St. Hidulph, or Hildulph, was born at Ratisbon in Bavaria, of one
of the most illustrious families in the country, and renounced
great temporal possessions in his youth to consecrate himself to
God in an ecclesiastical state, which he embraced with his brother
St. Erard, who was advanced to the episcopal see at Ratisbon, was
buried in Moyen-Moutier, and is honored among the saints on the 8th
of January.[111] Hidulph was consecrated archbishop of Triers, and
discharged for some time all the duties of a vigilant and zealous
pastor. The monastery of St. Maximin had been founded in the fourth
century, and doubtless observed the discipline of the oriental monks.
Hidulph introduced into it the Benedictin Order about the year 665,
and so much augmented it in revenues and settled in it so perfect a
spirit of monastic virtue, that it was the admiration of that age,
and is to this day one of the most flourishing abbeys in Germany.
Hidulph was much taken with the charms of holy retirement, with the
happy security and liberty of that state, its exercises of humility,
penance, and prayer, and the liberty which it affords of living
disengaged from worldly attachments and distractions, in a continual
application to heavenly things. He was also strongly affected by the
example and conversation of many divine men who then adorned the
Church, and maintained in it the true spirit of Christ, by the odor
of sanctity which their angelic minds and deportment spread, and who
were raised to this heroic virtue by the exercises of a monastic
life. The obligations of his own charge (which he could not abandon
unless his reasons for resigning it were such as to be approved of by
a superior authority, as that of a primate, and rather of the pope
as patriarch of the West) withheld him some time, but at length he
found means to resign his see to St. Veomade, abbot of St. Maximin’s,
and hid himself in that monastery.[112] But finding it impossible
to live in the obscurity which he sought, in the midst of his own
diocess, he retired secretly amidst the mountains of Voge, on the
confines of Lorrain, and settled in a small hermitage on the spot
which the monks of Senones and Estival gave him, and on which he soon
after, about the year 676, built the monastery of Moyen-Moutier.
This name was given it from its situation between the abbeys of
Senones to the east, of Estival to the west, of Bodon-Moutier to the
north, and to the south that of Jointures, now the collegiate church
of canons, and the town of St. Die. Three hundred monks served God
under his direction; for, besides those who composed the monastery
of Moyen-Moutier, at the request of his friend St. Die, upon his
death-bed, and of his community, he took upon him also the charge
of that abbey, and many lived under his conduct in separate cells.
St. Hidulph governed his own monastery above thirty years, though
for some time, whilst he was obliged to reside at St. Die’s, he
appointed a vicar in his room at Moyen-Moutier. He returned thither
before his death, which happened in 707, or, according to others, in
713. His relics are kept in a silver shrine in this monastery, which
at present bears his name, and in union with that of St. Vannes,
began the reformation of the Benedictin Order, which is so famous in
Lorrain, and in France. Saint Hidulph’s name is not inserted in the
Roman Martyrology, but is famous in German, French, and Benedictin
Calendars.
* * * * *
The sanctity of those ancient monks who, by the exercises of humility
and holy solitude, attained to so wonderful a victory over their
passions, so sublime a degree of virtue, and so heavenly a temper
as to have seemed rather angels than men, was the admiration even
of infidels, and the edification of all those who had the happiness
of enjoying their conversation. “For my part,” said Saint Sulpicius
Severus, or his friend Posthumianus,[113] “so long as I shall keep
alive and in my senses, I shall ever celebrate the monks of Egypt,
praise the anchorets, and admire the hermits.” Of the same another
ancient eye-witness says,[114] “There have I seen many fathers
leading an angelic life, and walking after the example of Jesus.” The
more happy and the more perfect a religious state is, the greater
ought to be the watchfulness and the fervor of those who are engaged
in it not to fall short of their obligations, and lose the precious
graces of their vocation.
Persons in the world are usually inclined to show no indulgence for
the least failings which they observe in religious persons. How
much soever the reformation and perfect sanctification of the more
illustrious portion of the flock of Christ be to be desired and
prayed for by all, and promoted by the chief pastors, these severe
censors would better employ their zeal in looking into, and reforming
their own hearts. They must never forget that all Christians, by
their baptismal engagements and the sacred law of the gospel which
they profess, are bound to sanctify their souls, and to serve God
in the perfect sentiments and practice of all virtues. If in this
degenerate age many religious establishments stand in need of a spur
or some reformation, we may believe an enemy “that there is no class
or condition of Christians in general which does not want it still
much more.”