[83] The abovementioned Anthelm, I think I have read, lived to a very
great age. The famous self-flagellator Dominic the _Cuirassed_, lived
eighty-four years; St. Romuald, notwithstanding the flagellations
he received from himself and his Monks, attained, it is said, the
age of an hundred and twenty years; and Leon of _Preza_, another
illustrious self-flagellator, lived, according to some accounts, to
the age of an hundred and forty. If so, it would thence result, that
self-flagellations, besides the other great advantages they possess,
are also attended with that of being conducive to health.
[84] ... _Jocando ridendo hoc alteri Confessori suo humiliter
recognovit._
[85] ... _Après, prist discipline d’eux; moult doucement la reçut.
Imprimé à Paris, par A. Gerard, le 1. Juillet, 1494._ This must have
been one of the first books that were printed.
[86] ... _ubi sancta & secreta orationum aromata Deo assiduè
accenderent; frequentibus metanœis vel genufluxionibus pio conditori
supplicarent; à tribus sæpè flagellis, vel ad pœnitentiam, vel ad
augendum meritum, corpus attererent._
I will take this occasion to inform the Reader, that Monks, or
persons of religious dispositions, do not always mean, in the
penances they impose on themselves, to atone for their sins, which
they do not by any means consider as being in proportion to the
number of their flagellations. They practise mortifications of this
kind, either for the good of other persons, or for delivering souls
from Purgatory, or in order (as the Reader may see from the words
above quoted) to increase their own merit, and, like the Fakir
mentioned in a former place, go of course to the thirty-fifth Heaven.
[87] Tit. 16. Cap. VIII. fol. 102.--_Ut non solùm viri sed & mulieres
nobiles hoc purgatorii genus inhianter acciperent; relictamque
Cechaledi, mulierem magni generis & magnæ dignitatis, retulisse se,
per præfixam hujus regulæ disciplinam, pœnitentiam centum annorum
peregisse, tribus disciplinarum millibus pro uno computatis anno._
The Widow Cechald, in her account of the wonderful penance she
performed after the example of Dominic the _Cuirassed_, has neglected
to inform us in what manner she performed it, and whether she
imitated that holy Man in every respect, and used, for instance, both
her hands at once in the operation. Be it as it may; three hundred
thousand lashes, the total amount of the hundred years penance she
went through, were certainly a very hard penance. However, as we
are not to doubt either the account which the above Widow gave in
that respect, or the declaration Cardinal Damian made after her, the
wonder is to be explained another way, and perhaps by the nature
of the instruments she made use of: they possibly were of much the
same kind as those used by a certain Lady, who was likewise much
celebrated on account of the frequent disciplines she bestowed upon
herself, and who was at last found out to use no other weapons for
performing them, than a bunch of feathers, or, as others have said, a
fox’s tail.