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.