CHAP. XIII.
The subject of voluntary flagellations among Christians is at last introduced. That method of self-mortification appears to have been practised in very early times; but it does not seem to have been universally admitted before the years 1047 and 1056; which was the time Cardinal Damianus wrote[70].
VOLUNTARY flagellations were not a practice that was contrived on a sudden, and then immediately diffused over the Christian world.
Long before the period in which their use began to be universally adopted, they were practised by divers persons, in different times and places, as we may judge from the accounts that have been left us, of several early facts; a few of which I here purpose to relate.
One is contained in the Life of St. Peter, the Hermit of the Pont Euxin, which was written by Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus, who has been mentioned in a former Chapter, and lived about the year 400. This holy Hermit having found means to rescue a young Woman from the hands of a military Officer, who wanted to seduce her, was much perplexed afterwards how to prevent the effects of both the wrath and lust of that impure man; nor could he, in the issue, compass this any other way than by locking himself up, as Theodoret relates, and severely flagellating himself, in company with the Mother of the young Woman[71].
Palladius, Bishop of Hellenopolis, in his History of the Lives of several holy Solitaries, which he wrote in the year 420, and dedicated to Lausus, whence the Book was called Lausiacum, relates a fact which incontestably proves that flagellations voluntarily submitted to, by those persons who underwent them, were in use so early as the fourth Century. He says, in the Life of Abbot Arsisius, that on the mountain of Nitria, in Thebaid, there was a very large Church, in the vicinity of which stood three Palm-trees, on each of which hung a scourge: the one served to chastise such Monks as proved refractory against the Rule; the other to punish Thieves; and the third served to correct such accidental comers as became guilty of some fault: the delinquents, according to what class they belonged, embraced one of the Palm-trees, and in this situation received a certain number of lashes with one of the above scourges.
It is expressly said of St. Pardulph, a Benedictine Monk and Abbot, who lived during the time of Charles Martel, about the year 737, that he used in Lent-time to strip himself stark-naked, and order one of his disciples to lash him. The fact is related in the life of that Saint, formerly written by an Author who lived about the same time; and it was, two hundred years afterwards, put into more elegant language, by Yvus, Prior of Clugny, at the desire of the Monks of St. Martial, in the Town of Limoges: Hugh Menard, a Benedictine Father, and a very learned Man in all that relates to Ecclesiastical Antiquities, has inserted part of it in his Book, intitled, Observations on the Benedictine Martyrology. The following is the Passage in St. Pardulph’s Life, which is here alluded to. ‘St. Pardulph seldom went out of his cell; whenever sickness obliged him to bathe, he would previously make incisions in his own skin. During Lent, he used to strip himself intirely naked, and ordered one of his disciples to lash him with rods[72].’
St. William, Duke of Aquitain, who lived in the time of Charlemain, that is, about the year 800, and many years before Cardinal Damian, is said to have also used flagellations, as a means of voluntary penance. Arduinus, the Writer of the holy Duke’s Life, and a cotemporary Writer, says, that ‘it was commonly reported that the Duke did frequently, for the love of Christ, cause himself to be whipped, and that he then was alone with the person who assisted him[73].’ Haeftenus, Superior of the Monastery of Affligen, relates the same fact, and says that the Duke of Aquitain ‘took a great delight in sleeping upon a hard bed, and that he moreover lashed himself with a scourge.’ Hugh Menard, the learned Benedictine just now mentioned, has adopted the testimony of Arduinus, and upon that Writer’s authority inserted the above fact in his Observations on the Benedictine Martyrology.
Other persons, who lived before the times of Cardinal Damian, are also mentioned by different Writers, as having practised voluntary flagellations. Gualbertus, Abbot of Pontoise, who lived about the year 900, upon a certain occasion, ‘severely flagellated himself (as M. Du Cange relates in his Glossary) with a scourge made of knotted thongs.’ And the abovementioned Haeftenus, Prior of Affligen, has advanced that the same practice was followed by St. Romuald, who lived about the same time as Gualbertus, and by the Monks of the Camaldolian order, who were settled in Sitria.
Another early instance of voluntary flagellations occurs in the Life of Guy, Abbot of Pomposa. Heribert, it is said, Archbishop of Ravenna, formed the design of pulling down the Monastery of Pomposa; and this piece of news caused both Abbot Guy and his Monks, ‘to lock themselves up in the Capitular House, and to lash themselves every day, for several days, with rods[74].’ Abbot Guy was born in the year 956; and he was made Abbot of Pomposa in the year 998, in which capacity he continued forty-eight years.
All the facts above related were anterior to the year 1056, the time at which Peter Damian de Honeslis was raised to the Cardinalship by Pope Stephen IX; and it is evident from them, that the practice of voluntarily flagellating one’s-self, as a penance for committed sins, had been adopted before the period in question; though it cannot be said to have been then universally prevalent: at least, only a few instances of it have been left us by the Writers of those times. But at the æra we mention, this pious mode of self-correction, owing to the public and zealous patronage with which the above Cardinal favoured it, acquired a vast degree of credit, and grew into universal esteem; and then it was that persons of religious dispositions were every where seen to arm themselves with whips, rods, thongs, and besoms, and lacerate their own hides, in order to draw upon themselves the favour of Heaven.
We are informed of this fact by the learned Cardinal Baronius, in his Ecclesiastical Annals: ‘At that time (he says) the laudable usage of the faithful, of beating themselves with whips made for that purpose, though Peter Damian may not be said to have been the author of it, was much promoted by him the Christian Church; in which he followed the example of the blessed Dominic the Cuirassed, a holy Hermit, who had subjected himself to his authority[75].’
The same Cardinal Damian has moreover left numerous accounts of voluntary flagellations practised by certain holy Men of his times; but these are surely more apt to create our admiration, than to excite us to imitate them, indeed, the flagellations he mentions cannot be proposed to the Faithful as examples they ought to follow, and they were executed with such dreadful severity, as makes it impossible for the most vigorous Men to go through the like, without a kind of miracle.
In the Life of the Monk St. Rodolph, who was afterwards made Bishop of Eugubio, the Cardinal relates, ‘That this holy Man would often impose upon himself a penance of an hundred years, and that he performed it in twenty days, by the strenuous application of a broom, without neglecting the other common methods used in doing penance. Every day, being shut up in his cell, he recited the whole Psalter (or Book of Psalms) at least one time when he could not two, being all the while armed with a besom in each hand, with which he incessantly lashed himself[76]’
The account which the Cardinal has left of Dominic, sirnamed the Cuirassed, is not less wonderful. ‘His constant practice (he says) is, after stripping himself naked, to fill both his hands with rods, and then vigorously flagellate himself: this he does in his times of relaxation. But during Lent-time, or when he really means to mortify himself, he frequently undertakes the hundred years penance; and then he every day recites the Psalter at least three times over, all the while flogging himself with besoms[77].’
Cardinal Damian then proceeds to relate the manner in which the same Dominic informed him he performed the hundred years penance. ‘A Man (said he) may depend he has accomplished it, when he has flagellated himself during the whole time the Psalter was sung twenty times over[78].’ The same Author adds several circumstances which make the penances performed by the holy Man appear in a still more admirable light. He, in the first place, was so dextrous as to be able to use both his hands at once, and thus laid on twice the number of lashes others could do, who only used their right-hand. In one instance, he fustigated himself during the time the whole Book of Psalms was sung twice over; on another occasion he did the same while it was sung eight times; and on another, while it was repeated twelve times over; ‘which filled me with terror,’ the Cardinal adds, ‘when I heard the fact[79].’
Cardinal Damian also relates of the same Dominic the Cuirassed, that he at last changed his discipline of rods into that of leather-thongs, which was still harsher; and that he had been able to accustom himself to that laborious exercise. Nay, so punctual was he in performing the duties he had imposed upon himself, that, ‘when he happened to go abroad (being an Hermit) he carried his scourge in his bosom, to the end that, wherever he happened to spend the night, he might lose no time, and flog himself with the same regularity as usual. If the place in which he had taken his refuge for the night, did not allow him to strip entirely, and fustigate himself from head to foot, he at least would severely beat his legs and head[80].’
