Peter Celestine

The Lives Of The Saints: Volume 05, May · S. PETER CELESTINE, POPE.

(a.d. 1296.)

[Canonized by Clement V., in 1313. Authorities : — His early life was written by himself. A metrical life by his contemporary, James Cardinal of S. George, another metrical account of the election and coronation of Boniface VIII., a metrical account of the canonization of Peter Celestine, both by the same Cardinal of S. George. A prose life compiled from the above and other contemporary accounts by Peter de Alliaco (d. 1495). AlsoPtolemyde Lucca or de Fiadonibus(i327)in his Annals, and Historia Ecclesiastica. Ptolemy was a witness of several of the events in the brief reign of this pope.]

“ The names of my parents were Angelerius and Maria/' says S. Peter, “ they were just before God, as I trust, and were praised among men ; simple and upright, and fearing God ; humble and peaceable, not rendering evil for evil ; but giving alms and showing hospitality to the poor. After the similitude of the patriarch Jacob, they begat twelve

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Mayigo S. Peter Celestme. 289

sons, and ever they asked of God, that one of them might be his true servant.” The childhood of Peter, one of these sons, was full of visions and marvels, which all tended to foster his desire of leading a solitary and religious life.

Yet he was retarded by fear. He thought that a hermit’s * life in a lone place must be fearful at night, and he shuddered at the prospect of dreams, and weird sights and sounds, far from the dwellings of men. He was twenty before he mastered this fear, and then he set out with a companion, somewhat older than himself. They had not gone far along a mountainous road, before his comrade changed his mind, and deserted him. Peter pursued his way till he came to a bridge ; the night was falling, the wind moaned and filled the young man with alarm. But pluck- ing up his courage, he ran across the bridge, and entering a chapel at the end of it, dedicated to S. Nicolas, implored courage to overcome his natural timidity. Near this chapel, in a solitary place among the rocks, he heard there was an ancient abandoned hermitage. It was then winter, and great snow-flakes fell and drifted and rushed in eddies about the mountain side. Two peasant women, com- passionating the young man, endeavoured to dissuade him from seeking the hermitage, but he resisted their kindly intentions and persevered. He found the hermitage empty, save for the snow which had been swept in. He entered, and cast himself on the ground, hugging two loaves he had bought and brought with him. In the night he was solaced with visions of angels showering red roses about him. But after a few days he found a large rock, and he burrowed beneath it, and made himself a cell, in which he could not stand upright, and in this he spent three years, among toads, lizards, and scorpions. Sometimes when he slept toads would creep into his bosom, and when he awoke, he shook them out, by loosing his belt. “ And,”