Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 15.djvu/647

 WELTE

587

WENINGER

with milk luiiiplcd with wator. Supprr boinp; ondrd lliry pt'isovcrod about Ihrrc hours in watching, prayer and gonuHpxions. After this they went to rest and at eoek crowing rose again, and abode in prayer till the dawn of day. Their only clothing w:i.s the skin of beasts."

At Llan-Tewenec, the mon.astic habit was a goat's skin worn over a hair shirt; the fare, a little barley bread, with water and a decoction of boiled herbs. Sundays and feast days were distinguished by cheese and shell-fish, while a brief repose was taken on the bare earth, or the bark of trees for a bed with a stone for pillow. In this wise were trained saints and eminent scholars to carry as apostles the light of the Faith to Brittany, the Orkneys, and other distant lands.

Cambria Sacra; Tola MSS.. ed.Wn.LiAS.ls (Llandovors', 1848); Usher. .intujuUies of the Britisn Church: Capgrave, Letjenda Sanctorum Anglicc; Anderdox, Britain's Earhj Faith; Rees, Lires of the Cambro-British Saints; Butler, Lives of the Saints; Mon'talembert, Monks of the West.

P. J. Chandlery.

Welte, Bentcdict, exegete, b. at. Ratzenried in Wiirteniberg, 2.5 Xovember, 1S2.5; d. 27 May, 1SS.5. After .studying at Ttibingen and Bonn, where he made .special studies in the exegesis of the Old Testa- ment and in Oriental languages, he was ordained priest when twenty-eight years old. Soon after this he became assistant lecturer at Tiibingen, and in 1840 regular professor of Old Testament exegesis. During the next two decades Welte was remarkably active in literary work connected with his favourite subject. This, indeed, more than the class-room was the field of his Ufe's achievements. An extensive familiarity with Oriental tongues, a talent for thorough researcli, and a clear, preci.se diction were his special qualifica- tions. Ilepubhshedat Freiburg, in 1S40, "Histori,sch- kritische Einleitung in die hi. Schriften des alfen Tes- tament es". Much of the material for this work had been gathered by his predecessor, Herbst, who left a request that Welte shoukl finish and edit his notes. It cost the latter great labour, for he was not in sym- pathy with the method of Herbst; and at times found it necessary to append his own views and arguments. The second part of the same work began to appear in 1842. Two years later, a third volume, completing the task, published as "Specielle Einleitung in die deutero-canonischen Blieher des alten Testamentes" came from the pen of Welte alone. Before this, in 1841, the translation of Ciorium's .Armenian biography of St. Mesrob appeared in the university annual pub- lication. In the same year he wrote "Naclimosa- isches im Pentateuch", contending that there was no post-Mosaic matter in the Pentateuch. His explana- tion and translation of the Book of Job was published at Freiburg, 1S49. Meanwhile, in company with the orientalist Wetzer. he had begun his real Ufe-work. Together they edited the 12 volumes of the "Kirehen- lexikon", an encyclopedia of Catholic theology- and its allied sciences. To this work Welte himself con- tributed 200 articles, and his literary activity closed with the completion of the encyclopedia. This was due partly to the duties of a canon's office which he assumed, 22 May, 1857, at the cathedral of Rotten- burg, and partly to an incurable di,sea.«e of the eyes. This affliction, and thestill greatersuffering because of inactivity, did not diminish in the least the simple childlike piety of this scholarly priest.

HrRTEH, Nomendatar, III. 1 268; KxABENSArEK, Com. in librum Job.

John M. Fox.

Wenceslaus CV^aclav, Vacerlav), Saint, duke, martyr, and patron of Bohemia, b. probablv 003; d. at Alt-Bunzlau, 28 Sept., 9.3.5. His parents were Duke Wratislaw, a Christian, and Dragomir, a heathen. He received a good Chri.stian education

from his grandmother (St. I.udniilla) and at Budweia. After the death of Wratislaw, Dragomir, acting as regent, opposed Christianity, and Wenceslaus, being urged by the people, took the reins of government. He placed his duchy under the protection of Cermany, introduced Cierman priests, and favoured the Latin Rite instead of the old Slavic which had gone into disuse in many places for want of priests. Wences- laus had taken the \-ow of virginity and was known for his virtues. The Emperor Otto I conferred on him the regal dignity and title. For religious and national motives, and at the instigation of Dragomir, Wences- laus was murdered by his brother Boleslaw. The body, hacked to pieces, was buried at the place of mur- der, but three years later Boleslaw, liaving repented of his deed, ordered its translation to the Church of St. Vitus in Prague. The gathering of his relics is noted in the calendars on 27 June, their translation on 4 March (Acta SS., March, I, 298); his feast is celebrated on 28 September.

The principal authority on the life of St. Wenceslaus is Chris- tian OF Skala (.son of Boleslaw and monk of Brevnov, near Prague). Much has been written against the authenticity of this Vila, on which see Anal. Boll., XXV. 124, 512. Many other legends have appeared, see Emler in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, I (Prague, 1873). 125; Bctler. Lives of the Sainis; Acta SS.. June VII, 222.

Francis Mershman.

Wendelin of Trier, Saint, b. about .554; d. prob- ably in 017. His earUest biographies, two in Latin and two in German, did not appear until after 1417. Their narrative is the following: Wendelin was the son of a Scotti.sh king; after a piously .spent youth he secretly left his home on a pilgrimage to Rome. On his way back he settled as a hermit in Westricht in the Diocese of Trier. When a great landowner blamed him for his idle Ufe he entered this lord's service as a herdsman. Later a miracle obliged this lord to allow him to return to his solitude. Wendelin then estab- lished a company of hermits from which sprang the Benedictine Abbey of Tholey. He was consecrated abbot about .597, according to the later legends. Tholey was apparently founded as a collegiate body about 630. It is difficult to say how far the later biographers are trustworthy. Wendelin was buried in his cell, and a cliapel was built over the grave. The small town of St. \\'endel grew up nearby. The saint's intercession was powerful in times of pestilence and contagious diseases among cattle. When in 1320 a pestilence was checked through the intercession of the saint, Archbishop Baldwin of Trier had the chapel rebuilt. Baldwin's successor, Boemund II, built the present beautiful Gothic church, dedicated in 1360 and to which the .saint's relics were transferred; since 1.506 they have rested in a stone sarcophagus. Wen- delin is the patron .saint of country people and herds- men and is still venerated in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. He is represented in art as a youth, or as a bearded man, with a shepherd's bag and a book in one hand and a shepherd's crook in the other; about him feed Iambs, cattle, and swine, while a crown and a shield are placed at his feel. St. Wendelin is not mentioned in the Roman MartjTology, but his feast is observed in the Diocese of Trier on 22 October.

Ada SS.. October. IX. 342-51; Mohr. Die Hriligm der DioTPsr Trier (Trier, 18!>2); Leskeh. SI. Wcndelinus (Donatl- worth. isns): ZtRCHEH. Si. Wendelinus-Buch (Menzingen, 1903).

Klemens Loffler. Wends. See Slavs, The.

Weninger, Francis Xavier, Jesuit missionary and .author, b. at Wildhaus, Stvria, Austria, 31 Oct., 180.5; d. at Cincinnati, O., 29 June, 1888. When already a priest and doctor of theology, he joined the Society of Jesus in 1832 .and in 1841 was sent to Inns- bruck, where he taught theology, history, and He- brew. As the Revolution of 1848 impeded his further usefulness at home, he left Europe and went to the United States. During forty years he visited almost