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English Correspondence

St Boniface, tr. Kylie, 1911

Letter 13: Wynfrith Describes to Eadburga, Abbess of Thanet, a Vision Seen in the…

To the holy virgin and dear lady, Eadburga, who has already discharged her term of monastic life, Wynfrith, poor servant of the Lord, love and greetings in Christ.

Thou didst ask me, dear sister, to send you an account as the venerable Abbess Hildelida gave it to me, of the wonderful vision seen by the man who recently, in the convent of Abbess Milburga, died and came back to life. I thank God that now I can the more fully meet thy wishes, because but lately I spoke with this brother myself, when he came back here from abroad; he set forth to me in his own words the marvellous spectacle which he beheld when rapt in spirit beyond the body.

He said that, amidst the pain of a sharp sickness he had been freed from the weight of the flesh. It was much as though one seeing and awake had his eyes veiled by a thick covering; this being suddenly taken away, everything would be clear which before had been invisible, hidden and unknown. In like fashion when the covering of this mortal flesh had been thrown aside, before his gaze lay gathered the universe, so that in a single view he beheld all lands and peoples and seas. As he quitted the body, angels of such dazzling brightness that he could scarcely look upon them for their splendour, bore him up. With sweet and harmonious voices they were singing, “O Lord, rebuke me not in Thy wrath: neither chasten me in Thy hot displeasure.”¹ “They raised me,” said he, “high into the air, and circling the world I beheld a blazing fire, the mighty flame soaring terribly aloft, as though to grasp the whole mechanism of the world in its embrace, had not the holy angel calmed it with the sign of Christ’s holy cross. When he had made the sign of the cross before the threatening flame, it gradually retired. By its terrible heat I was sorely tried, while my eyes were burned, and my sight was shattered by the brightness of the gleaming spirits until an angel, splendid to behold, touched my head with a protecting hand, and brought me safe from harm in the flames.”

He added that during the time while he was out of the body, such a multitude of souls leaving the body had gathered where he was as to exceed what he had thought before to be the numbers of the whole human race. An innumerable band of evil spirits and a bright choir of heavenly angels had also assembled; and there was the greatest dispute between the demons and the angels over the souls leaving the body, for the demons were accusing the dead and making heavy the burden of their sins, while the angels were excusing them and lightening their load.

He had himself heard all his own sins, which he had committed since his youth, and had neglected to confess or forgotten, and some acts which he had scarcely thought sinful, cry out against him, each with its own voice, and make the most dreadful accusations. Each vice came forward in its own person to speak; “I am thy cupidity, wherewith thou didst often desire what was unlawful and contrary to the commandments of God.” And another: “I am thy vainglory, wherewith thou didst boastfully exalt thyself above thy fellows.” And another: “I am falsehood, wherewith thou didst sin through lying.” And another: “I am the idle word, which thou spakest to no purpose.” And another: “I am the sight, which thou didst abuse in looking at unlawful things.” And another: “I am the contumacy and disobedience, wherewith thou wert disobedient to thy spiritual superiors.” And another: “I am the torpor and laziness shown in neglect of holy studies.” And another: “I am the wandering thought and useless care with which thou didst concern thyself overmuch, either within the church or without it.” And another: “I am the sleepiness oppressed by which thou didst arise late to confess thyself to God.” And another: “I am the unprofitable journey.” And another: “I am neglect and carelessness, which made thee indifferent to the study of the divine word.” And the rest were like to these.

Everything which he did during the days of his life in the flesh and neglected to confess, and much which he had not known to be sinful, cried out bitterly against him. And the wicked spirits, joining in the accusations and bearing hard testimony, kept calling up the places and occasions of his wicked deeds, and confirmed with their cries what his sins said. He saw there too a man whom he had wounded before he had become a monk, and who was still in this life, brought to give testimony of his guilt. The bloody and open wound and the blood itself cried out with its own voice, and imputed to him the crime of shedding blood. When his sins were thus reckoned and heaped up, the old enemies declared, that as a guilty sinner he should come beyond a doubt under their sway and jurisdiction.

“Against them in excuse for me,” said he, “cried out the poor virtues of the soul, such as I, wretched one, had unworthily and imperfectly practised. One of them said: ‘I am the obedience which he showed to his spiritual superiors.’ Another: ‘I am the fasting with which he chastised his body when warring against carnal desires.’ Another: ‘I am the sincere prayer which he poured out in the sight of God.’ ‘I am the kindly aid which he mercifully rendered to the sick.’ ‘I am the psalm which he sang to God in satisfaction for an idle speech.’ And so each virtue, excusing me, cried out against the rival sin in my defence. And the bright angelic spirits magnified and confirmed the virtues, and spoke in my behalf. Indeed, all these virtues were much increased and seemed much greater and more excellent than could have been practised worthily by any strength of mine.”

He told, too, how he had seen, as it were, in the depths of this earth many fiery pits, belching forth terrible flames, and as the awful blaze burst forth, the souls of miserable men, under the form of birds, flew through the flames lamenting and bemoaning, with human cries, their deserts and their present punishment. They rested, hanging for a little time on the edges of the pits, and then screaming, fell into the depths. One of the angels said, “This moment of rest shows that the Almighty God means to grant these souls on the Day of Judgment to come, relief from punishment and eternal rest.”

But under these pits in the lowest depths, in deepest hell, he heard the awful weeping and wailing of sorrowing souls, terrible, beyond the power of words to describe. And the angel said, “The lamentations and weeping which you hear in the depths come from those souls to whom the mercy of God will never come. But everlasting flame will torture them without end.”

He saw, too, a place of marvellous beauty, in which a glorious multitude of beauteous men rejoiced with exceeding joy; and they invited him to come and share their happiness, if it were permitted him There came thence a fragrance of surpassing sweetness, because it was the gathering of the blessed in their bliss. And this place, the holy angels told him, was the renowned paradise of God.

He beheld also a river of fiery pitch, boiling and blazing, wonderful and terrible to behold. Across it a beam was set for a bridge, to which the holy and glorious souls hastened as they left the assembly, eager to cross to the other bank. And some crossed with certain step. But others slipped from the beam and fell into the hellish stream. Of these some were entirely immersed, while others were only partially covered, it might be to the knees, or to the waist, or merely to the ankles. And yet each one of those who fell climbed from the river upon the other bank brighter and more beautiful than he was before he had fallen into the river of pitch. And one of the blessed angels said of the souls who fell: “These are the souls who, after the end of their mortal lives, had a few trivial faults not entirely washed away, and needed bountiful castigation from a merciful God, that they might be worthily offered unto Him.”

Beyond the river he saw, shining with a great splendour, walls of astounding length and height immeasurable. And the holy angels said: “This is the holy and renowned city, the heavenly Jerusalem, in which these holy souls will find joy for ever.” He said that these souls and the walls of the glorious city to which they hurried after crossing the river, were resplendent with such a flood of dazzling light, that the pupils of his eyes were shaken by the exceeding splendour, and he could no longer look upon them.

He told how to that gathering there had come among the other souls the soul of a man who had died while abbot. It was a fair and beautiful soul. The evil spirits seized it, and claimed that it was under their rule and sway. Thereupon one of the choir of angels replied: “I will show ye quickly, ye abandoned and miserable spirits, that this soul is not proven to be under your power.” And at these words there suddenly intervened a great throng of white souls who said: “He was our master and teacher, who, by his rule, has won us all for God. And by this price is his redemption purchased, and he is shown to be not of your law,” and they made as though they would join the angels in the struggle against the demons. By the aid of the angels they snatched away the soul, and freed it from the power of the evil spirits. And an angel, driving the demons, cried, “Know ye and understand, that ye took this soul unjustly; get ye gone, spirits of evil, into eternal fire.” When the angel had spoken, the demons raised a mighty lamentation and sound of weeping; in a moment, as in the twinkling of an eye, with baneful flight they hurled themselves into the pits of burning fire. But after an interval they came forth again into the assembly to dispute about the merits of souls.

The merits of different men who were still alive he had also beheld at that time. Those who were not slaves to crime, but who, by relying on holy virtues, had clearly won the favour of the Omnipotent God were kept safe by the angels and were joined to them in love and friendship. But those who were polluted with unspeakable vices and the stain of unclean lives, a hostile spirit constantly accompanied, always urging them on to sin; and, whenever they sinned in word or deed, the spirit proclaimed it to the other abandoned spirits that they might be glad and rejoice. And when a man sinned the evil spirit made no delay by waiting until he should sin again, but brought each error singly to the notice of the other spirits. At one moment he pressed sinful deeds upon the man, and at the next announced among the demons their accomplishment.

He told, among other things, how he had seen a girl still in this earthly life grinding corn in a mill. She saw lying near her a new distaff adorned with carving which belonged to another. It seemed beautiful to her and she stole it. Then, as if filled with a great joy, five loathsome spirits bore news of this theft to the others in the assembly declaring the girl guilty. He added: “I saw there the sad soul of a brother who had died a short time before. I attended him in his last illness and performed the burial rites; when dying he bade me relying on his word to ask his brother to manumit, for his soul’s sake, a slave girl whom they owned in common. But the kinsman, bound by avarice, did not fulfil the request. And with deep sighs the soul kept accusing the unfaithful brother and making bitter complaint.”

And he bore witness likewise about Ceolred, King of the Mercians, who, there is no doubt, was still in the flesh when this vision was seen. He beheld the king protected against the onslaught of demons by a screen of angels like a great book spread out above him. But the enraged demons kept demanding of the angels that this defence be taken away and that they be permitted to work their cruel will upon him. They imputed to him a multitude of horrible and unspeakable crimes, and threatened that he must be shut in the direst dungeons of hell and there, as his sins merited, be tortured by eternal torments. Whereupon the angels, more disheartened than was their wont, said: “Alas, that a sinner should not suffer his defence to stand, and that through his own fault we cannot afford him any aid.” And they took away the bulwark from above him. Then the demons with joy and exaltation gathering from all the universe in numbers he thought beyond all men who drew the breath of life harassed and tore him with infinite tortures.

Then the blessed angels enjoined him, who, rapt outside the body, had seen and heard all these things in spiritual contemplation, to return without delay to his own body, and to declare without hesitation everything which had been shown him, to those who believed and asked with good intention, but to refuse word of it to scoffers. They bade him relate to a certain woman who dwelt in a remote region, her past sins in order and intimate to her that she could still make satisfaction to the Omnipotent God if she would; and they commanded him to unfold all this spiritual vision to a priest, Beggan by name, and afterwards, according as he was instructed by Beggan, to announce it to men; his own sins, which the unclean spirits had imputed to him, he should confess and make amends for, according to the judgment of this priest; and on the authority of the angelic precept he should testify of this priest that, for many years, without the knowledge of man and only out of love for God, he had worn an iron girdle about the loins.

He said that while he was absent from his body he came so to despise it that, in all his vision, nothing appeared to him so hateful, nothing so contemptible, nothing reeked with such an offensive odour as his body, save the demons and blazing fire. And the brethren, whom he beheld discharging the last offices, he despised because they took such care for his hateful body. Yet at the angels’ command he returned at the break of day to the body which he had quitted at the first cock-crow. After his return for a full week he could see nothing with his bodily eyes, for they were filled with tumours and frequently dropped blood.

And that everything which had been revealed to him by the angels concerning the holy priest and the sinful woman was true, he proved afterwards from their own lips. And the death of the wicked king, which soon followed, showed beyond doubt that what he had seen concerning him was true.

He said that many other like things had been shown him which he had let slip from his memory and could not recall. Indeed after this wonderful vision his memory was less tenacious than before.

At his request I have written these things carefully as he told them to me in the presence of my holy and venerable brethren, who also heard the story; and they can be taken as witnesses to this letter.

Fare thee well; mayst thou live as a virgin the true angelic life and with good repute reign eternally in heaven with Christ.

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