(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).
[72] Afterwards S. Ouyan, and then S. Claude, after the bishop of
Besancon, who reformed it in 635.
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.)
[73] Lignea sola, quæ vulgo soccos monasteria vocitant Gallicana,
continuato est usu.
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.
[74] Deus bone, qualiter comfortatus, qualiter sum reparatus ad horam.
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.
There were two monks who, tired of the discipline, or offended at being
set to work that displeased them, resolved to go away. They met in the
oratory at night, going thither under pretence of keeping vigil, and
one said to the other, "You take spade and axe, and I will carry off
the coverlets, and so we shall do well where we are going." Now in a
dark corner was the abbot praying, and he heard them, and he cried
out, "How, my children, is this! Will ye, going away, and disturb our
peace?" Then the two monks fell down dismayed at his feet, but he
extending his hands, put one under each of their chins, and stooping
gently, kissed them, said no one word of reproach, but betook himself
to the arms of prayer to God. Then the two monks stole back, penitent
and humbled, to their beds, and one remained at Condate till he died,
twenty years after; but the second after a while ran away, but returned
again to Lupicinus, sorrowful for what he had done, and resolved to
continue with him through the rest of his life.
When Lupicinus was old, he sought king Chilperic who governed Burgundy,
and who was then in Geneva.[75]
[75] The Burgundian king Gondecar had a brother and a son, both named
Chilperic, who reigned at Geneva. The son reigned only one year after
his father; he was killed by Gondebald in 477. S. Romanus died in
460. It is probable that his elder brother died before him, and that
Lupicinus visited the elder Chilperic. I have therefore supposed that
he died about 430. The Bollandists supposing that it was the younger
Chilperic he visited, have fixed his death at 480.
He went to him to plead the cause of some poor natives of the
Sequanaise, who had been reduced into slavery by a subordinate
potentate. This petty tyrant was one of those degenerate Romans,
courtiers and oppressors, who, by flattering the new-born authority
of the barbarian kings, found means of trampling on and spoiling
their inferiors. He was perhaps one of those senators of Gaul whom
the Burgundians had admitted in 456 to a share of the conquered
soil, and Lupicinus, although of Gallo-Roman origin, seems to have
been less favourably disposed towards the Roman government than that
of the Barbarians. Gregory of Tours has recorded a tradition which
well depicts the impression made on the popular imagination by this
apparition of the monks confronted with the triumphant Barbarians. He
relates that when Lupicinus crossed the threshold of the palace of
Chilperic, the throne upon which the king was seated trembled, as if
there had been an earthquake. Reassured at the sight of the old man
clothed in skins, the Burgundian prince listened to the curious debate
which arose between the oppressor and the advocate of the oppressed.
"It is then thou," said the courtier to the abbot, "it is thou, old
impostor, who hast already insulted the Roman power for ten years, by
announcing that all this region, and its chiefs, were hastening to
their ruin." "Yes, truly," answered the monk, pointing to the king,
who listened, "Yes, perverse traitor, the ruin which I predicted to
thee and to thy fellows, there it is. Seest thou not, degenerate man,
that thy rights are destroyed by thy sins, and that the prayers of the
innocent are granted? Seest thou not that the fasces and the Roman
purple are compelled to bow before a foreign judge? Take heed that
some unexpected guest does not come before a new tribunal to claim thy
lands and thy domains." The king of the Burgundians not only justified
the abbot by restoring his clients to liberty, but overwhelmed him
with presents, and offered him fields, and vineyards for his abbey.
Lupicinus would only accept a portion of the produce of these fields
and vineyards, fearing that the sentiment of too vast a property might
make his monks proud. Then the king decreed that they should be allowed
every year three hundred measures of corn, three hundred measures of
wine, and a hundred gold pieces for vestments; and the treasury of the
Merovingian kings continued to pay these dues long after the fall of
the kingdom of the Burgundians.
The old abbot was true to his profession of self-mortification to the
last. As he lay a dying he asked for a drink of water. One of the
brethren sweetened it, by pouring in a spoonful of honey. But the dying
man, when he tasted the sweetness, turned his head away, and refused to
drink.