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tree_and_leaf) wrote2009-09-08 03:21 pm
tree_and_leaf) wrote2009-09-08 03:21 pm
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I've been doing a last bit of reference checking, having discovered that I was missing a reference to some Dominican hagiography. This has resulted in me spending the afternoon reading the Vitas Fratrum, a collection of anecdotes about the early days of the Dominican Order. There are a surprisingly large number of stories about Dominic changing water into wine, and an awful lot of ones about people being impressed by his cheerfulness in difficult circumstances (this is unusual in mediaeval hagiography, where there is a general tendency to think that smiling is vaguely dodgy). There is also a vaguely hilarious story about how he would make the rounds of the house at night, and tuck the brothers in if he thought they looked cold. (This, again, is an unusual motif).
More conventionally, we are told, he spent much time in prayer at night. I'm not sure why the following amuses me - apart from the wonderfully pragmatic Dominican attitude to rules - but it does:
"It was his custom to keep nightly watch in the church, and once while praying after the brothers had retired to rest, the devil showed himself under the guise of a friar praying before one of the altars. The blessed Dominic wondered at seeing him remain behind after the signal had been given, so he motioned with his hand for the brother to retire to rest, and the man bowed in return and withdrew. When matins was over he cautioned the brothers not to remain in the church once the signal had been given for retiring; nevertheless the pretended friar did the same thing a second and even a third night. On the third night St Dominic went up to him and rebuked him sharply... At this the devil cried out with great glee: "At last I have made you break your silence!" But the servant of God, seeing how he had been tricked, boldly replied, "Save your mirth for some better occasion, wretch, when it can perhaps profit you; and learn moreover that I am the master of this silence and can speak when I think fit to. You cannot hoodwink me on this score." Then the devil slunk away abashed...."
Vitas Fratrum, 2.15, trans Placid Conway.
More conventionally, we are told, he spent much time in prayer at night. I'm not sure why the following amuses me - apart from the wonderfully pragmatic Dominican attitude to rules - but it does:
"It was his custom to keep nightly watch in the church, and once while praying after the brothers had retired to rest, the devil showed himself under the guise of a friar praying before one of the altars. The blessed Dominic wondered at seeing him remain behind after the signal had been given, so he motioned with his hand for the brother to retire to rest, and the man bowed in return and withdrew. When matins was over he cautioned the brothers not to remain in the church once the signal had been given for retiring; nevertheless the pretended friar did the same thing a second and even a third night. On the third night St Dominic went up to him and rebuked him sharply... At this the devil cried out with great glee: "At last I have made you break your silence!" But the servant of God, seeing how he had been tricked, boldly replied, "Save your mirth for some better occasion, wretch, when it can perhaps profit you; and learn moreover that I am the master of this silence and can speak when I think fit to. You cannot hoodwink me on this score." Then the devil slunk away abashed...."
Vitas Fratrum, 2.15, trans Placid Conway.