Saint Cuthbert

“ But, if the great name in the Cumbrian Church was that of Kentigern, that which left its greatest impress in Lothian, and one with which the monastery of Mailros was peculiarly connected, was that of Cudberct, popularly called Saint Cuthbert. Several Lives of him have come down to us; but undoubtedly the one which, from its antiquity, is most deserving of credit, is that by the venerable Bede. In this respect Cudberct was more fortunate even than Columba, for this Life was written within forty years of his death. ”

“ Saint Cuthbert lived more than a thousand years ago, and yet the people of Scotland still tell tales of his strength and agility and grace in games with the other boys. He was their leader and chief, and every one was sure that he would grow up to be a famous man. ”

“ Stanza XIV. line 257. ‘St. Cuthbert was, in the choice of his sepulchre, one of the most mutable and unreasonable saints in the Calendar. He died A. D. 688, in a hermitage upon the Farne Islands, having resigned the bishopric of Lindisfarne, or Holy Island, about two years before. {1} His body was brought to Lindisfarne, where it remained until a descent of the Danes, about 793, when the monastery was nearly destroyed. The monks fled to Scotland, with what they deemed their chief treasure, the relics of St. Cuthbert. The Saint was, however, a most capricious fellow-traveller ”

“ And such was Cuthbert's skill in speaking, so keen his desire to persuade men of what he taught, such a light shone in his angelic face, that no man present dared to conceal from him the secrets of his heart, but all openly revealed in confession what they had done, thinking doubtless that their guilt could in nowise be hidden from him ”

“ Another night it is a vision of angels that he fancies he beholds bearing the soul of the sainted Aidan to the skies. Such was Cuthbert, a kind of mystic, a dreamer of strange dreams, destined apostle and Bishop, and next to Augustine himself the most illustrious figure in the annals of English monasticism. The church of Channelkirk (anciently Childeschirche) dedicated to the Saint, probably indicates his birth-spot. The Leader valley is full of legends of his boyhood, the whole west of Berwickshire, indeed, being haunted ground for Cuthbert's sake. ”

“ This saint was born of Saxon parents in Northumbria, and was early left an orphan. {49} While tending sheep on the slopes of Lammermoor the youth had a remarkable vision, in which he saw the heavens at night-time all bright with supernatural splendour and choirs of angels bearing some soul of dazzling brightness to its eternal reward. Next day he learned that Aidan, the holy Bishop of Lindisfarne, had passed away. Cuthbert had often before thought of embracing the monastic state, and this vision of the blessedness of one who was a brilliant example of that way of life decided him. ”

“ THE BODY OF ST. CUTHBERT CARRIED ABOUT BY MONKS FOR SEVEN YEARS (A.D. 875) .
When the Danes were ravaging the north of England in 875, causing great terror among all the monasteries, Eardulph, Bishop of Lindisfarne, in which church the body of St. Cuthbert rested, and Abbot Edred took suddenly the resolution to carry away the body for safety. When the people living near heard of this, they also resolved to leave their houses, and with their wives and children accompany the sacred charge, thinking that life without the saint’s protection would be unsafe. ”

“ After the death of that man of God, Cuthbert, this venerable priest succeeded him in the exercise of a solitary life, in the cell which the saint had inhabited in the islet of Farne, before he was made bishop." He found the oratory of Cuthbert so rudely put together, that the sea-wind shrieked in through the joints of the planks, and though patched up with clay and stubble, the chapel was so full of draughts442 that Ethelwold asked for and obtained a calf's skin, and this he nailed against the wall where he was wont to pray, to keep the wind from blowing into his ear. ”

“ But after Ælric, his master, came back, he found a lump of bones and feathers rolled together and cast by the tide upon the very steps of his chapel. For even the sea was promised [105] to Saint Cuthbert's Peace, and had to betray the guilty man. ”

“ Popular imagination in the north of England, of which Cuthbert was the hero before, as well as after, the Norman Conquest, had thus full scope in respect to the obscure childhood of its favourite saint, and delighted in weaving stories of his childish sports, representing him as walking on his hands, and turning somersaults with his little companions. A more authentic testimony, that of his contemporary, Bede, informs us that our shepherd boy had not his equal among the children of his age, for activity, dexterity, and boldness in the race and fight. ”

“ No saint of his time or country had more frequent or affectionate intercourse than Cuthbert with the nuns, whose numbers and influence were daily increasing among the Anglo-Saxons, and especially in Northumberland. The greater part of them lived together in the great monasteries, such as Whitby and Coldingham, but some, especially those who were widows or of advanced age, lived in their own houses or with their relatives. ”

“ To remain in New Jedboro, and to remove to Charleston, seemed equally distasteful.
I had given the Southern church no assurance of my purpose, because purpose I had none. Yet the stern necessity of choice was upon me, this most sombre enfranchisement of manhood, that we are compelled to choose, willing or unwilling. Saint and sinner, believer and infidel, are alike under this compulsion in matters moral—and in all matters. We speak of the stern pressure which demands that men shall make a living ”

“ It is not hard to see how gentle bodies who had no other friends should make comrades of the little folk in fur and fins and feathers. For, as St. Francis knew so well, all the creatures are our little brothers, ready to meet halfway those who will but try to understand. And this is a truth which every one to-day, even tho' he be no Saint, is waking up to learn. The happenings are set down quite as they read in the old books. Veritable histories, like those of St. Francis and St. Cuthbert, ask no addition of color to make them real. ”

“ Austin, that it should be the burial-place of the Kings of Kent and the Archbishops of Canterbury. All the Archbishops up to the time of Cuthbert (741-759) had been buried at St. Austin's, with the result that the Metropolitical Church possessed no tomb of a distinguished local saint to draw the attention or the devotion of the multitude; and its ambulatory and Crypt Chapel were destitute of any great attraction except for the relic, in the latter place, of the head of the Irish monk, Furseus. ”

“ Elizabeth stands in a niche against a pillar of the nave, and that is all. In the transept is the ‘heilige Mausoleum.’ Its red steps are worn away by the pilgrims: the tomb is covered with faded gold and vermilion; on its canopy are remains of fresco-painting, and within is a beautiful sleeping figure of Elizabeth. All around are grey monuments of the Landgraves, her predecessors, standing upright against the walls. The choir opens into the sacristy, where is the golden shrine of the saint. As we reached it, a pilgrim was just emerging, deeply solemnised by a tête-à-tête with her bones. ”

“ Cuthbert, and finally interred in the same tomb with the body of Cuthbert at Durham, where it was found in 1827. Hence St. Cuthbert is often represented holding St. Oswald's head in his hands. 351. Bamborough: cf. c. 6, note. 352. Bishop of Hexham, 709-731: v. V, 20 (cf. also IV, 14; V, 19) . He was a much loved friend of Bede, many of whose works were undertaken at his instigation. He was devotedly attached to Wilfrid, whom he succeeded at Hexham. The “Continuation” says that he was expelled from his see in 731, and he probably never regained it. ”

“ Felix, Confessor,1052 from the metrical work of Paulinus, into prose; the Book of the Life and Passion of St. Anastasius,1053 which was ill translated from the Greek, and worse amended by some ignorant person, I have corrected as to the sense as far as I could; I have written the Life of [pg 389] the Holy Father Cuthbert,1054 who was both monk and bishop, first in heroic verse, and afterwards in prose.
The History of the Abbots of this monastery, in which I rejoice to serve the Divine Goodness, to wit, Benedict, Ceolfrid, and Huaetbert,1055 in two books. ”

“ Peter's Church. In 875, when the monks fled from Lindisfarne before the Danes, his relics were removed, first to Chester-le-Street, then to Ripon, and eventually to Durham. Simeon of Durham says the body was found to be uncorrupted, when it was placed in the new Cathedral there in 1104. 761. The year in which he administered the bishopric falls between his restoration to York, Hexham, and the monastery of Ripon, and his second expulsion. 762. Cf. III, 25, ad init., and infra c. 30. In the life of Cuthbert he is described as a man “magnarum virtutum” (miraculous powers?) ”

“ The monastery of Wearmouth and Jarrow. Cf. IV, 18; V, 21 ad init., 24. 368. Bamborough, v. cc. 6, 12. 369. The scene of St. Cuthbert's hermit life: v. IV, 27, 28, 29; V, 1. It is called the “House Island,” and is the largest of the Farne group of seventeen islands off the coast of Northumberland, opposite Bamborough, famous in modern times for the rescue of a shipwrecked crew by Grace Darling. 370. v.l. seventeen. The MS. authority is about equal; but cf. infra, the statement that he died in the seventeenth year of his episcopate, which seems to be correct. ”

“ How many a decently apparelled husband, how many a white-robed child, has come forth out of great tribulation not their own. Indeed, uncounted multitudes there are who shall walk in white before the throne of God, whose robes the secret sacrifice of loving hearts hath whitened as no fuller of earth can whiten them.
My first meeting with the kirk session of St. Cuthbert's was an epoch-marking incident. Twenty-eight there were who sat about the session-room, every man but one an importation from Caledonia's rugged hills. ”

“ The monks dressed Cuthbert's body in his priest's robes, put his sandals on the feet, and placed the sacramental elements on the breast; they then conveyed the body to Lindisfarne and laid it on the south side of the altar. In spite of Bale's assertion to the contrary, there seems no reason for believing that Cuthbert was the author of any works. His life was one of asceticism rather than of labour. ”

“ Cuthbert shook his head.
“Let us not think of him; he comes between us and our God, if we would be forgiven we must needs forgive; God has forgiven us the ten thousand talents for His dear Son’s sake, shall we not forgive the hundred pence?”
“My father, I am so glad, so glad you are here, my faith was failing me.”
“In what?”
“In the justice of our cause; why do we stand [180] almost alone, against the great majority of our countrymen?”
“Would’st thou have been with the majority or minority at the Flood? ”

“ Cuthbert’s face brightened now—this was the lot which he desired.
“Ah, my son, I see the world hath hold of thee; would thou could’st feel the noble ambition to die for the Church, like thy once revered preceptor.”
“Father, dear father, believe me no ingrate; [113] for the Church I would willingly die; but let it be as a warrior, sword in hand, fighting for her rights, she needs such,—the warrior’s death if need be, but not the stake or quartering block, unless God call me to it,—and then thy child may not disobey.” ”

“ Cuthbert sprang swiftly through the darkness, and in a moment he felt the gown of a priest in his hand, and heard the sound of the distressed breathing of one hunted well nigh to the verge of exhaustion. As the hunted man felt the clasp upon his robe he uttered a little short, sharp cry, and made as if he would have stopped short; but Cuthbert had him fast by the arm, and hurried him along the narrow alley towards the river, upholding him over the rough ground, and saying in short phrases: "Fear nothing from us, holy Father; we are friends. We have come to save you. ”

“ Cuthbert brought clear sparkling water in a flask which he carried; the poor wretch drank eagerly, and then suddenly recognized Cuthbert.
“What, Cuthbert! can it be thou! dost thou forgive me then? since I am dying, and can harm thee no more.”
“I am trying to do so.”
“Cuthbert! canst thou forgive one who sought thy life with such animosity, spied upon thee, obtained thy secrets, and was even now on his road to betray thee? if thou canst, God may forgive me too, for He will not be less merciful than man.” ”

“ Cuthbert, besides a well at St. Boswell’s, in Roxburghshire, had a bath in Strath Tay, a rock-hewn hollow full of water where he periodically passed several hours in devotion. This famous Northumbrian missionary was born about 635, and spent his early boyhood as a shepherd on the southern slopes of the Lammermoors. He lived for thirteen years as a monk in the monastery of Old Melrose, situated two miles east from the present Melrose on a piece of land almost surrounded by the Tweed. On the death of Boisil, Cuthbert was appointed prior. He afterwards became bishop of Lindisfarne. ”

“ For there is nothing so joysome to record as the brightening story of a soul coming to its real birth from the travail of its sin and struggle. For perchance time itself is God's great midwife, and man's writhing agony is to the end that he may soon be born.
The serious will doubtless wish to learn what befell me in my effort to beguile the rugged Donald M'Phatter and his wife, who had quit the kirk when the kirk quit the tokens, back to the worship of the sanctuary. It is many years since they returned to St. Cuthbert's hallowed shrine, and they now sing the uncreated song. ”