medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
A very similar story appears in Sulpicius Severus' Life of Martin of Tours
(ch. 13) In this instance, it's a pine tree. Martin tried to convince the
people of the area that there was nothing sacred about a tree trunk and one
of them (to borrow F.R. Hoare's translation in _The Western Fathers_) said:
"If you have confidence in the God you say you worship, stand where the
tree will fall, and we will cut it down ourselves; and if your Lord, as you
call Him, is with you, you will not be harmed." (p. 27) Martin did so, the
tree started to fall on him, but turned around "when he [Martin] lifted his
hand and met it with the sign of salvation." Then it reversed course,
almost crushing some pagans. Of course, all the pagans converted.
Phyllis
>The English Saint Boniface who missionised much of Germany. His day of
>commemoration is 30 November.
>There may be other Saints with similar feats.
>Fr Ambrose
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Richard Landes
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2002 6:14 PM
> Subject: [M-R] cutting down the sacred oak
>
>
> who was the saint who, having ordered the cutting down of the sacred
>oak, was the object of a plot to have the oak fall on him, but, putting up
>his hands, stayed the mighty tree and had it fall on the two woodsmen who
>had cut it down?
> richard
>
><!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
><HTML><HEAD>
><META content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" http-equiv=Content-Type>
><META content="MSHTML 5.00.2614.3500" name=GENERATOR>
><STYLE></STYLE>
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><DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The English Saint Boniface who missionised
>much of
>Germany. His day of commemoration is 30 November.</FONT></DIV>
><DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>There may be other Saints with similar
>feats.</FONT></DIV>
><DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Fr Ambrose</FONT></DIV>
><BLOCKQUOTE
>style="BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT:
>0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px">
> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
> <DIV
> style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color:
>black"><B>From:</B>
> <A href="mailto:[log in to unmask]" [log in to unmask]>Richard Landes</A>
></DIV>
> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A
> href="mailto:[log in to unmask]"
> [log in to unmask]>[log in to unmask]</A>
> </DIV>
> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Thursday, January 03, 2002 6:14
> PM</DIV>
> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> [M-R] cutting down the sacred
> oak</DIV>
> <DIV><BR></DIV><FONT size=3>who was the saint who, having ordered the
>cutting
> down of the sacred oak, was the object of a plot to have the oak fall on
>him,
> but, putting up his hands, stayed the mighty tree and had it fall on the two
> woodsmen who had cut it down?<BR>richard </FONT></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>
Dr. Phyllis G. Jestice
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