In the morning the Lombards demanded of Sanctulus for their prisoner: who told them that he was run away. "Then," quoth they, "you best know what is convenient for you to have." "Yea, marry, that do I," answered the servant of God, with great constancy. "Well," quoth they, "thou art a good man, and therefore we will not by divers torments take away thy life; but make choice of what death thou wilt." To whom the man of God answered in this manner: "Here I am, at God's disposition and pleasure, kill me in such sort, as he shall vouchsafe to give you leave." Then all the Lombards that were present agreed to have him beheaded: to the end an easy and quick death might soon dispatch him. When it was given out abroad that Sanctulus was to die, whom for his virtue and holiness they greatly honoured, all the Lombards that were in those parts repaired thither, being glad (such cruel minds they have) to behold him put to death: and when all the army was gathered together, they brought him forth to execution, and the strongest man amongst them was chosen out, to cut off his head at one blow.
The venerable man, beset with armed soldiers, betook himself to his usual weapons: for he desired them to give him a little leave to pray: which when he had obtained, he cast himself prostrate upon the earth, and fell to his devotions: in which after he had continued for a good |170 space, the executioner spurned him up with his foot, bidding him rise, kneel down, and to prepare himself for death. The man of God rose up, bowed down his knee, and held forth his head, and beholding the drawn sword ready to dispatch him, these only words they said that he spake aloud: "O Saint John, hold that sword." Then the foresaid executioner, having the naked weapon in his hand, did with all his force lift up his arm to strike off his head; but by no means could he bring it down again, for it became suddenly so stiff that it remained still above, the man being not able once to bend it downward. Then all the Lombards who came to feed their eyes with the lamentable sight of his death, began with admiration to praise God's name, and with fear to reverence the man of God: for they now saw apparently of what great holiness he was, that did so miraculously stay the arm of his executioner above in the air.
Then they desired him to rise up, which he did; but when they required him to restore his executioner's arm to his former state, he utterly refused, saying: "By no means will I once pray for him, unless beforehand he swear unto me, that he will never with that arm offer to kill any Christian more." The poor Lombard, who, as we may truly say, had stretched out his arm against God, enforced with this necessity, took an oath never more to put any Christian to death. Then the man of God commanded him to put down his arm, which forthwith he did; he commanded him also to put up his sword, which in like manner he performed. All the Lombards, by this perceiving him to be a man of rare virtue, began in all haste to present him with the gifts of such oxen and other cattle as before they had taken from others: but the man of God utterly refused all such kind of presents, desiring them rather, if they meant to bestow anything upon him worth the giving, that they would deliver unto him all such prisoners as they had in their |171 keeping: that he might have some cause in his prayers to commend them to almighty God. To which request of his they condescended, and so all the poor captives were discharged: and thus, by God's sweet providence, one offering himself to die for another, many were delivered from death.
PETER. A strange thing it was: and although I have heard the same story by the relation of others, yet I cannot deny, but so often as I hear it repeated, it seemeth still unto me as though it were fresh news.
GREGORY. There is no cause why you should admire Sanctulus for this thing: but ponder with yourself, if you can, what manner of spirit that was, which possessed his simple soul, and did advance it to so high a perfection of virtue. For where was his mind, when he offered himself with such constancy to die for his neighbour; and to save the temporal life of his brother, contemned his own, and put his head under the executioner's sword? What force of true love did then harbour in that heart, when he nothing feared death to preserve the life of another? Ignorant I am not, that this venerable man Sanctulus could scant read well, and that he knew not the precepts of the law: yet because charity is the fulfilling of the law, by loving God and his neighbour, he kept the whole law: and that which outwardly lacked in knowledge, did inwardly by charity live in his soul. And he, perhaps, who never read that which St. John the Apostle said of our Saviour, to wit, that as he yielded his life for us, so we likewise should yield our lives for our brethren: yet that great and high precept of the Apostle he knew more by action than by speculation. Let us here, if you please, compare his learned ignorance with our unlearned knowledge: where our kind of learning is nothing worth, his is of great price and estimation: we, destitute of virtue, do speak thereof, and, as it were in the midst of plentiful |172 trees smell of the fruit, but do not eat thereof. He knew full well how to gather and taste of the fruit itself, although he lacked the smell of words and vain speech.
PETER. What, I pray, do you think, is the cause that good men are still taken away; and such as for the benefit and edification of many, might live still in this world, either are not to be found at all, or at least very few can be heard of?
GREGORY. The malice and wickedness of them that remain behind in the world deserveth that those should quickly be taken away, who by their life might much help us: and for as much as the world draweth towards an) end, God's chosen servants are taken out of it, that they fall not into more wicked times: and therefore from hence it cometh that the prophet saith: The just man doth perish, and there is none that doth ponder it in his heart: and men of mercy are gathered together, because there is none that hath understanding. And from hence also it proceedeth that the scripture saith: Open ye, that they may go forth which do tread it under foot. Hence, likewise, it is that Solomon saith: There is a time of casting stones abroad, and a time of gathering them together. And therefore the nearer that the world draweth to an end, so much the more necessary it is that the living stones should be gathered together, for the heavenly building: that our celestial Jerusalem may arrive to the full measure of his whole perfection. And yet do I not think that all God's elect servants are so taken out of the world, that none but the wicked remain behind: for sinners would never be converted to the sorrow of true penance, if they had not the examples of some good people to provoke them forward.
PETER. Without cause do I complain of the death of good men, when as daily I see them also that be wicked in great numbers to depart this life. |173
Chapter Thirty-eight: of the vision of Redemptus, Bishop of the City of Ferenti.
GREGORY. Wonder nothing at this, Peter, for you knew very well Redemptus, Bishop of the city of Ferenti, a man of venerable life, who died almost seven years since: with whom I had familiar acquaintance, by reason that he dwelt not far from the Abbey in which I lived. This man, when I asked him (for the matter was very well known far and near), told me that which by divine revelation he had learned concerning the end of the world, in the time of John the younger, who was my predecessor. For he said that upon a certain day, as he was, according to his manner, visiting of his diocese, he came to the church of the blessed martyr Euthicius: and when it was night he would needs be lodged nigh to the sepulchre of the martyr, where after his travel he reposed himself. About midnight, being, as he said himself, neither perfectly waking, nor yet sleeping, but rather heavy of sleep, he felt his waking soul oppressed with great sorrow: and being in that case, he saw the same blessed martyr Euthicius standing before him, who spake thus: "Art thou waking, Redemptus?" to whom he answered, that he was. Then the martyr said: "The end of all flesh is come: the end of all flesh is come": which words after he had repeated thus three times, he vanished out of his sight.
Then the man of God rose up, and fell to his prayers with many tears: and straight after, those fearful sights in heaven followed; to wit, fiery lances, and armies appearing from the north. Straight after likewise the barbarous and cruel nation of the Lombards, drawn as a sword out of a sheath, left their own country, and invaded ours: by reason whereof the people, which before for the huge multitude were like to thick corn-fields, remain now withered and overthrown: for cities be wasted, towns and villages spoiled, churches burnt, monasteries of men and women destroyed, farms left desolate, and the country |174 remaineth solitary and void of men to till the ground, and destitute of all inhabitants: beasts possessing those places, where before great plenty of men did dwell. And how it goeth in other parts of the world I know not, but here in this place where we live, the world doth not foretell any end, but rather sheweth that which is present and already come. Wherefore so much the more zealously ought we to seek after eternal things, by how much we find all temporal so quickly to be fled and gone. Surely this world were to be contemned, although it did flatter us, and with pleasant prosperity contented our mind: but now, seeing it is fraught with so many miseries and divers afflictions, and that our sorrows and crosses do daily increase and be doubled, what doth it else but cry unto us that we should not love it?
Many more things yet remain of the worthy acts of God's servants, but because I have resolved now upon another course, I will now pass them over with silence.
PETER. For as much as I perceive that many Christians do doubt of the immortality of the soul, after the dissolution of the body: I beseech you for the spiritual good or many, to set down some reasons for proof thereof: or the examples of some souls which have testified the same, if you remember any: to the end that those which be troubled with any such temptations, may learn that the soul doth not die together with the body.
GREGORY. This is a work of great labour, especially for one that is busied with other affairs, and hath other things to attend unto: yet if any profit by my means may redound to others, willingly do I prefer that before mine own will and pleasure: and therefore, God's grace assisting me, in this fourth book following, I will clearly show that the soul doth live after the death of the body.
The end of the Third Book
[Footnotes moved to the end and combined with editorial notes]
1. Chapter I. pp. 105-108. St. Paulinus (Meropius Pontius Anicius Paulinus) was born at Bordeaux in 353 or 354, of a noble house with vast estates in Gaul, Italy, and Spain. In middle life he left the world, and from 409 until his death in 431 was Bishop of Nola in Campania (a province of which he had been governor in early manhood). Many of his letters and poems (he had been a pupil of Ausonius) have been preserved. His feast is on June 22. The story here told by St. Gregory presents various chronological difficulties. The Vandals established their kingdom in Africa between 429 and 439 (in which latter year Gaiseric, or Genseric, took Carthage) ; their ravages in Italy (culminating in the sack of Rome by Gaiseric in 455) did not begin in the lifetime of Paulinus ; and Gaiseric himself, who is evidently the king here referred to, did not die until 477, more than forty years after the death of Paulinus. As a matter of fact, Alaric took Nola in 410, after his sack of Rome, and Paulinus, then newly appointed Bishop, was made prisoner. "Our Paulinus, Bishop of Nola," writes St. Augustine, "who from one most wealthy had become voluntarily poor and most abundantly holy, when the Barbarians sacked Nola, and he was held captive, prayed thus in his heart, as we afterwards learned from him : Lord, let me not be tormented on account of gold and silver, for Thou knowest where all I have is" ( De Civitate Dei, i. 10). Alaric died within the year. It seems not impossible, as M. Andr� Baudrillart suggests ( Saint Paulin Ev�que de Nole, pp. 167-170), that the foundation for St. Gregory's story is some tradition connected with the taking of St. Paulinus in 410, and that the Vandals have been confused with the Visigoths, Gaiseric with Alaric. There is no evidence that St. Paulinus was ever a prisoner in Africa.
2. Chapter II. p. 109. For "Justinian the elder" read "Justin the elder " (the mistake is not the translator's, but due to the Latin text that he used). John I., a Tuscan by birth, was elected Pope in 523, in succession to Pope Hormisdas, whose reconciliation of the Roman See with the Eastern Empire, as represented by Justin I., had weakened the power of Theodoric in Italy. In 525 he was compelled by the Gothic king to go on an embassy to Justin, here recorded by St. Gregory, with a view of persuading the Emperor to adopt less vigorous methods against the Arians. At Constantinople he crowned the Emperor. On his return to Ravenna, Theodoric threw him into a dungeon, where he died in May, 526. He is the last Pope whom the Church of Rome venerates as a martyr. Cf. below, Bk. IV. chap. 30.
3. Chapter III. p. 109. Agapitus I., a Roman noble, was elected Pope in 535, when Justinian, the nephew and successor of Justin, was preparing to reconquer Italy from the Goths. He went to Constantinople, at once to make peace (in which he was unsuccessful) and to procure the deposition of the patriarch Anthimus, who adhered to the Monophysite heresy and was supported by the Empress Theodora. There the Pope suddenly died in April 536. Dante ( Par. vi. 10-21) makes Justinian represent himself as converted from the Monophysites by the words of Agapitus :
" Cesare fui, e son Giustiniano,
Che, per voler del primo amor ch'io sento,
D'entro le leggi trassi il troppo e il vano.
E prima ch'io all'opra fossi attento,
Una natura in Cristo esser, non piue,
Credeva, e di tal fede era contento ;