I myself know a brother – Ah, how I wish I had never known him! – whose name I could mention were it desirable, who lived in a noble monastery but lived an ignoble life. He was often taken to task by the brethren and authorities of the house and warned to adopt a more disciplined life; and although he refused to listen to them, they bore with him patiently because they had need of his manual labour; for he was a skilled worker in metal. But he was much addicted to drunkenness and the other pleasures of a loose life, and used to remain in his workshop day and night rather than enter the church to sing and pray and to listen to the word of life with the brethren. So it happened to him according to the proverb that ‘he that will not go through the church door in contrition willingly must needs be thrust through Hell’, door in damnation unwillingly’. Falling ill, he summoned the brethren to his death-bed and, groaning like one already damned, began to describe to them how he saw Hell open, and Satan in the depths of the abyss, with Caiaphas and others who had slain our Lord condemned like him to the avenging flames. ‘Close to them, alas,’ he cried, ‘I see a place of eternal doom prepared for my wretched self!’ As the brethren listened, they began earnestly to urge him to repent while he remained in the body, but he answered in despair: ‘There is no time left for me to amend my ways. I have already seen my judgement pronounced.’
With these words, he died without receiving the saving Viaticum, and his body was buried in the remote part of the monastery, nor did anyone dare to say masses or sing psalms for him, or even to pray for him. Oh, by how vast a distance has God divided the light from the darkness! When the blessed Proto-martyr Stephen was about to die for the truth, he saw the heavens opened, the glory of God revealed, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God. And in order that he might die the happier, he fixed his mental gaze before death on the place where he hoped to be after death. In contrast the metal worker, a man of dark thoughts and deeds, saw Hell open as death drew near, and saw the damnation of the Devil and his followers. The unhappy man even saw his own place of punishment among them, so that he might despair of salvation and die in greater misery, but also that through his own perdition he might bequeath a means of salvation to the living who learned of his fate. This happened recently in the Province of the Bernicians, and was talked of far and wide, rousing many people to do penance for their sins without delay. And may the reading of this account have the same effect.