“From his sixteenth to his twentieth year,” says Kingsley, “he was sheltered from the heat and rain in a tiny cabin, which he had woven of rush and sedge. Afterwards he built a little cell, four feet wide and five feet high,—that is lower than his own stature, and somewhat longer than his small body needed,—so that you would believe it a tomb rather than a dwelling. He cut his hair only once a year, on Easter Day, and lay till his death on the bare ground and a layer of rushes, never washing the sack in which he was clothed, and saying that it was superfluous to seek for cleanliness in hair-cloth. Nor did he change his linen until the first was utterly in rags. He knew the Scriptures by heart, and recited them after his prayers and psalms as if God were present.”
Of S. Simeon Stylites we read that, having gone to the well one day to draw water, he took the rope from the bucket, and wound it round his body from his loins to his neck, and going in, he adventured an audacious falsehood, for he said to his brethren, “I went out to draw water, and found no rope on the bucket.” And they said, “Hold thy peace, brother, lest the Abbot know it, till the thing has passed over.” But the tightness and roughness of the rope wore grievous wounds in his body, as the brethren at last discovered. Then with great trouble they took off the rope, and his flesh with it, and attending to his wounds, healed them.
For twenty-eight years of his life he was continually experimenting in long fasts—forty days at a time. Custom gradually made it comparatively easy to him. For on the first days he used to stand and praise God; after that, when through emptiness he could stand no longer, he would sit and perform the divine office, and on the last day even lie down. For when his strength failed slowly, he was forced to lie half dead. But after he stood on the column he could not bear to lie down, but invented another way by which he could stand. He fastened a beam to the column, and tied himself to it by ropes, and so passed the forty days. But afterwards, when endued with greater grace from on high, he did not need even that assistance, but stood for the whole forty days, dispensing with food, but strengthened by eagerness of soul and the divine help.
At length he caused a pillar to be built, first of six cubits, then of twelve, next of twenty-two, and finally of thirty-six, and upon the top of this he took his station. The sun beat upon his bare head in the summer, and the winter snows fell upon him, and the pitiless rains soaked him to the skin,—but still he endured his self-imposed penance. He bowed himself frequently, offering adoration to God; so frequently that a spectator counted 1244 adorations, and then missing gave up counting; and each time he bowed himself, he touched his feet with his forehead. And ever in spirit he deprecated the wrath of an offended God, to Whom, as a meet sacrifice, he offered up his poor, wounded, tortured, emaciated body.
“I will not cease to grasp the hope I hold
Of saintdom, and to clamour, mourn and sob,
Battering the gates of heaven with storms of prayer.
Have mercy on me, Lord, and take away my sins,
Let this avail, just, dreadful, mighty God,
This not be all in vain, that thrice ten years
Thrice multiplied by superhuman pangs....
A sign between the meadow and the cloud,
Patient on this tall pillar I have borne
Rain, wind, frost, heat, hail, damp, and sleet, and snow;
And I had hoped that ere this period closed,
Thou wouldst have caught me up into Thy rest,
Denying not these weather-beaten limbs
The meed of saints, the white robe, and the palm.
O take the meaning, Lord: I do not breathe
Nor whisper any murmur of complaint.”[58]
We turn from these pictures of human error,—error based, it must be owned, on a substratum of truth,—to put together a few particulars of the Sect of the Flagellants, which practised on a curiously elaborate scale the science of self-punishment.
This sect first made its appearance in Italy in 1210. The following account of its origin is taken by Mr. Cooper from the “Chronicon Ursitius Basiliensis” of the monk of Padua, S. Justin:[59]
“When all Italy was sullied with crimes of every kind, a certain sudden superstition, hitherto unknown to the world, first seized the inhabitants of Perusa, afterwards the Romans, and then almost all the nations of Italy. To such a degree were they affected with the fear of God, that noble as well as ignoble persons, young and old, even children five years of age, would go naked about the streets without any sense of shame, walking in public, two and two, in the manner of a solemn procession. Every one of them held in his hand a scourge, made of leather thongs, and with tears and groans they lashed themselves on their backs till the blood ran: all the while weeping and giving tokens of the same bitter affliction, as if they had really been spectators of the passion of our Saviour, imploring the forgiveness of God and His Mother, and praying that He, Who had been appeased by the repentance of so many sinners, would not disdain theirs. And not only in the daytime, but likewise during the nights, hundreds, thousands, and ten thousands of these penitents ran, notwithstanding the rigour of winter, about the streets, and in churches, with lighted wax candles in their hands, and preceded by priests who carried crosses and banners along with them, and with humility prostrated themselves before the altars: the same scenes were to be seen in small towns and villages; so that the mountains and fields seemed to resound alike the voice of men who were crying to God.
“All musical instruments and love-songs ceased to be heard. The only music that prevailed both in town and country was that of the lugubrious voice of the penitent, whose mournful accents might have moved hearts of flint: and even the eyes of the obdurate sinner could not refrain from tears. Nor were women exempt from the general spirit of devotion we mention; for not only those among the common people, but also matrons and young ladies of noble families, would perform the same mortifications with modesty in their own rooms.
“Then those who were at enmity with one another became again friends. Usurers and robbers hastened to restore their ill-gotten riches to their right owners. Others, who were contaminated with different crimes, confessed them with humility, and renounced their vanities. Gaols were opened; prisoners were delivered; and banished persons permitted to return to their native habitations. So many and so great works of sanctity and Christian charity, in short, were then performed by both men and women, that it seemed as if an universal apprehension had seized mankind, that the divine power was preparing either to consume them by fire, or destroy them by shaking the earth, or some other of those means which Divine justice knows how to employ for avenging crimes. Such a sudden repentance, which had thus diffused itself all over Italy, and had even reached other countries, not only the unlearned, but wise persons also admired. They wondered whence such a vehement fervour of piety could have proceeded: especially since such public penances and ceremonies had been unheard of in former times, had not been approved by the sovereign pontiff, nor recommended by any preacher or person of eminence; but had taken their origin among simple persons, whose example both learned and unlearned alike had followed.”