Serapion bishop of Thmuis, in Egypt, a friend of S. Antony the Great, and a champion of S. Athanasius, wrote an epistle to the great defender of orthodoxy, and another on the death of Arius, together with treatises on the titles of the Psalms, and on Manichæism. He is said by S. Jerome to have suffered for his zeal in the orthodox cause, under Constantius, when the Arians were in power.
S. LUPICINUS, AB. OF CONDATE.
(ABOUT A.D. 430.)
[Roman and Benedictine Martyrologies; that of Usuardus, and that attributed to Bede. Authority:—A life by a contemporary, a monk of Condate, "Ego adhuc puerulus," he says. This life is very curious from its barbarous Latin, teeming as it does with words and phrases adopted from the Burgundian language. Also a life of SS. Romanus and Lupicinus by S. Gregory of Tours, written in the 5th cent., see Feb. 28th.]
Lupicinus and his younger brother Romanus, seeking solitude, climbed the rocks among the pines of the Jura, and established themselves in the wilderness of Joux, living on wild fruits and plants. They were both young; and they soon found that it was impossible for them to maintain life on the scanty food yielded by the mountains. They therefore descended to the plains, and entered the cottage of a poor woman, and told her how they had tried to serve God in the midst of the rocks, but had found such a life insupportable. The woman sharply rebuked them for having put their hand to the plough, and then turned back, and they filled with shame, turned their faces once more to the mountains, and penetrated its recesses. And then many came to them from all quarters, and the grain and herbs they had sown and planted sprang up, and they cut down trees, and built the monastery of Condate.[72] But soon the place was too strait for them, and a colony went forth, and founded Lauconne, also in the Jura, and another was established at Romainmoutier. Lupicinus was abbot, and all obeyed him. He is said by S. Gregory of Tours to have been very austere and stern in the maintenance of discipline, so that from his harshness some brethren fled, but the contemporary writer gives a very different picture of him. A story of his severity, with which the mildness of his brother contrasts pleasingly, has been related in the life of S. Romanus (Feb. 28th).
But if he could be harsh at times, at others he overflowed with gentleness.
He wore a rough garment made of the skins of beasts stitched together, and wooden shoes, or rather sandals.[73] When others retired to rest after singing vespers, he retreated to his oratory, however cold the weather, meditating and dozing till the midnight office; in the quaint Latin of his biographer it is said that he entered the oratory "mæditaturus potius quam repausaturus" (to meditate rather than to repose.)
A pretty story is told of the tender care of the abbot Lupicinus for a monk whose exaggerated fasting had brought him to such a pass that it was thought he could not live many days. This man, who was younger than Lupicinus, not content with the strict rule of the house, refused to eat and drink till after vespers, and then he would touch nothing but the crumbs which the brethren had let fall on the floor, which he collected in his palm, and moistened with a little water. The result was that he was struck down as with paralysis, and lay unable to move on his pallet, ghastly, and scarce breathing. This monk was so set on maintaining his self-imposed rule that the abbot doubted for some while how to treat him. At last when all the brethren were at work one bright spring day, he remained behind, and going to the monk's side, said, "Come, my brother, and let me carry you on my back into the little garden; you have long been shut in here in this dull cell, unable to set foot on the ground, and glad your eyes with the fresh green grass." So he set him on his back, and carried him into the garden, and spread some sheepskins on the herb, and lay the emaciated brother on it, and then lay down beside him as though he were also suffering from exhaustion and rheumatism. After a while he began to rub his arms and legs, and say, "Good God! how comforted I am by this.[74] Brother, come, let me rub your back and legs and arms also, it makes them feel so much better." And when he had done this for a while, the brother, who lay half torpid, began to stretch himself a bit, and spread out his legs in the sun.
Seeing this, the abbot ran to the kitchen, and got some bits of broken bread, and then went into the cellar and sopped them in the best wine, and after that poured a little oil upon them, and came back into the garden, holding out what he had got, exclaiming, "Look! sweetest brother, away with your self-imposed severity, and doubt not it has been too hard for you, follow my example, and obey my advice," and then he gave him half of what he had prepared, eating the rest himself, to encourage the monk. So having rubbed him a little more, and sung a hymn, and said a prayer, he took him up on his back once more, and carried him back to his cell again. Next day he did precisely the same, and so on till the monk was able to totter into the garden, leaning upon him, and then he amused him and occupied him by making him pick berries. And thus, by degrees, he restored to his vigour a man who was thought to be on the brink of the grave. He lived many years longer.