[Inserted in the Roman Martyrology by Baronius. Venerated by the Greeks on November 17th, and his translation on October 17th. Authorities:—Cedrenus and Zonaras.]
S. Lazarus was priest, monk, and painter. During the persecution by the emperor Theophilus against sacred images and monks, Lazarus, as a painter of pictures for churches, was imprisoned, and his right hand was fearfully burnt by the application of red-hot iron plates. On the death of the emperor he recovered his liberty, and painted two celebrated pictures, one at Constantinople, of S. John the Baptist, the other at Chalcis, of the Saviour, on a wall, where there had been a similar picture, which had been scraped off by the Iconoclasts. He was sent to Rome by the Emperor Michael the Stammerer, with some magnificent corporals and altar vestments, minutely described by Anastasius the Librarian. On a second expedition to Rome he died.
S. PETER DAMIANI, B. D.
(A.D. 1072.)
[Roman Martyrology. A double of the Breviary. Pope Leo XII. gave to S. Peter Damiani the title of Doctor of the Church, and extended to the whole of the Catholic Church the right of venerating him, which was formerly reserved to the Camaldolese, and to the dioceses of Ravenna and Falonza. Authority:—Life by his disciple, John of Lodi.]
Peter, surnamed of Damian, was born about the year 988, in Ravenna, of a good family, the Onesti, that was considerably reduced in circumstances. He was the youngest of many children, and when very young, losing his father and mother, he was left in the hands of a married brother, in whose house he was treated more as a slave than a relation; and when grown up, he was sent to keep swine. One day he became possessed of a piece of money, which, instead of spending on himself, he bestowed in alms on a priest, desiring him to offer up prayers for his father's soul. He had another brother called Damian, who was arch-priest of Ravenna, and afterwards a monk; who, taking pity on him, gave him an education. Damian sent Peter to school, first at Faenza, afterwards at Parma. Having good natural parts, it was not long before Peter found himself in a capacity to teach others. To arm himself against the allurements of pleasure, and the artifices of the devil, he began to wear a rough hair-shirt under his clothes, and to inure himself to fasting, watching, and prayer. In the night, if any temptation of concupiscence arose, he got out of bed and plunged into the river. After this, he visited churches, reciting the psalter whilst he performed this devotion, till the church office began. He not only gave much away in alms, but was seldom without some poor person at his table, and took a pleasure in serving them with his own hands. But at length he came to the resolution of deserting the world, and embracing the monastic life, at a distance from his own country. While his mind was full of these thoughts, two religious of the order of S. Benedict, belonging to Font-Avellano, a desert at the foot of the Apennines in Umbria, happened to call at the place of his abode; and being much edified at their disinterestedness, he resolved to embrace their institute; which he did shortly after. This hermitage had been founded by Blessed Ludolf, about twenty years before S. Peter came thither, and was then in the greatest repute. The hermits, in pairs, occupied separate cells. They lived on bread and water four days in the week: on Tuesdays and Thursdays they ate pulse and herbs, which every one dressed in his own cell: on their fast days all their bread was given them by weight. They never used any wine (the common drink of the country) except for mass, or in sickness: they went barefoot, used disciplines, made many genuflections, struck their breasts, stood with their arms stretched out in prayer, each according to his strength and devotion. After the night office they said the whole psalter before day. This severe life brought on S. Peter a nervous attack of wakefulness, which nearly wore him out, and of which he was cured with very great difficulty. But he learned from this to use more discretion. He gave a considerable time to sacred studies, and became as well versed in the Scriptures as he was before in profane literature. His superior ordered him to make frequent exhortations to the religious, and as he had acquired a very great character for virtue and learning, Guy, abbot of Pomposia, begged his superior to send him to instruct his monastery, which consisted of a hundred monks. Peter staid there two years, and was then called back by his abbot, and sent to perform the same function in the large abbey of S. Vincent, near the Pietra Pertusa, or Hollow Rock. On his recall, he was commanded by his abbot, with the unanimous consent of the hermitage, to take upon him the government of the desert after his death, Therefore, on the decease of the abbot, in 1041, Peter assumed the direction of that holy family, which he governed with wisdom and sanctity. He founded five other hermitages; in which he placed priors subject to his jurisdiction. His principal care was to cherish in his disciples the spirit of solitude, charity, and humility. Among them, many became great lights of the Church, as S. Ralph, bishop of Gubbio, whose festival is kept on the 26th of June; S. Dominic, surnamed Loricatus, the 14th of October; S. John of Lodi, his successor in the priory of the Holy Cross, who was also bishop of Gubbio, and wrote S. Peter's life; and many others. He was for twelve years much employed in the service of the Church by many zealous bishops, and by four popes successively, namely, Gregory VI., Clement II., Leo IX., and Victor II. Their successor, Stephen IX., 1057, prevailed on him to quit his desert, and made him cardinal bishop of Ostia.
Stephen IX. dying in 1058, Nicolas II. was chosen pope, a man of deep penetration, of great virtue and learning. Upon complaints of simony in the Church of Milan, Nicolas II. sent Peter thither as his legate. Nicolas II. dying, after having sat two years and six months, Alexander II. was chosen pope, in 1062. S. Peter had with great importunity solicited Nicolas II. to grant him leave to resign his bishopric, and return to his solitude; but could not obtain it. His successor, Alexander II., out of affection for the holy man, was prevailed upon to allow it, in 1062, but not without great difficulty, and the reserve of a power to employ him in Church-matters of importance, as he might have occasion hereafter for his assistance. The saint from that time thought himself discharged, not only from the burden of his flock, but also from the government, as Superior of the several priories, dependent on his monastery.
In this retirement he edified the Church by his penance and compunction, and laboured by his writings to enforce the observance of discipline and morality. He wrote a treatise to the bishop of Besançon, against the custom which the canons of that Church had, of saying the divine office sitting, a custom which has unfortunately, since his time, become general; but he saw the propriety of all sitting during the lessons. This saint wrote most severely on the obligations of religious, particularly against their rambling over the country, and going from monastery to monastery. He complained of certain evasions, by which many palliated real infractions of their vow of poverty. He justly observed, "We can never restore what is decayed of primitive discipline; and if we, by negligence, suffer any diminution in what remains established, future ages will never be able to repair such breaches. Let us not draw upon ourselves so base a reproach; but let us faithfully transmit to posterity the examples of virtue which we have received from our forefathers." The holy man was obliged to interrupt his solitude in obedience to the pope, who sent him in the capacity of legate, into France, in 1063, commanding the archbishops and others to receive him as himself. S. Peter there reconciled discords, settled the bounds of the jurisdiction of certain dioceses, and condemned and deposed in councils those who were convicted of simony. He notwithstanding, tempered his severity with mildness and indulgence towards penitents, where charity and prudence required such a condescension. Henry IV., king of Germany, in 1067, married Bertha, daughter of Otho, marquis of the Marches of Italy, but afterwards, in 1069, sought a divorce, and persuaded the Archbishop of Mentz to favour his design, by promising full payment of monies due to him if he complied, and threatening to fall on his territories with an armed band if he refused. For the purpose of sanctioning the divorce, the archbishop assembled a council at Mentz. Pope Alexander II. forbade him ever to consent to such an injustice, and chose Peter Damiani for his legate to preside in the synod. The venerable legate met the king and bishops at Frankfort, laid before them the orders and instructions of the pope, and in his name conjured the king to pay a due regard towards the law of God, the canons of the Church, and his own reputation, and seriously reflect on the public scandal of so pernicious an example. The noblemen likewise all rose up, and entreated their sovereign never to stain his honour by so foul an action. The king, unable to resist so cogent an authority, dropped his project of a divorce; but remaining the same man in his heart, continued to hate the queen more than ever.
S. Peter hastened back to his desert of Font-Avellano. Whatever austerities he prescribed to others he was the first to practise himself, remitting nothing of them, even in his old age. He lived shut up in his cell as in a prison, fasted every day, except festivals, and allowed himself no other subsistence than coarse bread, bran, herbs, and water, and this he never drank fresh, but what he had kept from the day before. He tortured his body with iron girdles and frequent disciplines, to render it more obedient to the spirit. He passed the first three days of every Lent and Advent without taking any kind of nourishment whatsoever; and often for forty days together, lived only on raw herbs and fruits, or on pulse steeped in cold water, without touching so much as bread, or anything that had passed the fire. A mat spread on the floor was his bed. He used to make wooden spoons and such like useful cheap things, to exercise himself at certain hours in manual labour. Henry, archbishop of Ravenna, having been excommunicated for grievous enormities, S. Peter was sent by Pope Alexander II. in the character of legate, to adjust the affairs of the Church. When he arrived at Ravenna, in 1072, he found the unfortunate prelate just dead; but brought the accomplices of his crimes to a sense of their guilt, and imposed on them a suitable penance. This was his last undertaking for the Church, God being pleased soon after to call him to eternal rest, and to the crown of his labours. Old age and the fatigues of his journey did not make him lay aside his accustomed mortifications, by which he fulfilled his burnt-offering. In his return towards Rome, he was stopped by a fever in the monastery of Our Lady, outside the gates of Faenza, and died there, on the eighth day of his sickness, whilst the monks were reciting Matins round about him. He passed from that employment, which had been the delight of his heart on earth, to sing the same praises of God in eternal glory, on the 22nd of February, 1072, being fourscore and three years old. He is honoured as patron at Faenza and Font-Avellano, on the 23rd of the same month.
