ON ST. HELENA, WIDOW AND MARTYR, AT SKÖVDE IN SWEDEN.
Twelfth Century.
PREVIOUS COMMENTARY.
The cult of the Saint among the Swedes and the Zealanders; her Life, and age.
Helena, widow and martyr, in Sweden (St.)
BY THE AUTHOR P. B.
Gothia is a most well-known region of the kingdom of the Swedes, and divided in two ways: for where the Baltic sea and the east it looks, it is called eastern Gothia, or Ostrogothia; but where it looks toward the west and Denmark, western Gothia and Westrogothia. The cult is proved from the canonization of the year 1164, In this there is a little town not far from the river Tida, which of old is found called Skodwe, Skedci, Skedri, Skedui; but now Scodeva, commonly Skofde, and Scœude, distant from the city of Skara by about the third milestone toward the east. From it a kind of surname is added to our St. Helena, "of Schedui," "of Scodeva," etc.; whether because she was born there, or because the place pertained to her domain, or because she at some time had there a dwelling and a tomb, or finally for all these causes together. There also her cult first had, and had its most celebrated theater, from the year of Christ 1164, in which Pope Alexander the Third, at the instance of Charles, son of Suercher, king of the Swedes and Goths, on account of the holiness of her life and the working of miracles, referred her into the number of the Saints, as the third Lection of the second Nocturn in her Office has, taken with the others proper to the Patrons of the kingdom of Sweden from the ancient Breviaries of the same kingdom, approved at Rome, and here in the Plantin workshop more than once printed with them. Which same thing about her canonization Johannes Magnus affirms, archbishop of Uppsala, both in his History of the Goths, book 19, chapter 7, and in the Lives of the pontiffs of Uppsala, book 2, where he treats of Stephen the First; by whom he says she was, by the command of Pope Alexander, inscribed among the Saints. The ancient manuscript Chronicle in Baronius in his Annals, at the same year, number 52 in our copy, agrees.
[2] In the Martyrologies and Kalendars she is announced neither on the same day, nor in the same manner: [and in the Kalendars, Martyrologies, and approved Office; where she is called Martyr,] of our manuscript Life this is the title: "Here begins the Passion of St. Helena, widow and martyr, which is on the Kalends of August." And that she fell asleep on the Kalends of August, the text of the same Life affirms, num. 7. Yet our manuscript Florarium on the 30th day of July celebrates the memory of "Helena the soldier-lady"; Greven on the same day: "In Sweden, of Helena the soldier-lady"; with whom in the German Martyrology Canisius agrees. Now "militissa" is taken for a noble matron, and lady of some jurisdiction; as may be learned from Du Cange's Glossary. Molanus on the same 30th of July writes only: "Likewise in Sweden, of blessed Helena." Meanwhile Vastovius testifies in the Vitis Aquilonia, where he describes her Life at the year of Christ 1160, that there was appointed for her by Pope Alexander III an anniversary day, which is the last of July; perhaps lest the feast of St. Peter in Chains be moved from its place, on which the Saint seems to have made an end of living. Certainly the Kalendar of the holy Patrons of the kingdom of Sweden, prefixed to their proper Offices, on the 31st day of July notes the feast of St. Helena, widow and martyr, of Scodeva: Double: that the same day was noted in the ancient Breviary of Strengnäs, the Vastovian Scholiast observes. And so we too have chosen this day to be consecrated to her memory, with Ferrari in the general Catalogue of Saints, where it is reported: "At Schedui in Gothia, St. Helena, widow and martyr." But take the title of martyr here in a wider sense: for it does not seem that death was brought upon her for the cause of faith; but an iniquitous accusation. The very canonization could have given occasion to this title, inasmuch as, according to Baronius's Chronicle, it was made on account of a life most holily led, and a violent death unjustly received, with manifold miracles added.
[3] She is also called Martyr in the votive Swedish Missal, as also in an old proper Mass. printed about the end of the fifteenth century, or even earlier, which we have; and which, of her, as also of the other Patrons of Sweden, exhibits a proper Mass, folio 53. Its inscription is: "Of St. Helena, martyr and widow": Introit: "Let us all rejoice in the Lord, under the honor," etc. Collect: "Grant us, we beseech you, most clement God, by the intercession of blessed Helena your martyr, pardon of all sins; that * those whom you grant to glory in her solemnities, grant by her glorious prayers to be exalted from heaven. Through," etc. (The same Collect is read in her proper Office, of which above.) Lection from Ecclesiasticus, chapter 26: "A sensible and silent woman," etc. Gradual: "For truth and meekness and justice; and he shall lead you," etc. Verse: "Hear, O daughter, and see," etc. After the Alleluia, versicle: "Helena, glory and patroness of West Gothia, ask for us today the gifts of graces." Gospel: "As Jesus was speaking to the crowds, behold, his mother and brethren stood without," etc. Offertory: "Grace is poured out on your lips," etc.; as also the Communion. Secret: "We beseech you, almighty God, that this host, offered in your sight, by the prayers of blessed Helena your martyr, may become acceptable to your majesty. Through the Lord." Postcommunion: "Preserve, O Lord, your people, hoping in your mercy, and grant, that we who keep the memory of blessed Helena your martyr, may by her merits and prayers be freed from the incursions of the enemies. Through the Lord."
[4] There is also in Danish Zealand a place, the church of this holy Helena, She is venerated also in Zealand of Denmark; once so illustrious in name, veneration, fountain, and miracles, when there the Catholic religion flourished; that not even now, in the midst of the night of Lutheranism, which long ago wrapped that whole island, has it altogether lost the traces of its ancient splendor. It lies on the shores of the Ocean toward the north, celebrated still by its ancient name, which is St. Helena's fountain, commonly St. Lene Kild. Of this Olaus Wormius makes mention, once professor of medicine, non-Catholic, in the Copenhagen academy, in his Danish Monuments, book 1, chapter 4; and he says that this fountain existed long before Helena's times, but was sacred to Thisa (the wife of Thor, reckoned by the pagans among the goddesses): then he adds: "Over which, idol-mania being abrogated, the Pontificials (thus he names the Roman Catholics) set St. Helena. Whence the fountain itself is now called St. Helena's. To which even now many, liable to various afflictions, flee, promising themselves health." Ah, how meager an oration! Why, I ask, did the Pontificials, after the abrogation of idol-mania, set St. Helena over that fountain? At what time? On what occasion? That most skillful investigator of antiquities could surely more easily, unless I am mistaken, dig this out, than those most ancient monuments of pagan superstition, which it is of no interest to know. Some light here perhaps might be brought by Michael O. Wexionius, who, as our Bolland noted, in his Epitome of the description of Sweden, printed in the year 1656, book 1, chapter 11 on Westrogothia, makes mention of a fountain (this one; or the Gothenian one in Westrogothia itself, of which below in the notes, letter [e]?) notable for a chapel of St. Helena. But that book afterward we sought in vain, inasmuch as by him to whom it belonged it had been lent to another, and afterward not restored. Since therefore of this matter nothing else is available to us, besides those things which in the year 1658 we received from our Henry Lindanus, then dwelling at Copenhagen, it will not be irksome to add these in his words. Thus he has in a letter given on the 6th of July to Father Bolland:
[5] where at her fountain many miracles are celebrated; "There is another thing which properly concerns Your Reverence. Seven miles hence is had (as tradition bears) the body and burial of St. Helena the Swede; at whose tomb many miracles are done: as also three days ago it was done in a man who, wholly wretched and pitiable, was carried there; and, having drunk only the water which gushes from the mount, where the tomb is, so recovered that he returned on foot to Copenhagen. Every year on the feast of St. John the Baptist many thousands of Lutherans (because there are no others) flow thither for the sake of devotion." Then in another letter given the same year from the same place, on the 3rd of August: "Concerning St. Helena I record this, as I understood from the inhabitants: twice in the year a solemn procession is made to that place; on the vigil of St. John the Baptist, and on the day before * the feast of St. Olaf, the 30th of July: at which times the sea is said to recede to a very great space, so that a huge rock is seen, which has the traces (as they say) of a whole human body; on which rock St. Helena is said to have lain down, and to have impressed these traces: for the rest of the year the sea-water stands above that rock to the height of a man. Likewise only at those times the fountain-water is said to have the power of healing… Half a mile from the fountain is a very ancient church, to which the people likewise flow, as to the tomb of St. Helena; and two miles from the fountain is another church and the tomb of St. Thyra, queen of Denmark; which two places the kings of Denmark preserve and restore, as holy. I understood, however, that there had been a church of St. Helena near the fountain on a hill; where pilgrims are wont even now, with all their Lutheranism, to erect humble little crosses, when they obtain some healing. Sometimes that hill is full of crosses." Thus far this. More, when I shall have seen the place and the fountain. Whether he afterward saw it or not, I indeed do not know: certainly I have found nothing written later by him.
[6] From these gather: I. That the tradition of all these things must be very ancient, and two of her feasts are observed per year. and by the once Catholic Zealanders neither rashly conceived, nor by light arguments transmitted to posterity; since among these it persevered for a whole century and more after the abjuration of the ancestral religion and the drinking in of Luther's heresy, which is opposed to it, though their ministers clamored against it in vain, both by voice and by writing. II. That our St. Helena was at some time, while she lived, in the same place; whether she went thither to Jerusalem; or thence returned this way; or finally for any other cause whatever (for there could be six hundred) made an excursion from her neighboring country into Zealand or Denmark. In vain do the modern preachers deny this, because it is not affirmed in her Life: for it is enough, that it be affirmed by the ancient and common tradition of the inhabitants, and not denied in the Life; since the author of the Life confesses that most of her acts were deleted by oblivion, when he himself, lest all should perish, recorded some. III. That the power of that fountain and its frequent miracles were constantly ascribed to the merits of St. Helena by all the Zealanders, not only the orthodox, but also (if you except the preachers) the Lutherans, at least up to the year of Christ 1650, in which Eric Johnson, a Lutheran pastor in Græsted and Mårum (they are villages not far from the Fountain of St. Helena), published a vernacular little book at Copenhagen "On the use and abuse of pilgrimage to this fountain"; and that chiefly for this, that this opinion of the Saint, implanted by ancestors and deeply adhering, from the minds of his own people and flock he might at some time at last radically root out. IV. That in that very ancient church there were once laid notable relics of St. Helena, by reason of which the Saint began to be said and believed to rest buried there, by a phrase familiar among the Roman Catholics, by which the bodies of the Saints are commonly said to be kept there, where a great part of them is kept. But these relics we think were translated to Scodeva: for since from what has been said it is established that there was not one, as elsewhere, among the Zealanders one celebration of this Saint, but a double one; the one, namely, on the feast or vigil of St. John the Baptist in the month of June, the other on the 30th of July; this we easily understand from the Martyrologies above to have been instituted for celebrating her deposition; but that other, to what would you more probably refer it, than to some translation of the relics?
[7] The ancient Breviaries of Sweden exhibit the Life of St. Helena, almost as it is now read in her approved proper Office; S. Brynolph the bishop wrote her Life, as we gather from Vastovius, who transcribed the one which he gave from the ancient Breviaries, very few things perhaps being added from elsewhere. Yet the same confesses that that Life is not the original, when he says: "The blessed Brynolph, bishop of Skara, wrote her Life and miracles, which we have not been able to see up to now." That St. Brynolph died in the year of Christ 1317, as may be seen in the Acts on the 6th day of February, page 925 and following, where the same about him Michael O. Wexionius asserts. He who illustrated Vastovius with annotations suspects, page 58, that that History (as it is called by Messenius) or Life of St. Helena, which St. Brynolph composed, is nothing different from a Hymn dedicated to the praises of Helena, a portion of which survives in the Breviaries of the churches of the fatherland, likewise in the Office of the Patrons of Sweden, published at Antwerp in 1646; but whole it survives in the manuscripts of the library of Uppsala, number 21 and 23; whose beginning is: "Happy parent West Gothia." But that writer brings forward no foundation of his suspicion, except that the word "history" is not rarely found attributed to Hymns of this kind among the Swedes, and that indeed of this very Hymn in the manuscript codex praised this is the inscription: "Here begins the History, or hymn," etc. But be it so: let that Hymn be called History, or even, if you please, the Life of St. Helena: whence can we suspect it to have been composed by St. Brynolph? For this is the question; nor is it proved by so much as a single word.
[8] With better right do we judge that the Life of St. Helena, which we here give, is to be ascribed to St. Brynolph; which we prove to be this our one. unless anyone will have it, or knows, that any other existed earlier than the Brynolphian: for that no one before him wrote anything about the deeds of St. Helena, our author openly asserts in the Prologue; then that he was a Swede, nay, a West Goth, he not obscurely indicates in the same place, and at num. 3 and 6; moreover he shows that he undertook this work long after the times of this Saint, as one whose deeds oblivion had already buried under silence, num. 1; finally the style betrays an author most thoroughly versed in the use of the sacred Scriptures: which all things so square with St. Brynolph, that they demonstrate him as author as if with the finger. Add, that this is the same Life from which in the ancient Breviaries of the fatherland the Lections of her Office were once taken; as will become certain to one comparing them: so that therefore, when that Office was composed, that Life either alone existed, or was judged best; which again designates Brynolph as author; both because no other is known before the edition of the Breviaries to have written about her, and because it was of the highest authority and credit among his people. Now we received it by the labor and hand of our Gamans from the Böddeken, as he himself noted, of the monastery of the Order of the Regulars of St. Augustine of the diocese of Paderborn, from a notable manuscript parchment Passional of the month of August, folio 261, page B.
[9] The Saint's country, parents, That this Helena was born in West Gothia and died there, both our author and the proper Office of the Saint indicate more than once; and indeed of noble parents. But of what parents? Uncertain. There are those who have confounded her with Helena, queen of Sweden and second wife of Ingo IV, who died about the year 1128; but altogether ignorantly, as the Vastovian scholiast shows in this place, and the History of each, if it be even cursorily inspected. Others with Vastovius make her father Guthorm, duke of Sweden; but neither does this please Messenius in the Annotations cited to the Vitis Aquilonia, page 55. And indeed that Guthorm flourished under Charles, king of Sweden, by whose command, setting out into Denmark, he brought him as a spouse the granddaughter of Valdemar I, king of the Danes, according to Saxo Grammaticus, book 14; and that, according to Pontanus's Danish Affairs, book 6, in the year of Christ 1163; whereas the public veneration of our Helena in the following year was decreed by Alexander the Roman Pontiff. For indeed it does not appear that that duke was then so old as to have had a daughter who, before her own death, either had, or at least could have had, grandchildren by a daughter: nor that she was immediately after her death referred into the album of the Saints. But if, however, anyone will have it be so, let him bring forward monuments by which he may give credence, which up to now have not been produced.
[10] her age, But neither is the time sufficiently defined in which the Saint flourished. Vastovius assigns the year of Christ 1160; but he brings no reason for this chronology. The most eminent founder of the Annals at the year 1164, num. 52, cites an ancient Chronicle written, in which the same year 1164 is set as that of her death and canonization. But how ancient that Chronicle is, and how far it reaches, or where it was compiled, is not added; whereas thence its authority chiefly depends. John Messenius, exercised as few are in Swedish antiquity, according to the author of the Annotations on the Vitis Aquilonia in the place cited, thus has: "At the beginning of the twelfth century after Christ, conspicuous in the holiness of her life, flourished St. Helena, a West Goth by nation." This indeed better agrees both with the time of her canonization, and with our Life, num. 1, where Helena is said, "like a splendid and morning star, in the beginning of the new faith to have arisen": for she ought to seem born about the times of St. Sigfrid, by whom West Gothia was converted to the faith: but St. Sigfrid died about the year of Christ 1045, as we said on the 15th day of February, page 847 and following.
Notes* read "&" (and)
* perhaps "postridie" (on the day after)
THE LIFE
By, as we think, St. Brynolph, bishop of Skara, from a manuscript codex of the monastery of Böddeken. Here begins the Passion of holy Helena, widow and martyr, which is on the Kalends of August.
Helena, widow and martyr, in Sweden (St.)
BHL Number: 3793
FROM THE MANUSCRIPT.
After the winter of unbelief passed, the shower of persecutions departed and withdrew, the flowers appeared in our land a; among whom the blessed Helena, like fragrant spikenard, The author's prologue. came forth, redolent with the fame of good works, and burning with the fire of divine love. She, like a splendid and morning star, arose in the beginning of the new faith, radiant with examples, flashing with signs, very many of which, suppressed through negligence, oblivion, the offspring of ingratitude, buried under silence; because they were not marked with the office of the pen b. But lest the examples of her holy acts lie hidden any longer under the bushel of silence, some things concerning her illustrious life and glorious death, and also concerning the prodigies of virtues by which, the divine clemency granting, she was famous, we touch upon with humble style; that unto the praise of God the hearts of the hearers may be roused.
[2] She, brought forth of noble parents, like Susanna of old, St. Helena, a noble widow, was instructed in the law and in the justifications of the Lord. But when she had reached the fit age of marriageable years, according to the custom of the land, she is given to a husband c; whom, like Sarah the wife of Tobias, she consented to receive with the fear of God. God had conferred on her the fruitfulness of Leah, but the comeliness and grace of Rachel; so that the very appearance of her body might be an image of her mind. She, like Esther, gracious in the eyes of all, adorned the nobility of her lineage with the honesty of her manners. At last, when, her husband being dead, her age and wealth called her to a second marriage-bed, she chose rather to be joined to God by spiritual nuptials, than to be subjected to carnal ones; because these always begin with gladness, and tend to their end with mourning.
[3] Therefore, freed from the marriage-bond, treading the laborious threshing-floor of widowhood, famous for virtues and the gift of prophecy, by the example of Judith, with fastings and prayers she served the Lord. Her door, like that of holy Job, lay open to the wayfarer; and the poor man was warmed by the fleeces of her sheep. Moreover she loved the beauty of the house of God; and the zeal of the house of God so was in her, that she built a great part of the church of Skodwe d, where now her holy body rests, from her own means. Indeed also in the village which is called Gotene [e], she saw such a dream, a presage of things to come: it seemed to her, that the church of that place, together with herself being in it, flew over to Skodwe. Of which dream, by divine revelation, she said this was the interpretation, that at Gotene she would die; but at Skodwe she would be buried; as the outcome of the matter afterward proved. For the rest, when that portico, which is between the tower and the church of Skodwe f, was being built, when certain people inquired for what that intervening space was made, she thus answered: "God will give us some Saint, whose body and relics can be here becomingly placed." Which she is considered to have said of herself, as of another; because in the same place after her passion her venerable body was placed. From which it is manifestly recognized, that she, with Deborah and Huldah, was also famous for the spirit of prophecy.
[4] that she might give place to unjust wrath, But the ancient enemy, considering that the oracles of the Saints were being built; the fanes and shrines overthrown, and the groves cut down, in which of old the insane multitude of the unbelieving sweated over sacrilegious sacrifices; envied the divine worship, which he saw augmented through her. Wherefore the lamp so brightly shining in the house of God, he strove to extinguish through the hands of the wicked. It happened therefore g, that a certain nobleman, holding the daughter of blessed Helena, joined to him in matrimony, too hateful, frequently provoked her with words and stripes. But the servants of the household, ill-bearing the insults unjustly inflicted upon their lady, laid an ambush for that same lord, to kill him. The kinsmen therefore of the slain man deemed it as nothing to send avenging hands upon those servants; and, imputing the crime committed to the Servant of God, they said that she herself was privy and the contriver of the blood shed. From then on they became to her inexorable enemies; and many and evil tribulations from them she endured.
[5] she sets out for Jerusalem; But because for the most part those whom men already esteem perfect have, in the eyes of the supreme Maker, something of imperfection (as often we see seals not yet carved by unskilled men; and we already praise as if perfect the things which the artificer considers and files; he now hears them praised; and yet he does not cease to hammer them, improving them;) therefore the Lord made his Servant more perfect by the hammerings of persecution and the pressures of tribulations. For thence she began by daily increments to grow in the love of her Creator, and to pant after the joy and peace of the heavenly fatherland. But because it is safer to meet a raging she-bear, her cubs snatched away, than a man confident in his folly; and that she might give place to wrath; God put it into her mind, and it seemed good to her to go and visit the places of the Saints. The labor therefore she did not shrink from; but, inserting a masculine spirit into a feminine thought, to see the Sepulcher and the place of the Lord's passion, as once the glorious mother of Constantine, Helena, she sought Jerusalem, commending her cause to the divine examination.
[6] but, scarcely returned thence, she is killed by her kinsmen; Having therefore traversed that region and several other places where the relics of the Saints were held in reverence, when, trusting in the Lord and dreading the meeting of no one, she had returned to her own country, her enemies, pertinacious and hardened in malice, lay in wait for the soul of the Just woman h, plotting against innocent blood. But she herself, the daughter of goodness and peace, the nursling of innocence, knowing that patience has a perfect work, did good to those who hated her, and prayed for those persecuting and calumniating her; most certain of this, that her persecutors fabricated for her a crown in the heavens. Further, when she had lawfully contended, it pleased the Lord to lead so strenuous a Combatant out of the prison of the flesh; and, that he might crown her more gloriously, permitted her to fall by the swords of the wicked in martyrdom, which up to then was rare among us i. For on a certain day, while she was going for indulgences to the consecration of the church of Gotene, certain of her deadly adversaries leapt upon her, and, dire wounds being inflicted, the sword being sated with the blood of the Just woman, like an innocent sheep, her spirit seeking the heavenly things, they left her slain k.
[7] God soon attesting her sanctity by miracles. But she fell on the Kalends of August, passing from war to the peace which surpasses all understanding. The alabaster of her body being broken, the power of the ointment gave forth fragrance: for after her death, in multiplying miracles, the divine power through her merits did not fail *. For on the day of her passion, after sunset, as a certain blind man was passing along the way, while he drew near to the place of her passion, the boy who directed his steps saw a light as of a burning candle in a bush: and when, at the command of the blind man, he investigated more diligently whence that brightness proceeded, he found in the thicket the finger of blessed Helena, cut off, with the ring which she had carried from the Holy Land: which the aforesaid blind man, touching, when he had brought his hand sprinkled with the blood back to his eyes, straightway, the old dimness being wiped away, received his sight [l].