Curiosities of Christian History Prior to the ReformationPaterson, James
History
Curiosities of Christian History Prior to the Reformation
Paterson, James
Church history -- Middle Ages, 600-1500; Church history -- Miscellanea; Church history -- Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600
The blessed Schetzelo was a hermit about 1138, living in the woods near
Luxemburg, feeding on roots and acorns. His clothing was so scanty as to
be scarcely decent; and St. Bernard, who greatly respected him, sent his
monks with a present of a shirt and a pair of drawers. Schetzelo at once
put them on, but on reflection he pulled them off again, saying that he
found he could do without them, and that it was his earnest desire to live
without superfluities. The monks asked him if he had suffered many
temptations in his time. "Yes," he answered; "the life of man is one long
series of temptations." And he then told them how he had once given way,
and how heavily he felt the bitterness of self-reproach ever since. One
winter, he said, he was lying out in the snow, and the drift covered all
his body except the face, where his breath had melted a hole. A poor,
half-frozen rabbit, seeking shelter, jumped into the hole and crouched on
the hermit's breast. He was moved first to laughter, and then to
compassion and pleasure, for the little creature, benumbed with cold,
suffered him to stroke its fur; and so, said Schetzelo, "when I ought to
have been praying and meditating, I was playing with the rabbit under the
snow."
ST. BARTHOLOMEW, THE HERMIT OF FARNE (A.D. 1151).
St. Bartholomew, in 1151, was living quietly as a monk in the cathedral
monastery at Durham, when St. Cuthbert appeared to him in a dream and bade
him go to the island of Farne, near Holy Island, and there live as a
hermit. He went off with the prayers of all the convent, and took up his
abode and lived sequestered from the world. He found, however, another
monk there before him, called Ebwin, who was very jealous of the newcomer;
but Bartholomew endured all the scoffs and reproaches patiently, and at
last Ebwin left the place entirely to him. Bartholomew had a cow and a
little patch of ground on which he grew barley. He also caught fish
occasionally, and filled up the pauses with chanting psalms and hymns,
repeating the whole Psalter once, twice, and thrice every day. He was
charmed to watch the seagulls and cormorants, his only companions. He
would allow no passing sailor to throw stones at these birds. He even
tamed one, which came regularly to feed out of his hand every day. One day
when he was out fishing, a hawk pursued this poor bird into the chapel and
killed it, leaving only the feathers and bones lying on the portal of the
holy place. The assassin, however, could not find its way out of the
chapel, and kept wheeling round and round, beating against the windows and
walls. Brother Bartholomew entered at last and found the cruel bird with
its bloody talons, looking shameless and helpless. He mourned bitterly
over the fate of his poor favourite and caught the hawk. He kept it two
days without food to punish it for its crime, and then, seized with
compassion, let go the guilty prisoner. Another time the saint was sitting
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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