom the common people called Scamarae. Not enduring his venerable presence, they, as suppliants, gave back the captives whom they had taken. XI. While the upper towns of Noricum Ripense still stood, and scarcely any stronghold escaped the incursions of the barbarians, so widely renowned blazed the reputation of Saint Severinus that the several strongholds vied with one another to invite him to themselves for their own defenses, believing that by his presence nothing adverse would befall them.
This was done not without the nod of the divine gift, that all might be terrified by his admonitions as by heavenly oracles, and by his example might be armed with good works. To a stronghold also, whose name was Cucullis, the holy man had come, summoned by the devotions of the inhabitants, where there occurred a great miracle which I cannot pass over in silence—which, however, we learned by the stupendous account of Marcianus, afterward our presbyter, a citizen of that same place. A part of the people in a certain place clung to nefarious sacrifices. This sacrilege being discovered, the man of God, having addressed the people with many sermons, persuaded that a three-day fast should be proclaimed through the presbyters of the place, and commanded candles to be brought from each house, which each one with his own hand affixed to the walls of the church.
Then, the psalter being recited through according to custom, at the hour of the sacrifice the man of God exhorted the presbyters and deacons to entreat the common Lord together with him with all alacrity of heart, that, for the discerning of the sacrilegious, He might show the light of His knowledge. And so, when with many and most copious tears he prayed with them on bended knees, the greatest part of the candles which the faithful had brought was suddenly kindled from heaven; but the rest of those—belonging to the ones who had been infected with the aforesaid sacrileges and, wishing to lie hidden, had denied them—remained unkindled.
Then, therefore, those who had set them, being declared by the divine examination, at once crying out, disclosed the secrets of their breast with acts of satisfaction; and, convicted by the testimony of their own candles, by manifest confession they testified to their own sacrileges. O the merciful power of the Creator, who sets aflame both candles and souls! Fire was kindled in the candles and shone forth in their senses: the visible light melted the nature of the wax into flames, but the invisible light dissolved the hearts of those confessing into tears. Who could believe that those whom sacrilegious error had enveloped afterward shone more in good works than those whose candles had been kindled from heaven? XII.
At another time, again, within the territory of that same fort, locusts—devourers of the crops—had settled in great numbers, laying everything waste with their destructive bites. Stricken therefore by such a plague, the presbyters and the rest of the inhabitants soon approached holy Severinus with the most earnest entreaties, saying: 'That the cruelty of so great a scourge may be removed, we ask for the proven aid of your prayers, which we have seen long ago, by a great miracle in the candles kindled from heaven, to avail much with the Lord.' But he, addressing them with greater piety, said: 'Have you not read what the divine authority commanded the sinning people through the prophet: "Be converted to me with all your heart, in fasting and weeping," and a little after:'
'"Sanctify a fast," he says, "call an assembly, gather the church," and the rest that follows? Fulfil therefore by worthy deeds what you teach, that you may easily escape the evil of the present time. Let no one indeed go out to the field!'—as though he would forbid the locusts by human anxiety, lest the divine indignation be the more provoked. Without delay, when all were gathered in the church, each one in his own order chanted the psalms according to custom. Every age and sex, even those who could not do so with the voice, offered prayer to God with weeping; almsgivings did not cease to be done; whatever of good works the present necessity demanded was being fulfilled, just as the servant of God had commanded.
When all therefore were occupied with zealous efforts of this kind, a certain very poor man, abandoning the work of God that had been begun, went out to the field to look upon his own crop—which lay, very small, among the sowings of others—and, anxious all day long, he drove off as he could, with diligence, the threatening cloud of locusts; and soon he entered the church to take communion. But the dense swarm of locusts devoured his scanty crop, surrounded by the abundant produce of his neighbours. When these had been driven from that territory in that very night by the divine command, it was proved how greatly the prayer of the faithful avails.
For in the morning the rash violator and despiser of the holy work, going out again to his field, ill at ease, found it utterly stripped bare by the destruction of the locusts, while the sowings of all round about were untouched. Greatly astonished, he returned to the fort with mournful outcry; and when he had reported what had happened, all went out to see a miracle of this kind, where the bite of the locusts had marked off the field of the obstinate man as if along a regular line. Then, casting himself at the feet of all, he begged with poured-out lamentation, through their intercessions, pardon for his fault. And the man of God, finding from this an occasion for admonishing, taught everyone to learn to obey the almighty Lord, whose commands even the locusts obey.
But the aforesaid poor man tearfully pleaded that he was able to obey the commandments henceforth, if any hope by which he might live had remained to him. Then therefore the man of God, addressing the rest, said: 'It is just that he who by his own punishment has given you an example of humility and obedience should, by your generosity, receive his sustenance for the present year.' And so, by the contribution of the faithful, the very poor man, both corrected and enriched, learned how much loss unbelief brings, and how much benefit the divine bounty confers upon its worshippers. XIII.
Likewise, near the town that was called Iuvao, when one day in the summertime they had entered the basilica to render the evening solemnity, and had found no fire at all for kindling the lamps, they could not strike forth a flame by striking the stones together in the usual way—being so long delayed by the mutual collision of iron and stone that the time of the evening solemnity was slipping away. But the man of God, with his knees fixed on the ground, prayed more earnestly. Soon therefore, in the sight of three spiritual men who were then present, the candle which holy Severinus himself held in his hand was kindled. By its shining, the sacrifice of the evening hour being supplied according to custom, thanks were rendered to God in all things.
Although he wished to conceal this deed from those mentioned who were present at this miracle—just as he did many great wonders that were performed through him by divine workings—yet the brightness of so great a power could not be hidden, but rather it excellently kindled others to great faith. XIV. It happened also that a certain woman of that same place, harassed by a long-lasting sickness, lay half-dead, her funeral rites already prepared. Her kinsfolk, in mournful silence, with a certain cry of faith repressed the funereal lamentations, and laid down before the door of the holy man's cell the body of the ailing woman, now almost lifeless. And so the man of God, seeing the entrance blocked by the bed set against it, said to them: 'What is it that you wished to do?' They answered:
'That by your prayer the lifeless one may be restored to life.' Then he himself, full of tears, said: 'Why do you demand great things from a lowly one? I acknowledge myself wholly unworthy. Would that I might deserve to find pardon for my own sins!' And they said: 'We believe that, if you pray, she will live again.' Then holy Severinus, at once pouring out tears, prostrated himself in prayer; and, the woman straightway rising up, he addressed them: 'Do not apply any of these things to my works:'
for the fervour of your faith earned this grace; and this is done in many places and among many peoples, so that it may be known that there is one God, who works wonders in heaven and on earth, raising up the lost unto salvation and restoring the dead to life.' But the woman, having recovered her health, on the third day, according to the custom of the province, began to perform the work of the field with her own hands. XV. Quintanis was the name of the second municipality of the Raetias, situated upon the bank of the Danube; to it on the other side a small river, named Businca, drew near. This, swelling with the frequent inundation of the overflowing Danube, used to occupy not a few areas of the fort, because it had been founded on level ground.
The inhabitants of that place also had a church built of wood outside the walls, which, stretched out in a hanging extension, was supported by stakes fixed deep into the ground and by forked props, where, in place of a floor, there was a smoothed joining of boards, which, whenever the river had exceeded its banks, the overflowing water occupied. And so, by the faith of the people of Quintanis, holy Severinus had been invited there. When he had come thither in a time of drought, he asks why the boarded floors appeared with the coverings of their barriers stripped bare. The inhabitants answered that, through the frequent flooding of the river, whatever had been laid over them was continually slipping away. But he said: 'Let a pavement now be laid over the boards in the name of Christ:'
now from henceforth you shall see the river forbidden by the heavenly command.' And so, the pavement being completed, he himself, descending below in a boat and taking up an axe, after making prayer, struck the posts and, with the sign of the venerable cross impressed, said to the water of the river: 'My Lord Jesus Christ does not permit you to exceed this sign of the cross.' And so from that time, when the river had risen in heaps according to its custom and had surrounded the neighbourhood as it was wont, it was so far below the spaces of the church that it never at all exceeded the mark of the holy cross which the man of God had impressed. XVI.
Now it happened that a most venerable presbyter of the said fort, named Silvinus, died; and when, with the bier set down in the church, they had passed the night in psalmody, keeping vigil according to custom, now when the dawn was already growing bright, the man of God asked all the weary presbyters and deacons to withdraw for a little while, that after the labour of the vigils they might refresh themselves somewhat with sleep. When they had gone out, the man of God asks the doorkeeper, named Maternus, whether all, as he had said, had withdrawn. And when he replied that all had departed: 'By no means,' he said, 'but a certain person lies hidden here.' Then the keeper of the church, surveying the enclosures a second time, testifies that no one had remained within them. But the soldier of Christ, the Lord revealing it to him, said:
'I know not who,' he said, 'lies hidden here.' And so, searching a third time more diligently, he found that a certain consecrated virgin had hidden herself in more secret places. The aforesaid sacristan therefore rebuked her thus: 'Why, when the servant of God was present, had you believed that your presence could lie hidden?' But she said: 'The love of piety persuaded me to do such things: for, seeing all driven outside, I thought within myself that the servant of Christ, having invoked the divine majesty, would raise the dead man here present.' When therefore the said virgin had gone out, the man of God, bowed down in prayer together with a presbyter and a deacon and two doorkeepers, prayed with most copious weeping, that the heavenly power might show forth its accustomed work of majesty.
Then, the presbyter completing the prayer, the blessed man addressed the corpse thus: 'In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, holy presbyter Silvinus, speak with your brethren.' And when the dead man opened his eyes, the man of God scarcely persuaded those present to keep silence for joy. And again to him: 'Do you wish,' he said, 'that we ask the Lord to deign to grant you yet to His servants in this life?' But he said: 'By the Lord I adjure you, that I be not held here any longer and defrauded of the perpetual rest in which I perceived myself to be.' And straightway, the prayer being rendered, he rested lifeless. But this deed was so concealed by the adjuration of holy Severinus that it could not be known before his death.
Yet I learned these things which I have related from the account of Marcus the subdeacon and Maternus the doorkeeper. For the presbyter and the deacon, witnesses of so great a miracle, are known to have died before the holy man, to whom they had sworn that they would betray to no one what they had seen. XVII. Endowed therefore through the grace of Christ with such gifts, blessed Severinus had also undertaken, with the piety inborn in him, so great a care of captives and of the needy, that nearly all the poor throughout all the towns and forts were fed by his diligence; to whom he ministered with such glad solicitude that he then believed himself to be satisfied and to abound in all good things only when he saw the bodies of the needy sustained.
And although he himself was in no way broken by continual fastings of weeks, yet by the hunger of the wretched he believed himself afflicted. Very many, contemplating his bounty so full toward the poor, although they endured the straits of famine from the hard rule of the barbarians, most devoutly bestowed the tithes of their crops upon the poor. And this commandment, although most well known to all from the Law, they nevertheless kept with grateful devotion, as though they heard it from the mouth of an angel present. The man of God also felt the cold so much in the nakedness of the poor, since he had especially received from God that in a most frigid region, chastened by a wondrous abstinence, he should remain strong and cheerful.
Now concerning the tithes to be given, as we have said, by which the poor might be fed, he also exhorted the peoples of Noricum by sending letters. From this custom, when they had directed to him a certain abundance of garments to be distributed, he asked those who had come whether a similar contribution was being sent also from the town of Tiburnia. When they replied that some would forthwith be present from there too, the man of God indicated that they would by no means come, but foretold that their deferred offering was to be offered to the barbarians. And so, not long after, the citizens of Tiburnia, fighting in various struggle with the besieging Goths, having scarcely entered into a covenant of peace, offered to the enemy, among other things, the gift now gathered into one, which they had delayed to send to the servant of God. XVIII.