By what reason and by what virtues he ascended to the pontificate is fully set forth. Summary of the argument.—1. On the family of blessed Gregory.—2. What he was.—3. On his education.—4. He is described as urban praetor.—5. He founded six monasteries in Sicily.—6. Serving in the monastery of his own house under abbots, he is afterward made abbot.—7. On Holy Saturday he is unable to fast.—8. He obtains from the Lord the strength to fast.—9. His mother Silvia habitually sends him vegetables.—10. Twice he is tested by an angel of God, but the third time is proved most generous.—11. A brother, twisting cord, is vexed by a demon and is delivered by Gregory.—12. A brother about to flee is blinded and delivered from the bites of a black dog.
—13. A brother attempting flight is seized by a demon and delivered by Gregory.—14. The hiding-place of the brothers is discovered through the immobility of the horses.—15. The brother Justus, for private property, is severely punished at his death.—16. His soul is delivered from the torments of hell.—17. With his sins forgiven, Antonius is bidden to die.—18. Gerontius, with certain brothers, declares that he is about to die.—19. The brother Merulus dreams that he is crowned with white flowers.—20. John, healed by the apostle, is summoned by one deceased.—21. He inquires about the English boys for sale.—22. About to set out for Britain to convert the English, he is called back.—23. Being confounded by three signs from the prelate, he is bidden to return.—24. By means of a locust he perceives that he will straightway return.
—25. Drawn away from the monastery, he is consecrated deacon.—26. He is sent to Constantinople as apocrisiarius.—27. He is earnestly entreated to expound the book of blessed Job.—28. Disputing with Eutychius, he is acknowledged the victor.—29. The book of Eutychius is consigned to the flames by the emperor.—30. Eutychius, dying, held the skin of his hand, saying that he would truly rise again in it.—31. The character of Gregory's office as apocrisiarius is declared.—32. A letter of Pope Pelagius is sent to Gregory.—33. Maximianus with his brethren is delivered from shipwreck.—34. The city of Rome is flooded by an overflowing of the Tiber.—35. The river Athesis is marvelously made solid.—36. When a dragon with beasts is killed in the sea, the air is corrupted.—37. With heavenly arrows bringing a plague.
The prelate Pelagius is carried off.—38. Theodorus, delivered from a dragon, is converted.—39. Gregory, unwilling, is elected to the pontificate.—40. Longing to escape the pontificate, he secretly sends letters to the emperor.—41. Before the assembly he preaches penance.—42. He locally ordains the sevenfold litany.—43. Eighty men are laid low by the pestilence.—44. Fleeing from the City, he is pointed out by a heavenly sign; and brought back, he is consecrated pontiff of the first see.—45. That he was unwilling to accept the highest priesthood is truly demonstrated.—46. The perfect quality of his discretion is shown.—47. He strove to be beyond the world and beyond the flesh, and to pant after the vision.—48. He grieved that the groaning of his own ruin was renewed.—49.
From the writings of the patriarch Anastasius he found, as it were, the rest of blessedness—receiving health, thirsting for the fountain, seeking shade in his burning heat.—50. From the charity and spirit of the illustrious Andreas he did not withdraw.—51. He experienced the goods of the excellence of John the ex-consul.—52. He was unwilling to reply to Leander, bishop of Seville, by the letters sent to him.—53. With great anguish of soul he undertook the highest priesthood.—54. No man is able to search out the judgments on high. Gregory, Roman by birth, a philosopher by training, son of Gordianus, a most distinguished man, and of blessed Silvia, presided over the Roman see for thirteen years, six months, and ten days, in the times of the emperors Tiberius, Maurice, and Phocas.
He, sprung from a senatorial stock, traced a genealogy as noble as it was most religious, so that Felix the fourth of that apostolic see, a pontiff of great reverence in the Church of Christ—who most beautifully built the basilica of the holy martyrs Cosmas and Damian on the Sacred Way beside the temple of Romulus, as is seen to this day—was his great-great-grandfather; and the blessed virgin Tharsilla, who at the point of death heard the harmony of the heavenly promise and merited to see Jesus Christ coming to receive her, was likewise his aunt (Bede, Book 2, chap. 1, History of the English; Gregory of Tours, Book 10 of the History; Book 4 of the Dialogues, chap. 16; Homily 38 on the Gospels).
This line of twofold nobility Gregory exalted by his holy character and adorned by his upright deeds, so much so that by a certain foreshadowing he was named in Greek that which in Latin resounds still more as 'the watchful one.' For while by his living works he fulfilled the right things which he was to teach, he thoroughly taught that he had indeed kept watch over himself; and while by teaching he also expounded the right things which he did, he is recognized to have kept watch not only for himself but also for the Christians of the age to come. 3. Indeed there were in him, together with a tender age, mature studies already; and, being one who would hear things unknown, he clung as a most diligent investigator to religious old men; and having received the seeds of doctrine, he gathered them to be chewed over in a tenacious memory, which he afterward poured out to the people from a honey-sweet throat.
Finally, being a docile youth, when—having passed through the pen common to rising infancy—he had come to the fork of the Pythagorean letter, without hesitation he began to leave the left branch with its worldly pleasure, and with heavenly desire to pant with all his strength toward the right. 4. But while, prolonging further the grace of his conversion, he thought he would serve Christ more safely if under the garb of urban praetor he served the world in outward appearance only, many things began to grow up against him out of the care of that same world; so that he was no longer held, as he had proposed, in outward show only, but also in mind. 5.
At length, bereft of his father, when he had obtained free power to dispose of his own affairs, building six monasteries in Sicily, he filled them with sufficient brethren, upon whom he bestowed as much of his estates as could suffice, without want, for the daily sustenance of those serving God there (Gregory of Tours, Book 10 of the History, chap. 1). 6. A seventh, within the walls of the city of Rome, in honor of the holy apostle Andrew, beside the basilica of the holy Ss. John and Paul at the Clivus Scauri, he built as a monastery in his own house.
In it, having left behind his silks, his robes gleaming with gold and gems, and likewise the rest of his furnishings—all bestowed for the use of the poor—he escaped naked from the shipwreck of this world; and taking on the long-desired monastic garb, he served by the regular path, first under Hilarion and then under Maximianus, venerable Fathers, with many brothers joined to him. But afterward, when he preferred to be subject, the votive concord of the brethren pressing upon him, he did not refuse to preside, as will appear in what follows. 7. So great was his abstinence from food, so great his assiduity in prayers and fastings, so great his desired zeal for the sacred books, that, his stomach being weakened, he seemed, when provoked, hardly able to survive.
For when at a certain time he suffered that cutting of the vitals which the Greeks call [syncope], and through frequent distresses drew near to death through the passing hours, and unless the brothers frequently refreshed him with food the vital spirit seemed to be utterly cut off from him, the Paschal day came upon him. And when, on the most sacred Saturday, on which all, even little children, fast, he could not fast, he began to fail more from grief than from infirmity (Book 3 of the Dialogues, chap. 33). 8.
Straightway he summoned the most holy man Eleutherius—who had long been set over many at Spoleto, but was then a monk of that same monastery of his, and from whom indeed he had heard that a dead man had been raised—and sought the oratory, and gave himself with tears to prayer, that at least on that day the strength to fast might be granted him. And after a little while, the prayer completed, having withdrawn, he recognized that his stomach had received such strength that both the food and the disease were utterly removed from his memory. He began to marvel with himself who he was, who he had been; and when the infirmity returned to his mind, he could recognize in himself nothing of those things which he remembered. And when his mind was occupied with the ordering of the monastery, he utterly forgot his sickness.
But if the sickness did return to his memory, since he felt himself so strong, he marveled that he had not eaten. Coming to evening, he recognized that such fortitude remained in him that he was able to prolong his fast to the following day. Yet although he was almost daily wasting away with languor, nevertheless he desired to grant his body no comfortable rest, so as not to hinder himself from praying, or reading, or writing, or dictating.
9. In the inner chambers of this sacred monastery, that same man of almighty God, Gregory, was fed on raw vegetables by his mother Silvia—who at that time was dwelling near the gate of the blessed apostle Paul, at a place called Cella Nova, where to this day an oratory is dedicated to her name, and the famous monastery of the confessor of Christ, Saint Sabas, whose praise seems established in the sixth and seventh synods. 10. When an angel of God found him here, engaged as was his custom in writing, he begged, in the guise of a shipwrecked man, that mercy be shown him, weeping piteously. Gregory, compassionate from the depths of his heart, gave him six coins and bade him depart (below, Book 2, chap. 23).
Not long after, on the same day, that same shipwrecked man returned, declaring that he had lost much but received little. Having in like manner taken six coins from him, he departed rejoicing. But returning on the third day, the shipwrecked man again with importunate cries kept demanding aid. To him the most generous Father, having summoned the keeper of the wardrobe, bade six more coins be given; but he learned that in the wardrobe there was no money left. He did not know what to do. The piety of a heart devoted to God was in anguish, not enduring to have left empty the misery of his neighbor.
Again questioning his wardrobe-keeper whether he had any vessel of any kind, or garment, he heard that nothing at all remained except his mother's silver bowl, in which she had been accustomed to send steeped vegetables. Straightway made more cheerful, he said: Then, brother, carry this, lest he who seeks to be consoled go away sorrowful, a poor man. And so, the bowl being brought and Gregory bestowing it quite cheerfully, the poor man—as he was thought to be—joyfully embraced it, being about to return no longer to seek assistance, but to bestow it.
By this angelic visitation he was made renowned with so many miracles and so many virtues that he became to all who lived with him both an example and an object of awe—inasmuch as he was thought to have presided over his monastery not alone, but in fellowship with the blessed apostle Andrew, by evident signs. 11. For, to speak a little of things left unspoken: on a certain day he sent from there two brothers, who were to buy something for the benefit of that monastery—one the younger, who seemed the more prudent, the other the elder, who was to be the guardian of the younger. Both set out; and out of the money which they had received, the very one who had been sent as guardian, unknown to the other, committed a theft.
As soon as they returned to the monastery and came before the threshold of the oratory, the one who had committed the theft, seized by a demon, fell down. And when he had been released by the demon, the monks running together, he was questioned at the abbot's command, lest perhaps he had committed a theft from what he had received. He denied it, and again was vexed. Released and questioned again, he denied it, and again was vexed. Eight times, then, he denied, eight times he was vexed. But after the eighth denial, at Gregory's questioning, he confessed that he had stolen the coins by theft, and prostrate before him testified that he had sinned; and having received penance, the demon no longer came upon him. 12.
At another time also, when on the birthday of that same apostle, at the noon hours, the brothers were resting, suddenly a certain brother, his eyes open yet blinded, began to tremble and to send forth mighty cries, by which cries he testified that he could not bear what he was suffering. The brothers ran together; they saw the blind man trembling with open eyes and crying out, estranged from those present, and perceiving nothing of what could be done outwardly. They lifted him in their hands and, at Gregory's command, laid him before the altar of the holy apostle Andrew, and they themselves prostrated in prayer for him. Straightway returning to himself, he confessed that a certain old man had appeared to him and had sent a black dog to tear him, saying:
Why did you wish to flee from this monastery? And when I could in no way escape the bites of the dog, certain monks came and entreated that same old man on my behalf, who straightway ordered the dog to depart; and so I myself returned to my senses. This man also afterward often confessed, saying that on that day on which he had endured these things, he had formed a plan of fleeing from the monastery. 13. Another monk also wished secretly to depart from that same monastery; and when he had turned this over in his mind, he wished to enter the oratory, but was unable, being seized by a demon. He was left alone by the demon as long as he stood outside the oratory; if he tried to enter, straightway, handed over to the malignant spirit, he was vexed.
When this happened rather often, at length, at Gregory's inquiry, he confessed that he had wished to flee from the monastery; and by divine mercy, together with the prayers of the brothers, he was so cured over the course of three days that afterward the malignant spirit never attempted to approach him. 14. At another time also two brothers fled from that same Father's monastery, who had earlier, by conversing, given certain signs to the brethren that, descending by the Appian Way, they were making for Jerusalem. These, going out, turned aside from the road; and, so that they might in no way be found by those following, finding some hidden crypts beside the Flaminian gate, they concealed themselves in them.
But when, at the evening hours, at Gregory's command they were sought and were by no means found in the congregation, certain brothers, having mounted horses, followed them, going out through the Metronian gate, so as to pursue them on the Latin or the Appian Way. Suddenly a thought arose in them that they ought to seek them on the Salarian Way, outside the city. Therefore, proceeding, they bent their course, and, not finding them on the Old Salarian Way, they decided to return by the Flaminian gate. And as they were returning, as soon as the horses came before those crypts in which the monks had hidden themselves, they fixed their step; struck and driven, they refused to move a pace.
The horsemen considered that such a thing could not be without a mystery; they attended to the crypts, and saw their entrances condemned beforehand by a wall of masonry set in place; but their horses being nowhere willing to go, they dismounted, and removing the stones which had been arranged at the mouths of the crypts, they entered, and found the monks cast down upon the ground in those same dark hiding-places, dumbfounded. Brought back to the monastery, they were so improved both by amazement at the miracle and by the exhortation of the venerable Father Gregory, that it was of great profit to them to have withdrawn from the monastery for that little space of time. 15.
At another time also a certain monk, Justus by name, skilled in the art of medicine, had been accustomed to serve blessed Gregory diligently and to keep watch in his frequent illnesses. This man, then, overtaken by bodily weakness, was brought to his last extremity; and in that very affliction his own brother, Copiosus by name, was serving him (Book 4 of the Dialogues, chap. 55). But the aforesaid Justus, when he now recognized that he had come to his last hour, made known to that same brother Copiosus that he had three gold coins hidden. This indeed could not be concealed from the brethren, who, searching subtly and examining all his medicines, found those same three gold coins hidden in a medicament.
As soon as this was reported to Gregory, he could not bear with equanimity so great an evil in a brother who had lived in community with him, inasmuch as he had long since established a rule for that monastery, that all the brothers should live so in common that none of them individually was permitted to have anything of his own. Then Gregory, stricken with exceeding grief, began to consider both what he might do for the purgation of the dying man, and what he might provide as an example for the living. Therefore, having summoned to himself the prior of that same monastery, Pretiosus, he said:
«See that none of the brothers join himself to that dying man, nor let him receive from the mouth of any one of them a word of consolation; but when, set in death, he shall ask for the brothers, let his own carnal brother tell him that, on account of the coins which he secretly kept, he is held in abomination by all the brothers; that at least in death the bitterness may pierce through his mind concerning his fault, and cleanse him from the sin which he committed. And when he shall be dead, let his body not be placed with the bodies of the brothers; but make a shallow pit somewhere in a dunghill, and in it cast the body, and there throw upon him the three gold coins which he left, all crying out together: Your money be with you unto perdition; and so cover him with earth.»
In both of these matters the most skillful Father Gregory willed the one to profit the dying man, the other to profit the living: that both the bitterness of death might make that man loosed from his fault, and that so great a condemnation of avarice might restrain these others from being mingled with such deeds, and restrain them from the fault. And so it was done. For when that same monk had come to death, and anxiously sought to be commended to the brothers, and no one of the brothers attempted to be joined to him or to speak to him, his carnal brother disclosed to him why he was held in abomination by all. As soon as he heard this, he groaned vehemently over his guilt, and in that very sorrow departed from the body. He was buried thus, as Gregory had commanded.
But all the brothers, disturbed by that same sentence upon him, began each to bring into the midst even the most trifling and cheap things—those which by the rule they had always been permitted to have—and vehemently to dread lest there be anything with them for which they could be reproved. 16. But when, after the brother's death, thirty days had now passed, the spirit of Gregory began mercifully to have compassion on him, and to weigh with heavy grief his punishments, and to seek what remedy of his deliverance there might be. Then, having called to himself that same Pretiosus, prior of his monastery, he said sorrowfully: It is long that brother Justus, who is dead, is tormented in the fire;
we ought to expend upon him some measure of charity, and to lend him aid, as far as we can, that he may be rescued. Go therefore, and from this present day for thirty continuous days take care to offer the sacrifice for him, so that no day at all be passed over on which the saving Victim is not offered for his absolution. He straightway departed and obeyed the words. But while Gregory was taking care, and by no means counting the days as they passed, that same brother who had died appeared by a vision one night to his brother Copiosus. When Copiosus had seen him, he inquired, saying: What is it, brother? How are you? To which he himself replied: Until now I have fared ill, but now at last I am well, because today I received communion.
This same Copiosus, going straightway into the monastery, made known to the brothers. But the brothers carefully computed the days, and found it to be that very day on which the thirtieth oblation had been completed for him; for while Copiosus did not know what the brothers, at Gregory's instigation, were doing for him, and the brothers were ignorant of what Copiosus had seen concerning him, at one and the same time, while the one perceives the oblation, the others hear of the dream and recognize the thirtieth day; and, the vision and the sacrifice concurring together, the matter clearly shone forth, that the brother whom, under the sentence of judgment, Gregory had permitted to die, had by the saving Victim been delivered from punishment (Book 4 of the Dialogues, chap. 55). 17.
But since that same venerable Father—in what manner he was an object of awe to the brothers—I have already in part touched upon, I have thought it should be briefly indicated in what way those same brothers profited by his examples. A certain brother in that same monastery, Antonius by name, clung diligently to blessed Gregory, who, admonished by the words and examples of so great a Father, with many daily tears panted after the joys of the heavenly homeland. And when most zealously, with great fervor of desire, under Gregory's guidance, he searched the sacred discourses, he sought in them not the words of knowledge, but the weeping of compunction, so that through these his kindled mind might be set ablaze, and, forsaking the depths, might fly upward to the contemplation of the heavenly homeland. To this man it was said in a nocturnal vision:
You are ready, and, because the Lord has commanded, depart. And when he said that he had no provision for departing, he straightway heard the answer, saying: If it is a matter of your sins, they are forgiven. When he had heard this once, and still trembled with great fear, on another night also he was admonished in the same words. But after five days, seized by a fever, while all the brothers were praying and weeping, he died (Book 4 of the Dialogues, chap. 47). 18. In the same monastery a certain brother was called Gerontius, who, when he had been depressed by a grievous affliction of the body, saw in a nocturnal vision men clothed in white and of altogether radiant appearance descending from above into this very monastery.
And when they stood before the bed of the one lying there, one of them said: For this we have come, that we may send certain brothers from Gregory's monastery into the [heavenly] warfare; and, giving command to another, he added: Write down Marcellus, Valentinianus, Agnellus, and others, whose acquaintance I do not have. When these things were finished, he added, saying: Write down also this very man who is looking at us. From which vision Gerontius, made certain, when morning had come, made known to the brothers how many and who they were from that same monastery who were to die, and that he himself would straightway follow them.
When on another day the aforesaid brothers began to die, they followed one another into death in the same order in which they had been named in the writing; and at the last, he himself also died, who had foreseen those same brothers about to die. 19. Another brother also in the same monastery was called Merulus, vehemently intent on tears and almsgiving, from the teaching of Gregory, the venerable man; and psalmody was accustomed to cease from his mouth at almost no time, except when he gave either nourishment to the body or his limbs to sleep. To this man it appeared in a nocturnal vision that a crown of white flowers was descending from heaven upon his head; and he, soon overtaken by an affliction of the body, died with great security of soul and cheerfulness.
At his tomb, when after fourteen years Peter, who during the pontificate of this Gregory presided over that same monastery, wished to prepare a burial-place for himself, so great a fragrance of sweetness poured forth from that same tomb of brother Merulus, as though the perfumes of every flower had been heaped up there. From this it plainly appeared that what the disciple of so great a Father had seen through a nocturnal vision was true (Dialogues, book iv, ch. 47). 20. Another as well in the same monastery, John by name, a youth of great natural gifts, surpassed his own age in the sweetness of understanding and of humility and in gravity of manners, under Gregory's guidance.
To this youth, when he lay sick and was brought to the point of death, the blessed apostle Andrew appeared through a nocturnal vision in the guise of an old man, and touched him with a rod and said to him: 「Arise; for from this affliction thou shalt by no means now die, but be prepared, since thou shalt not be here a long time.」 And when he had already been given up by the physicians, he was suddenly healed and recovered. He related the thing he had seen, and, as I have foretold, showed himself for two years in the service of God beyond the years of his age:
But when two years had rolled by, and a certain brother had died and been buried by Gregory and the brethren in the cemetery of that same monastery, and while all were departing thence, that same John—as afterward, pale and trembling, he made known to Gregory and the brethren—being found alone, was called from the tomb by that same brother who had been buried. And soon the ensuing end also made this plain. For after ten days, seized by fevers, he by dying followed the one who called. But since it is long, and many things remain that can be proclaimed with sure attestations concerning this man's sanctity—things which I have learned both from the account of my elders and from the writings of earlier men—I have resolved that they should be inserted here. 21.
On a certain day, when, upon the arrival of merchants newly come, many wares had been set out for sale in the forum of the city of Rome, and many had flocked together from every side to buy, it happened that Gregory too—a man most worthy of God—passed by. And seeing among other things boys white of body, most beautiful in form, comely of countenance, and conspicuous also for the sheen of their hair, being offered for sale, he asked the merchant from what country he had brought them. He answered: 「From the island of Britain, whose inhabitants all have faces gleaming with a like whiteness.」 Gregory said: 「Are these islanders Christians, or are they still held entangled in pagan errors?」 The merchant answered: 「They are not Christians, but are held ensnared in pagan toils.」