Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 9.djvu/156

 LEOEHDS

129

LEQEHDB

ftD eye also to sectarian opponents, who might learn from the lives of the saints the continuity of Caliiolic teaching and Catholic life. Thus there came into ex- istence the *'Acta Sanctorum" of the ^ollandists ^q. v.). This monumental work has become the foundation of all investigation in hagiography and lesend.

In their present state of development, we would do well to keep these two departments separate. The meaning of the word legend has indeed been practi- cally transformed; the Roman Breviary officially designates the lesson for the day as lectiOf and the Church now recognizes the legend rather as a popular stonr, since the populace are always more impressed by the extraordinaiy and the grotesque. The Iqgend has thus come to be regarded merely as a fictitious reli- gious tale. Nothing therefore stands in the way of a distinction, which besides is indispensable to those who desire clearness in hagiography. Hagiography is to-day the province of the historian, who must, even more carefully in the history of the saints than in other historical questions, test the value of the sources of the reports. Only thus will it be possible to arrive at the fundamental question of all hagiography, the ques- tion of miracles m history. Are matters, which the modern man is inclined to take as legend, authenti- cally vouched for, or are they met with only in doubt* f ul sources? The belief in miracles, considered as such, does not affect the historian. He has only to gather the original authorities together and to say: This is what happened, so far as historical science can deter- mine. Ii this presentation of the facts be correct, then no objection can be raised against the results. We have now an abundance of hagiographic memorials which are just as truly history as any other memo- rials. Reports of miracles which partake of a vague and general character we may and must exclude from this category — e. g.^ when St. Gregory the Great, in a letter to St. Augustine, makes mention of the miracles which followed on Augustine's zealous activity in England: *'Scio quod omnipotens Deus per diloction- em tuam in eentc, quam eligi voluit, magna miracula ofltendit" (I know that .Almighty God by His love for thee has shown forth great miracles among the people, whom he wished to be saved" — "Gregorii Regis- trum ", XI, ep. xxxvi). We possess hagiographic re-

Sorta on the best possible autnority in numerous legal ocuments and official registers concerning depositions under oath. Such vouchers, however, cannot in the nature of the case be applicable to the entire life of a saint, but only to individual occurrences, and, for the most part, not to occurrences in the saint's lifetime, but to those which took place at his shrine. The mira- cles of healing at the shrine of Bishop Willehad at Bremen (d. about 790) in 860, the miracles of Bernard in the "Liber Miraculorum*' of 1146-47, the cures at the grave of Bishop Bruno of Wurzburg (d. 1045) in l!^-03, are related in a manner open to no ob- jection.

Concerning the miraculous occurrences at the grave of St. Peter Parenzo at Orvieto (d. 1199) — an ex- haustive list cannot be attempted here; we quote but a few examples — of St. Bertrand of Aquileia (d. 13.'>0), of St. Helena of Udina (1458), of St. James Philippi of Faenaa (1483), of St. HypoUstus of Atripalda (1637- 46), of St. Juventius in Casa Dei (at Rouen, 1667-74), we have documentary accoimts (Acta SS., May, V,

pNOSsess an imposmi ray of reports of eyewitnesses in every centurv, lucid Aels of martyrs, relations like that of the monk Cuth- bert on the death of the Venerable Bede (735), of Willelwld of Mains on the life of Boniface the Great, the history of the holy virgin Oda (d. 1158) at Gute- hoffnung near BingeHi the life of Cardinal Nicholas ▲Ibergati of Bi^logna (d, 1443). Whoever gives fair 1\.

consideration to all these facts must come to a double conclusion: (1) that the extraordinary does not neces- sarily appertain to the life of the samt; and (2) that in every case these signs and wonders are not un- worthy of the saint, e. g. cures, apparitions, prophecies, visions, transfigurations, stigmata, pleasant odour, incomiption. But the historian ought likewise to remember that (leaving the stigmata, an essentially Christian manifestation, out of the question) all these phenomena were also known to antiquity. Ancient Greece exhibits stone monuments and inscrip- tions which bear witness to cures and anpantions m the ancient nivtholo^. History tells ot Aristeas of Proconnesus, Hermotimus of Clazomense, Epimenides of Crete, that they were ascetics and thereby became ecstatic, even to the degree of the soul leaving the body, remaining far removed from it, and being able to appear in other places. Nor is it essential that medieval mysticism oe something different from the ancient hieromania; in both cases the presumption is the same as regards the faculties of the soul.

History, therefore, knows of miracles, and the na- ture of the historical miracle itself leads us to the di»- tinction between history and legend. If the authen- tic reports are held to be trustworthy, and within the bounds of physicid and psychical experience, and the unauthentic reports repel us owing to their fantastic embellishments, then we will be justified in claiming that the surplus of these latter narratives over the au- thentic reports is imtrue, and is legend in the modern sense of the word. The establishment of this distinc- tion is, therefore, entirely a matter of historical method. But, since mistrust of the historical woik may lead to the suspicion that the estimation of the value of the sources has been influenced by the subject matter of the miracle, the proof must be carried a step farther, and the origin of the superfluous matter demonstrated. Hence arises as our next task, to indicate (1) the contents and (2) the sources of legends.

Manifold as the varieties of legends now seem to be, there are fundamentally not so very many different notions utilized. The legend considers the saint as a kind of lord of the elements, who commands the water, rain, fire, mountain, and rock; he changes, enlarges, or diminishes objects; flies through the air; delivers from dungeon and gallows; takes part in battles, and even in martyrdom is invulnerable; animals, the wildest and the most timid, serve him (e. g. the stories of the bear as a beast of burden; the ring in the fish; the frogs becoming silent, etc.); his birth is glorified by a mira- cle; a voice, or letters, from Heaven proclaim his iden- tity; bells ring of themselves; the heavenly ones enter into {personal intercourse with him (betrothal of Mary); he speaks with the dead and beholds heaven, hell, and purgatory; forces the Devil to release people from compacts; he is victorious over dragons; etc. Of all this the authentic Christian narratives know nothing. But whence then does this world of fantas- tic concepts arise? A glance at the pre-C'hristian re- ligious narratives will dispel every doubt. All these stories are anticipated by the Greek chroniclers, writ- erh of myths, collectors of strange tales, neo-Plato- nism, and neo-Pythagorism. One neeil only refer to the 'EXXdSos xepuffynffis of Pausanias, or glance through the codices collected by Photius in his " Bibliotheca, to recognize what great importance was attached to the reports of miracles in antiquity by both the edu- cated and uneducated. The legend makes its appear- ance wherever the common people endeavoured to form theological concepts, and in its main features it i» everywhere the same. Like the myth (the explana-. tory fable of nature) and the doctrinal fable, it has ita independent religious and hortatory importance. Thft legend claims to show the auxiliary power of the supeiv natural, and thus indicate to the people a " saviour in every need. The worshioDer of divinity, the hei:Q*