Baring-Gould’s sources: Roman Martyrology, Usu&rdus, Ado, Wandelbert, Ac. Authorities • —An ancient life by an anonymous writer, of perhaps the 9th cent. Another life by Wandelbert of Pram, who flourished about 839.] In the sixth century there lived in Aquitania a noble pair, named George and Valeria, who were given a son, whom they called Goar or Gower. The child grew up, loving God above all things, and when he had reached the canonical age, he was ordained priest. For some time he laboured in his native land, but at length, following the religious bent of his age, he departed, seeking a solitary place where he might serve God as a hermit. The place he chose as his residence was a nook on the right bank of the Rhine. There he constructed a cell and a little chapel, with the consent of Fibicius, bishop of Treves. 1 His piety attracted many pilgrims, whom Goar received with hospitality, lodged, and fed. Two of the officials of Rusticus II., who had succeeded Fibicius in the bishopric of Treves (cca. 511), having visited Goar, were surprised to see him eat a hearty breakfast with his pilgrims after having said mass and sung his morning offices. Thinking this very unlike what was thought befitting for a hermit, they com1 The anonymous biographer incorrectly calls him Felix. Goar.

…plained to the bishop, who at once ordered them to summon Goar to appear before him. The messengers arrived at his cell, and were given shelter for the night. In the morning he sang psalms, said mass, and then spread the board for breakfast. Then the episcopal legates denounced him indignantly as a glutton, and unworthy to be called a hermit, for hermits as every one knows eat not till noon, and often not till sun-down. Then they ordered him to follow them, and disdaining to eat at his table, mounted their horses and galloped away. But the day was hot, the air languid, and before long the two men began to regret having ridden away with empty stomachs. They became miraculously hungry, says the writer of the life of S. Goar, but as he tells us they had eaten nothing that morning, it would seem more miraculous if they had not been hungry. They drew rein, flung themselves from their horses, and sullenly awaited the arrival of Goar. The hermit came up, prudently supplied with a sack of provisions for the way. He opened his store, and the men were not disposed to decline his hospitality on this occasion. When Goar reached Treves [Trier in Germany] he was at once introduced to the episcopal court, and being hot, he took off his hood and flung it across a sun-beam, which pierced the gloom through a narrow window, “ mistaking it for a beam of wood.” 1 The bishop asked the hermit with much violence of temper what he meant by eating and drinking instead of fasting. Goar gently replied that the kingdom of God was not in meat and drink, but in righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, that ' The origin of the stories of cloaks and gloves and hoods hung over sun-beams, which occur in so many lives (see those of S. Bridget, S. Cuthman, S. Deicolus, S. Amabilis, S. Leonore of Brittany, &c.), is no doubt this. It wa{ said that the saint had hung his vestment over a beam, ** radius/* and the double meaning of the word originated the miracle in the story. fjuly6 pilgrims came to him, and he could not send them away empty, nor would it appear hospitable if he served them and abstained himself.

This did not satisfy the narrow-minded Rusticus, and he would have contumeliously driven forth the hermit, had not at this moment some people entered the hall, bringing with them a new-born babe, which had been discovered exposed to die in some wild place outside the town.

“We will soon prove whether this be a man of God or not,” said Rusticus. “Tell us whose child this brat is ?” What followed ? Are we to believe with the biographer, trusting to legend, that the child spoke, or was it that Goar enlightened, may be, by the gossip of his travelling companions, the bishop’s familiars, rushed to a conclusion, and said, “ Bishop Rusticus is father and Flavia is the mother.”

At this unexpected charge the prelate was confounded, and Goar was hustled out of the court, and allowed to go his own way without further questioning. The story resounded through the country, and came to the ears of Sigebert, king of Austrasia, and he thought nothing could be more suitable than to appoint Goar to the episcopal throne of Treves, rendered vacant by the retirement of Rusticus, to do penance for his fault during seven years. Goar refused to accept a bishopric whilst the bishop was still alive, and retiring to his cell on the Rhine, fell sick with a fever, from which he continued to suffer for seven years, when Rusticus, who had been confined, or had confined himself, in the monastery of S. Mary “ ad Martyres,” refused to resume his sacred functions, and it was deemed expedient to fill his place. The bishopric was again offered to S. Goar, and was again declined by him, and with reason, his age and infirmities rendered him incapable of discharging the duties it would have entailed; and indeed, soon after the offer was made, he died. There are some difficulties in the chronology of S. Goar. Rusticus II. was bishop in 51 1, on the death of Fibicius. He was succeeded by S. Abrunculus, who died in 527; then came S. Nicetius, who died in 566. On the death of S. Nicetius occurred a vacancy of seven years, terminated by the elevation of S. Magnericus, in 573.

Sigebert was king of Austrasia between 561 and 575. The event recorded in the life of S. Goar, of his summons before the bishop Rusticus, must then have occurred in 566. But Rusticus was bishop in 51 1; nothing historical is known of him. His retirement for seven years is fabulous; it arises from the fact of the see having been vacant for seven years between 566 and 573, the biographer may have attributed it to the retirement of the bishop. Anyhow there is sufficient difficulty in reconciling dates to make us accept the life of S. Goar as given by the historian with caution.

Some have supposed that Goar is only the same as Gewirr, the whirlpool near the present town of S. Goar, not far from the Lurlei rocks. It is possible that Goar may not have been the original name of the saint, and that he may have been invoked by those in danger of the “ Gewirr,” as they crossed or descended the Rhine, and so may have acquired that name by which he is now familiarly known, much as S. Erasmus has obtained in France and Belgium the name of S. Agrapard.

At the time of the Reformation the relics [the bodily remains of a saint, or objects they used, kept with honor] of S. Goar were torn from the crypt in which they reposed, Lives oj the Saints.

Duly ». and were scattered. But some fragments were preserved in the church of S. Castor at Coblenz; and a few have been given to the Catholic church at S. Goar.