Vita S. Mauri
by Peter Damian
Source text: Public Domain. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://migne.app/pl/144/vita-s-mauri/
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## PROLOGUE.

[0945A]

Desiring to write something to the glory of our God concerning blessed Maurus the bishop, we desire so to satisfy the longing of our hearers that, according to the measure of an ordered account, we may in all things take thought for the truth. For that cupbearer is to be despised who, while he boasts of an abundance of wine, serves up the dregs as well with a rashness deserving punishment. He is a worthless caterer who prepares a banquet for others with such ambition that he allows the burning of raging hunger to rage against himself. No less rash is that narrator who, while he strives to exalt others with the proclamations of praise, does not himself fear to be plunged into the pit of falsehood. For some think they render service to God if, to render him the marks of his praise, they put together arguments of falsehood; who assuredly, if [0945B] they diligently attended to the words of the excellent preacher, would not think such things. For he says to the Corinthians: *And if Christ has not risen, then our preaching is empty, your faith is vain; and we are found also false witnesses of God, because we have given testimony against God, that he raised up Christ, whom* *419* *he did not raise up [n: (I Cor. III)]*. According to these apostolic words, therefore, he is deservedly called a false witness of God who, desiring to praise him without discernment, lies; and whoever contrives a fabrication by perverse art in God's praise beyond doubt bears testimony against God. The Prophet too thunders terribly, saying: *Thou hast hated all who work iniquity, thou wilt destroy those who speak a lie [n: (Psal. V)]*. Plainly declaring, assuredly, that as it is a lighter thing to hate than to destroy, so also it is [0945C] more tolerable to carry out iniquity out of weakness than to fabricate lies out of zeal.

Hence it is that through Jeremiah it is said of liars: *They have taught their tongues to speak a lie; they have labored to act wickedly [n: (Jer. IX)]*. For they who could easily have brought forth the simple truth offered them unbidden, take pains to contrive lies with labor. Here, if anyone should perhaps reproach us for a long preface, and if a severe critic should set against us what is written in the book of Maccabees: *It is foolish,* he says, *to run on before the history, but in the history itself to be brief [n: (II Machab. II)]* — we render this account: that where [0946A] an abundance of matter is at hand, the very length of the writing forbids us to linger over such things. But here, where few things concerning the blessed man's virtues are at hand that ought to be written, we judge it more useful for the building up of the hearers — to which all ecclesiastical Scripture is directed — to write in the preface against lying, than, for want of narrative, to draw out the history itself to the borders of lies.

Therefore, what could come to our knowledge concerning the life or the miracles of blessed Maurus, according to what we have been able to gather from the account of certain monks not altogether to be despised, we faithfully make known to the faithful of Christ.

## CHAPTER ONE. *The episcopate of St. Maurus. His deeds in it.*

[0946B]At that time, then, when the Roman Church still extended its rights of possession much more widely than now, and among the rest possessed also the town of Cesena, it happened that this same Cesena was deprived of its bishop. And when the Roman pontiff saw his own nephew — namely blessed Maurus — climbing to the heights by the steps of the virtues, and keeping watch not sluggishly in the pursuit of a holy manner of life, he judged it fitting to promote such a man to the summit of the priestly office, so that the lamp of the Holy Spirit should not lie hidden under a bushel, but, set upon a lampstand, should illumine with the rays of holy teaching all who are in the house of God. What more? At length blessed Maurus received the chair of the Church of Cesena, divine providence so disposing. But we have passed over setting down here the names either of [0946C] the king who then was ruling, or of the apostolic *420* prelate himself, because along with those very men who dictate the rest to us, we are equally ignorant of these. For they recall that they saw those names in ancient volumes, but since the city had before this been burned up by flames, they report that the records too were consumed along with it.

When therefore the man of the Lord, Maurus, saw the burden of so arduous a care laid upon him, as is read of blessed Paul [n: (Gal. I)], he in no way yielded to flesh and blood, but began to render himself the more watchful in the divine services, the more he knew that the guardianship also of so many [0947A] subjects pressed upon him. For weighing that the governance of souls is the art of arts, he judged it fitting neither to lessen the care of inward things by occupation with outward ones, nor again wholly to turn aside from the provision of outward things by solicitude for the inward: lest, namely, either given over to outward things he should fall away entirely from the innermost, or, occupied with the inward alone, he should render more negligently to his neighbors what he owed them outwardly.

For often some, as though forgetful that they have been set over their brethren for the sake of souls, serve worldly cares with such straining of heart that they exult to be doing them when these are at hand; and to these also, when they are absent, they pant with the turbulent surgings of their thoughts. And when they are at rest from these, the opportunity perhaps having ceased, they are wearied worse by that very rest of theirs. For they judge it a pleasure [0947B] if they be weighed down with business, and think it a labor if they do not labor in earthly affairs. But on the contrary, some indeed undertake the care of the flock, but so desire to be free for spiritual things for themselves that they are in no way occupied with outward matters. And these, when they wholly neglect to care for bodily things, do not at all meet the needs of their subjects; and their preaching for the most part is despised, because, while they rebuke the deeds of offenders and yet do not grant them the necessities of the present life, they are by no means gladly heard. For the word of teaching does not penetrate the mind of a needy man, if the hand of mercy does not commend it to his heart. But then the seed of the word easily sprouts, when the compassion of the preacher waters it in the breast of the hearer. And we speak these things about the various [0947C] characters of shepherds for this reason: to show how prudent, how measured was the discretion in blessed Maurus. For he assuredly, since neither by pursuing the leisure of the contemplative life did he wholly desert the active, nor by running about freely through the weariness of the active did he withdraw from contemplation, made his way, so to speak, by a golden road into the height of the heavenly kingdom.

At length, while he was living in his bishopric and vigorously governing the Church committed to him, he began to search out with careful inquiry of mind such a place where he might for a time withdraw from the crowd of worldly men and cleave more particularly to God alone: being, namely, no sluggish imitator of his Lord, *421* who by day preached in the cities, but by night [0947D] pressed on in prayers upon the mountain [n: (Luc. XXI)]. And while the care of this anxiety grew more and more from day to day, at length he cast his eye upon a certain small promontory, set apart nearly four stadia from the little city. It was called the woodland of Spatianus: a place neither stretched up more loftily to the heights by sheer peaks, nor altogether sunk into the depths, seeming levelled to the flatness of a field-bottom marsh; [0948A] but it was so set in a kind of middle ground by a fitting measure that it both granted to those placed upon it free power of viewing almost the whole diocese, and yet, not being too high, did not weary those ascending it with steep stages. For that mountain was clothed with a wooded thickness of various trees. This mountain, then, so pleased the eyes of the blessed man, as if he beheld the Mount of Olives lying next to the city of Jerusalem; and he could not without reason have sung this psalm along with the Prophet: *I will be mindful,* he says, *of thee, O Lord, from the land of Jordan and Hermoniim, from the little mountain [n: (Psal. XLI, 7)]*. And this mountain he first asked for from the Roman pontiff, under whose right it was held; then he built himself a little cell there with a small church, where, persevering in the season of Lent, he gave himself to fastings and [0948B] prayers; and if ever he could steal time from ecclesiastical affairs, he ran back to that same cell as to a banquet of sweet delicacies. There at length he drank in the stream of divine contemplation with the eager throat of his mind, whence afterward he refreshed the parched breasts of his neighbors with the cup of holy preaching. That place he plainly used as a bath. For there he took care to wash away whatever stain of word or of thought he had contracted from conversation with worldly men; and the dust of worldly living, without which this road of human mortality is not travelled, he there washed clean with frequent springs of tears. That place, therefore, which was so beloved and familiar to the holy man in life, deserved after his death also to be marked out as his burial place. For [0948C] his body, laid away in a stone chest, was placed beside the little basilica which he himself had built.



## CHAPTER II. *The translation of the body; miracles.*

These things, therefore, which could come to our knowledge concerning the life of the blessed man, were not indeed seen by those who reported them to us, but were made known by the well-known memory of succeeding generations.

But there was in our own recent times a certain very ancient old man, already trembling with a body wasting away, who testified that he had seen the nephew of this blessed Maurus — Constantius by name — bishop of the Church of Cesena. *422* But since [0948D] we have set out with running pen those things concerning the life of blessed Maurus which it fell to us to hear, let us now briefly explain how almighty God revealed his merits to the glory of his own name.

There is now a well-known monastery on the aforesaid mountain on which the man of God had been accustomed to pray, established in honor of the blessed Mother of God and Virgin, where by the ancient custom of the people it is called [0949A] the mountain of Maurus, since that place is not without reason adorned with the holy man's name.

When therefore that chest in which the blessed man's poor body was enclosed was lying hidden beside the aforesaid church, the heap of earth growing up on every side, and scarcely the top of the stone itself stood out level with the ground, it happened that a certain man, coming with the litanies, the lace of his boot having come undone, suddenly set his foot there and, thinking nothing of the sort, tied it without concern. His ankle then being bound, when he now wished to go away, he could in no way move his foot. And when he had long tried, and, attempting everything, turned himself this way and that, his foot nonetheless stood unmoved and was held fast to the stone as though by nails. The wretched man stood, guilty of an unknown offense, and he who had wished to tie his own strap grieved that he had rather tied himself to the stone. [0949B] He wished to stand, but leaning on one sole he could not; he longed to lie down, but was not able to fall away from his own foot. At length, a sudden concourse of people coming up, some with mallets, some with axes, eagerly cut away part of the stone, and after much labor were scarcely able to carve the man out of the rock. Soon a shout of the rejoicing crowd arises, the wonderful power of God is exalted, and the tomb of blessed Maurus is judged worthy of reverence.

The same monk of the aforesaid monastery — Teuzo by name — now advanced in years and venerable by his very gray hair, from whose account we have learned these things, related another miracle which we by no means pass over in silence. At one time this same aforesaid brother was pressed by a most bitter force of fevers. And when by no medicinal care, by no human effort at all, he had been able to return to a state of soundness, [0949C] blessed Maurus appeared in the silence of the night to a certain religious aunt of his — a nun, that is — and said to her: If you wish, he said, that your nephew recover from the sickness he suffers, tell him to fix the sign of the holy cross over my burial place, and to vow that he will keep a feast for me all the year. And when the man gladly fulfilled the blessed man's oracle, which he learned from the nun's report, as soon as he fixed an iron cross over the tomb, then, his inward parts being stirred, he vomited violently, and so at once cast off all the trouble of the fiery sickness, as though the vomiting itself were expelling it; and now wholly restored to his former health, he rendered worthy thanks to God his Savior, and took care to make known to many, for the glory of God's name, [0949D] the miracle of blessed Maurus which he had experienced in himself.

*423* And now, as the well-known report of both signs flew about among the people, many began to run devoutly to the holy relics of the blessed man, and to commend their souls more earnestly to his devout merits; and some also, laboring under various troubles of ill health, when they either drank the filings ground from the marble of the tomb, [0950A] or implored the mercy of the blessed confessor by poured-out prayers alone, returned to their own homes sound and whole, by whatever bond of sickness they had been bound. You might have seen the slack corpse-like bodies of pitiable sick men carried in, held up first by another's support, who soon were making their way back with great exultation and dancing, restored to their former health.

And when, with so many miracles flashing out, the more renowned fame of blessed Maurus grew ever more frequent, and the powers which the Lord showed forth through him resounded not only through all the neighboring places but through more distant tracts as well, at length, the bishops of the nearby cities having been called together and many crowds of peoples flowing in from every side, that chest in which the blessed man's protecting relics are laid away is eagerly [0950B] dug up, and, the wall of the church being pierced, is placed with hymns and praises with the utmost care between the apse and the altar. But in the course of time that same basilica was made larger, and, as is now seen, more festively adorned; where, to declare the merits of the blessed confessor, many miracles are done, God working, even to the present day — of which we touch on a few, which assuredly those who report them to us testify that they saw.



## CHAPTER III. *Various miracles at the relics.*

Pope Gerbert had encamped beside Cesena, and the armies poured around were hemming in his town with a siege. At that time there was brought to the tomb of blessed Maurus a certain countryman, weighed down with a twofold [0950C] affliction of diseases, being namely crippled and blind; but after prayer had been made, both the lost light returned to his eyes, and the sickness, put to flight, released his stiffened limbs. Straightway the man, seeing himself so wonderfully restored to health, giving such thanks as he was able, handed himself over as a servant to blessed Maurus by perpetual right, and vowed that he would remain in his service as long as he lived. And he, enjoying the gift of the health he had received for nearly ten years, afterward weakly gave way to the frailty of the flesh, and joined a wife to himself in an ill-omened marriage. For as soon as he had got possession of the pleasure of indulgence, he wholly lost the light of his eyes, and *424* as long as he lived, he remained in that same blindness. And surely it was fitting that he who, withdrawing himself from the right of blessed Maurus, to whom he had made himself over, shamefully put his neck under the yoke [0950D] of lust, should lose the gift with which he had been enriched by his good Lord: and that he who had of his own accord fallen into the inner darkness should unwillingly run into the outer.

At another time also a certain woman possessed by a demon was led to the altar of the blessed man, whom the pestilent spirit had filled with such fury that, making her as it were his instrument, [0951A] he uttered many sacrilegious and mad things through her mouth, sent out dreadful cries, and barked out like a rabid dog with repeated bayings. But on the third day after she had been brought there, she vomited blood with a certain violent rush, and so cast out the malignant spirit by which she was held.

A certain other woman, intent more than she ought upon the necessity of household affairs, did not fear to clean wheat on the feast of Saint Rufillus; but since she did not show the reverence of worthy honor to the blessed confessor, she did not escape the sentence of a worthy chastisement. For on the spot, struck by the divine judgment, she stiffened with her arms drawn up, and, in the same manner as if she still seemed to be winnowing with the sieve, she began wretchedly to tremble. And so she is led before the altar of blessed Maurus, and most urgently promises that on the aforesaid [0951B] feast she will never again do any such thing; and soon the most bountiful mercy of almighty God was graciously at hand, and fully restored the woman's numbed arms to the freedom of their own strength.

Again another woman was suffering an issue of blood; and when she was being continually harassed by the incurable wound, and, trying this thing and that, had been able to find no remedy of health, at length, set in the utmost straits, necessity itself found the counsel. And so with a clean linen cloth, so far as her means allowed, she covered the tomb of blessed Maurus, and, being thus delivered by God, escaped altogether every trouble of the ghastly sickness. For indeed, since the Apostle says: *Cleansing their hearts by faith [n: (Act. XV, 9)]* — because with a clean heart, being namely full of faith, [0951C] she touched the blessed man's tomb, she worthily deserved to be freed from the uncleanness of the flowing blood.

Likewise another woman was so twisted by the monstrousness of a most violent sickness that, the order of nature being undone, she held her face behind her and carried her neck before her. She likewise placed a linen cloth over the memorial of blessed Maurus, and straightway, health being received, nature restored to each of her limbs its own right, and tempered the vessels of the arteries to holding their proper vigor.

Another woman also, having lost her sight, was brought from the borders of Aquitaine, *425* who, keeping the temper of Gallic spiritedness, and after the manner of her country breaking her words out violently, testified most obstinately that she would never depart [0952A] from there unless through the merits of blessed Maurus she had received back the sight she had lost. And so, kindled with a great fervor of faith, she put together a small hut beside the wall of the church, so that in a manner she seemed to be preparing a dwelling rather than a lodging. And when prayer had been made most urgently for eight days, she received, by the bestowal of divine grace, the sight she sought, and rendered worthy thanks to God her enlightener and to Maurus his servant.

A crowd from the diocese of Forlimpopoli was making its way to the threshold of blessed Arduinus for the sake of prayer; and when it had passed through the oratory of blessed Maurus, it happened that a certain woman of that company, having humbly kissed the knee of the abbot of that monastery, asked leave to go on; and she, having advanced scarcely the shot of a single arrow, [0952B] was soon seized by a demon and is thrown to the ground, shaken, rolled about, and she kept bitingly spewing out many insults against that same abbot. And so she was led before the altar of blessed Maurus, and not long after was freed by the command of the divine power, so that, when her companions were returning, being now restored to herself, she went back together with them to her own home sound and whole.

These few things, therefore, dearest brothers, we have written concerning the powers which the almighty Lord has deigned to work through his blessed confessor Maurus, that we may stir up the zeal of your charity to glorify the might of the divine majesty. He, while he deigns to show the power of his miracles to us still set upon the way, through these invites and calls us on to lay hold of the inheritance of the heavenly country; [0952C] the Psalmist bearing witness, who says: *He will declare,* he says, *the power of his works to his people, that he may give them the inheritance of the nations [n: (Psal. CX, 6, 7)]*; so that, while we behold the very tombs of the saints shining with so many miracles, we may in no way doubt of their immense glory, in which they already reign with Christ; that, earthly things being despised, our mind may now transfer itself by desire to that place where it hopes to rejoice forever, and our spirit may freely direct itself there where Christ the emperor of heaven reigns unspeakably with the senators of the court above; to whom be glory and dominion with the co-eternal Father and the Holy Spirit through all ages of ages. Amen.
