The Lantern

Dialogues · Book 39

CCEL

23. Daniel 3.

24. Chapter XIX. p. 140. For "Antharicus" read Autharicus. Authari, king of the Lombards, reigned from 584 to 590. These great floods were in 589. Athesis is the modern Adige. St. Zeno, whose feast is on April 12, was Bishop of Verona in the fourth century, and, according to the legend, delivered the daughter of the Emperor Galienus from an unclean spirit. Nothing is known about his having suffered martyrdom. Cf. Acta Sanctorum, Aprilis Tom II., pp. 68-78. Two books of Tractatus, or Sermones, attributed to him are in Migne, P.L., XI.

25. Matt. 8,31.

26. Chapter XXII. p. 143. Valentius is the same person as the Valentinus mentioned on pp. 22, 202. He is variously called Valentinus, Valentius, or Valentio.

27. Chapter XXIII. p. 145. Praeneste is the mediasval Palestrina, near which St. Gregory's own ancestral lands lay. The mountain, upon the side of which the city stands, is crowned by Castel San Pietro, with a church probably occupying the site of the abbey here mentioned and a ruined castle of the Colonna.

28. Daniel 8, 27.

29. Matt. 20, 22-23.

30. Chapters XXVII. and XXVIII. pp. 150-151. Dr. Hodgkin (VI. p. 97) conjectures that these atrocities were not committed by the Lombards properly so called, who were Arians, but by their barbarian auxiliaries, Bulgarians, Sarmatians, and Gepidae, who had come with them into Italy, and who were idolaters.

31. Chapter XXX. p. 153. The church in question is Sancta Agatha in Subura, now known as Santa Agata de' Goti. It had been built (or, perhaps, restored) as a church of the Arians by Ricimer, the Visigothic patrician, shortly before 472, and was taken for Catholic worship by St. Gregory in 591 or 592, and dedicated to St. Agatha, to whom he had a special devotion. In a letter written early in 594, St. Gregory commends the church to the acolyth Leo: "ecclesia sanctae Agathae sita in Subora, quae spelunca fuit aliquando pravitatis hereticae, ad catholicae fidei culturam, Deo propitiante, reducta est." ( Registrum, Epist. iv. 19, ed. Ewald and Hartmann, i. p. 253) ; but makes no mention of any miracle. Subura is the district between the Esquiline, Quirinal, and Viminal hills, and had a bad repute in classical times. Cf. Horace, Epod. v., 57. For "St. Stephen," read "St. Sebastian." The Latin runs : "introductis illic beati Sebastiani et sanctae Agathae martyrum reliquiis."

32. Chapter XXXI. pp. 155-157. Leander, Bishop of Seville (to whom St. Gregory dedicated his Moralia), was the brother of Theodosia, the first wife of King Leovigild, the mother of Hermenigild and Rechared. Hermenigild, who had been converted from Arianism by his young wife Ingunthis (a Catholic Frank princess), was associated with his father in the kingdom, ruling at Seville, while Leovigild held his court at Toledo. He rebelled against his father in 583, and was either murdered or put to death by the latter (the circumstances are not clear) in 585. Leovigild died in 586, and his successor, Hermenigild's brother Rechared, became a Catholic in the following year. St. Leander died in 599, and was succeeded in the see of Seville by his more famous brother, St. Isidore, the great apostle of Latin culture and Catholic orthodoxy among the Visigoths of Spain.

33. John 12, 24.

34. Chapter XXXII. p. 157. St. Gregory's chronology is here at fault. The great persecutor of the Catholics in Africa, King Hunneric of the Vandals (the son and successor of Gaiseric), reigned from 477 to 484, in the time of the Emperor Zeno. Justinian did not ascend the imperial throne until 527.

35. John 1, 1.

36. Lamentations 3, 48.

37. Joshua 15, 19.

38. Chapter XXXVI. p. 164. Maximianus, Bishop of Syracuse and formerly abbot of St. Gregory's abbey of Sant' Andrea on the Caelian Hill, was a constant friend and correspondent of the latter ; he died in 594. St. Gregory was sent to Constantinople as apocrisiarius or papal legate, by Pope Pelagius II., in 579, and stayed there until about 585. While there he composed his great Moralia.

39. Ibid, p, 165. "Cothronum" is Cotrone, on the east coast of Calabria.

40. 1 John 3,16.

41. Isai. 57, 1.

42. Jerem. 50, 26.

43. Eccles. 3, 5.

44. Chapter XXXVIII. p. 173. For "Ferenti" (Ferentino), cf. Bk. I. chap. 9. "John the younger" is apparently Pope John III, who was Bishop of Rome from 561 to 574. The Lombards entered Italy in 568. Eutychius is the more usual form of this martyr's name.

This text was transcribed by Roger Pearse, 2004. All material on this page is in the public domain - copy freely.

Greek text is rendered using the Scholars Press SPIonic font, free from here .