Extract X
How the body of the holy martyr was brought for burial
The next day, many armed men congregated outside of the city walls once again, and it was said everywhere that they had come intending to commit a greater atrocity, namely, to wrest the body of the holy martyr out of the bosom of the holy mother church by force and to drag it behind horses through the whole city, or to hang it from a gibbet, or to cut it into bits and throw it into a bog, or into a more vile place, which it is not decent to name,
1 By “a more vile place,” Benedict likely means a cesspit or latrine. in greater contempt of God and of the church. They said that a traitor’s corpse should not be buried among the holy archbishops. The monks, alarmed for themselves as well as for the saint, fearing either that he would be treated foully, or that they would lose their precious treasure, made preparations to bury him with all speed. And so they could not wash his most sacred body, nor anoint it with balsam, as is the custom of the holy church of Canterbury. It is believed that this happened not so much because of human wickedness but by divine mercy. For the person the Lord ordained to be anointed in his own blood, what need is there for the scent of an ordinary perfume? When they took off his outer garments in order to dress him in an archbishop’s vestments, they found that his body was enveloped in a hairshirt. This was painful not only on account of its harshness, but also because his undergarments, extending down to the knees, were made of haircloth, something we have never read nor heard as being copied by any other saint.
2 The discovery of the hairshirt was mentioned in many contemporary accounts of Becket’s murder. For miracles relating to the hairshirt, see below, III.40, III.61, IV.19, and IV.94. Above this, he was dressed as a monk, namely with the hood and coarse woolen shirt. They looked at each other, stunned by the sight of such hidden religion beyond what would have been believed, and with their reasons for mourning so multiplied, their tears began again.
How could it be thought that there was greed or treachery in such a man? How could this man, who secretly preferred a hairshirt above worldly comforts, have desired an earthly kingdom? How could he have been a traitor of the king’s majesty? Was he not, rather, betrayed? He did not wish to yield to or to resist his betrayers, the sons of iniquity, though he could have done so. If he had wished, he could have prudently turned away from the enemy’s deceit and rage or repelled them with a more powerful force. He had the power, the foreknowledge, and the forewarning. As for the power, even if the enemy had come multiplied by ten, he could have, if he had wished, driven them back one hundredfold. As for the foreknowledge, on the day of the Lord’s Nativity, when he had administered the bread of the word of God to the people, he said, among other things, that he did not return from exile for any other reason than either to cast aside the yoke of servitude that had been placed on them, or to undergo the punishment of death among them and for them. He had also, as noted above, made mention of his passion to the abbots across the sea.
Moreover, just as he was informed of these things by divine kindness, he was also forewarned and forearmed by human zeal. It would be possible to speak of how numerous people acquired merit due to their good will in this matter, but two examples can be stated with certainty. A certain knight, well-known to him, informed Richard, the cellarer of Canterbury, on a pledge of faith, that the Lord’s saint would not see the evening of the third day – though this was against his faith, since he had been bound to those murderers in the killing of his father. He preferred to put his faith, by which he was bound to them, in jeopardy, than to incur the guilt of such a terrible homicide in silence. When Richard told this to the most blessed servant of God, he smiled and replied, “They are threats.” When he was told for certain by a citizen of Canterbury named Reginald that those who conspired his death had already landed in England, he began to weep bitterly, either to
blot out their iniquities [
Is 43:25] or because peace had not yet been obtained for the church, and he said, “They will find me prepared for death. Let them do what they wish. For I know, my sons, and I am certain, that I will die by arms. However, they will not kill me outside of my church.” By these words, is it not proved that he not only knew about his passion, but also had foreknowledge about its manner and place? But since
his kingdom was not of this world, for if it were, his ministers would certainly have striven that he should not be delivered to them [
Jn 18:36], he chose by his own free will to drink the cup of the Lord cheerfully, rather than to stain the virtue of his former constancy by ineffectual flight, or to call to his defense those who would battle with arms. In this he imitated the one who could have asked his Father for twelve legions of angels for his defense,
3 See Matthew 26:53, where Christ states that he could request twelve legions of angels if he wished. but did not wish to do so. We believe that it would not be easy to find a passion of any other martyr that would seem to accord with such similarity to the Lord’s passion.