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The life of St. Giles was compiled by one
who collected whatever memorials he could amass together, without discernment,
and who confounded the saint with the Abbot of Arles of the same name. See
Mabillon, Annal. Ben. t. 3, p. 433 et Sæc. 3, Bened. in Proleg. And
especially the learned dissertation and remarks of Stilting the Bollandist,
Sept. t. 1, p. 284. Also the Maurist monks, Hist. Littér. de la France, t.
10, p. 60.
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About the End of the Seventh
Century.
THIS saint, whose name has been held in great veneration for several ages in
France and England, is said to have been an Athenian by birth, and of noble extraction.
His extraordinary piety and learning drew the admiration of the world upon
him in such a manner, that it was impossible for him to enjoy in his own
country that obscurity and retirement which was the chief object of his
desires on earth; and he dreaded the sunshine of temporal prosperity and the
applause of men, as fraught with dangerous poison, which easily insinuates
itself into the heart. Therefore, leaving his own country, he sailed to
France, and chose an hermitage first in the open deserts near the mouth of
the Rhone, afterwards nigh the river Gard, and lastly, in a forest in the
diocess of Nismes. He passed many years in this close solitude, using no
other subsistence than wild herbs or roots, and water, conversing only with
God, and living rather like an angel than a man; so perfectly was he
disengaged from earthly cares, and with so great purity of affections, with
such constancy and ardour was his soul employed in the exercises of heavenly
contemplation. His historian relates, that he was for some time nourished
with the milk of a hind in the forest, and that a certain prince discovered
him in hunting in those woods, by pursuing the chase of that hind to his
hermitage, where the beast had sought for shelter at his feet. The reputation
of the sanctity of this holy hermit was much increased by many miracles which
he wrought, and which rendered his name famous throughout all France. Some,
by mistake, have confounded this saint with one Giles, whom St. Cæsarius made
abbot of a monastery near the walls of Arles, and whom he sent to Rome with
his secretary, Messianus, in 514, to Pope Symmachus, to obtain of him a
confirmation of the privileges of the metropolitan church of Arles. But the
Bollandists prove very well, in a long and learned dissertation, that the
great St. Giles lived only in the end of the seventh, and beginning of the
eighth century, not in the sixth; and that the French were at that time
masters of the country about Nismes. Messianus and Stephen, in the second
book of the life of St. Cæsarius, inform us, that the French took Arles in
541, the year before the death of St. Cæsarius; after which, the Goths
yielded up to them that whole province. St. Giles was highly esteemed by the
French king; but could not be prevailed upon to forsake his solitude. He,
however, admitted several disciples, and settled excellent discipline in the
monastery of which he was the founder, and which, in succeeding ages, became
a flourishing abbey of the Benedictin Order, though it has been long since
converted into a collegiate church of canons. A considerable town was built
about it, called St. Giles’s, which was famous in the wars of the Albigenses.
This saint is commemorated in the Martyrologies of Bede, Ado, and others; and
is the patron of many churches in France, Germany, Poland, &c.
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Entire constant
solitude is a state which few are able to bear with unabated fervour in the
uninterrupted exercises of arduous penance and contemplation. A man in
solitude, whom sloth often warps, or whose conversation is not always with
God and his holy angels, is his own most dangerous tempter and worst company.
Aristotle having defined man a social creature, 1 or one born for
society, added, that he who lives alone must either be a god or a beast. But
that philosopher was unacquainted with the happiness of religious
contemplation. The ancient Christian proverb is more exact, that he who lives
always alone is either an angel or a devil. This state therefore is not
without snares and dangers; nor does an hermitage necessarily make a saint;
but when a person, by an extraordinary call, embraces it with fervour, and
strenuously applies himself to all the exercises of holy retirement and
penance, such a one being disengaged in his affections from all earthly ties,
exchanges the society of a vain and sinful world for that of God and holy
spirits, and the contagious commerce of foolish toys for the uninterrupted
glorious employment of the angels, and has certainly attained the highest
degree of happiness under heaven; this state is its novitiate, and in some
degree an anticipation of its eternal sweet and noble employ. He who
accompanies these most fervent exercises of contemplation and divine love
with zealous and undaunted endeavours to conduct others to the same glorious
term with himself, shall be truly great in the kingdom of heaven. 2
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