Vita Wenceslai (Legenda Gumpoldi)
A Prince Rebukes His Followers
Wenceslas recalls his youth, renounces vain counsel, and rebukes his followers with an appeal to apostolic teaching on putting away childish things.
While the years of my youth were passing, I — who had been blessed with such a happy age — had risen higher into the strength of a manly mind; and gradually, casting aside the vain schemes of those among my followers, I came to loathe their wandering ignorance, which had strayed far from the truth. Then, on a certain day, when a gathering of soldiers and friends had assembled in the palace, I addressed them with these blunt words of rebuke: "O faithful friends — would that you belonged to Christ!" Since my parents had once charged me to pursue literary study, I eagerly absorbed their teachings, and among the other sayings of my teachers I learned a certain passage of the apostle, which says: "When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things." Reflecting on this statement now, I see that from the moment childhood first came upon me, I — a lowly creature — longed to know the Creator of all things and to bind myself more ardently to his service. But I was still a boy when, by your judgment, I succeeded my father — now dead — as the eldest among my brothers, and I governed, curbing the reins of law and ordering the commonwealth as God directed, and I defended the homeland with all my strength against the violence of those who threatened it. You, however, because your hearts are sluggish toward contemplating the highest truth, and yet you remain loyal to me — though far different from me — are as fond as can be of your own perverse counsels, but utterly unlike what is right. I have put up with your wrongs against me quite long enough; and if my life and reign remain unharmed, the severity with which I have held you in check means that, once I am free of this burden, I will act, and according to the scripture, having put away the things of youth as a grown man, I will put away the things of a child; no longer obeying your wickedness in deed, I will press forward, strengthened by heavenly mercy.✦
Commands for a Just and Peaceful Realm
Wenceslas commands an end to conspiracy, the love of peace, just judgments, and the cessation of parricide, warning of divine and royal punishment.
Therefore let the conspiracy of your whispering against me vanish; let your savage plots against one another in public assemblies cease. Let the love of peace burn at home and abroad throughout the kingdom. Let no advantageous business be condemned by the overturning of judgments. Let the crimes of parricide, by which you are accustomed to be stained, be attempted by no one any longer. If you do not abandon these defilements of the law out of fear of the supreme king, my wrath — kindled by zeal against sinners — will behead anyone guilty of such a crime.
Terror and Temporary Amendment of Life
The conspirators, struck with fear by the prince's authority, abandon their plots and cease — for a time — their schemes.
When the noble speech had ended, those who had shared in the accursed conspiracy went home in terror; forced by the mighty authority of their holy leader, they set aside their proud ambitions and stopped — at least for a while — plotting their usual schemes against that man of wondrous holiness.
The Flourishing of the Church Under a Holy Prince
Under God's calming hand, barbarian threats are restrained, ruined temples are restored, exiled clergy are recalled and enriched, and the whole church rejoices under Wenceslas's rule.
At that time, with God bringing calm, the barbarian uprisings are restrained to some extent under his hand; but the joyful growth of Catholic religious life increases, because temples dedicated to divine worship that had been falling into ruin shortly before from the neglect of unbelievers are founded firm with lasting repair, and clerics who had been robbed of their homeland and possessions are called back with generous kindness; and at once their substance is not only restored but, through the very many gifts added by holy men, it is richly increased, and throughout these regions the whole church rejoices together under such an exalted prince.
Read the original Latin
Transcursa interim annorum iuvenilium tam felici aetate, in virilis animi robur dux ipse altius conscenderat; paulatimque suorum vana sectantium consilia viriliter abiciens, eorumque errabundam a vero ignorantiam non modicum abhominatus, die quadam militum et amicorum contione in palatio facta, huiusmodi ipsos effamine increpationis alloquitur: O amici et fideles utinam Christi! Cum ego litterali studio iam quondam parentum cura iniunctus doctrinas avidius hauserim, inter caetera magistrorum dicta quoddam apostoli scriptum addisco, quo ait: „Cum essem parvulus, loquebar ut parvulus, sapiebam ut parvulus, cogitabam ut parvulus; quando autem factus sum vir, evacuavi quae erant parvuli Hac quippe sententia, modo me ipsum intuendo, quoniam primo iam adeunte pueritia rerum omnium factorem vilis ego factura cognoscere eiusque servitio me implicari ardentius desidero, sed puer ego in principatum vestra censura patri mortuo natu fratribus maior succedens, per legum frena moderata et rem publicam deo praestruente disposui, et patriam contra infestantium molem pro viribus tutavi: vos autem, quia cordibus erga summam veritatem speculandam desides fideque mihi manetis dispares, quam plurimum in consiliis vestrae perversitati amabilibus, sed rectitudini admodum dissimilibus, satis mihi iniuriosos hactenus iam patior; qua districtione, si vita regnumque manebit incolume, posthac exsolutus vacabo, et iuxta scriptum retromissa iuventute vir effectus, quae sunt parvuli evacuabo; praecepti actibus dominici, vestrae ulterius non obaudiens nequitiae, superna roboratus clementia insistam. Quocirca vanescat susurrationis vestrae adversum me conspiratio; cessent saeva publicis conventibus inter vos consilia. Pacis amor domi forisque in regno ferveat. Negocia cuiuslibet utilitatis iudicum eversione non damnentur. Parricidiorum scelera, quibus pollui soletis, a quoquam ultra non praesumantur. Haec legis inquinamenta si summi regis metu non deseritis, nostra ira in scelerosos dei zelo accensa, quemcumque huiusmodi reum capite truncabit. Finito excellentis alloquio iussionis, nefastae participes coniuracionis domum pavidi redeunt, superba mentium fastigia, accepto sacri ducis potenti vigore, coacti deponunt, solitasque erga mirae sanctitatis virum insidias, quamvis ad modicum tempus, moliri desinunt.
Jam tunc deo serenante comprimuntur aliquantum sub eius manu barbarae motiones; surgunt autem catholicae religionis leta incrementa; quoniam divino cultui templa dicata, paulo ante infidelium neglectu cadentia, stabili reparatione fundantur, clerici patria bonisque privati, benigna largitate revocantur; statimque non tantum restituta, verum sancti viri plurimis adaucta muneribus substantia locupletantur, et tota per has partes tali sub principe elata congaudet aecclesia.
Scripture echoes
- ↩1Cor.13.11 — When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I thought as a child, I reasoned as a child; but when I became an adult, I put away childish things.
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