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English Correspondence

St Boniface, tr. Kylie, 1911

Letter 26: Boniface Consults Daniel, Bishop of Winchester, About Associating with Bad…

To his beloved master, Bishop Daniel, Boniface, servant of the servants of God, affectionate greetings of love in Christ.

It is a recognized custom among men, that when something sad and grievous has happened to them, they should seek solace or counsel for the anxious mind, from those in whose friendship or wisdom and attachment they put the greatest trust. Trusting after this manner in your proved wisdom and friendship I unfold the troubles of my weary mind and seek counsel and consolation from your piety. There befall us, not merely in the words of the apostle, “fightings without and fears within”¹ but fightings within as well as fears, due especially to false priests and hypocrites who are adversaries of God and rush into destruction themselves and mislead the people by countless scandals and varied errors, saying to the people in the words of the prophet, “Peace, peace; when there is no peace”²; and the seed of the word, taken from the bosom of the Catholic and Apostolic Church and entrusted to us, which we seek to sow, they strive to oversow with cockle and suffocate or to convert into a baneful weed. And that which we plant they do not water that it may grow, but try to tear up that it may die, offering and teaching to the people new sects and errors of divers kinds; some “abstaining from food which God hath created to be received”³; some, feeding only on honey and milk, reject bread and other food; some actually declaring, and this greatly harms the people, that homicides and adulterers, even though they persevere in their crimes, can yet become priests of God. The people, in the words of the apostle, “will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts will they heap to themselves teachers,” and the rest.⁴

When seeking protection and aid in the court of the Franks, we cannot abstain from personal contact with such priests or keep apart from them as the canons enjoin, though during the celebration of the holy mass in the sacred mysteries of the body and blood of the Lord we have no association with them. But their counsel and approval we avoid, for to such men our toil and struggles with the heathen and with a mixed and lowly multitude, seem quite alien. Nay more, when out of the fold of Mother Church any priest or deacon, cleric or monk departs from the way of faith and truth, then, together with the heathen they break out at once into abuse of the sons of the Church; and this is a terrible obstacle to the gospel of Christ’s glory.

Wherefore, in all these things, that without injury to our souls we may complete the course of our ministry, we seek, first of all, the intercession of your paternity before God. And through Him we beg you with the most earnest prayers, to intercede for us that the merciful Consoler of those in sorrow may deign to keep our souls, amid such storms, unharmed and safe from sin.

Concerning the above mentioned intercourse with these priests I crave to hear and obey your wise counsel. Without the protection of the King of the Franks I can neither rule the people of the Church nor defend the priests and clergy, the monks and nuns of God; nor can I avail to check even the heathen rites and the worship of idols in Germany without his mandate, and the fear of him. But when, seeking aid for these causes, I come to him, I cannot, as the canon law requires, by any means avoid personal contact with such men, even though I may not take counsel with them. I fear guilt from the intercourse, because I recall that, at the time of my ordination, according to the precepts of Gregory the Pope, I swore on the body of Saint Peter to avoid association with such if I could not turn them back to the canonical path. But I fear still more the loss of the teaching which I am bound to give to the people, if I do not come to the ruler of the Franks. Deign to point out in these matters what your paternity can decide and judge and advise for your dependent and hesitating son. I think I am really almost completely separated from them, ir, where they are not canonical, I abstain from common counsel and deliberation with them and from participating with them in the services of the church.

Besides, if I may venture, I should like with earnest prayers to ask for one solace to my mission: that is, that you would send across to me the Book of the Prophets, which Winbert, of revered memory, once my abbot and master, left when departing this life to the Lord, and wherein the six prophets will be found written in the one volume in clear and finished letters. And if God inspires your heart to do this, you cannot send me anything which will be a greater comfort to my age, or a greater pledge of your reward; because I cannot get in this land such a book of the prophets as I desire, and with my eyes growing dim I cannot well distinguish minute and connected letters. I ask for this book since it is written in such clearly separated and finished characters.

Meanwhile I am sending you with the priest, Forthere, this letter and a small gift as a sign of true love, a coverlet, not silken, but shaggy, mixed with goat’s-wool, to cover your feet.

But lately, of a priest who came from your presence to Germany, I heard of your blindness. You know well, my master, Who said and through whom He said, “Whom the Lord loveth, He reproveth,” and the rest⁵; and the apostle Paul: “For when I am weak, then am I strong,” and “My power is made perfect in weakness”⁶; and the writer of the Psalms: “Many are the afflictions of the righteous,” and the rest.⁷ You have, my father, as Antony of Didimus is related to have said, eyes, with which God and His angels can be seen, and the glorious delights of the heavenly Jerusalem. On this account, trusting in your wisdom and patience I believe that God has given you this illness, for the advance of your virtues and the increase of your merits, whereby you may the better with the eyes of the spirit behold those things which God enjoins and loves and the less regard and crave what God does not love but has forbidden; for in this dangerous time what are the eyes of the body but, for the most part, if I may say so, truly windows of sin, through which we either look upon sins or at sinners, or what is worse, through beholding and desiring them draw the vices to ourselves.

It is my earnest wish that your holiness may have health and may pray for me.

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