Milan, Florence, Montecassino, Cluny, Mainz, Frankfort. He helped to put down the papal schism
of Cadalous.^1532 He had the confidence of the Emperor Henry III. whom he highly praise as a second
David, became confessor of the widowed Empress Agnes, and prevented the divorce of her son
Henry IV. from his wife Bertha. He resigned his bishopric, but was again called out from his retreat
by Hildebrand; hence he called him his holy Satan, and also the lord of the pope.^1533 He despised
the vanities and dignities of high office. He preferred his monastic cell in the Apennines, where he
could conquer his own world within, recite the Psalter, scourge himself, and for a change write
satires and epigrams, and make wooden spoons. "What would the bishops of old have done," he
said, "had they to endure the torments which now attend the episcopate? To ride forth constantly
accompanied by troops of soldiers with swords and lances, to be girt about with armed men, like
a heathen general! Every day royal banquets, every day parade! The table loaded with delicacies
for voluptuous guests; while the poor pine away with famine!"
His last work was to heal a schism in the church of his native city. On his return he died of
fever at Faenza, Feb. 23, 1072, one year before Hildebrand ascended the papal chair to carry out
the reforms for which Damiani had prepared the way with narrow, but honest, earnest and unselfish
devotion.
II. The Works of Damiani consist of Epistles, Sermons, Lives of Saints, ascetic tracts, and
Poems. They are a mirror of the church of his age.
- The Epistles are divided into eight books. They are addressed (a) to contemporary Roman
Bishops (Gregory VI., Clement II., Leo IX., Victor II., Nicolas II., Alexander II., and the Anti-pope
Cadalous or Honorius II.); (b) to the Cardinal Bishops, and to Cardinal Hildebrand in particular;
(c) to Patriarchs and to the Archbishops of Ravenna and Cologne; (d) to various Bishops; (e) to
Archpresbyters, Archdeacons, Presbyters and other clergy. They give a graphic picture of the
corruptions of the church in his times, and are full of zeal for a moral reform. He subscribes himself
"Petrus peccator monachus." The letters to the anti-pope Cadalous show his power of sarcasm; he
tells him that his very name from cado, to fall, and laov", people, was ominous, that he deserved a
triple deposition, that his new crime was adultery and simony of the worst sort, that he had sold
his own church (Parma) and bought another, that the church was desecrated to the very top by such
adulteries. He prophesied his death within one year, but Cadalous outlived it, and Damiani defended
his prophecy as applying to moral death. - Sermons, seventy-four in number.^1534 They are short and treat of church festivals, apostles,
the Virgin Mary, martyrs, saints, relics, and enjoin a churchly and ascetic piety. - Lives of Saints, of the Benedictine order, namely, Odilo of Cluny, Romuald, Rodulphus,
and Dominicus Loricatus (the hero of self-flagellation), whose examples are held up for imitation.^1535
(^1532) Or Cadalus, bishop of Parma, very rich and guilty of simony.
(^1533) In two of his best epigrams, he says of Hildebrand (Migne, II. 961, 967):
"Vivere vis Romae, clara depromito voce:
Plus Domino papae quam Domno pareo papae.
Papam rite colo, sed te prostratus adoro:
Tu facis hunc Dominum; te facit iste Deum."
(^1534) Migne, I. 506-924.
(^1535) Migne, 925-1024.