On Mon, 5 Oct 1998, Arlene Hilfer wrote:
> "Ammon, monk (350): After 18 years of continent marriage, he and his wife
> separated: he to the desert, she remaining in her house with other
> religious women, who were visited and directed by Ammon twice a year.
> Became friend of Antony the Great, who saw in a vision Ammon's soul
> ascend to Heaven when he died (despite being very far away)."
>
> I have just begun to work with Northumbrian saints and know that Cuthbert
> saw the soul of St. Aehtewold ascend to heaven. Legend says that this is
> the event which "encouraged" Cuthbert to enter tohe monastery. Is an even
> such as this witnessing of a soul ascending into heaven a topos in
> literature?
>
> Arlene
A couple of other examples of passages from Northumbrian literature
recording similar celestial ascents come to mind - in chapter 17 of the
Liber Beati Gregorii (written at Whitby between 704-714) the author
records that Paulinus' soul was seen ascending into heaven in the form
of a swan-like bird. [The Earliest Life of Gregory the Great, ed. B.
Colgrave, (University of Kansas Press, 1968). ] Colgrave notes (n.68)
that this account of the ascent of the soul in the form of a bird is
analogous to Gregory the Great's tales of the deaths of S. Benedict's
sister Scholastica, and the priest Spes in the 'Dialogues' [II.34 and
IV.11]. Then there's an account in the final chapter of an otherwise
miracle-free text, the anonymous 'Vita S. Ceolfridi', of how at that
abbot's tomb (in the church of the sibling martyrs Speusippus,
Eleosippus and Meliosippus near Langres) those keeping vigil saw an
extraordinarily bright light, accompanied by a wonderful fragrance,
ascend from his tomb into the heavens. [ Chapter 40, Vita S Ceolfridi,
Baedae Opera Historica, ed. C. Plummer, (Oxford 1896).] Admittedly, the
biographer explains this as a visitation of angels rather than the
departure of Ceolfrid's soul into heaven at this point, but there's
enough similarity with the Cuthbert and Aidan episode in both the
anonymous 'Vita Cuthberti' and Bede's prose redaction to suggest that
the ascent may be implied. On the other hand Bede's account of the
translation of Oswald's relics to Bardney in Lincolnshire, which happens
after he's been dead long enough to turn into bones and so one assumes
his soul would have already departed, records that a light shone
from heaven above his in transit skeleton all night. I think the analogy
between Ceolfrid and Aidan is stronger than that between Ceolfrid and
Oswald, but that's only an opinion...
Kate Rambridge
Univcersity of Bristol
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