He Could Do The
Same With Lobsters, Cows, And Human Beings.
Thus a cow belonging to Fra Egidio's monastery was once stolen by an
impious butcher, and cut up into the usual joints with a view to a
clandestine sale of the meat.
The saint discovered the beast's remains,
ordered that they should be laid together on the floor in the shape of a
living cow, with the entrails, head and so forth in their natural
positions; then, having made the sign of the cross with his cord upon
the slaughtered beast, and rousing up all his faith, he said: "In the
name of God and of Saint Pasquale, arise, Catherine!" (Catherine was the
cow's name.) "At these words the animal lowed, shook itself, and stood
up on its feet alive, whole and strong, even as it had been before it
was killed."
In the case of one of the dead men whom he brought to life, the
undertakers were already about their sad task; but Fra Egidio, viewing
the corpse, remarked in his usual manner that the man was "not dead, but
only asleep," and after a few saintly manipulations, roused him from his
slumber. The most portentous of his wonders, however, are those which he
wrought after his own death by means of his relics and otherwise; they
have been sworn to by many persons. Nor did his hand lose its old
cunning, in these posthumous manifestations, with the finny tribe. A
certain woman, Maria Scuotto, was enabled to resuscitate a number of
dead eels by means of an image of the deceased saint which she cast
among them.
Every one of the statements in this biography is drawn from the
processi to which I will presently refer; there were 202 witnesses who
deposed "under the rigour and sanctity of oath" to the truth of these
miracles; and among those who were personally convinced of the
Venerable's rare gifts was the Royal Family of Naples, the archbishop of
that town, as well as innumerable dukes and princes. An embittered
rationalist would note that the reading of Voltaire, at this period, was
punished with three years' galley-slavery and that several thousand
citizens were hanged for expressing liberal opinions; he will suggest
that belief in the supernatural, rejected by the thinking classes, finds
an abiding shelter among royalty and the proletariat.
It occurs to me, a propos of Fra Egidio, to make the obvious statement
that an account of an occurrence is not necessarily true, because it
happened long ago. Credibility does not improve, like violins and port
wine, with lapse of years. This being the case, it will not be
considered objectionable to say that there are certain deeds attributed
to holy men of olden days which, to speak frankly, are open to doubt; or
at least not susceptible of proof. Who were these men, if they ever
existed? and who vouches for their prodigies? This makes me think that
Pope Gelasius showed no small penetration in excluding, as early as the
fifth century, some few acta sanctorum from the use of the churches;
another step in the same direction was taken in the twelfth century when
the power of canonizing saints, which had hitherto been claimed by all
bishops, became vested in the Pope alone; and yet another, when Urban
VIII forbade the nomination of local patron saints by popular vote.
Pious legends are supposed to have their uses as an educative agency. So
be it. But such relations of imperfectly ascertained and therefore
questionable wonders suffer from one grave drawback: they tend to shake
our faith in the evidence of well-authenticated ones. Thus Saint Patrick
is also reported to have raised a cow from the dead - five cows, to be
quite accurate; but who will come forward and vouch for the fact? No
one. That is because Saint Patrick belongs to the legendary stage; he
died, it is presumed, about 490.
Here, with Saint Egidio, we are on other ground; on the ground of bald
actuality. He expired in 1812, and the contemporaries who have attested
his miraculous deeds are not misty phantoms of the Thebais; they were
creatures of flesh and blood, human, historical personages, who were
dressed and nourished and educated after the fashion of our own
grandfathers. Yet it was meet and proper that the documentary evidence
as to his divine graces should be conscientiously examined. And only in
1888 was the crowning work accomplished. In that year His Holiness Leo
XIII and the Sacred Congregation of Cardinals solemnly approved the
evidence and inscribed the name of Egidio in the book of the Blessed.
To touch upon a few minor matters - I observe that Fra Egidio, like the
Flying Monk, was "illiterate," and similarly preserved up to a decrepit
age "the odorous lily of purity, which made him appear in words and
deeds as a most innocent child." He was accustomed to worship before a
favourite picture of the Mother of God which he kept adorned with
candles; and whenever the supply of these ran out, he was wont to
address Her with infantile simplicity of heart and in the local dialect:
"Now there's no wax for You; so think about it Yourself; if not, You'll
have to go without." The playful-saintly note. . . .
But there is this difference between him and earlier saints that whereas
they, all too often, suffered in solitude, misunderstood and rejected of
men, he enjoyed the highest popularity during his whole long life.
Wherever he went, his footsteps were pursued by crowds of admirers,
eager to touch his wonder-working body or to cut off shreds of his
clothing as amulets; hardly a day passed that he did not return home
with garments so lacerated that only half of them was left; every
evening they had to be patched up anew, although they were purposely
stitched full of wires and small chains of iron as a protection. The
same passionate sympathy continued after death, for while his body was
lying in state a certain Luigi Ascione, a surgeon, pushed through the
crowd and endeavoured to cut off one of his toe-nails with the flesh
attached to it; he admitted being driven to this act of pious
depredation by the pleading request of the Spanish Ambassador and a
Neapolitan princess, who held Fra Egidio in great veneration.
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