excerpts from: Cesarius of Heisterbach “THE DIALOGUE ON MIRACLES”
Of a clerk who debauched a Jewish maiden, and
how the Jews were struck dumb in the Cathedral,
when they tried to accuse the offender who was now
contrite.
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In a city of England there lived the daughter of a Jew, who,
like many of her race, was a very beautiful girl. A young
clerk, a relative of the bishop of that city and a canon of the
cathedral saw her and fell in love with her, and after much
difficulty persuaded her at last to consent to his desires. When
in his impatience and consuming passion, he kept daily urging
her, she said to him at last, ” I am very dear to my father, who
watches over me so carefully that neither can I come to you
or you to me, unless it be on the night of the Friday before
your Easter.” For then the Jews are said to labour under a
a sickness called the bloody flux, with which they are so much
occupied, that they can scarcely pay attention to anything else
at that time. The youth hearing this and being almost beside
himself with excess of desire, forgot his Christianity, forgot
the passion of his Lord, and on that very night came to the
maiden and spent the whole night with her till morning.
Now the Jew, her father, in the early hours before the dawn,
entered his daughter’s room, and wishing to see if she were
sleeping quietly or if by chance she needed warmer covering,
came up to her bed. When he saw this youth lying by her
side, he was aghast and cried out with rage and grief, and
was on the point of killing him when he remembered that he
was a relative of the bishop, and fear restrained his hand; but
he cried out in bitter anger, ” What do you here, you vile
Christian? Where is your honour or your religion? You
are delivered into my hands by the just judgment of God, and
I would kill you now like a dog, if I were not afraid of my
lord the bishop.” The youth, terrified by such an awakening
and begging for mercy was driven out of the house in the
utmost confusion. On that day the bishop was to celebrate
the solemn office at three o’clock, and this youth, as being on
duty for the week, was to read the epistle. But while he was
afraid to approach the sacred mysteries with a conscience so
unclean, yet he feared to excite suspicion by getting another
to take his place on such a day, and was afraid to disclose in
confession so foul a sin so recently committed. So when,
overcome by shamefacedness, he had robed himself in the
sacred vestments, and was standing in his place in the bishop’s
presence, the Jew, followed by a great number of his fellows,
burst into the church with a great uproar, intending to complain
to the bishop about his relative. When the youth saw
him and knew full well why he had come, his heart turned
to water, he grew pale, his limbs trembled, and he prayed inwardly
with all his heart,” Lord God, deliver me now, and I
vow to Thee that I will offend no more, and will make all the
amends I can for this sin.” The most merciful Creator, who
hateth sin, but loveth the sinner, as soon as He saw his contrition,
turned the dreaded confusion on to the heads of the
unbelievers. The bishop, wondering what these Jews could
want in the church, especially on that day when they were
representing the passion of Christ their Lord, signed to them
to stand still. They pressed nearer to him, but as soon as they
opened their mouths to accuse the clerk, they found their
voices gone, and none could utter a single word. The bishop,
seeing the mouths of the Jews gaping wide at him and no
sound coming from them, thought they had come there simply
to mock at the holy mysteries, and indignantly ordered them
all to be driven out of the church. As soon as the mass was
over, the clerk, after this experience of the Divine mercy
vouchsafed to him, went to the bishop, made a full confession,
and asked for penance. The bishop, admiring and glorifying
the loving kindness of the Lord, both in the greatness of the
miracle, and in the penitence of the youth, urged and
persuaded him to marry lawfully this girl whom he had
ruined, as soon as she should be born again in the grace of
baptism; for he was a man both merciful and just, and preferred
that his young relative should lose all hope of ecclesiastical
preferment, than that the girl should be exposed to peril
by remaining in her father’s sins. The clerk, not unmindful
of the Divine bounty, and eager to atone to God for the sin
he had committed, took the vows later in our Order, as did his
wife at his instigation, This story was told me by a certain
pious abbot of our Order, and it shows you how much good
was wrought by contrition in the case of this man; for by it
the lapsed was restored, the Jews were put to silence, and an
infidel woman brought to the Faith.
LITTERAE 