Blessed Aegidius (Giles) of Portugal

The newcomer began the conversation thus: "I see, traveler, that you have a long road ahead of you? — Yes, replied Egidius, I am going to Paris. — And to study medicine there, if I am not mistaken? — Egidius, surprised to see this stranger aware of his secret plans, exclaimed: How do you know that, I have spoken of it to no one. — No, said Satan, for our readers have already guessed that this stranger was the demon, determined to make a last and decisive effort to plunge this wavering soul into the infernal abyss, — no, but I know a science that penetrates all secrets, that teaches how to read the thoughts of others and to hide one's own. — What is this science? said Egidius in a voice burning with desire; tell me, do you know it? can you teach it to me, I want to learn it! — Satan, seeing that the young man was about to succumb to temptation, let out a sardonic laugh and said: This science that I can teach you is alchemy. — Egidius trembled, a shiver ran thro ugh his alchimie Esoteric science taught by Satan to Egidius. veins; he remembered the religious teachings of his childhood and youth; the thought of renouncing Christ filled him with horror. But Satan, seeing his hesitation, added in an insinuating voice: This science will make you the most learned man on all the earth; your reputation will become universal and you will enjoy pleasures and honors of which you cannot have the slightest idea. — It is done! said Egidius, succumbing to this temptation of pride, I am ready to become your student!"

At that instant, Satan took him and carried him through the air like a straw, then descended into the midst of arid mountains sown with gaping precipices. At Satan's approach, a rock opened, and both entered a vast cavern where a crowd of victims of the infernal spirit had been moaning for many years. Satan then presented to him, so that he might sign it with his blood, a scroll on which were written these terrible words: I renounce the title of child of God and I withdraw from his laws; I renounce his faith and I deny the vows of my baptism to become the devoted slave of Satan who, in return, will grant me earthly pleasures and honors... The unfortunate Egidius did not recoil at the sight of these impious words, he did not flee... he opened a vein and signed them with his own blood!... He began from then on his harsh apprenticeship under the cruel master he had given himself. For seven long years, he remained locked in the hideous cavern, occupied, night and day, in learning, by the sweat of his brow, the diabolical secrets. He experienced then for himself how much the service of the Lord is sweeter than that of the demon; but the hardening of his heart and the despair to which he was at the same time a prey prevented him from seeking to escape from the iniquitous slavery to which he was delivered. Finally, at the expiration of the seven years, he left the cavern possessing more natural and supernatural science than anyone else; all the occult forces of nature were known to him; he knew secrets and enchantments that no man had possessed before him and he used them to satisfy his perverse inclinations and his guilty desires.

Upon arriving in Paris, he distinguished himself in the Faculty of Medicine even more than he had done in Coimbra; and the marvelous cures he performed, thanks to his diabolical science, rightly caused him to be regarded as the most illustrious doctor who had ever appeared on earth. But he had become like those whitewashed sepulchers of which Our Lord speaks, which within are nothing but dust and corruption: worldly science had killed faith within him, all was empty and sad in his soul, and he could have said with Solomon: "Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity, except to love God and serve Him alone!" In the midst of the drive and fervor of his passions, despite the tumult of the world that surrounded him and despite the demons who were his companions, he had preserved, like a precious wreck in a total shipwreck, devotion to the Blessed Virgin; he prayed to her in secret, every day a few Ave Marias rose from his heart to his lips, and he had an intimate premonition that Mary would deliver him. For, in the midst of all this pomp, all these riches, the honors and human glory that surrounded him, Egidius was far from happy; his brow was troubled, an invincible sadness weighed upon him; he experienced for himself how heavy are the chains that Satan forges for his servants, and he often recalled in the bitterness of his heart, and with regret, those young and pure years when he enjoyed the sweet and holy freedom of the children of God. His soul, deviated from its path, writhed in inexpressible anguish, and while many admired and perhaps envied the splendor attached to his name and his luxurious life, one could often have heard him cry out upon his rich, sleepless bed: De profundis clamavi ad te, Maria: Maria, exaudi vocem meam, fiant aures tuae intendentes in vocem deprecationis meae... From the depths of the abyss, I have cried out to you, O Mary: hear the voice of my supplications, O Mary!... But Satan, jealous of his prey, suggested to the unhappy man some new thought of proud science, and he pushed him to attempt new and more powerful enchantments, and the all-too-docile Egidius returned to his retorts and his alembics with a feverish activity.

One night, having worked at his furnaces even longer than usual, fatigue finally overcame him, and he fell asleep on a seat placed in a corner of the room where he was. During his sleep, it seemed to him that he was transported to the cemetery of his abbey, which was illuminated by the pale rays of the moon. He was watching its fantastic shadows when the sonorous bell began to sway in the belfry, and it struck eight times in the midst of the deep and solemn silence of the night. It was barely vibrating when he seemed to see a gaunt specter emerge from its tomb; it was dressed in a white shroud, the garment of the grave; its right hand held a scythe with a sharpened edge, and its left hand held an hourglass in its bony fingers; it walked impassively through the paths of the cemetery, passing before some tombs without interrupting its walk, but suddenly it stopped before a grave and cried out in a hoarse and harsh voice: "Rise, unfaithful monk, you who have violated your vows, rise!" Immediately a specter rose from that tomb and followed the one who seemed to be the master of this domain of death. It went to another tomb and cried out: "Unfaithful monk, rise!"... And it spoke in the same way to all those deceased monks who had gravely sinned. When it had arrived at the place designated for the burial of the abbots and at the spot where the tomb of Egidius was to be placed, it cried out in a more strident voice: "Abbot Egidius, unfaithful monk, unworthy monk, you who have renounced your God, you who have violated all your vows, rise!"

But nothing came out of this tomb, which was still without a host. "Where is he, then?" said the leader of the specters. "Monk Egidius, has your hour not yet struck?" He looked at his hourglass: a few grains of sand still remained... "See you soon!" he said, and the specters, leaving their shrouds, began their infernal round; one place was empty in their ranks, or rather was occupied by a being invisible to the eyes of Egidius. Suddenly the specters broke their round, dispersing as they ran without touching the earth or even bending the stalks of the verdant grass of the cemetery; they came toward him, surrounded him, and stopped. The leader cried out with a horrible accent: "Woe to you, wretch, if you do not change your life!" and all the other specters repeated in chorus: "Change your life, wretch!" Egidius, at the height of terror, hoped only in Mary; the leader approached again and struck him with the scythe in the heart. The cold of the sharp steel awakened Egidius, who cried out: "Mary!" At this name, all the specters, like a troop of owls before the first ray of dawn, disappeared, crying: "You are saved!"

Egidius fell to his knees, thanking the divine protectress who had just broken his bonds; he took all the books of profane science that had been the primary cause of his fall, he broke the vials that contained his philtres; then, abandoning all his iniquitous riches, he furtively left his sumptuous mansion, stripped of everything, while his numerous servants were still resting; he left Paris and took the road to Portugal on foot.

His journey was sad and painful. Pursued by remorse, by the memory of that schedule signed in his own blood and remaining in the power of his infernal enemy, he spent his nights without sleep, absorbed in his painful reflections. The hardships, hunger, thirst, fatigue, privations of all kinds, and the illnesses that followed, all seemed to him a first and just expiation for his crimes; his repentance was equaled only by the desire he had to do penance, and nothing stopped him in his course.

After entering Spain, he arrived in Valencia where a conve nt of F Valence Place of Ismidon's early studies. riars Preachers had just been founded; and the brothers, then in all their primitive fervor, were actively occupied with their own hands in building their convent. Egidius, succumbing under the weight of his sorrows and his bodily fatigue, sat on a stone and contemplated the good religious with melancholy; they came and went with activity; burdened with stones, wood, and mortar, with expressions where modesty, patience, and the holy joy that a pure conscience gives reigned at once, they worked to raise the walls and cloisters of their blessed retreat. He felt a deep emotion in seeing them give themselves with such joy to tasks so far beneath them; this spectacle had for him a charm that he could not define and that he found very great when comparing it with the infernal works he had accomplished during his guilty life. Mary undoubtedly spoke to his heart, for suddenly he said to himself: "It is here that I must spend the rest of my days, in obscurity, humility, and penance!" Then, rising immediately, he went to find the prior of the Dominicans. The prior welcomed him with kindness and charity, listened to his long confession, and did not hesitate to grant him absolution, for the sincerity of his tone and the abundance of his tears showed that his repentance was genuine. What a weight his soul was relieved of when it was delivered from the burden of a life stained with crimes, when the chains he had worn for so long were broken by the efficacy of the precious blood of Jesus Christ, and when he understood the happiness there is in giving oneself to God body and soul! The next day, he returned to find the prior and threw himself at his feet, saying to him: "My father, I come to you as the prodigal son returned to his father; I return to the house of God, my heavenly father; like the guilty child, I come to conjure you to receive me into this convent as one of your humblest servants; I beg you to give me as my share the coarsest, most painful, and vilest tasks; I will find them very honorable and very sweet when I compare them, for my just confusion, to the infernal work to which I gave myself for so many years! I aspire only to drink from the chalice of penance and repentance with as much avidity as a thirsty man who finds a cool fountain in the desert. Too long have I sinned! Too long have I drunk from the cup of iniquity! Too long have I made a pact with Satan and lived with the infernal mammon. This is the place I have chosen to do penance, if you deign to permit it, and you will show me the road that must be followed to go to heaven!" The prior, moved, embraced him as he raised him up: "Yes," he said to him, "come with us, it is here that you will find the rest of your soul." Egidius went to prostrate himself before the altar of the merciful Virgin who had led him as if by the hand to this port of salvation to pour out the transports of his joy and his gratitude...

From that moment, one could see among the pious workers a monk who surpassed his brothers in his ardor for work: it was Egidius, who from then on led the life of the Friars Preachers. Prompt obedience, rigorous silence, charity, and peace of soul were the elements of the new life that Egidius had embraced. His conversion was sincere, and he expiated through harsh penance all the sins he had committed. Having made his profession in 1221, he was soon after sent to the convent of Santarem Santarem City in Portugal where the saint's life takes place. , in Portugal, his native land.

But one must not believe that the great tempter of men left him in peace; he stirred up the most violent temptations against him and sought to drive him to despair by constantly reminding him of the terrible donation he had made in writing of his soul. Egidius ceaselessly addressed his fervent prayers to Mary to ask for her help against his cruel enemy; finally, after seven years of austere penances and ardent prayers, his trust in Mary was rewarded: one night, after having prayed to her for a long time, he had fallen asleep in the choir, and he found on the ledge of his stall the impious donation he had signed with his blood, which the power of Mary had just snatched from the demon.

Since then, he tasted without mixture the ineffable spiritual consolations with which the Lord often fills his favorite servants; and his chronicler, in recounting several of his ecstasies and miracles, the truly divine rapture into which he entered when he heard the sweet names of Jesus and Mary pronounced, sacred names by which he dominated all of hell, observes that there was a much more powerful magic there than in that which Egidius had learned from Satan.

Our Blessed one was successfully employed by his superiors in the ministry of souls, for he was marvelously gifted at touching the most hardened sinners through his preaching. He served several times as provincial, a role he fulfilled with particular talent. Finally, after having edified others through his virtues even more than he had once scandalized them through his disorders; after having been generally regarded as the greatest man of his Order during his lifetime; after having acquired, by seeking obscurity, a much higher reputation than by seeking earthly glory, he died the death of the just in 1265, to go and sing the mercies of the Lord in heaven.

Benedict XIV approved the cult of the Blessed Egidius on March 9, 1748, and his feast is celebrated on May 14. An ancient journal of the kings of Portugal, cited in the Acts of the Saints, mentions the death of the Blessed Egidius or Gillis as follows: "Saint Gillis, of the Order of Preaching Friars, w ent to God o Saint Gillis Portuguese nobleman who became an occult physician and later a Dominican friar following a pact with the devil. n the fourteenth day of May, the day of the Ascension of Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the year of our saint twelve hundred and sixty-five." — Ann. Dom., May 1872, Acta Sanctorum and most hagiographies.