die like every other man, and render an account to God for all your good and evil deeds." The
emperor took the crown from his head, and begged the blessing of the aged monk. When a dissolute
nobleman, who comforted himself with the example of Solomon, asked Nilus, whether that wise
king was not saved, the monk replied: "We have nothing to do with Solomon’s fate; but to us it is
said, ’Every one that looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already
in his heart.’ We do not read of Solomon that he ever repented like Manasseh." To questions of
idle curiosity he returned no answer, or he answered the fool according to his folly. So when one
wished to know what kind of an apple Adam and Eve ate, to their ruin, he said that it was a
crab-apple. In his old age he was driven from Calabria by invaders, and founded a little convent,
Crypta Ferrata, near the famous Tusculum of Cicero. There he died peacefully when about ninety-six
years old, in 1005.^381
St. Romuald, the founder of the order of Camaldoli, was born early in the tenth century at
Ravenna, of a rich and noble family, and entered the neighboring Benedictine convent of Classis,
in his twentieth year, in order to atone, by a severe penance of forty days, for a murder which his
father had committed against a relative in a dispute about property. He prayed and wept almost
without ceasing. He spent three years in this convent, and afterwards led the life of a roaming
hermit. He imposed upon himself all manner of self-mortification, to defeat the temptations of the
devil. Among his devotions was the daily repetition of the Psalter from memory; a plain hermit,
Marinus, near Venice, had taught him this mechanical performance and other ascetic exercises with
the aid of blows. Wherever he went, he was followed by admiring disciples. He was believed to
be endowed with the gift of prophecy and miracles, yet did not escape calumny. Emperor Otho III.
paid him a visit in the year 1000 on an island near Ravenna. Romuald sent missionaries to heathen
lands, and went himself to the border of Hungary with a number of pupils, but returned when he
was admonished by a severe sickness that he was not destined for missionary life. He died in the
convent Valle de Castro in 1027.^382
According to Damiani, who wrote his life fifteen years after his death, Romuald lived one
hundred and twenty years, twenty in the world, three in a convent, ninety-seven as a hermit.^383
The most famous of Romuald’s monastic retreats is Campo Maldoli, or Camaldoli in the
Appennines, near Arezzo in Tuscany, which he founded about 1009. It became, through the influence
of Damiani, his eulogist and Hildebrand’s friend, the nucleus of a monastic order, which combined
the cenobitic and eremitic life, and was distinguished by great severity. Pope Gregory XVI. belonged
to this order.
(^381) Acta Sanctorum vol. XXVI. Sept 26 (with the Greek text of a biography of the saint by a disciple). Alban Butler,Lives
of the Saints, Sept. 26. Neander, III. 420 sqq. (Germ. ed. IV. 307-315). The convent of Crypts Ferrata possesses a valuable
library, which was used by distinguished antiquarians as Mabillon, Montfaucon, Angelo Mai, and Dom Pitra. Among its treasures
are several MSS. of parts of the Greek Testament, to which Dean Burgon calls attention in The Revision Revised (Lond. 1883),
p. 447.
(^382) His death occurred June 19, but his principal feast was appointed by Clement VIII. on the seventh of February. "His
body," says Alban Butler, "was found entire and uncorrupt five years after his death, and again in 1466. But his tomb being
sacrilegiously opened and his body stolen in 1480, it fell to dust, in which state it was translated to Fabriano, and there deposited
in the great church, all but the remains of one arm, sent to Camaldoli. God has honored his relics with many miracles."
(^383) Vita & Romualdi, c. 69, in Damiani’s Opera II. f. 1006, in Migne’s edition (Patrol. Tom. 145, f. 953-1008). He adds;
"Nunc inter vivos coelestis Hierusalem lapides ineffabiliter rutilat, cum ignitis beatorum spirituum turmis exultat, candidissimi
stola immortalitatis induitur, et ab ipso rege regum vibrante in perpetuum diademate coronatur."