Beatus

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Beatus heals a lame man. Illustration by Urs Graf from The life of the holy bychtigers vnd einsidlers sant Batten , Basel 1511.

Beatus ( Latin "the lucky one") allegedly lived as a hermit on Lake Thun and is said to have been consecrated by Peter and commissioned to convert Switzerland .

Legend

Tomb of St. Beatus at the entrance to the Beatus Caves

Beatus is said to have originally borne the name Suetonius and lived in England in the first century AD . He traveled to Rome after being converted by Barnabas and baptized in the name of Beatus. There he joined Peter and became a priest. Together with his companion Achates, he set out to preach the Gospel according to an instruction from the Pope in the area north of the Alps. Legend has him then living as a hermit in a cave near Beatenberg on Lake Thun, where he is said to have fought a terrible dragon that devastated the area and where he died as a benefactor of the country around the year 112. He was buried near the cave at his own request. Subsequently, sick people who visited the grave were freed from their suffering.

As early as 1474, the pilgrim traveler Hans von Waltheim reported on his visit to the Beatus Cave with a few short notes about the dragon slayer Beatus, who accordingly came from France and whose invocation against diseases helped. In 1494, Sebastian Brant dedicated eight verses to the saint as part of his poem In divi Onophrii laudem, which celebrates the life of a hermit . On the single-leaf woodcut , a picture is dedicated to Beatus fighting the dragon emerging from the cave.

The actual Vita of Beatus was initially written in Latin by the Basel Franciscan Daniel Agricola on behalf of the Augustinian Canons of Interlaken in 1511, translated into German that same year and is said to have been based on a Carolingian saint's vita. This font was richly illustrated with illustrations by Urs Graf . But Agricola told in his vita, which he claims to have taken from old codices , only after the story of the French Saint Beatus of Vendôme - he, too, a dragon-killing hermit - which he expanded to include knowledge of local events. It was quickly spread and Beatus Rhenanus visited the author to ask him about the basis of his presentation, in particular about the sources for the birth name Suetonius of Beatus. He replied that he had chosen the name because he had read that Beatus had come from Sweden (Suedia) ; but he invented agates based on agates , the companion of Aeneas in Roman mythology. Agricola's Vita formed the basis for later stories, especially the version made by Petrus Canisius , with which Beatus was elevated to the status of Swiss “national saint”.

The historical background of the legend was possibly the Irish Scottish abbot Beatus of the Honau monastery in Alsace , whose monks in the 7th / 8th centuries . Central Switzerland should have evangelized in the 19th century . Beatus is considered the apostle of Switzerland. In Beatenberg am Thunersee his cave is shown that since the 13th century pilgrimage is. His feast day is May 9th. Beat is a male name that is common in Switzerland.

Attributes, patronage

  • Attributes: Hermit in front of a cave, dragon
  • Patron of Switzerland; against cancer and plague

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Friedrich Emil Welti (ed.): The pilgrimage of Hans von Waltheym in the year 1474. Stämpfli, Bern 1925, p. 57 f. ( PDF; 13.17 MB ); compare Gabriela Signori: Beat, the Swiss Apostle. A hagiographic "invention of tradition". In: Rudolf Suntrup, Jan R. Veenstra (Hrsg.): Construction of the present and future. Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2008, pp. 3–23, here p. 6.
  2. ↑ On Brant's Onuphrius poems see Roland Stieglecker: The Renaissance of a Saint: Sebastian Brant and Onuphrius eremita. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2001, on the Beatus verses especially p. 161 f. Lines 25-32; compare Gabriela Signori: Beat, the Swiss Apostle. A hagiographic "invention of tradition". In: Rudolf Suntrup, Jan R. Veenstra (Hrsg.): Construction of the present and future. Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2008, pp. 3–23, here p. 6 f.
  3. ↑ On Brant's Onuphrius poems see Roland Stieglecker: The Renaissance of a Saint: Sebastian Brant and Onuphrius eremita. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2001, p. 249; Digitalisat the Berlin State Library .
  4. ↑ Daniel Agricola: Almi confessoris et anachorete Beati: Helveciorum primi evangelistae et apostoli and The life of the holy Bychtigers vnd Einsidlers sant Batten, the first apostle of the Oberland, named Helvecia , both Basel 1511.
  5. ↑ Beatus Rhenanus: Rerum Germanicarum libri tres. 1531, p. 161 ( PDF ); see Alois Lütolf: Switzerland's messengers of faith before St. Gallus. Räber, Lucerne 1871, p. 10.
  6. ↑ Petrus Canisius: Zwo warhaffte, funny Christian histories, drawn together from many old scribes ... The first from the ancient apostolic man S. Beato, first preacher in Switzerland. The other from the famous Abbot S. Fridolino, first preacher at Glaris and Seckingen. Gemperlin, Freyburg in Vchtland [Freiburg im Üechtland] 1596 ( digitized ).
  7. ^ Alois Lütolf: The messengers of faith of Switzerland before St. Gallus. Räber, Luzern 1871, pp. 3–5.
personal data
SURNAME Beatus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Suetonius
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Hermit on Lake Thun and saint
DATE OF BIRTH 1st century
DATE OF DEATH 1st millennium