In Bede's biography of St. Cuthbert we find an instance of this saint healing a girl about the year 687. A young woman was troubled for a whole year with an intolerable pain in her head and side which the physicians were unable to relieve. Cuthbert "in pity anointed the wretched woman with oil. From that time she began to get better, and was well in a few days."
At the beginning of the eighth century the anointing of the sick began to decline, largely on account of the changed attitude of the church. At this time this ceremony began to be used for spiritual ills rather than for bodily diseases. Before long, anointing was monopolized by the church for spiritual advantage, and is still so used by the Roman Catholic Church in the ceremony of Extreme Unction.
In returning to the more direct methods of healing, we find that St. Gregory of Nazianzus (329-390) confirmed the reports of the marvellous cures wrought by the martyrs, Cosmo and Damian, who were beheaded in 303. During the life of Gregory of Tours (538-594), the healing efficacy of the saints' relics was rivalled by the miraculous aid rendered to the sick by St. Julian. The solitude of the holy anchorite was interrupted by the persistent and despairing clamor of the sick to whom he gave health. The great Turonese pontiff also tells us that one day Aredius, traversing Paris, found Chilperic prostrate with a grievous fever. The royal sufferer sought the saint's prayers as an irresistible curative.
The daughter of a Teutonic nobleman was brought to St. Gall (556-640) seriously ill with an incurable disorder, presenting the livid appearance of an animated cadaver. The saint approached the unconscious invalid as she reclined on her mother's knee, and assuming the bended attitude of invocation by her side, made a fervent prayer and evoked the demon producing the sickness to instantly depart. The effort was all that was desired. Shortly after this, about the year 648, St. Vardrille, the founder of Fontanelle, exercised his remedial potency in healing the palsied arm of a forester whose indiscreet zeal had induced him to transfix the sainted abbot with a lance.
We have rather a strange case from the beginning of the seventh century, where the moral and mental element seems to have been strong. Abbe Eustasius returning from Rome, whither a mission of Clothair II had called him, was urgently summoned by the sorrowful parent of a Burgundian maiden, in the last agonies of a frightful malady, to appear and cure the moribund daughter. On answering the call he found that the child had in her youth been consecrated by the vows of chastity, and on account of this shrunk from a marriage sanctioned by her parents. Eustasius reproached the father for his efforts to violate the solemn obligations of the0 virgin, and upon obtaining a formal renunciation of further attempts to coerce her into matrimony, the saint, by personal intercession, obtained a complete cure.
It was found that certain remedies in the hands of certain saints were efficacious, but they did not have the same power if administered by others. For instance, Franciscus de Paula succored an anchylosed joint by the energetic surgery of three dried figs which he gave the suffering patient to eat. Similarly, a maiden grieving under a cancerous disease which surgical skill had frankly admitted was incurable, was restored to robust vigor by the administering of some mild herbs. This savored rather too much of medicine, and other holy healers used more orthodox means. Hugo the Holy abstracted a serpent from the infirm body of a woman by the use of holy water, and Coleta, the saintess, awakened from the dreamless slumber of death more than one hundred slain infants by the efficacy of a cross.
Even such a serious disorder as leprosy was said to have been healed by saintly care. St. Martin, who gave special attention to sufferers with this disease, cured a leper by kissing him, we are told. Toward the middle of the sixth century, St. Radegonde displayed her faith by first washing the repulsive sores and afterward applying her pure lips to them. On one occasion an insolent leper asserted that unless his putrefying limbs were kissed by this candidate for canonical honors he could not be cured.[61]
Bede (673-735), the great English historian, in his careful way tells us of cures performed by St. John of Beverly during the first part of the eighth century. According to this record, St. John cured a dumb youth, who had never spoken a word, by the sign of the cross on his tongue, and he afterward had "ready utterance." He used holy water on a woman so that, like Peter's wife's mother, she arose and ministered to them, healed a friend who was injured by being thrown from a horse, cured a nun of a grievous complaint, and restored a servant, an account of which I shall give in Bede's words:
"The bishop went in and saw him in a dying condition, and the coffin by his side, whilst all present were in tears. He said a prayer, blessed him, and on going out, as is the usual expression of comforters, said, 'May you soon recover.' Afterwards when they were sitting at table, the lad sent to his lord, to desire he would let him have a cup of wine, because he was thirsty. The earl, rejoicing that he could drink, sent him a cup of wine, blessed by the bishop; which, as soon as he had drunk, he immediately got up, and shaking off his late infirmity, dressed himself, and going in to the bishop, saluted him and the other guests, saying, 'He would also eat and be merry with them.' They ordered him to sit down with them at the entertainment, rejoicing at his recovery. He sat down, ate and drank merrily, and behaved himself like the rest of the company; and living many years after, continued in the same state of health."[62]
Skipping a few centuries, we find that Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153), the most prominent figure of the twelfth century, performed an abundance of cures, as his biographers testify. "The cures were so many that the witnesses themselves were unable to detail them all. At Doningen, near Rheinfeld, where the first Sunday of Advent was spent, Bernard cured, in one day, nine blind persons, ten who were deaf or dumb, and eighteen lame or paralytic. On the following Wednesday, at Schaffhausen, the number of miracles increased."[63] Concerning these cures Morison says: "Thirty-six miraculous cures in one day would seem to have been the largest stretch of supernatural power which Bernard permitted to himself. The halt, the blind, the deaf, and the dumb were brought from all parts to be touched by Bernard. The patient was presented to him, whereupon he made the sign of the cross over the part affected, and the cure was perfect."[64]