CONCERNING ST. GREGORY II, SUPREME PONTIFF, AT ROME,
Year of Christ 731
Preliminary Commentary.
Gregory II, Pope, at Rome (Saint)
By I. B.
Section I. The deeds of St. Gregory II before his Pontificate. His journey to the Emperor Justinian Rhinotmetus.
[1] Most celebrated in the ecclesiastical annals is the memory of St. Gregory II, Supreme Pontiff. Concerning whom Baronius does not hesitate to declare, at the year 731, no. 1, that if his writings were extant and his deeds had been more diligently committed to writing, St. Gregory II he would be deemed no less than Gregory the Great. Certain Greek writers, as Fronto Ducaeus observes in his notes to a letter of Gregory, at Baronius under the year 726, imposed upon him the surname "Dialogist," which properly belongs to Gregory the Great among other authors. erroneously surnamed Dialogist by the Greeks, So George Cedrenus at the tenth year of Leo the Isaurian: "Gregory, an apostolic man, sitting on the throne of Peter, the chief of the Apostles, who on account of the divine treatises composed by him obtained the surname of Dialogist."
[2] He was born at Rome, of parents Marcellus and Honesta, distinguished and wealthy, as can be inferred from two considerations: the first is born at Rome of wealthy parents, that his own dwelling was so spacious that, when his mother died, he converted it into a church and monastery, having only built new upper chambers, and endowed it with urban and rural estates. So Anastasius in his Life, no. 2, and we ourselves on February 5 in the commentary on the relics and churches of St. Agatha, section 2, no. 2, page 632. For that church was dedicated in her honor, situated in the Transtiberine region, and in our memory donated by Clement VIII to the Congregation called of the Christian Doctrine. The second consideration, from which it may be conjectured that he was born of a wealthy family, is that, as the same Anastasius has it, he was nurtured from a young age in the Patriarchium, piously educated from boyhood at the Pontifical Court under Pope St. Sergius, that is, the Pontifical Court: to which not only his character capable of virtue, but also the dignity of his parents, seems to have opened the way. There indeed he was educated under the domestic discipline of the most holy Pontiff Sergius, to every splendor of piety and learning. There are, however, those who so punctuate the words of Anastasius that he seems to have been nurtured in the Patriarchium from a young age under the predecessors of Sergius, but under Sergius to have been made Subdeacon and Sacellarius. So expressly writes the most accurate Andrew Chesne in his Gallican Lives of the Pontiffs. But the punctuation we have given is confirmed by both editions, the Mainz and the recent Parisian, and two manuscript codices, and then by Abbo of Fleury, who writes thus: "Nurtured from a young age in the Patriarchium under Lord Pope Sergius of holy memory. And made Sacellarius." Now Sergius was created Pope at the beginning of the year 688, or the end of the preceding year, and sat until September 9, 701. Let us suppose that at the time he was elevated to the pontificate, Gregory, then at most eighteen years old, was taken into his household: for he does not seem to have been much older, since his mother Honesta died around the year 718; not a monk, perhaps indeed he was much younger. But this seems remarkable to me, why Trithemius, book 3, chapter 161, Ciacconius, Wion, and Menard write that he who was nurtured from a young age in the Patriarchium was made a Cardinal from a monk.
[3] Under the same Sergius perhaps, or John VI, or John VII, he was made Subdeacon and Sacellarius, then Librarian, and then promoted to the Order of the Diaconate. then promoted to honors, made Sacellarius, that is, Treasurer of the Church, The Greek words Sakele, sakkelle, sakelion, sakellion, and the Latin sacellum, sacculus, saccus, designate the treasury of the Prince, or even of the Pontiff, for almsgiving. Examples of each of these words are gathered by Johannes Meursius in his Glossary: and he notes that it is also used for the Patriarchal prison. Baronius also treats of this word, vol. 8, at the year of Christ 595, no. 17, and cites other examples from Gregory the Great. The Sacellarius (or, if one prefers to say Saccellarius) was therefore the Treasurer of the Church. For we do not approve the distinction that certain persons establish between these words, that the Sacellarius is the Prefect of the Pontifical Chapel, and the Saccellarius of the treasury.
[4] Having been tested in these offices, Gregory set out to Constantinople with Pope Constantine, or rather to Nicomedia, to the Emperor Justinian Rhinotmetus. Anastasius treats of this journey of Pope Constantine in his Life, he set out with Pope Constantine to the Emperor yet he does not have Gregory among his companions, but George the Deacon, who perhaps is the same person, so that either his name appears to have been written erroneously, or changed when he entered the pontificate. For no one can suspect that more persons attended the Pontiff and that the names of all were not expressed: for after thirteen are named by name -- Bishops, Priests, and others conspicuous in dignity -- he adds: "and of the remaining grades of the Church, a few clerics." Among those few Gregory, already a Deacon, was not excluded: who should have been joined with George the Deacon, if they had been different persons, and not at least relegated to the clerics of the lower grades.
[5] The Pontiff set out from the Roman port, as Anastasius writes in his Life, on the fifth day of the month of October, in Indiction IX, already begun from September, in the month of October 710: that is, in the year of Christ 710. The governors of cities and provinces everywhere received him with the highest honor: for an imperial seal had been sent, containing the directive that wherever the named Pontiff should arrive, all judges should receive him so honorably everywhere received with honor, as if they beheld the Emperor himself in person... "Arriving at the island called Cea, Theophilus the Patrician Exstraticus of Caravisium met him, received him with the highest honor, and embracing him, as the order directed, he completed the journey begun. Sailing from that place they came within seven miles of Constantinople: they come to Constantinople, where Tiberius the Emperor, son of Justinian Augustus, came forth with the Patricians and all the nobles, and Cyrus the Patriarch with the clergy and a multitude of the people, all rejoicing and keeping a feast day... Now the Lord Emperor Justinian, hearing of his arrival, filled with great joy, sent from Nicaea in Bithynia a Sacred Letter full of thanksgiving: thence to Nicomedia, and that the Pontiff should come to meet him at Nicomedia, and he himself would come from Nicaea: which was done. On the day when they saw each other, the most Christian Augustus, with the crown on his head, prostrated himself, where the Emperor Justinian receives them with the greatest joy, kissing the feet of the Pontiff. Then they fell into each other's embrace, and there was great joy among the people, all beholding such humility of the good Prince." We have treated of this meeting of the Pontiff and the Emperor on January 8, at the Life of St. Cyrus the Patriarch, by whose admonitions the Emperor seems to have been induced to this act of submission.
[6] Here occurred that which Anastasius relates concerning Gregory: that the same Gregory, questioned by the Emperor Justinian about certain chapters, Gregory answers the questions put to him: resolved each question with the best response. These chapters appear to be the 103 Canons which were enacted by the pseudo-synod of Constantinople in Trullo, under the name of the fifth and sixth ecumenical synods, through the efforts chiefly of the heretical Patriarch Callinicus, and are found in volume 3 of the Councils. Anastasius writes in his Life of Sergius that these chapters, as if synodally defined and written out in six volumes, although they were annexed outside of ecclesiastical usage, subscribed by the Emperor and the Bishops, were most firmly rejected by Pope Sergius. These same Canons of the "Quinisext Synod" (as they called it) Baronius confutes most fully and learnedly at the year 692, nos. 1 to 52, and again mentions them at the year 710.
[7] While these matters were being conducted at Nicomedia, Pope Constantine celebrated Mass for the Emperor on a Sunday: "and the Emperor, receiving communion from his hands and requesting the Pontiff to intercede for his sins, renewed all the privileges of the Church and released the most holy Pope to return to his own." Setting out therefore from the city of Nicomedia, the Pontiff, worn by frequent bouts of illness, at length, with God granting recovery, they return to Rome on October 24, 711. arrived safely at the port of Gaeta: where he found priests and a great multitude of the Roman people, and on the 24th day of the month of October, Indiction X, he entered Rome, and all the people exulted and rejoiced. So Anastasius. From which it is clear that Gregory resolved his questions for the Emperor not in the imperial city of Constantinople but at Nicomedia, and this in the year of Christ 711.
[8] Concerning the slaughter of Justinian, which followed shortly afterward, the same Anastasius adds: after Justinian was killed, Philippicus seizes the Empire, "Three months later, however, a mournful report resounded, that Justinian, the most Christian and orthodox Emperor, had been slain, and the heretic Philippicus had been raised to the imperial throne: whose Sacred Letter with the profession of his wicked doctrine Constantine received but rejected on the counsel of the Apostolic See." Concerning the same Philippicus Bardanes, the same Anastasius writes in his history drawn from Theophanes the empire was predicted to him by a pseudo-monk and magician, that when a certain pseudo-monk of the monastery of Callistratus, a heretic and sorcerer, had predicted the empire to him, he advised him to reject the sixth synod -- held against the Monothelites, assertors of one will and action in Christ, and consequently of one nature, by the authority of Pope St. Agatho, under the Emperor Constantine Pogonatus, father of Justinian Rhinotmetus -- as not legitimately celebrated. at whose persuasion he condemns the sixth synod, "When he reigned, therefore," says Anastasius, "he held a pseudo-synod of Bishops according to the advice of the pseudo-monk and recluse, and rejected the holy and universal sixth synod." And shortly after: "He was moreover a heretic and adulterer. Furthermore, with Patriarch Cyrus driven out, he promoted his own communicant and heretic John as Patriarch." And then: "He could not prevail to rage more savagely against the holy and universal sixth synod, striving to subvert the divine dogmas which had been confirmed by it. and with St. Cyrus expelled He found John to be of his own mind, he makes the heretic John Patriarch: whom he made Bishop of Constantinople, having deposed its Bishop Cyrus, whom he sent into exile in the monastery of Chora."
[9] What did the Romans and the most holy Pontiff Constantine do in response to these things? To the latter's reproach or terror, Philippicus sent the head of the orthodox Emperor Justinian through the Spatharius Romanus to the western parts as far as Rome. So the same Anastasius from Theophanes, and St. Nicephorus in his history. But when the Pontiff had condemned Philippicus's letter with its assertion of the impious doctrine, the Pope condemns the letters of Philippicus, the whole assembly of the city of Rome, inflamed with zeal for the faith, erected in the church of Blessed Peter an image -- which the Greeks call a votive image -- containing the six holy and universal synods. So Anastasius in his Life of Constantine. And then: the Roman people reject his name and image. "Since the people of Rome had resolved by no means to accept the name, documents, or image on the coin of the heretical Emperor; whence neither was his portrait introduced into the church, nor was his name mentioned at the solemnities of Mass," etc. And these things concern matters that took place under Gregory and serve to illuminate them.
[10] "Not many days later, however, dispatches arrived," says the same author, "from the island of Sicily, which announced that Philippicus the heretic had been cast down from the imperial summit." For as all historians relate, on the Saturday of Pentecost certain conspirators gouged out his eyes. after he was blinded "On the following day, that is, the Sunday of Pentecost," says Cedrenus, "the people having assembled in the great church, Artemius, the chief of the secretaries, was inaugurated in the kingship, and the name Anastasius was given to him, under the heretical Patriarch John." The Patriarch Nicephorus says that Artemius was Philippicus's secretary, Artemius becomes Emperor, called Anastasius whom the Latins call "a secretis" secretary. Concerning Anastasius, Bede in his book on the six ages of the world writes: "This man deprived the captured Philippicus of his eyes but did not kill him." He also says that Philippicus reigned one year and six months. Which accords with Anastasius. For he writes that the report of Justinian's slaughter was brought three months after Constantine had returned to Rome: therefore in the month of January, since the Pope had returned to Rome toward the end of October of the year 711, as we have said.
[11] Wherefore Justinian appears to have been slain at the beginning of December of the same year 711. in the year 713, June 4 Hence if you reckon one year and six months, you will arrive at June of the year 713, and the fourth day of that month fell on Pentecost in that year. Theophanes, Nicephorus, and Cedrenus say this happened in the second year of Philippicus's reign, which is true. But Zonaras seems to be mistaken when he writes that he reigned two years and some months. For since he was cast from the throne on the eve of Pentecost, which he had seized after October of the year 711, as is clearly demonstrated: if he spent two full years and some months in it, he must have held it until the vigil of Pentecost of the year 714, which day was May 26. That this is entirely false is clear from the Acts concerning a girl freed from a demon through the relics of St. Anastasius the Martyr of Persia, which Baronius recites, vol. 8, at the year 713, nos. 5 and following. In these it is said: "under the reign of our most pious Lord, the perpetual Augustus, Anastasius the Great Emperor, in the first year, and after the consulship of the same serenity in the first year, in the times of the most holy and most blessed and Apostolic Supreme Pontiff Constantine, Pope of the city of Rome... a demon entered the girl on the second day of the month of August, Indiction XI... Likewise on the day of the Kalends of October of this twelfth Indiction, then the relics of the venerable Martyr Anastasius (that is, his head) were placed upon the altar." Indiction XI in the month of August, and the same Indiction XII at the beginning of October, correspond to the year of Christ 713, in which therefore Anastasius obtained the Empire. And in no. 2 concerning St. Peter the Apostle, the demon who possessed the girl thus complains: "I had arranged that Philippicus should reign, because he was our friend: and this one went on the day of Pentecost appointed by St. Peter. and appointed another there." This the most wicked demon was boasting in the month of October of the year 713: therefore Philippicus, a friend of demons because a heretic, had already been cast down from the Empire.
Section II. The Pontificate of St. Gregory II. The heretical Patriarch John of Constantinople deposed. The Empire of Anastasius and Theodosius.
[12] What we have said about the beginning of the reign of Anastasius can be in no way doubtful to those who hold that Pope Constantine died in the year 714, among whom are Baronius and Chesne. For since it is established from Anastasius the Librarian that he was buried on April 9, but had received the Sacred Letter of the Emperor Anastasius, by which he declared to all that he was a preacher of the true orthodox faith and a confessor of the holy sixth council, it follows Pope Constantine died in the year 715, April 8 or 9. that Anastasius had already been Emperor since the Pentecost of the preceding year. But that Constantine died in the month of April, Indiction XIII, that is, of the year 715, is recorded in the published copies of the Librarian in the Mainz and Parisian editions, and in one manuscript, for in the other the Indiction is omitted. Baronius placed it in Indiction XII, without citing any testimony of any codex or any reason. Ralph de Diceto in his Abbreviation of Chronicles and the Chronology of the monastery of Canterbury place the beginning of Gregory's pontificate in the year 715.
[13] Thus the time during which he presided over the Church can be calculated. Pope Sisinnius, his predecessor, died on February 7, Indiction VI, that is, in the year of Christ 708. And the episcopate was vacant for one month and eighteen days, as is found in the most ancient manuscript copy, which is in our possession: another has one month and nineteen days. The successor was therefore elected on March 25: and he sat for seven years and fifteen days, namely to April 9 of the year 715. elected March 25, 708, We shall shortly examine the year. The number of days between the death of Sisinnius and of Constantine fits precisely. The former died on February 7: the episcopate was vacant for one month (to March 7) and eighteen days, up to (as we said) March 25. Constantine sat, beyond six or seven years, for fifteen days. There we have April 9. The published copies of Anastasius have it that after the death of Sisinnius the episcopate was vacant for one month and twenty-nine days. Baronius has one month, or twenty-nine days. Neither calculation fits. Therefore twenty-nine should be corrected to nineteen or eighteen, as our codices have it.
[14] Concerning the years of Constantine the calculation is less clear. The published codices and a manuscript of the best quality have him sitting for seven years and fifteen days. Another manuscript has seven years and twenty days -- by the easy error of painting X for V. Baronius determined six years and fifteen days. I believe he applied a correction, he sat for 7 years, 15 days: because Gregory is said to have sat for sixteen years, eight months, and twenty days, and to have died on February 11, Indiction XIV, which is the year of Christ 731. For between that year and 715, sixteen years and eight months did not elapse. The Cusanus manuscript codex and Abbo of Fleury have only fifteen years and eight months. For it is a manifest error that elsewhere to the years, whether sixteen or fifteen, nine months are added, when there were only eight. A similar error may have crept into the number of years. Certain martyrologies and not a few other authors record that Gregory sat for sixteen years, with no months added: as if to indicate fifteen years and a sixteenth not complete.
[15] After the death of Constantine, therefore, which occurred on April 9 or 8, "the episcopate was vacant," says Anastasius, "for forty days." So the published codices and one manuscript, with Abbo. Gregory II was substituted on May 20. Baronius writes that he was created on May 22. But in that case the Chair would have been vacant for forty-two days, which is what Chesne determines. The Cusanus codex has the episcopate being vacant for one year and forty days. Gregory II elected May 20, 715 It is refuted by the other sources and by the very sequence of events.
[16] When it was heard at Constantinople that Gregory had been substituted for Constantine, the heretical Patriarch John, who, because he had crowned the Emperor Anastasius and perhaps was concealing his wickedness by some fraud, [he arranges for the deposition of John, the heretical usurper of the See of Constantinople] had hitherto peacefully held the throne of St. Cyrus, with the Emperor either conniving or deceived by his dissimulation, reached such a point of madness that he hoped to steal letters of communion from the new Pontiff. "He therefore sends him a synodal letter," says Anastasius; perhaps under the name of the pseudo-synod held while Philippicus reigned, in which the sixth general synod had been not merely adulterated with additional canons, as before under Callinicus, but entirely abrogated: or certainly, lest any stain should cling to his name on account of that synod, he wished to issue a profession of his faith, likewise veiled by some fraud. What did Gregory do? "He sent him a written response," says Anastasius -- obscurely. Abbo of Fleury says he subscribed to the synodal letter -- falsely. For by sending letters to Constantinople he persuaded the Emperor to remove the impudent heretic and substitute another Catholic in his place. It is probable that St. Cyrus had already died before this: otherwise he ought to have been recalled and restored to his former rank. Baronius writes, vol. 9, at the year 714, no. 3, that the Apocrisarius Michael the Priest was sent by Gregory for this purpose. through the Apocrisarius Michael, previously sent by Constantine: Previously, however, at the year 713, no. 4, he had written that the same Michael, Cardinal Priest and Apocrisarius, had been sent to Constantinople to the Catholic Emperor by Pope Constantine. And this seems more credible: and that he wrote to Gregory about the character and doctrine of the pseudo-patriarch John in the discharge of his duty, and was ordered by him to press for his deposition.
[17] How the matter was accomplished Anastasius narrates in his history from Theophanes: "In the second year of the reign of Artemius, who was also called Anastasius... Germanus is recognized as Bishop of Constantinople, who presided over that throne for fifteen years. In the same year also he was transferred from the metropolitan city of Cyzicus to Constantinople, and the document of the transfer, which follows, was pronounced, containing this: By the election and approval of the most pious Priests and Deacons, St. Germanus was substituted, and the entire venerable Clergy, and the sacred Senate, and the Christ-loving people of this God-protected royal city, divine grace, which always heals the weak and fills up what is lacking, transferred Germanus, the most holy Bishop of the metropolis of Cyzicus, as Bishop of this God-protected and imperial city. The present transfer was made in the presence of Michael, the most holy Priest and Apocrisarius of the Apostolic See, and of the other Priests and Bishops, under the Emperor Artemius."
[18] George Cedrenus, with what may be called Greek fidelity, makes no mention of the Apostolic Apocrisarius and relates the transfer of St. Germanus as follows: "Under this Artemius, Germanus was transferred from the metropolis of Cyzicus to Constantinople: and a decree of the transfer was published, made with the approval and consent of the most holy Bishops, in this form: Divine grace, which everywhere heals the weak and restores the maimed, transfers Germanus, the most holy Bishop of the metropolis of Cyzicus, to the archbishopric of this God-protected royal city, under the Emperor Artemius." at the beginning of August 715. This transfer of Germanus took place in the year 715, as may be conjectured from Theophanes, who writes that he held the supreme priesthood for fourteen years, five months, and seven days: and that he was deposed by Leo the Isaurian in the month of January, Indiction XIII, that is, in the year of Christ 730. For if you subtract from this fourteen years, five months, etc., you will arrive at the month of August of the year 715.
[19] Toward the end of that year a sedition was stirred up against the Emperor Anastasius, of which more below in Gregory's Life from the Librarian, Anastasius reigned for 3 years, and the Empire was conferred, or rather forcibly thrust, upon Theodosius, a collector of public taxes, by the rebels. Nevertheless, as is evident from Theophanes, six months elapsed before the latter gained possession of the royal city, and only then did Anastasius lay down the purple, in the year 716. For Bede, writing at that very time, stated that he reigned three years: and therefore more trust should be given to him than to Theophanes, in whom many things are set down confusedly. Theodosius, as the same Bede writes, held the Empire for one year; and since he was a Catholic, Theodosius for one: he immediately erected in the royal city in its former place that venerable image in which the holy six synods were depicted, and which had been removed by Philippicus. Which Anastasius described in almost the same words as Bede. Then Leo the Isaurian seized the Empire in the same year 716. [Leo the Isaurian becomes Emperor in the year 716, but inaugurated on March 25, 717.] For below, from Gregory's letter to him, it will be established that in Indiction XIV, which expired in the month of September of that year, he sent letters to Gregory in which he professed himself orthodox, having already seized the Empire in Asia, whose years Theophanes reckons from the 25th of March, Indiction XV, that is, of the year 717, when, entering the city besieged by the Saracens and with Theodosius abdicating, he appears to have been inaugurated. He then held the Empire until the 18th of June, Indiction IX, having reigned twenty-four years, two months, and twenty-five days. He therefore died on June 18, 741; concerning whose crimes we shall say something below and more elsewhere.
Section III. The buildings of St. Gregory II. Illustrious pilgrims to Rome in his time. Cassino rebuilt.
[20] At the time when Gregory was thus restoring and establishing the Catholic faith in the East through orthodox Emperors and through his own legates, in Rome and throughout the rest of Italy he applied himself with equal ardor to restoring the adornment of sacred places and the worship of true piety: at the same time he also looked after the security of the holy City itself, and elsewhere saw to it that the sowing of the Gospel was carried out through apostolic men. For at the very beginning of his pontificate he ordered limestone to be burned for the repair of the City walls, St. Gregory II began to restore the Roman walls, which had been weakened by age and assaults: which work Sisinnius had been thinking of undertaking seven years before, if a longer life had been granted to him. Our Alexander Donatus in book 1, On the City of Rome, chapter 19, lists several Pontiffs who after St. Gregory II repaired the City walls. And indeed, in the time of St. Gregory III, who immediately succeeded him, as Anastasius attests, a very great part of the walls of the city of Rome was restored. St. Gregory II had begun the work at the Gate of St. Lawrence, which certain learned men consider to have been formerly the Esquiline Gate. from the Gate of St. Lawrence: It later received its name from the nearby basilica of the Martyr St. Lawrence outside the walls, which was built by Constantine the Great above the Cemetery of St. Cyriaca, on the Tiburtine Way, in the Verano Field; concerning which cemetery and basilica Paul Aringhi treats in his Subterranean Rome, book 4, chapter 16. And we shall treat on August 10 at the Acts of St. Lawrence buried there, and at the Life of St. Cyriaca herself on the 21st of the same month.
[21] The work was interrupted by the emergence of unfavorable circumstances and various disturbances. Those unfavorable circumstances which arose to impede the completion of the work, Baronius judges at the year 715, no. 2, he desisted, to have been the seizure of the fortress of Cumae and what had to be undertaken for its recovery, as Anastasius describes in no. 8. perhaps because of enemies, Perhaps the money that had been designated for the work on the walls had to be given to the Neapolitan auxiliaries: perhaps it was judged necessary to take care lest the Lombards and Greeks be further irritated, if these seemed to be fortresses and fortifications being erected in the City against them. What is found in the published copies of Anastasius as "the fortress of Cumae," Baronius reads thus: "At the same time also a fortress, by the Lombards," etc. One old manuscript codex has "Cumuna," another "Cumanum." That Anastasius says the fortress was seized at the same time provides an argument that this was done when that great flood of the Tiber occurred. This flood occurred in Indiction XV when it was time to sow, that is, in the autumn of the year 716. Bede agrees with Anastasius, placing this flood in the year when Theodosius reigned, and the flood of the Tiber in the year 716. and saying that with the citizens performing frequent litanies, it subsided at last on the eighth day. This flood too was perhaps among those unfavorable circumstances that emerged -- not that it reached that part of the walls whose renovation had been begun, but that elsewhere it ruined what had been prepared for the work, or caused immense damage, as is usual, which had to be addressed immediately, with the work suspended.
[22] The causes which prevented the completion of that reinforcement of the walls were nevertheless by no means able to prevent the same magnanimous Pontiff from rebuilding some temples of the Saints that had collapsed, he restores many churches and monasteries: shoring up others that were threatening to fall, renovating monasteries that had been weakened and neglected and recalling them to the original institutions of the holy Fathers, and even building some new ones; and founding geriatric hospices, or old-age homes, in which elderly people afflicted by poverty might be maintained. All of which Anastasius enumerates at length below in his Life, no. 3.
[23] This vigor and splendor of piety flourishing through Gregory's industry perhaps attracted (among other things) foreigners to Rome, that they might behold and venerate the very temples and places of the Saints, and bring to the City a new adornment through the light of their own holiness and their munificence. Above all, the piety of the English shone forth. Concerning them Bede, near the end of his book on the six ages, under the Emperor Theodosius, after narrating the flood of the Tiber, says: many in his time make pilgrimage to Rome, "In these times many of the English nation, noble and common, men and women, chieftains and private persons, moved by the instinct of divine love, had been accustomed to come from Britain to Rome. the English especially: among them the Abbot St. Ceolfrid, Among whom also my most reverend Abbot Ceolfrid, seventy-four years old, having been a priest for forty-seven years and an abbot for thirty-five, when he had reached Langres, died there and was buried in the church of the Blessed Twin Martyrs." So Bede, who also mentions the gifts that he was bringing to Rome and sent from his journey. Concerning the Holy Triplets Speusippus, Eleusippus, and Melasippus we have treated at length on January 17. Bede treats of St. Ceolfrid elsewhere, who died on the way in the year 716, and Simeon of Durham in his History of the Kings of England. We shall give his Life on September 25.
[24] But it is pleasing here to recite from that Life of St. Ceolfrid, which is found in Capgrave, the opening of the letter by which his successor Wetbert, or (as Simeon of Durham has it) Hwetbyrht, commended the same Ceolfrid to the Pontiff. It begins thus: "To the Lord most beloved in the Lord of Lords and thrice-blessed Pope Gregory, Wetbert, your humble servant, recommended to the Pontiff by Wetbert in a letter: Abbot of the monastery of the Apostles Peter and Paul, perpetual salvation in the Lord. I do not cease to give thanks for the disposition of the supreme judgment, together with the Brothers who with me in these places desire to carry the most sweet yoke of Christ in order to find rest for their souls, that he has deigned to set you in our times as so glorious a vessel of election over the governance of the whole Church: so that through this light of truth and faith with which you yourself are filled, he might abundantly sprinkle even the least of us with the radiance of his goodness. We commend moreover to your holy benevolence, most beloved Father and venerable Lord in Christ, the grey hairs of our most beloved Father, namely the Abbot Colfrid, and the nurturer and guardian of our spiritual liberty and peace in monastic quiet." Etc. Ceolfrid died, as is said in the same Life, on the seventh of the Kalends of October, in the year of the Lord seven hundred and sixteen.
[25] I omit here Daniel, Bishop of Winchester, whom the Saxon Chronicle records as having gone to Rome in the year 721. Bishop Daniel in the year 721, I omit other Bishops and Abbots who frequently in that age went to Rome either on business or out of piety, to venerate the sacred places and to obtain a blessing from the Pontiff, the Vicar of Christ and supreme guardian of religion on earth. Two Kings we have mentioned this very month as having set out from the same England to Rome, Richard and Ina, of whom the former died on the journey and the latter at Rome, both regarded as Saints by posterity. Concerning Richard we treated on February 7 St. Richard the King, who died on the journey in the year 722, and said he appeared to have died at Lucca in Etruria in the year 722, having begun his journey in the preceding year 721, together with his sons Wunibald and Willibald, chiefly at the latter's urging, of whom we shall speak again shortly. The other King was Ina, whose deeds we collected from various authors on February 6. He, having previously made his kingdom tributary to the Roman Pontiff, St. Ina the King, in such a way that individual families paid a silver coin which they called the Peter's Penny, who instituted the Peter's Penny, at length, abdicating his kingdom, set out for Rome. When he had arrived there, as Matthew of Westminster says at the year of Christ 727, "he built a house in the city, with the consent and will of Pope Gregory, which he caused to be called the School of the English: he founded the School of the English at Rome to which the Kings of England and the royal family, with Bishops, Priests, and Clerics, might come to be instructed in Catholic doctrine and faith; lest anything sinister or contrary to Catholic unity be taught in the English Church, and thus, strengthened in firm faith, they might return home... He further caused a church to be built near the aforesaid house in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and a church, in which the divine mysteries might be celebrated for the English coming to Rome: and in which, if any Englishman happened to die at Rome, he might be buried." he died there. At last he himself died not long after in the same place, illustrious after death with miracles.
[26] In the same time of Gregory, Theudo, or Theodo, the fifth of that name, Duke of the Bavarians, was the first of that nation to appear at the threshold of the Apostle Peter, "out of a vow of prayer," says Anastasius, no. 5. And indeed before either of those English Kings, Duke Theudo V of Bavaria also came, perhaps in Indiction XIV, that is, in the year 716, as our Brunner deduces from the same Librarian in his Annals of Bavaria, book 5. Rader writes that he was moved by the example of other English Kings: Ceadwalla, Coenred, and Offa: but these not only made pilgrimage to the thresholds of the Apostles but also embraced the monastic life there -- Offa, King of the East Saxons, and Kenred of the Mercians, in the year 710, in the time of Pope Constantine, as Westminster has it: while Ceadwalla, King of the West Saxons and predecessor of Ina, much earlier. After narrating Theudo's pilgrimage, Andrew Brunner adds: "Happy posterity, heir of this piety, whom his posterity follows. still today holds aloft before the Christian world the torch kindled by its Prince: for you will not easily find a nation more zealous for sacred pilgrimages." Matthew Rader in his Pious Bavaria cites some examples of later Princes of that nation.
[27] Another man came to Rome in the time of Gregory, not conspicuous indeed for any illustrious dignity of the world, but one who, encouraged by the counsel of that same Pontiff, undertook a distinguished work. St. Petronax sent by Gregory II to Cassino. Concerning him Paul the Deacon writes thus in book 6 of the Deeds of the Lombards, chapter 40: Around this time Petronax, a citizen of the city of Brescia, moved by divine love, came to Rome, and at the exhortation of Gregory, then Pope of the Apostolic See, he sought out the fortress of Cassino, and arriving at the sacred body of the blessed Father Benedict, he began to dwell there with certain simple men who had already been residing there before, and who had appointed that venerable man Petronax as their elder. Not long after, with the cooperation of divine mercy and the supporting merits of the blessed Father Benedict, he became the father of many monks there, both noble and of middling rank, who flocked to him, he restored the monastery, and under the yoke of the holy Rule and the institution of Blessed Benedict, having repaired the dwellings, he began to live, and raised this holy monastery to the state in which it is now seen.
[28] Leo of Ostia in book 1 of the Chronicle of Cassino, chapter 4, and Marco Antonio Scipio in his Eulogies of the Abbots of the Sacred Mount, write that this happened under Gregory III. Peter the Deacon, in his book On the Origin and Death of the Righteous of the Sacred Monastery of Cassino, chapter 21, refers it to the time of St. Zacharias, who succeeded Gregory III toward the end of the year 741, especially under St. Gregory III and St. Zacharias, writing thus: Petronax, Abbot of Cassino, while he wished to go to Jerusalem for the sake of his salvation, was admonished by Pope Zacharias and came to Cassino, and restoring that same place, he lived there most holily and devoutly until the end of his life. Camillus Peregrinus in his Series of Cassinese Abbots solidly demonstrates that, although Gregory III and Zacharias afterward provided immense assistance for the restoration of the monastery, Petronax had nevertheless come there under Gregory II. For, as we noted on February 7 in the Life of St. Richard, section 2, it began under Gregory II. St. Willibald departed from England with his father and brother in the year 721, and after spending ten years on pilgrimage through various provinces, he came to Monte Cassino, and ten years after that he went to Rome and was sent by Gregory III to St. Boniface. St. Gregory III died in the year 741 on the fourth day before the Kalends of December. in whose time he was found there by St. Willibald. St. Willibald departed from Rome at Easter, as his Life records, and he had arrived there on the Nativity of St. Andrew. He had therefore come to Cassino in the year 730, the tenth year of his pilgrimage, the last year of St. Gregory II. He found there a few monks and an Abbot named Petronax. Therefore Petronax was already there before that time.
Section IV. St. Corbinian and St. Boniface sent into Germany to preach the Gospel by St. Gregory II.
[29] Another holy man had come to Rome before, named Corbinian, in the year 716, as Baronius, Brunner, and others suppose. He had come, however, not from Germany, as Baronius writes at that year, no. 10, but, as Brunner, Welser, and Rader hold, from Gaul -- for Bishop Aribo in his Life says that he returned from Rome to Gaul. St. Corbinian, Gregory made use of his industry for the conversion of the Gentiles. He had completed, as the same Aribo relates, his fourteenth year in a cell with a few disciples. Then at last, forming a resolution, he determined to go to the most sacred threshold of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul for the sake of prayer, and there to commend himself to the teaching and prayers of an apostolic man; seeking to be able to live somewhere in seclusion, and, if it could be done, to obtain from him the ability for himself and those who would come with him to hide in some corner, so that he might more secretly attain the patronage of the holy Apostles, and there be permitted to lead his life under the rule of holy conversation. The holy man then set out with his entire retinue and all his belongings, and completed the journey he had begun in safety. Having made his prayer at the confession of the most blessed Prince of the Apostles, Peter, he prostrated himself at the feet of Pope Gregory of blessed memory, and most carefully explained to him the secret of his heart, and by what necessities he had been compelled to lose his solitude...
[30] The venerable Pope Gregory, hearing the words of the man of God, perceived the zeal of his spirit, and how great and how pure was his devotion in the work of God. For the man of God was very eloquent... Filled with the Holy Spirit, St. Gregory II, seeing him fit for the conversion of others, he was suited to every sex and age, so that through the pursuit of holy conversation he could show to each one examples of holy virtues. But the most blessed Pope Gregory, observing these things, began to take counsel with his advisors, lest the splendor of so great a light be hidden under a bushel; but that, according to the words of truth, once placed upon a candlestick, many might be illuminated by him: and he decided that by the authority of Blessed Peter the Apostle he should confer upon him the honor of the priesthood. Matt. 5:15 And so, carrying out in deed what he had deliberated in counsel regarding the man of God, he advanced him through the individual grades up to the highest pontifical honor. He ordains him Bishop for the preaching of the Gospel. The holy man therefore... compelled, received the priestly benediction, having also accepted the pallium with a blessing, and the support of Blessed Peter the Apostle, so that he might be able to exercise the office of preaching everywhere in the whole world, and by the concession of so great a Father might have the authority.
[31] Having received so great an honor and privilege, he returned to Gaul: and the divine word began to flow abundantly from his mouth... and throughout all Gaul the word of his teaching grew in the holy conduct of men and women, when he had preached in Gaul, and was diffused in the hearts of sacred virgins and widows, as well as of monks and clerics... He therefore returned to his former cell at the entrance of the church of Blessed Germanus, and there under his protection sought his own solitude, avoided the crowds of men, and retained with him a few clerics, whom he was unable to abandon from admonishing and teaching... Remaining there for a continuous seven years, he diligently ministered the word of God to those who came to him and stayed with him. But the more secretly he withdrew to lowly places, the more his most holy fame rose up prominently in public, and being unable to sustain the crowds arriving daily... he betook himself to the former aid of prayer: and he again planned to go to Rome, and to receive absolution from the commission of so great a Father, and to seek the seclusion of a monastery and to commend himself to the direction of another, pondering whether the supreme Pope would grant him to serve under the patronage of Blessed Peter, as he had previously requested, by the labor of his own hands. He, not taking the public road from the regions of the Gauls, but choosing a more secluded way, arrived in Alemannia, then in Germany: and so coming into Noricum, and in Bavaria, having tarried there somewhat, he sowed the teaching of the divine word, and the sacred words penetrated the hearts of not a few, by the grace of God, for the increase of the faith of Christ. That nation was still unpolished and recently converted to Christ. For at that time the most devout Duke Theodo was there, etc.
[32] The author adds what he accomplished and suffered at the court of Theodo, then of his son Grimoald, and at last, after many things, continues thus: He himself, pursuing his journey, arrived at Rome, and having made his prayer at the thresholds of both the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, he came into the presence of the supreme Pontiff, blessed Gregory, and prostrated himself at his feet. But Gregory, commanding him to rise, having returned to Rome, he asks to be freed of that burden, and having a seat placed beside him, ordered him to sit. When he had sat down, he offered not a few gifts to so great a man of God, and narrated all the things about his way of life that displeased him, namely how and by what immense waves, as it were, he was tossed about by the honors of this world, and how not even the enclosures of walls could afford him tranquility, and how greatly he feared the riches of this world, since he did not wish to have even one tenant. Seeking therefore a private audience, so that he might freely relate to him all the disturbances and anxieties of his mind, he wept with tears in a mournful voice, lamenting that by the honor imposed upon him he had lost his solitude; persisting in his original petition, that he would permit him to go to a monastery, or enclose him in some cell, or grant him a small field in some secluded forest for labor. Having heard these things, the supreme Pope marveled at his great humility: and having dismissed him from his presence, he assembled a synod for the necessary private deliberations, but he is commanded by St. Gregory and the council to return to his work. and recited these matters in that assembly. When they had heard these things, with one voice they all proclaimed that he must return, confirming it with many testimonies of the Scriptures. While they were saying these things, he ordered the man of God to come forward. Considering himself vanquished by their words, so that he should by no means omit the office enjoined upon him by so great a Father, and should not return empty of gain to the threshing floor, having been detained there for some time with the highest honor, and having received a blessing, he bade farewell to all and departed in sadness. Afterward the author narrates many things that the holy man did and suffered on the journey and in Bavaria, and how Grimoald, the son of Theodo, was killed, and Piltrudis, his concubine, followed Charles Martel into Gaul, and afterward, being repudiated by him, ended her life miserably in Italy.
[33] These things have been related at greater length from the Life of St. Corbinian by Aribo, in which nevertheless there are some things that need correction: for when he had returned from Rome the first time, he is said to have visited Pippin of Herstal, who had died two years before. Certain things in his Life need correction. Baronius at the year 716, no. 10, judges that this error crept in through the fault of copyists. Baronius says he set out for Rome a second time in the year 724, after having held the episcopate of Freising for eight years. But what we have cited from the Life reports that he stayed seven years in Gaul, and scarcely perhaps eight months in Bavaria. Welser agrees with Aribo, whose very words Rader also transcribes. Otto of Freising in his Chronicle, book 5, chapter 24, writes that he was ordained Bishop and sent to the nations by Blessed Gregory, Bishop of the city of Rome: and that returning through the valley of Trent and entering Bavaria, he was kindly received by Duke Tassilo and his son Theodo, and received the mount of Freising; with no mention made of a return to Gaul. More concerning St. Corbinian on September 8, when he is venerated. It suffices here to have indicated that he was ordained Bishop by St. Gregory II, and that when he afterward desired to lay down that burden, he was encouraged to persist in it, even with a synod held for that purpose, that is, with a deliberation instituted with the Cardinals and Bishops who were present.
[34] Gregory sent another herald of the divine Gospel to the Germans, one far more illustrious in the glory of his deeds, and especially in the martyrdom he endured: Boniface, afterward Archbishop of Mainz. Born in England of a most distinguished lineage, previously called Winfrid, he had embraced the monastic life from his earliest youth, and set his mind to preaching the word of God to the Gentiles, Winfrid, or Boniface, and sailed to Frisia. But since that expedition had lacked the desired success because the province was ablaze with war, he returned to England, and having joined to himself some assistants in the holy work, he set out for Rome; where what he accomplished is narrated by St. Willibald, his kinsman, Bishop of Eichstatt, in his Life: With the patronage of the Saints assisting and the Lord God disposing, the entire company of his companions clinging to the fellowship of this holy man, having prosperously reached the threshold of the blessed Apostle, they immediately rendered immense thanks to Christ for their safety, and entering the church of St. Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, with great joy, they brought various and very many gifts, requesting the abolition of their sins. After not many days had passed there, the holy man addressed the venerable Pope of the Apostolic See, Gregory of blessed memory, the second from the first and the first from the last, burning with zeal for souls, who in the common Roman tongue is called the Younger: and he revealed to him in order the entire occasion of his journey and his arrival, and disclosed what desire had driven him to labor so long. The holy Pope therefore, suddenly with a cheerful countenance and smiling eyes, gazing upon him, Gregory receives him kindly and demands letters from his Bishop, inquired whether he had brought commendatory letters from his Bishop. And the latter, also in haste, having removed his cloak, produced a document rolled up in the customary manner and letters, and gave them to the admirable man of holy memory, who, having immediately accepted the letters, gave him leave to depart.
[35] The Apostolic Pope, having read the letters and reviewed the charter of the commendatory writing, thereafter held frequent daily conversation and discussion with him, he entrusts to him the apostolate in Germany, until the summer season for departing and returning was at hand. When the month of Nisan, which is April, had passed, and the gates of Iair, which is also May, were already opening, then also, having requested and received the blessing and letters of the Apostolic See, he was directed by the most blessed Pope to visit the most fierce peoples of Germany. The monk Othlonus of Fulda, in his Life of St. Boniface, recites the letters of Pope St. Gregory, by which he committed to him the apostolate, or, as he puts it, the care of preaching among all the peoples of Germany. in the year 719: These were given on the Ides of May, in the reign of the most pious Lord Augustus Leo, crowned by God, in the third year of his Empire, in the second Indiction, which is the year of Christ 719.
[36] When Boniface had already washed many thousands of men with the sacrament of baptism among the Frisians, Thuringians, and Hessians, as the same Othlonus writes, he sent one of his trusted men, named Binna, to Rome with letters, announcing to the venerable Apostolic Prelate all that the Divine mercy had accomplished concerning him, and what a multitude of men, illuminated by the grace of the Holy Spirit, had received from him the laver of regeneration. he responds to his questions, But also concerning various matters pertaining to the daily necessity of the ecclesiastical rule and the care of the newly converted people, he wrote with prudent inquiry. The aforesaid legate, faithfully completing everything entrusted to him, delivered the sent letters to the Apostolic Prelate; and bringing back to his master other letters containing responses on all the questions proposed, he returned with all speed. and summons him to Rome: When the holy man had read the dispatched letters, and understood among other things that he was invited to Rome, immediately striving for the highest degree of obedience, surrounded by a retinue of followers and brethren, he reached the borders of Italy...
[37] Then, having learned of the holy man's arrival, the venerable Pope Gregory immediately invited him to himself, and after greeting him with familiar words, assigned him to an honorable hospice. he received him honorably, When the opportune day for their conference arrived, this servant of God was invited to the church of the Blessed Apostle Peter. Where, when they had satisfied themselves with mutual and peaceable conversations, the Apostolic Prelate inquired of him concerning the Creed and the tradition of the Catholic faith... After a short time had passed, he interrogates him concerning the faith, the man of the Lord presented to the aforesaid Prince the statement of the holy and Catholic faith, set forth with all propriety and eloquence, in written form. And he, having read those letters, had him sit beside him, and diligently admonished him to hold fast to this faith steadfastly and to teach it diligently. Conferring also much with him about the spiritual life, he speaks with him about spiritual matters, so that sometimes they spent nearly an entire day in conversation. At last he inquired how many peoples, previously wandering through the by-ways of idolatry or wickedness, were receiving the teachings of the faith through his preaching.
[38] When he had satisfied the Apostolic on all these matters by his responses, then the latter intimated to the holy man he designates him Bishop, that he wished to confer upon him the grade of the episcopate, so that he might the more steadfastly correct any who were in error and convert them to the way of truth, inasmuch as he would be strengthened by the greater authority of the Apostolic dignity, and would be all the more acceptable to everyone in the office of preaching, the more it became known that he had been ordained for this purpose by the Apostolic Prelate. All of which the man of God sagaciously weighed, and at the same time taking heed of what is written, "He who refused the blessing, it shall be far from him," he did not refuse the grace of so great a blessing. Psalm 108:18 When the day of his ordination arrived, which was the day before the Kalends of December, that is, on the feast of St. Andrew the Apostle, and he ordains him, the venerable Pope conferred upon him both the order of the episcopate and the dignity of another name, which is Boniface, for previously he was called Winfrid. Othlonus then recites the oath by which he bound himself to the Pontiff; whose beginning is: In the name of God our Savior Jesus Christ, in the reign of the Lord Leo the Great Emperor, in the seventh year after his consulship, and also in the fourth year of Constantine the Great Emperor, his son, in the sixth Indiction, I, Boniface, by the grace of God Bishop, promise to you, blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and to your Vicar, blessed Pope Gregory, and to his successors, etc.
[39] After he had completed this promise by oath before Pope Gregory, the latter also strove to assist, prefer, and venerate him in all things. For he gave him a book he equips him with books and admonitions, in which the most sacred laws of ecclesiastical institution, arranged by pontifical assemblies, were contained, ordering that both the clergy and the rest of the people who were to be subjected to his governance should be instructed in such institutions. He also confirmed by a privilege that the fellowship of the Apostolic See should be perpetually preserved for him and all those subject to him: and thus, by letters sent, he commended him to be protected not only to the glorious Duke Charles, and commends him to Charles Martel, who at that time governed the kingdom of the Franks, but also to all ecclesiastical men and princes established in Germany. Othlonus recites all these letters. The one addressed to Duke Charles, namely Martel, the son of Pippin of Herstal, does not have the day or year of its issuance inscribed. For the Pontiff, in writing to the Franks, did not wish to mark the Imperial era. The one addressed to Bishops, Dukes, Counts, etc., was given on the Kalends of December, in the reign of the Lord most pious Augustus Leo, in the seventh year of his Empire, and also in the fourth year of Constantine the Emperor, his son, in the sixth Indiction. There are also other letters to the clergy and people, others to the Thuringian Princes Asolf, Godolaus, Willarius, he gives him letters to various persons, Cuntharius, and Albord, already Christians; others to the entire people of the Thuringians; others finally to the entire people of the province of the Old Saxons. Because these were inserted by Othlonus in the Life of St. Boniface, they will be related with it on June 5. Baronius recites them in his Annals at the year 723, in which he supposed Boniface had been ordained Bishop: and this I think on account of the seventh year of Leo the Isaurian; for since he became Emperor in the year 717, in the month of March, his seventh year was the year of Christ 723. These things done in the year 722 or 723. But Sirmond in his Notes on volume 1 of the Councils of Gaul thinks it should be corrected, and the sixth year substituted, with which the sixth Indiction, begun in September, agrees in the month of November. But above we said that Leo had seized the Empire in Asia in Indiction XIV: and from that Indiction his years are subsequently calculated. And so December of Indiction VI will correspond with the seventh year of his Empire, so that no correction is needed in that number. But what shall be done with the years of Constantine? He was crowned on Easter Day, in the fourth year of Leo, Indiction III, by St. Germanus, in the year of Christ 720. Therefore the fourth year of his Empire could not be reckoned as 722, but the following year. Concerning these matters, more elsewhere.
[40] There exists another letter of Gregory to Boniface, which was given the day before the Nones of December, in the eighth year of Leo, the fifth year of his son, Indiction VIII. This reckoning of years does not agree with the preceding: for in this latter letter the beginning of the Empire is reckoned from the year 717, and the year of Christ 724 is indicated, as Baronius also determined. The two Apostles of Germany wrote letters to each other more often than what survives to us. Both should be called Apostle of the Germanies. For it is permitted to call them both so: for just as Gregory I, by sending St. Augustine to England, was called the Apostle of the English almost more than Augustine himself; so Gregory II, by sending Boniface to Germany, deserves also the title of Apostle of Germany, which is otherwise most rightly attributed to Boniface himself.
Section V. The zeal of St. Gregory II for defending ecclesiastical authority and the discipline of morals: his friendship with Kings.
[41] The zeal for propagating religion in Gregory was outstanding: but he also had great strength for defending the authority of the Church, and for establishing the discipline and morals of churchmen. He took care, as was written before, at the very beginning of his pontificate, to have the heretical Patriarch removed from the See of Constantinople. He fearlessly rebuked the Emperor Leo, who had cast St. Germanus from that same See, St. Gregory was severe against wicked Bishops, and struck both him and Anastasius, the usurper of that See, with anathema. He paternally admonished Serenus, Bishop of Friuli, because he was striving to usurp the rights of Donatus, Patriarch of Grado, as Baronius recounts from his letter to him at the year 729, no. 3, and pointedly pressed these words: While, moved by the prayers of our eminent son the King (Liutprand), or usurpers of others' rights, and drawn by the rectitude of faith by which we have recognized that you and your Church are embraced, we have sent you the Pallium, forbidding, and among other things prohibiting, that you should ever invade the rights of others, or by audacious presumption usurp the jurisdiction of anyone: but that you should be content with what you have possessed up to now.
[42] Baronius supposed that a letter to Tilpin, Archbishop of Reims, which is extant in volume 2 of the Councils of Gaul and in Flodoard, book 2 of the Histories of the Church of Reims, was written by the same Gregory and from the same zeal for defending ecclesiastical authority. But it is in fact by Pope Adrian, given more than forty years after the death of Gregory II. But because Baronius had obtained only a fragment of that letter, which he also recites, concerning St. Rigobert being cast down from the See of Reims contrary to the canons, [nevertheless there is no record that the Roman Bishop wrote on behalf of St. Rigobert,] he supposed and wrote that the things done against him by Charles Martel had been rendered entirely void by Gregory the Roman Pontiff, and that this letter was his. But whoever reads the whole letter will judge otherwise: for in it Adrian confirms the ancient rights of the Church of Reims, and writes that the things he includes about St. Rigobert were reported to him by Tilpin; and he mentions St. Abel, placed over the Church of Reims by St. Boniface, and the Pontiffs Zacharias and Stephen; likewise the Kings Charles and Carloman, of whom the former was born seventeen years after the death of Gregory II, and the latter twenty-one.
[43] To the correction of discipline pertain those things which the same Gregory decreed against sacrilegious and incestuous marriages, against enchanters and users of magical phylacteries, he convenes a synod for the amendment of morals, and against clerics who let their hair grow long, in the Roman Council held in Indiction IV, the year 721, on the Nones of April, to which, besides Gregory himself, twenty-two Bishops, fourteen Cardinal Priests, and four Deacons subscribed.
[44] Moreover, in order that the authority of the holy Church might be more secure, Gregory achieved this by the favor with which he conciliated Kings and Princes to himself. I do not repeat what was said before about the Emperors Anastasius and Theodosius, about Ina, King of the English, and Theodo, Prince of the Bavarians: by whose power the Catholic cause, supported elsewhere, could also be defended by arms, he conciliates Kings and Princes to himself, should any necessity demand it. Thus the arms of the Neapolitan Duke were ready for him, although not entirely without cost. The aid of the Venetian Duke was implored against the Lombards who had occupied Ravenna. A letter is extant in which he thus entreats the Duke: He urges the Venetian Duke to expel the Lombards from Ravenna: Your Nobility should adhere to him (as he said before, to our son the most excellent Exarch) and together fight in our stead with him, so that to the former state of the holy Republic in the Imperial service of the Lords our sons Leo and Constantine, the great Emperors, the very city of Ravenna may be recalled, so that by the zeal and love of our holy faith, in the state of the Republic and in Imperial service, we may be able, with the Lord cooperating, to stand firm. Nor was this effort in vain. Ravenna was recovered by the arms of the Venetians and restored to the Empire, as Sigonius writes in book 3 of the Kingdom of Italy, and Puteanus after him in his Insubrian History. This affair should have conciliated the Emperor Leo himself to the Pontiff and the Church, if heresy had not made his mind savage with brutish ferocity. But more about him presently.
[45] With what eloquence the same Gregory on one occasion persuaded Liutprand, King of the Lombards, to restore to the Church what he had unjustly seized, and on another occasion, to lay down the arms which he had wickedly joined to impious cause, he persuades their King to restore what was taken from the Church, and to carry his arms back! Both are commemorated by Anastasius in his Life, though, as is usual with him, rather cursorily. After him Sigonius writes: Liutprand, thinking that the royal revenues should be increased, reclaimed the Patrimony of the Cottian Alps, which had been restored to the Pontiff shortly before by King Aripert. But afterward he writes thus of Gregory: Moreover, Gregory inflamed King Liutprand, who was not obscurely aspiring to dominion over Italy, with such grave and pious admonitions and with so great a zeal of piety, that he soon restored the Patrimony of the Cottian Alps to the Roman Church, and ratified the donation of Aripert. And afterward, at the year 728: Liutprand took the town of Sutri from the Church by treachery. But soon, overcome by the gifts and admonitions of the Pontiff, he restored it after forty days. The same writer then composes an elegant oration and to desist from unjust war, by which he persuaded the same King to abandon the siege of the city of Rome and return to friendship with the Church.
[46] How closely and how piously the same Gregory kept Eudo, Duke of Aquitaine, bound to himself is evident from those things which Anastasius records him to have written after the Saracens were defeated in the year 725. he binds to himself Duke Eudo by pious gifts. Most French writers attribute that victory to Martel, following the author of the history which Count Childebrand had written, and which is appended to the Chronicle of Fredegar in volume 1 of the French Writers of Chesne: but they do not sufficiently agree among themselves even on the year, and that first author is deservedly suspect as being attached to the family of Martel. The narrative of Paul the Deacon seems more genuine, agreeing at any rate with Anastasius. He writes thus in book 6 of the Deeds of the Lombards, chapter 46: At that time the nation of the Saracens, crossing over from Africa at the place which is called Septem, invaded all of Spain. Then after ten years, coming with their wives and children, they entered Aquitaine, a province of Gaul, as if to settle there. Charles indeed had at that time a discord with Eudo, the Prince of Aquitaine. Yet joining together as one, they fought against the same Saracens with a common plan. For the Franks, falling upon them, slew three hundred and seventy-five thousand Saracens. by whom the Saracens were defeated: On the Frankish side, only one thousand five hundred fell there. Eudo also, rushing upon their camp with his men, in like manner killing many, devastated everything. Thus far Paul the Deacon. The place which he calls Septem is Ceuta, at the Strait of Gibraltar, called by others Septem Fratres, Heptadelphoi, in Mauretania Tingitana. It seems to me that Eudo had called the Saracens into Gaul, whom four years earlier he had warded off from approaching, for no other reason than because enmities between him and Charles were growing, so that the hope thus cast before the Barbarians of occupying Gaul can be supposed. So we are accustomed to say that the Turks were called to occupy the rest of Europe by the wars of Christian Princes among themselves.
[47] Moreover, Gregory also had Charles bound to him, to whom, as we said before, he gave letters of commendation for St. Boniface, in which he professes to have learned that Charles bore a disposition of a religious mind. However, what is narrated in the history written at the command of Childebrand, chapter 110, does not pertain to this Gregory (as Baronius supposed at the year 726, no. he has Charles Martel as a friend, 41), but to St. Gregory III. The anonymous writer has it thus: For at that very time, twice from Rome, from the See of St. Peter the Apostle, which Gregory III cultivated with greater gifts, the blessed Pope Gregory sent the keys of the venerable sepulcher together with the chains of St. Peter and great and innumerable gifts, by embassy (which had never before been heard of or seen in any age), to the aforementioned Prince. By this pact having been concluded, that he should withdraw to the party of the Emperor, and should ratify the Roman Consulship for the aforesaid Prince Charles. That Prince himself received that embassy with wonderful and magnificent honor, bestowed precious gifts, and with his companions sent great presents, dispatching Grimo, Abbot of the monastery of Corbie, and Sigobert, a recluse of the basilica of St. Denis the Martyr, to the thresholds of St. Peter and St. Paul. But these events took place in the last year of Charles Martel's principate and the last year of St. Gregory III; the year of Christ 741, as can be seen in the Annals of Metz. Concerning these things, therefore, we shall treat on November 28 at the Life of St. Gregory III.
Section VI. What St. Gregory II did and suffered on behalf of the veneration of sacred Images against Leo the Isaurian Emperor.
[48] But Leo the Isaurian compelled both Gregories to earn the favor of the Franks by whatever services they could. For when he had forbidden by wicked edicts the honoring, and indeed the retention, of sacred images -- even of the Savior -- and the invocation of the Mother of God and the other Saints, and had also begun to rage with torments against those who refused to obey, and had cruelly despoiled the churches, and had armed the hands of impious agents for the death of the Pontiff himself; the Pontiff indeed needed to implore the help of the Divinity and the Saints, [Friendship of Kings necessary for St. Gregory, since Leo the Isaurian Emperor was persecuting him,] and also to seek human protection. Gregory II, however, used these supports in such a way that he neither summoned a single Frank into Italy nor allowed the Italians themselves to elect another Emperor for themselves, or to throw off the yoke of the heretical Prince, as long as there was hope that he could be recalled from that frenzy. We shall by no means recount here everything that was impiously contrived by that tyrant against the sacred Images and cruelly executed against their defenders. There will be occasion to treat of these things often elsewhere, especially on May 6 at the Life of St. John Damascene, and at the Life of St. Germanus the Patriarch on the 12th of the same month.
[49] In the ninth year of the reign of Leo, says Theophanes, and from him Anastasius, Gregory the Pope presides over the Roman Church. In which year, indeed, the impious Emperor Leo began to make statements about the removal of the holy and venerable images. wanting to forbid the cult of sacred Images: When Gregory, the Roman Pope, learned of this, he prohibited the tributes of the city of Rome and of Italy: writing to Leo a dogmatic letter, that it was not fitting for an Emperor to make pronouncements about the faith, or to violate by novelty the ancient dogmas of the Catholic Church, which had been proclaimed by the holy Fathers. Concerning the taxes, what happened afterward we shall say presently from the same Theophanes. which St. Germanus, Bishop of Constantinople, resisted, The Patriarch Germanus immediately resisted Leo and warned Pope Gregory of what Leo was scheming. A letter of Gregory is extant in Baronius at the year 726, no. 15, which was also recited in the Fourth Session of the Second Council of Nicaea: in this he responds to the letters of Germanus, and calls him a blessed and God-beloved brother, and an illustrious champion of the Churches, therefore praised by St. Gregory: whose struggles are celebrated on the lips of all: and he adds that he had suffered much and had received injury in return for good deeds. Then he subjoins various things about images and about Constantinople formerly liberated through the Mother of God: and he calls her that holy Champion and the Lady of all Christians.
[50] There also exist two letters of Gregory to Leo himself, written after Leo had sent his edict for the abolition of images to Rome. Baronius published both in Greek and Latin at the year 726. In the former he says that he has carefully preserved in the holy Church the letters sent by Leo in the fourteenth, fifteenth, first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth Indictions, Gregory publicly preserves the orthodox letters of Leo spanning ten years, deposited at the threshold of the Confession of the holy and glorious Prince of the Apostles, Peter, where also the letters of his Christ-loving predecessors, who ruled piously, are kept. In those letters he asserts that Leo had set forth his confession of our blameless and orthodox Faith most rightly and devoutly. And shortly after, that for ten years he had walked rightly by the goodness of God. The first letters of Leo were therefore written in Indiction XIV, that is, in the year of Christ 716, when he seized the Empire in Asia: and even if Theophanes writes that he reigned only from the 25th of March of the fifteenth Indiction, that is, March 25 of the year 717, it was perhaps then that he received the imperial diadem, entering the city besieged by the Saracens after Theodosius had already abdicated that honor. The letters which Gregory attests were the last orthodox ones he received from him were given in the year 726 or toward the autumn of the preceding year, in Indiction IX. Concerning those earlier letters of Leo, Gregory writes thus: and shares them with other Kings, God is witness that whatever letters you sent to us, we have presented them to the ears and hearts of the Kings of the West, conciliating their peace and goodwill toward you, and praising you and wonderfully extolling you, as we formerly beheld your manner of life. For this reason they also received your laureled portraits, whom he conciliates to Leo, as it is fitting for Kings to be honored by Kings: and this before they had yet heard of this undertaking and attempt of yours, by which you have risen up against the images.
[51] Moreover, in that letter he defends the doctrine of the Church concerning the veneration of Images in such a way that he also brilliantly chastises the Emperor's arrogance: We are compelled, he says, to write to you in a crude and unlearned manner, since you are unlearned and crude... We adjure you by God to lay aside the arrogance and the pride he rebukes the heretic in letters, with which you overflow. And after many things: We adjure you as brothers in Christ, enter again into the truth calling him stupid and proud, from which you departed: shake off your haughty spirits and put away your obstinacy, and write to all in every direction, and raise up those to whom you have been a stumbling block, and those whom you have blinded -- though in your excessive stupidity you regard this as nothing. And then: Turn away your evil thoughts, I adjure you; and free your soul from the scandals and execrations with which you have been assailed by the whole world, since you are mocked even by little children. And after not a few things interposed: You know, Emperor, that the dogmas of the holy Church are not the business of Emperors, but of Pontiffs, etc. He then shows it to be superfluous for a general council to be convened. And finally: Do you not perceive that this undertaking of yours, by which you have risen up against the Images, is a turbulent and insolent and proud deed?
[52] Lastly, he teaches what great infamy Leo had brought upon himself among foreigners when he had ordered the image of the Savior to be cast down, and some women who tried to prevent it to be killed, and what losses he had brought upon his own Empire, and he magnificently laughs at his threats. He says therefore that this was done and now infamous throughout the whole world, in the presence of worthy Roman men and men from Francia, from the Vandal lands, from Mauretania, from Gothia, and, to speak generally, from the whole interior West. And when they had arrived and each had narrated in their own regions your juvenile and childish deeds, then they cast down your laureled portraits and trampled them, and defaced your likeness: and having made a levy, and punished by the loss of his cities, the Lombards and Sarmatians and the rest of those who dwell toward the North harassed the wretched Decapolis with incursions, and occupied the metropolis Ravenna itself, and having expelled your magistrates, they established their own magistrates: and they resolved to treat the royal seats near us, and Rome itself, in the same way, since you can by no means defend us. And these things you have suffered because of your imprudence and folly. he laughs at his threats,
[53] he laughs at his threats, desiring to carry off Pope Martin, But you try to terrify us and say: I will send to Rome and break the image of St. Peter, and I will have Gregory the Pontiff led away from there in chains, just as Constantine* ordered Martin to be led away. But you should know and hold for certain that the Pontiffs who have existed at Rome for the time being sit as peacemakers, as a most intact wall and a middle partition between East and West, and are arbiters and moderators of peace: and the Emperors who were before you labored in this contest of establishing peace. But if you insolently insult us and brandish threats, we have no need to descend into a contest with you: the Roman Pontiff will withdraw twenty-four stadia into the region of Campania; since he can easily withdraw: then go ahead and pursue the winds. Our predecessor, Pope Martin, sat exhorting to peace: for this reason that wicked Constantine, thinking wrongly about the faith of the Holy Trinity, and assenting to the heretical Pontiffs who had been proscribed -- Sergius, Paul, and Pyrrhus -- sent agents and seized him, and by tyrannical violence dragged him to Constantinople, and beset with many evils, sent him into exile. He also inflicted many evils upon Maximus the monk and his disciple Anastasius, and sent them into exile in Lazica. but while the persecutor perished wretchedly, But Constantine, who had banished them, was killed and died in his sin. For Nezeusius, who was then his Count of the bodyguard, having been informed by the Bishops of Sicily that he was a heretic, slaughtered him inside the temple, and he perished in his sin. But that blessed Martin is attested by the city of Cherson, Martin shines with miracles, to which he was banished, and by Bosporus, and the whole North and the inhabitants of the North, who flock to his tomb and receive healings. And would that by the gift of God it might befall us to walk in the way of Martin: although for the sake of the people's welfare we wish to live and survive, he declares himself ready to follow him, since the whole West turns its eyes to our lowliness; though he prefers to live for the sake of others: and although we are not such persons, they nevertheless greatly trust in us, and in him whose image you threaten to overthrow and destroy, namely St. Peter, whom all the kingdoms of the West regard as a God upon earth. If you wish to test this, plainly the Westerners are ready to avenge even the Easterners whom you have injured.
[54] Nevertheless, we beseech you by the Lord, turn away from juvenile and childish deeds. You know that your Empire cannot take vengeance on Rome, except perhaps only upon the city itself because of the adjacent sea and ships. he exhorts him to come to his senses: For as we said before, if the Pope shall have gone forth from Rome twenty-four stadia, he does not fear your threats at all. One thing grieves us, that the wild and barbarous become gentle, while you, who are gentle, become on the contrary wild and savage. The whole West offers the fruits of faith to the holy Prince of the Apostles. If you send anyone to overthrow the image of St. Peter, be warned: we protest to you, we are innocent of the blood that they will shed; rather, these things will fall back upon your neck and upon your head. Recently we received from the interior West the requests of him whom they call Septelus, who seeks our presence, he announces he is going to baptize a recently converted Prince, by the grace of God, and that we should go there to impart to him the holy baptism: and lest the account of our sloth and negligence have to be rendered, we are girding ourselves for the journey. May God cast his fear into your heart and turn you to the truth from those things which you have wrongfully introduced into the world: and may I receive your letters as soon as possible, announcing to us your conversion.
[55] Gregory presses the same points upon Leo in a second letter, which begins thus: We have received the letters of your Empire, preserved by God, and of your fraternity in Christ, delivered by your legate Rufinus: in another letter he again exhorts him to come to his senses, and I was utterly weary of my life because you have not changed your mind, but persevere in the same evils, and do not think the things that are of Christ. Among other things he reproaches him: When you found the holy churches clothed and decorated with fringed golden vestments, you stripped them of their ornament and devastated them. Then: Hear our lowliness, Emperor, cease, and follow the holy Church as you found and received it. Dogmas are not the business of Emperors but of Pontiffs, since we have the mind of Christ... You cannot have in spiritual administrations of dogma the military and inept and crude understanding which you have... Just as the Pontiff does not have the power of looking into the palace and of conferring royal dignities, nor should he meddle in sacred affairs, so neither does the Emperor have the power of looking into churches and of conducting elections in the clergy, nor of consecrating, nor of administering the symbols of the holy Sacraments, nor even of participating without the agency of a Priest. But let each of us remain in the vocation to which he has been called by God. Near the end of the letter he again mentions the journey he was preparing to undertake to baptize recently converted Princes. Who they were, we nowhere read: perhaps Germans, converted by St. Boniface. It seems that the tumults which Leo repeatedly stirred up against him prevented him from afterward undertaking that journey. He wrote to Leo thus concerning his departure: We, as we wrote to you before, are setting out on a journey, by the goodness of God, to the farthest regions of the West, toward those he says he is going to certain converted Princes: who earnestly desire the holy baptism. For although I had sent Bishops there and clerics of our holy Church, their Princes have not yet been induced to bow their heads and be baptized, because they desire that I should be their sponsor. For this reason we gird ourselves for the way, by the goodness of God, lest perhaps we have to render account of our condemnation and negligence. May God give you prudence and repentance, that you may be converted to the truth from which you have fallen away.
[56] But Gregory tried not only by letters to recall the Emperor from heresy, but also by legates sent to him, whom the Emperor drove into exile and compelled to die. He sends legates to Leo, Thus Pope Nicholas I, in letter 8, reproaches the Emperor Michael III, that his predecessors, languishing for so many years with the diseases of various heresies, had not sought the medicinal remedy: nay rather, they had cast the medicine spontaneously offered to them from their very jaws, as though desperate or carrying an impenitent heart; since they destroyed the ministers of so great a salvation offered to them in a twofold manner: for either they spiritually slew them by making them partakers of their own error, as happened in the time of Pope Conon of revered memory, who existed after the sixth synod; or certainly they corporeally killed those who did not consent to them, as was done under the venerable Pope Gregory, whom the Emperor compels to die in exile: who existed after the sixth synod; when religious men and servants of God, sent out of zeal for the faith and reverence for the holy Images, were sent into exile, and by a good confession ended the life of this world.
[57] But what did Leo do against Gregory? He bent all his fury to this end, that he might expel him from his throne and from life, either by force or by fraud. Anastasius briefly indeed, but alone among the ancients, faithfully committed to writing the things which Leo contrived, and with what moderation of mind, with what mildness of character, Gregory conducted himself and tried to placate that wild beast (as the Greeks call him), after all attempts had been tried in vain, unless he had truly been endowed with a serpentine nature, so that he was made more savage by kindnesses. At length therefore the most gentle Pontiff allowed the Italian peoples, whom he had long held in obedience, to throw off the yoke of the most impious Prince, who was preparing slaughter for them and destruction for the Church. Theophanes, who had also written earlier that Gregory had decreed that no tributes should be paid, but at the wrong date in the ninth year of Leo, at the thirteenth year has this: He releases the Italians from the obligation of obedience: In elder Rome, Gregory, an apostolic man and confessor of Peter the chief of the Apostles, shining in word and deed, removed Rome and Italy, as well as all the rights both of the Republic and of the Church in the western lands, from the obedience of Leo and the Empire established under him.
[58] But when in the beginning of the year 730 St. Germanus had been driven from the patriarchal throne and Anastasius the Syncellus had been thrust into his place, then indeed, as the same Theophanes records, He rejects Anastasius, thrust into the See after St. Germanus was deposed, Gregory, the most holy Prelate of Rome, rejected Anastasius together with his documents, rebuking Leo through letters as one who acted impiously, and causing Rome and all Italy to withdraw from his Empire. What those documents were is explained by Anastasius in the Life of Gregory, no. 23, and the thunderbolt of excommunication was deservedly inflicted upon him.
[59] Cedrenus also writes that Gregory diverted the tributes of Italy in the ninth year (it is certain there is an error in the dating), thus: In the ninth year Leo the impious began to make mention of overturning the sacred images. When this was learned, Gregory, Pope of Rome, prohibited him from the tributes of Italy and Rome: sending also a decretal letter warning that it was not for the Emperor to make decisions about the faith, or to overthrow the decrees of the ancient Church made by the holy Fathers. The same Cedrenus writes better where, after treating of Anastasius being elevated to the throne of Germanus, he adds this: At Rome, Gregory, an apostolic man and an assessor of Peter the chief of the Apostles, who had gained the surname Dialogus on account of his divine writings, defected from Leo because of his impiety, and having struck a pact with the Franks, denied tributes to Leo: he struck Anastasius and his associates with anathema, he excommunicates them, and openly refuted the Emperor by many letters read by many. So that writer. Concerning the surname Dialogus, we have refuted it above, and our Fronto Ducaeus refutes it at greater length in his annotations on the first letter of Gregory to Leo in Baronius. Gregory pronounced, or threatened, the sentence of excommunication against the same Leo in his second letter, and Leo himself, before St. Germanus had been deposed. There he writes thus: You persecute us and tyrannically vex us with military and carnal force. We, unarmed and naked, who have no earthly or carnal armies, invoke the Prince of the army of all creation, seated in the heavens, Christ, who is above all the armies of the supernal powers, to send upon you a demon, as the Apostle says: To deliver such a one for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved. 1 Cor. 5:5
[60] That a synod was convened by Gregory to ratify these measures is indicated by Zonaras. For indeed a synod was held in which the Iconoclast heresy was condemned and the use of sacred images confirmed. Pope Adrian I mentions it in his letter to Charlemagne, where the following is read: a synod having first been held at Rome, For these most firm examples, our predecessor the Lord Gregory II, the Younger Pope, in his sacred council (which was also received and venerated in another council of our predecessor Pope Stephen, held together with the Priests of the regions of Francia and Italy), in that very council presided over by the most holy and blessed Lord Gregory, the former Pope, he himself likewise declared, etc. But let us hear Zonaras: Gregory, he says, who then governed the Church of Old Rome, having repudiated the fellowship of the president of New Rome and of those who followed him, bound them together with the Emperor by synodical anathema: and he forbade the revenues which up to that time had been paid thence to the Empire, having struck a treaty with the Franks. And after a few words interposed about the origin of the Franks: Therefore Pope Gregory, having abandoned obedience to the Emperor, as was said, on account of his perverse opinion, made peace with the Franks; having often admonished him. though he had previously often striven to recall Leo by letters from his hatred of God and to lead him back to the veneration of the sacred images. But this was plainly to wash an Ethiopian.
Annotation* Constantius, or Constans.
Section VII. The writings, death, and acts of St. Gregory II.
[61] Concerning the literary works of St. Gregory II, Baronius has the following at the year 726, no. 28: No one recalls that he wrote anything besides letters: but those letters were dogmatic, Gregory II -- whether and what did he write? weighty, which the Easterners themselves preserved, translated from Latin into Greek. At the year 731, no. 1, he seems to retract what he had written: If his writings were extant, he says, as if to imply that he had left behind some written monuments for posterity. Concerning these, Sigebert of Gembloux relates the following in his book On Ecclesiastical Writers, chapter 74: Gregory, the second of that name, Pope of Rome, being consulted at Constantinople by the Emperor Justinian on certain articles, resolved each question with an excellent response, and published his writings. He also wrote back to the synodical letter which John, the prelate of Constantinople, sent to Rome. This steadfast defender of ecclesiastical dogmas and most powerful assailant of their opponents wrote against the Emperor Leo, who, seduced by a certain renegade of the faith named Beser, ordered images of God and His Saints to be taken down and burned everywhere. So Sigebert. But we have shown above that it was not at Constantinople but at Nicomedia that he dealt with Justinian. Trithemius in his book On Ecclesiastical Writers pronounces thus on Gregory's writings: He wrote certain works full of erudition, of which the following are reported: A Book of Responses to the Questions of Justinian, one book. To John, Bishop of Constantinople, one book. Against the Emperor Leo Augustus, one book. A Book of Letters to Various Persons, one book. Concerning the letters no one doubts (even though not all survive) that he wrote very many. Nor do I think he published anything against the Emperor Leo Augustus or against John or Anastasius, the Pseudo-Patriarchs, other than letters -- though some were rather lengthy, as is evident from those which Baronius published in Greek and Latin, translated from the Greek by our Fronto Ducaeus and illustrated with notes. Concerning certain other letters and writings of his, Ludovicus Iacob a S. Carolo makes curious inquiry in his Pontifical Library. Because some of these are doubtful whether they are his, and we have not seen them, we refrain from a longer discussion.
[62] With outstanding generosity he himself promoted the literary works of others. Bede testifies to this in the preface of his History of the English Nation, addressed to the holy King Ceolwulf, whose Life we gave on January 15. There, reviewing the authors from whom he especially learned what he writes, he has this: The author and helper of this little work before all others was the Abbot Albinus, a most reverend and in all respects most learned man. He, having been instructed in the church of Canterbury by Theodore the Archbishop of blessed memory and the Abbot Adrian, venerable and most learned men, had carefully learned all the things that had been done in the province of Canterbury itself, and also in the regions bordering on it, by the disciples of the blessed Pope Gregory, either from written records or from the tradition of elders; and he transmitted to me, concerning those things which seemed worthy of memory, through the religious Priest of the Church of London, Nothelm, either committed to letters or to be reported by the living voice of Nothelm himself. Who, namely Nothelm, afterward coming to Rome, [he permits documents to be copied from the Apostolic Library to aid other writers,] found there some letters of the blessed Pope Gregory and of other Pontiffs, having searched the archive of that same Holy Roman Church, by permission of him who now presides over that same Church, Pope Gregory; and returning, he brought them to us to be inserted in our history, with the advice of the aforesaid most reverend Father Albinus.
[63] At length in the year 731, Indiction XIV, adorned with manifold victory and exulting in triumph, Gregory departed to heaven, on the third day before the Ides of February, though on that day scarcely any Martyrologies mention him: he dies on February 12, inscribed in Martyrologies on the 12th and 13th. most of them, with the Roman Martyrology, have his name on the Ides themselves, with various eulogies taken from his Life, some brief, others more prolix. Others place him on the day before the Ides: Notker, the author of the Florarium, and many manuscript Martyrologies: Maurolycus on both days. Some have been deceived in composing eulogies by attributing to this Gregory what belongs to Gregory III. Thus Canisius and Hermann Greeven make him a Syrian by nationality; the latter assigns only ten years to his pontificate, eight months, and fourteen days, approximately the figures which Anastasius and others assign to his successor. In the years of the second Gregory, the calculations of many stumble badly.
[64] Besides the Life which we give here from the book On the Roman Pontiffs, composed, as is believed, by Anastasius the Librarian, who else wrote his Life? but divided by us into chapters to lessen tedium; there exists another somewhat shorter Life by St. Abbo, or Albo, Abbot of Fleury: very brief others by Liutprand in his Lives of the Pontiffs, by Ferrarius in his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, and by Peter of Equilino, book 10, chapter 117, who makes him a Syrian and his successor a Roman, son of Marcellus -- hysteron proteron. Finally, Platina wrote the deeds of Gregory, but with many blunders; as when he says that the Saracens, defeated by Martel, having been driven from the necks of the Spaniards and the Gauls, turned all their rage and indignation conceived from so great a defeat against the people of Constantinople, Platina rather inaccurately, for they besieged the city by land and sea for three years. At least seven years before the Saracens received that defeat in Aquitaine, the siege of Constantinople had been lifted: and these were different Saracens from those who had besieged Constantinople: nor were they driven from the necks of the Spaniards by the Gallic victory. Of the same sort is his statement that the Emperor Leo plotted the death of Gregory through Paul the Exarch, because he had been forbidden by him from exacting new taxes... and that at last, when he could not openly attack him, he published an edict that all who were under the Roman Empire should scrape and remove the statues and images of all the Saints, Martyrs, and Angels from the temples. As long as Leo did not violate the Images by his edicts, he had no quarrel with Gregory, as the letters of the latter cited by the former attest, which for ten years he had given full of courtesy and respect. Ciacconius in his book On the Lives of the Pontiffs has treated the deeds of this Gregory more accurately, though he largely follows the narrative of Platina, but with most of the errors we have mentioned corrected.
[65] Ottavio Panciroli writes in his Hidden Treasures of the Gracious City, Relics in St. Peter's, in the seventh region, which is called the Borgo, church 17, that the body of St. Gregory II is still preserved in the Vatican Basilica.
LIFE
by Anastasius the Librarian.
Gregory II, Pope of Rome (Saint)
By Anastasius the Librarian.
CHAPTER I
Deeds accomplished by St. Gregory II in the first two years of his Pontificate, concerning public buildings, the conversion of nations, and the defense of the Church.
[1] Gregory II, Roman by nationality, son of Marcellus, sat for sixteen years, eight months, and twenty days. He lived in the times of the Emperors Anastasius, Theodosius, Leo, and Constantine. From a young age he was raised in the Lateran Palace under Pope Sergius of holy memory: Gregory holds various offices: made Subdeacon and Sacristan, the care of the Library was entrusted to him. Then he was advanced to the order of the diaconate, and together with the holy man Pope Constantine he journeyed to the royal city, he defends the Catholic faith: and when questioned by the Emperor Justinian on certain articles, he resolved each question with an excellent response. For he was a man chaste, learned in divine Scripture, an outstanding man: eloquent in speech and steadfast in spirit, a defender of ecclesiastical affairs and a most powerful assailant of opponents.
[2] At the beginning of his pontificate he ordered lime to be burned, he fortifies the City: and beginning from the Gate of St. Lawrence, he had resolved to restore the walls of this city, and having completed some portion, he was impeded by the emergence of unfavorable circumstances and various tumults. he replies to the heretical Patriarch: In his time John, the prelate of Constantinople, sent him a synodical letter, and the Pontiff replied to him with his own writings.
[3] He roofed over the greater part of the basilica of the Blessed Apostle Paul, which had collapsed, with timbers brought from Calabria; and he made a new altar, and a silver ciborium, which had been shattered by the collapse. He likewise repaired the church of St. Lawrence situated outside the walls, which, with its timbers broken, was already near to ruin, he repairs and adorns churches: and after a long time he brought water back into that same church through fitted pipes; and he renovated various churches that lay in ruins, which it would take too long to enumerate in order. He preached the word of salvation in Germany through Bishop Boniface, he sees to the conversion of the Germans: and converted that nation, sitting in darkness, to Christ by the teaching of light.
[4] He renovated the monasteries that were near the basilica of St. Paul, which had been reduced to a state of desolation, and having appointed servants of God as monks, he established a congregation after a long time, so that there day and night they might render praises to God. he restores various monasteries: He converted the old-age hospice, which is situated behind the apse of the holy Mother of God "at the Manger," into a monastery: and the monastery of St. Andrew the Apostle, which they called "of Barbara," having been reduced to utter abandonment, in which not even one monk was to be found, he organized by bringing in monks, so that both monasteries might sing praises to God at the church of the holy Mother of God every day and night.
[5] At that time King Liutprand confirmed the donation of the Patrimony of the Cottian Alps, which King Aripert had made and which he had reclaimed, restored by the admonition or rebuke of so great a man. he recovers the goods of the Church. In his time a sign appeared in the moon in Indiction XIV, and it was seen to be blood-red until midnight. At that same time Theudo, Duke of the nation of the Bavarians, was the first of that same nation to come to the threshold of the Blessed Apostle Peter, Theudo comes to Rome, out of a vow of prayer.
[6] In his time the Emperor Anastasius directed a fleet of ships, prepared in the regions of Alexandria, against the God-destroyed Agarenes: but these men, turning to another plan before they reached their destined place, returned from the middle of their journey to the royal city, and seeking out the orthodox Theodosius, they elected him Emperor, Theodosius III becomes Emperor, and having compelled him, they confirmed him on the throne of the Empire. Anastasius therefore, with whatever citizens and soldiers he could muster, went to the fortified city of Nicaea: there he fought with the fleet in which Theodosius had been made Emperor, and nearly seven thousand of the army were slain. Anastasius defeated and made a Cleric. His party having been overcome, Anastasius now sued for immunity: and having been given a guarantee, he was made a Cleric and was consecrated a Priest. Immediately also when the aforesaid Theodosius entered the royal city, he erected in its former place that venerable image in which the holy six synods were depicted, and which had been removed by Philippicus -- a thing not to be spoken of -- so that by his fervor of faith all controversy ceased from the Church.
[7] At that time the river which is called the Tiber overflowed its bed and spread itself through the open fields: it swelled also with the flooding of many waters, and entered through the gate which is called the Flaminian Gate: a disastrous flooding of the Tiber for the City and fields, meanwhile it also crossed the walls of the City in several places, and beyond the basilica of St. Mark it extended through the streets, so that in the Via Lata the water of that river had risen to one and a half times a man's stature, and from the gate of the Blessed Apostle Peter to the Milvian Bridge the waters spread out, and at length subsided into the bed of the river itself. It overturned houses, ravaged fields, tearing up trees and crops: for the greater part of the Romans could not even sow at that time. On account of this, great tribulation was imminent. Gregory obtains by Litanies that the flood be divinely checked. For seven days the water held Rome in its grip. Litanies were therefore frequently held by the Lord Pope. And when he persisted in prayer and litanies, after the eighth day God had mercy and removed the water, and the river returned to its own bed, in the fifteenth Indiction.
[8] The fortress of Cumae had also been seized at that same time by the Lombards through the treachery of peace. When this was heard, all were rendered sorrowful. The fortress of Cumae seized by treachery. The most holy Pontiff, moreover, exhorting and admonishing the Lombards to restore it -- and if they should not comply, he denounced in his writings that they would incur the wrath of God for the treachery they had committed -- for he was willing to give them many gifts so that they would restore it. But they, with swollen minds, would neither listen to his admonitions nor permit it to be restored. Wherefore the same holy Pontiff grieved exceedingly, and committed himself to the hope of God, and applying himself to the military resources of the Neapolitan Duke and his people, he presented to the Duchy instructions, writing daily as to how they should proceed. he secures its recovery through the Neapolitans, Obedient to his command, they took counsel and entered the fortifications of that fortress by night in the power of silence. John, namely the Duke, together with Theodimus the Subdeacon and Rector and the army, slew nearly three hundred Lombards with their Castaldion, and capturing alive more than five hundred, they led them as prisoners to Naples. Thus they were able to recover the fortress: for whose ransom the most holy Pope, as he had previously promised, and he rewards them, gave seventy pounds of gold.
Annotationsp. Baronius writes at the year 715, no. 4, that this Theodimus was a Subdeacon of the Holy Roman Church and Corrector of Campania, and recites his epitaph, and explains the office of the regional Subdeacons in no. 5. Platina calls him Theodore, and writes that this fortress was seized by the Lombard Duke of Benevento.
CHAPTER II
The Saracens twice inflicted with a great defeat. Men sent four times by the Emperor Leo the Isaurian to kill St. Gregory II.
[9] He roofed over and repaired the holy church of Jerusalem, which had been unroofed for a long time, he repairs the church of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem, and the porticoes round about, shattered by age, with timbers brought in. He also made a marble ambo in that same church, and enriched it with various linens and vessels. At the same time the abominable nation of the Agarenes, who had already held the provinces of Spain for ten years in their invasion, the Franks slay 375,000 Saracens, in the eleventh year attempted to cross the river Rhone to occupy the Frankish lands, where Eudo presided. He, having raised a general levy of the Franks against the Saracens, surrounded and slew them. For three hundred and seventy-five thousand were killed in one day, as the letter sent to the Pontiff by Eudo, Duke of the Franks, reported. with few of their own lost, They said that only one thousand five hundred Franks had died in the same battle. He added that in the preceding year, with three sponges sent to them as a blessing by the aforesaid man -- those which are placed at the table for the Pontiff's use -- at the hour when the battle was joined, the rest saved by sponges sent by Gregory, the same Eudo, Prince of Aquitaine, distributing small portions to his people for consumption, not one was wounded or killed of those who had partaken.
[10] At that same time in the parts of Campania, burned wheat, barley, and legumes were sent from the sky like rain at a certain place. corrupt grain rains from the sky: He instituted that during the Lenten season a fast and the celebration of Masses should take place on Thursday in the churches, which had not been observed. He rebuilt from the ground an oratory in the Lateran Palace in the name of the Blessed Apostle Peter, Gregory builds an oratory in the Lateran Palace, adorned with various metals, and covered the walls around the altar with silver, and painted the twelve Apostles, which weigh one hundred and eighty pounds.
[11] Meanwhile in those days Constantinople was besieged for two years by the unspeakable Agarenes. the siege of Constantinople: But with God opposing them, the greater part of them having been destroyed there by famine and war, they withdrew in confusion, under the Emperor Leo. For the people of that same city are said to have numbered three hundred thousand of both sexes and every age, devastated by the calamity of pestilence. famine followed. For at that time Honesta, both in character and in name, the mother of the Pontiff, was taken from this life. After her death, Gregory built his own house into a church in honor of the holy Martyr of Christ, Agatha, adding from the foundations upper rooms and whatever was necessary for a monastery. He offered urban and rural estates there for the needs of the monks. He made in the same church of the Blessed Agatha a ciborium of silver, which weighed seven hundred and twenty pounds; Gregory makes a church and monastery from his own house, six silver arches, each weighing fifteen pounds; ten baskets, each weighing twelve pounds, and he bestowed many other gifts.
[12] At that time the fortress of Narni was seized by the Lombards. King Liutprand of the Lombards, having raised a general levy, advanced to Ravenna, and besieged it for some days, and seizing the fortress, he carried off many captured ships and took away innumerable riches. After some days Basil the Duke, Jordanes the Chartulary, various Dukes sent by the Emperor Leo the Isaurian to kill the Pope, and John the Subdeacon surnamed Lurion entered into a conspiracy to kill the Pontiff. Marinus the Imperial Spatharius, who held the Roman Duchy, sent from the royal city by the Emperor's command, approved this: but they could not find the opportunity, because by God's judgment he was struck down and paralyzed, and so he departed from Rome. Afterward Paul the Patrician and Exarch was sent to Italy, who again plotted to accomplish this crime. Their plan was revealed to the Romans, who all together killed Jordanes and John Lurion. Basil, however, having become a monk, was shut up in a certain place and ended his life. Paul the Exarch, by the Emperor's command, was attempting to kill that same Pontiff: because he was preventing a tax from being imposed on the province, and was planning to strip the churches of their wealth, as had been done in other places, and to ordain another in his place. After him another Spatharius was sent with orders, they are prevented by the Romans and Lombards, that the Pontiff should be removed from his See. Again Paul the Patrician, to accomplish such a crime, sent those he could seduce from Ravenna with his Count, and some from the fortresses. But when the Romans were roused, and the Lombards from all around -- the Spoletans at the Salarian Bridge for the defense of the Pontiff, and the Lombard Dukes on this side and that, surrounding the territory of the Romans -- they prevented this.
AnnotationsCHAPTER III
The Iconoclast heresy condemned by Gregory. He is repeatedly saved from death by the devotion of the Italians and by the will of God.
[13] Afterwards the Emperor decreed by his mandates that no image of any Saint, or Martyr, or Angel should be kept anywhere (for he declared them all accursed); and if the Pontiff should acquiesce in this, [Leo's edict for the abolition of images is detested by him, and at his admonition by the other Italians:] he would have the Emperor's favor; but if he should prevent this from being done, he should fall from his office. The pious man therefore, regarding the profane command of the Prince, now armed himself against the Emperor as against an enemy, rejecting his heresy, writing everywhere that Christians should beware, because such an impiety had arisen. Accordingly, all the people of the Pentapolis and the armies of the Venetians rose up against the Emperor's command, saying that they would never consent to the death of that same Pontiff, but rather would manfully fight for his defense. So that they would submit Paul the Exarch, and him who had sent him, and his confederates, to anathema; and spurning his authority, they everywhere in Italy chose Dukes for themselves, and thus all were zealous for the safety of the Pontiff and for their own freedom. When the Emperor's wickedness was known, whom, however, he prevents from electing a new Emperor, all Italy took counsel that they should choose an Emperor for themselves and lead him to Constantinople. But the Pontiff restrained this counsel, hoping for the conversion of the Prince.
[14] Meanwhile in those days Exhilaratus, Duke of Naples, deceived by diabolic instigation, together with his son Adrian, seized the parts of Campania, various Dukes who plotted his death are killed by the people: seducing the people to obey the Emperor and kill the Pontiff. Then all the Romans pursued and captured him together with his son and killed them. After him they also attacked Peter the Duke, saying he had written against the Pontiff to the Emperor. Then, a dissension having arisen in the parts of Ravenna, some consenting to the Emperor's impiety, others siding with the Pontiff and the faithful, a conflict arising among them, they killed Paul the Patrician. The Lombards, moreover, received the surrendered fortresses of Emilia: Ferronianum, Montebellium, Verablum, the Lombards seize many Imperial fortresses, with their towns Buxo and Persiceta, and also the Pentapolis and the city of Osimo.
[15] After some time, the Emperor sent the Patrician Eutychius, a Eunuch who had formerly been Exarch, to Naples, so that what the Exarch Paul, the Spatharii, and the other counselors of evil had been unable to accomplish, he might bring to completion. The Pope protects from the people the man sent to kill him. But even so, by God's command, the wretched treachery did not remain hidden; rather, the most wicked plan was manifest to all, because they were trying to violate the churches of Christ and destroy everyone and plunder the goods of all. When he sent his own man to Rome with his writings, in which it was contained that the Pontiff should be killed along with the chief men of Rome, once the most cruel madness was recognized, they immediately wanted to kill the Patrician's envoy, had not the Pope's very great protection prevented it. But they anathematized the Exarch Eutychius, binding themselves together -- great with small -- by an oath that they would never permit the Pontiff, the zealot of the Christian faith they swear an oath for the defense of the holy Pontiff, and the defender of the churches, to be harmed or removed, but all were prepared to die for his safety.
[16] Then, promising the Lombard Dukes and the King many rewards from here and there, together with the Lombards, spurning the gifts of the heretics, that Patrician persuaded through his legates that they should desist from aiding the Pontiff. But they, by their letters of reply despising the detestable treachery of the man, bound themselves together like brothers in one chain of faith, Romans and Lombards, all desiring to sustain a glorious death for the defense of the Pontiff, never permitting him to suffer any harm, as he fought for the true faith and the salvation of Christians.
[17] While things stood thus, that Father chose a greater defense, he devotes himself to holy works, relying on divine aid, distributing with a most generous hand to the poor whatever he had, devoting himself to prayers, fasts, and litanies, beseeching God daily. And he always remained sustained by a hope greater than that of men: nevertheless, giving thanks to the people for the intention of their goodwill, thanking the people, he entreated all with gentle speech that they should advance in good deeds toward God and persist in the faith: but he admonished them not to desist from their love for, or fidelity to, the Roman Empire. Thus he softened the hearts of all and mitigated their continual sorrows.
AnnotationsCHAPTER IV
Military tumults settled through the efforts of St. Gregory II. His death and pious works.
[18] At the same time, in the eleventh Indiction, the fortress of Sutri was seized by treachery by the Lombards, which was held by the same Lombards for one hundred and forty days. But by the Pontiff's many continual letters and admonitions sent to the King, [he obtains from the Lombards the restitution of the fortress taken from the Church,] although many gifts were given and the fortress was stripped of all its wealth, the King of the Lombards, making the aforementioned donation to the most blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, restored and gave it back.
[19] At that time, in Indiction XII, in the month of January, for ten days and more, a star which is called the morning star appeared in the sky in the west with rays, whose rays looked toward the northern regions, a comet appearing, and extended to the middle of the sky. At that time the oft-mentioned Patrician Eutychius and King Liutprand the Exarch and Liutprand conspire against the Pope: entered into a wicked plan, that with their armies gathered, the King should subdue the Dukes of Spoleto and Benevento, and the Exarch should take Rome; and that what the Exarch had previously been commanded concerning the person of the Pontiff, he should carry out. The King, coming to Spoleto, having received oaths and hostages from both Dukes, withdrew with his entire retinue to the Field of Nero.
[20] The Pontiff went out to him and, being presented before him, strove as best he could to soften the King's mind with pious admonition, the King approaches him and is placated by his words, so that he prostrated himself at his feet and promised that he would inflict harm on no one: and thus by pious warnings he was moved to so great a compunction that he took off the garments he had been wearing and placed before the body of the Apostle and wondrously moves him to compunction: his cloak, his armband, his belt, his spear, and his gilded sword, and also a golden crown and a silver cross. After he had prayed, he besought the Pontiff and through him is reconciled with the Exarch, that he would deign to receive the aforesaid Exarch into a concord of peace, which was done. And so he departed, the King having turned away from the evil counsels which he had entered into with the Exarch.
[21] While the Exarch was staying at Rome, there came into the parts of Tuscany, to the fortress of Manturiano, a certain impostor named Tiberius, whose surname was Petasius, and against the tyrant Tiberius, who was attempting to usurp for himself the rule of the Roman Empire; deceiving the more fickle-minded, so that the people of Manturiano, Luna, and Bleda had given him their oaths. The Exarch, hearing this, was troubled: but the most holy Pope, encouraging him and sending with him the chief men of the Church, he aids him with troops sent, the armies set out. When they arrived at the fortress of Manturiano, Petasius was slain there: and his severed head was sent to Constantinople to the Emperor.
[22] And not even so did the Emperor bestow full favor upon the Romans: for after this the malice of the same Emperor became manifest, for which he persecuted the Pontiff, so that he compelled all the inhabitants of Constantinople, the Emperor Leo orders the sacred images to be burned, both by force and by blandishments, to take down wherever they might be found the images of the Savior, of His holy Mother, and of all the Saints, and to burn them with fire in the middle of the city (which is cruel to say), and to whitewash all the painted churches. And because many of the people of that city tried to prevent such a crime from being done, he rages cruelly against the disobedient, some were beheaded and others had parts of their bodies cut off as punishment.
[23] For which reason also, the Emperor deprived Germanus, the prelate of the holy Church of Constantinople, of his pontificate, because he had refused to give his consent to him, Anastasius intruded after St. Germanus was removed, and set up in his place his accomplice, the Priest Anastasius. When the latter sent his synodical letter to Rome, so long as Gregory found him consenting to such heresy, the holy man did not think it right to call him Brother or Fellow-Bishop in the customary manner: Gregory excommunicates him, but by admonitory letters he ordered that unless he converted to the Catholic faith, he should be expelled from the priestly office. He also admonished the Emperor by writings with salutary counsel, that he should turn away from so execrable a misery. and admonishes Leo:
[24] He made a remarkable golden chalice, adorned with various precious stones, weighing thirty pounds, and likewise a golden paten weighing twenty-eight and a half pounds. He distributed to the entire Clergy, to the monasteries, the Diaconia, he gives various things to churches and clerics: and the custodians, two thousand one hundred and sixty solidi, and to the lights of the Blessed Apostle Peter, one thousand solidi. He performed five Ordinations, four in the month of September and one in the month of June, he confers Orders: ordaining thirty-five Priests, four Deacons, and one hundred and fifty Bishops for various places. He was buried at the Church of the Blessed Apostle Peter on the third day before the Ides of February, in the fourteenth Indiction, under the Emperors Leo and Constantine. he dies. And the episcopate was vacant for five days and one month.
AnnotationsCONCERNING SS. HAYMO AND VEREMUNDUS OF MEDA IN THE DIOCESE OF MILAN
AROUND THE YEAR 790.
PrefaceHaymo, Confessor, of Meda in the territory of Milan (Saint) Veremundus, Confessor, of Meda in the territory of Milan (Saint)
I.B.
[1] The Corio family is an ancient and illustrious family of Milan, from which, born of his father Marco in the year 1460, the patrician Bernardino Corio was the first to commit to written records the origins and distinguished deeds of the Milanese: From the Corio family sprang SS. Haymo and Veremundus. which literary work he began in the twenty-fifth year of his age and completed in his fortieth, namely in the year of Christ 1490, on September 8, as he himself attests. From the same Corio stock are thought to have been descended long ago Haymo, as Filippo Ferrari calls him, or, as others have it, Aymo or Aymus, and Veremundus: and so the same Ferrari calls them Counts of Turbigo, or rather of Turbigo, following Bernardino Corio, because the leading men of that family now hold that title. Those holy brothers built a monastery in the village of Meda in the diocese of Milan, they found a monastery at Meda, and dedicated it to St. Victor the Moor, Martyr, who is venerated on May 8 at Milan. The same Corio affirms these things about them, at the year of Christ 1189: At last Henry, son of Frederick Barbarossa, departed from Milan, he says, with his wife Constance, returning to Germany, and on the first night he lodged in the castle of Meda, formerly founded by the brothers Aymondus and Vermondus, born from our most ancient Corio family, and Counts of Turbigo, who were afterward enrolled in the Catalogue of Saints. Their deeds are known from their Legend.
[2] Their anniversary solemnity is celebrated on the Ides of February. So Ferrari in his General Catalogue of Saints, they are venerated on February 13, which are wanting in the Roman Martyrology, at that day: At Meda in the territory of Milan, SS. Haymo and Veremundus. The same author mentions them in his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, where he also recites an epitome of their Life composed by himself, and affirms they died around the year 790. they died around the year 790. The same author in his annotations to the General Catalogue has this: Their Life exists along with an Office of the same, published by Fr. Modesto, formerly Inquisitor of Como. But in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy he notes that in the said Office some things of little verisimilitude are contained, which could be corrected. We have seen neither that Office or Life, nor the Legend which Corio cites (if indeed it is not the same), by whom was their Life written? nor another Life of them published by Gaspare Bugatto, a weighty writer of much authority, as Emmanuel of Lodi, from the village of Treviglio in the diocese of Milan, Doctor of Theology and confessor to the nuns of the monastery of Meda, attests. Emmanuel himself, having encompassed the history of Meda in four chapters -- the site and antiquity of the place, the recent translation of the Saints at which he had been present, their conversion, and miracles -- explained it all in the Italian language, in the year 1629, and inscribed the narrative to Caterina Sica, Abbess of the holy convent at Meda: the printer Giovanni Battista Alciato dedicated it to Count Antonio Corio. whence published here. I have condensed that entire narrative into a few words, cutting away much that seemed to have been amassed by the author more for ornament of style than as necessary for the exposition of the truth.
LIFE
abridged from the Italian published by Emmanuel of Lodi.
Haymo, Confessor, of Meda in the territory of Milan (Saint) Veremundus, Confessor, of Meda in the territory of Milan (Saint)
from the Italian of Emmanuel of Lodi.
CHAPTER I
The conversion and sanctity of SS. Aymo and Veremundus.
[1] Meda lies fourteen thousand paces from Milan, on the road to Como, a most ancient village, Meda, a village in the diocese of Milan, pleasant in location, with a mild and healthful climate, adorned with several splendid buildings, fairly populous for the capacity of the place -- even inhabited by noble families. But its chief ornament comes from the magnificent church of St. Victor the Martyr, and the monastery which Virgins inhabit, following the Benedictine institute, all of distinguished birth and widely celebrated throughout Italy for the reputation of their holiness. There are also relics of the Saints there for the adornment of the church and the protection of the entire place.
[2] The origin of the name is uncertain: scarcely a few writers of recent memory have mentioned it. Some fancy that it was first inhabited by Trojan immigrants, uncertain whence so called, and called Meda in honor of Medea, whose beauty and a certain appearance of divinity, asserted by magical illusions, was celebrated at that time throughout Greece and Asia.
Others hold it was founded by the Orobii, and was perhaps named Meda from some Medus, one of their leaders. What if the name flowed from the very situation of the place, so that, because it lies at nearly equal distance from Milan and Como, Meda was so called as if it were "Media" the middle? The author writes that he found a half-line of an ancient but unknown poet of this sort: "There was a Medean forest," with the remaining words so eroded by age that they could not be read. From this, therefore, he conjectures -- by a futile conjecture indeed -- that there had been a forest sacred to Medea there, as many were sacred to Diana or other gods: and that hence the name survives, though truncated.
[3] But let us set aside that useless dispute about the name, vainly entangled with ancient fables. It is established that on the summit of the hill there a church was built and dedicated to St. Victor the Moor, there a monastery of Virgins, who won the laurel of martyrdom at Milan, and is honored by many churches in that diocese. The brothers Haymo and Veremundus afterward founded a monastery, sprung (as tradition has it) from the most noble Corio family, founded by SS. Aymo and Veremundus: which now holds the town of Turbigo on the Ticino River, distinguished by the title of a County, and several other villages and castles. They are said to have lived in the eighth century after the Incarnation of the Word, and to have been drawn in a marvelous manner from the vain cares of the world to the pursuit of piety around the year 776. They took delight in hunting, as is generally the custom of the nobility. they, while hunting, were about to be torn apart by wild boars. It happened, then, that a certain ardor for taking prey carried them away into pathless hills, thickly overgrown with forests, far from their servants and companions, where they plunged themselves upon the spears of divine Love, which had long been lying in wait for that prey. When they had thus come alone into the deep woodland passes, they caught sight of two wild boars of unusual size and ferocity, which had emerged from their lairs and were rushing toward them at full speed. What were they to do? They had courage indeed equal to any danger, but their strength was perhaps already somewhat weakened, and there was no hope of help. They therefore took to flight, deeming this the only path of salvation remaining. The beasts pursued with equal speed. Catching sight of the church of St. Victor on the summit of the hill, they flee there and climb into tall laurel trees, which we mentioned, they rushed to it as to a place of asylum. The wild beasts were bearing down upon them and pressing close upon their heels. There stood beside the little church twin laurel trees, quite tall: whose roots survive to this day, from which new shoots sprout from time to time, and they are held in great honor by the nuns on account of the memory of the holy brothers. Into those laurel trees, therefore, each quickly climbed, hoping thus to frustrate the rage of the wild beasts, which could reach them neither by leaping nor by climbing.
[4] But not even that station was safe enough. For when the beasts realized that their prey had been snatched from them, first uttering a horrible roar around each tree, while the beasts strive to uproot them, they began with their deadly tusks to dig up the ground, so that by baring and tearing out the roots they might topple the very trees, and together dash the youths to the ground and devour them. In this extreme danger, the youths, now almost dead with fear, seeing all exits blocked and no means of escaping the savagery of the beasts, had recourse to heavenly help, by which alone they could be saved in their now desperate situation: and (wonderful to relate!), though neither was aware they vow to build a monastery: of what the other was turning over in his mind, both at once, at the same moment in time, made a vow to God, to the Virgin Mother of God, and to the glorious Martyr Victor, that if they should be snatched from their present and certain destruction, they would build in that place a monastery in honor of that same Martyr at their own expense, which was very ample. Scarcely had the vow been conceived, when the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation ratified it, and, just as He once snatched Daniel from the very jaws of lions, so He freed these men from the most imminent peril. By His divine power, the beasts which had been so savagely bent on their destruction and soon the beasts withdraw: suddenly ceased from digging up the earth and undermining the roots, and with lowered heads, as if they wished to show reverence toward those who had already professed themselves servants of God, they retreated to their dens like the gentlest of lambs.
[5] One may exclaim with the Apostle: How incomprehensible are the judgments of God, and how unsearchable His ways! Rom. 11:33 He gently invites Peter, a poor fisherman, to the office of Apostle, and easily persuades him. To draw these brothers to the care of their salvation -- being as they were noble and wealthy -- He strikes terror into them: by which method He once also impelled Paul himself to the preaching of the Gospel. Struck therefore by the arrow of divine love, they themselves, crowned with laurel, confirm their vows in the church, and as if already enlisted as champions for heaven, flooded with immense consolation and joy, the beasts having been put to flight by the protection of the holy Martyr, they descend safely from the trees, and weaving crowns for themselves from the foliage of those trees, and adorning themselves with them, as if celebrating a distinguished triumph over conquered death, they enter the church: they render infinite thanks to God, by whose so illustrious favor they had been delivered, and having confirmed the pledge which they had made before, they return home.
[6] Here immediately, lest any forgetfulness or sloth should creep in, they deliberate by what means what they had vowed might be accomplished. Then, having made their plan known to kinsmen and friends, they dismiss their servants with generous gifts, and sell their furnishings, jewels, and some of their estates: and from the considerable sum of money thus raised, they go to the place where they had escaped the danger, and having purchased the land, they build a monastery, which they assign to sacred Virgins to inhabit, prescribing the Rule of St. Benedict for them to observe, since that Rule especially flourished throughout Italy in that age. they build and endow a monastery of Virgins, They then endowed the same monastery with splendid revenues: in which very many Virgins soon devoted their virginity to the heavenly Bridegroom, most of them born of noble families, drawn even from distant places, not only from Milan and neighboring cities, by the fame of flourishing sanctity there. celebrated for its privileges and sanctity: The same monastery was afterward adorned and fortified with many privileges of Emperors. For the Abbess administered justice to the inhabitants of that village and the vicinity. That power was lost through the passage of time, by which all things are changed: meanwhile the splendor of the monastery was enhanced by the nobility and holiness of the nuns themselves.
[7] There those generous brothers also devoted themselves to the worship of God: and they so ordered their life they themselves live holily nearby, that they were an object of admiration and example to all, especially to the sacred Virgins, as they saw them daily mortifying themselves with fasting, subsisting three days a week on bread and water alone, in fasting, and as if striving not to be surpassed by the diligence and devotion of the nuns themselves in singing psalms and hymns to God; a thousand times a day they supplicated God on bended knees, and whenever the memory of Christ crucified for their sake came upon them, they dissolved in tears, in prayer, beating their breasts with their fists, begging pardon for their sins. The chief among the virtues to which they especially devoted themselves was charity toward their neighbor: in charity, daily they distributed their resources to widows, orphans, and other needy persons, and whatever money remained after the building of the monastery and the sustenance of the nuns. They themselves meanwhile lived a life of poverty: in roughness of clothing, straw or a few twigs were their bed; their pillow, a stone; their blanket, a rough mat; their undergarment, a harsh hair shirt: for they believed that those who had resolved to follow Christ must strip off their own will and bear the Cross of penance and mortification. This manner of living they maintained until their last day, which they are believed to have met around the year 790. Their bodies were buried in the church of St. Victor, which they had built next to the older chapel of the same Saint. here buried, Their anniversary commemoration is observed and venerated, with great devotion and a concourse of people, on the Ides of February.
CHAPTER II
Miracles of SS. Haymo and Veremundus.
[8] When many years had passed since the death of these Saints, the Countess Besutia, who was then Abbess of the monastery, began to restore the church of St. Victor in which they were buried, intending afterward to build another and dedicate it in their name. She therefore erected a brick tomb in which they might be more honorably reposed: and from that tomb, as will be narrated below, their relics have recently been translated. their first translation. When the day was set on which that first Translation should take place, and many priests and religious men had been summoned (as those times required), with an immense multitude of people flocking together of their own accord, the sepulcher of the Saints was opened with great reverence and piety. In it, beside their bodies, was found the entire sequence of their life, already narrated, depicted in vivid colors, together with the images of the wild boars and of each of the two laurel trees to which they had fled. a divinely diffused fragrance: While these things were taking place, with great piety and spiritual delight of the bystanders, suddenly from the bodies of the Saints a most sweet and plainly divine fragrance was widely diffused.
[9] The same Abbess Besutia was afflicted by a severe pain in one knee: since no art of physicians could relieve its intensity, healed of their knee gout, she piously implored the aid of these Saints, making a vow to hang a wax offering in the shape of a shin and knee: and she was immediately restored to health.
[10] Galdina, a nun of the same monastery, having invoked their aid, was freed from the arthritis arthritis, which was tormenting her arm.
[11] Conrada de Besutii, likewise a nun there, had a part of her body so dissolved by paralysis paralysis, that she could neither move it by its natural power nor feel anything by touch. Weeping, she went to the church, piously besought God and the holy founders, and obtained her former health.
[12] Margarita Iussana, likewise a nun there, when she was vexed by a troublesome illness grinding of teeth, and a constant motion of her jaws and grinding of her teeth, made a vow to God and to the Saints Aymo and Veremundus that when she recovered, she would give to the poor the first threads she should spin with her hands, and she recovered.
[13] Cita was a nun in the same monastery. An abscess had formed in her throat and had swollen so greatly that she could scarcely draw breath, an abscess: nor did any remedies relieve her. Ottolina, her niece, also a nun in the same place, made a vow to God and to the Saints of keeping a fast on their vigil, taking only bread and water, of reciting the entire Psalter, and of placing a candle before them. As soon as the vow was conceived, the ulcer suddenly burst and health was restored to the sick woman.
[14] The young boy Bertarolo Porro had an abscess lanced in his throat: a dying boy healed: the pain of which so prostrated him that all cried out that he was dead, and arrangements were being made for his burial. His mother, terrified by the danger to her little son, sent word to her daughter, who was a nun of the same monastery, to beseech the Saints for her brother's health. She obeyed, with an extraordinary piety: her brother was restored to health.
[15] In the diocese of Novara, Margarita, the wife of Otto, a nobleman inhabiting a place called Momo, gave birth to a son utterly deformed and monstrous, in whom neither movement nor sensation, nor any sign of life at all, could be detected. The women who had attended the birth, stricken with horror, a dead child raised to life: besought God that He would be willing to let the infant live just long enough to be washed with the sacred waters of Baptism. Present in the same household was Gualdrada, a nun of the monastery of Meda, the sister of Otto: on account of her, the memory of SS. Aymo and Veremundus came to the others; they make vows to them, and if they should obtain even so brief a lease of life that the child might be purified by baptism, they promise to call him Aymus. They obtained even more than they had asked for: not only was life given to the little one, but also a proper formation of limbs and the shape of the entire body, and he reached a mature age, distinguished by the name of Aymus.
[16] Maria, the wife of Andrea Confalonieri, a Milanese patrician, was seized by so grave a fever that, her strength already failing, she seemed not far from death. She ordered word to be sent to her sister Guilielma, a dying woman healed: who was a nun at Meda, that she should entreat God on her behalf with prayers. She immediately vows that if her sister should recover her health through the patronage of SS. Aymo and Veremundus, she would for an entire year venerate them and God in them daily by at least a double genuflection. Once the vow was conceived, the sick woman immediately regained her former health.
[17] A certain woman of Meda, named Donella, on the very day dedicated to these Saints, having undertaken some manner of work, punished with paralysis for violating their feast, was admonished by another woman that this was wrong on a sacred day. But she replied, "You, who have abundance of riches by the gift of the Saints, celebrate their feast: I shall never observe it." She did not utter those profane words with impunity. A certain rigidity suddenly seized her sinews, so that she could not move her limbs for the work she had begun. She recognized her rashness, then healed: and with her mind fixed on God, she besought these Saints to obtain for her pardon for her impiety, vowing that she would devoutly observe that day each year. Having so prayed, she recovered her former vigor.
[18] Another inhabitant of the same village, named Stramnaza, another punished with blindness: who was attempting some similar piece of servile work on the same feast of the Saints, and with equal insolence spurning the salutary warnings of one of her household, was punished by heavenly vengeance with the loss of her sight. Yet the eyes of her mind were opened, so that she might see and bewail her offense: she added a vow that if she should recover her sight through the aid of these Saints, she would devoutly venerate their feast each year, keeping vigil the night before and lighting a candle at their tomb. As soon as she made this pledge, her sight was divinely restored.
[19] In the same place, a little girl of two years named Allegranzina, playing in the street and lying heedlessly on the ground, a girl innocently crushed by a cart: was run over by a heavy cart, the driver being unaware. Her mother saw from a distance, and having no other means of helping her perishing child, prayed to SS. Aymo and Veremundus to save her: with a marvelous result. For the girl soon rose up entirely unharmed.
[20] In a village situated between Meda and Como, called Cantu, there lived Leo Otassus and his wife Conrada, saddened by the continual deaths of their little ones scarcely born into the light: at length they received a son vigorous and healthy, and were therefore filled with singular joy. But even him (as God is accustomed to mingle sorrows with joys) a lethal sickness overwhelmed, so that he seemed to be drawing his last breath. Both consumed with grief, the mother was watching at the child's cradle while the father slept: and in his sleep he seemed to see a band of soldiers a dying child healed: passing through the chamber, and when he asked who they were, he heard one of them reply: "We are Aymus and Veremundus of Meda; go, your son lives and is well." Awaking immediately, he asks how his son is. He sees him sucking his mother's breast, relieved of the disease. He attributed this benefit to the Saints and resolved to venerate them more devoutly.
[21] How gravely the same holy Founders are offended by injuries inflicted upon the monastery they had built was declared by a vision which is certainly worthy of being recorded here. invaders of the Church's goods punished by death: A certain Milanese nobleman, zealous for the Meda family, was anguished in his soul because certain more powerful men of the nobility were unjustly usurping the estates of the monastery. He sees in a dream SS. Aymo and Veremundus above the houses of those Noblemen, with angry countenances, brandishing burning torches in their hands and threatening to avenge the injuries done to them by fire. He implores the Saints to spare the fire, lest a great part of the city be engulfed by it. They then vanished indeed with the dream, and no trace of flames appeared. But those sacrilegious men were not long after expelled from the city, with their goods confiscated: one was afterward killed in battle, the other was captured and ended his life most miserably in prison.
[22] Martin Luaninus, the son of Siroldo Biagognato, was a servant of Bono Farga: seized by a grave illness, the use of his feet restored at their tomb: he lost the use of his feet, so that, leaning on crutches, he was compelled to beg for his food. When he heard of the miracles wrought through the merits of SS. Aymo and Veremundus, he went to their tomb, implored their aid with the utmost piety and humility of soul, adding a vow to keep a fast each year on the day preceding their solemnity, and to hold a religious vigil with prayer during the night. As soon as he had undertaken these vows, he rose up in health, sang praises to God and the Saints who had saved him, hung up his crutches, and devoted himself for the rest of his life to the service of the monastery. Official records of this entire matter exist, drawn up by a public notary, with the names of witnesses inscribed, on April 18, Friday, in the year 1337, under the Abbess Gualdrada Meniana. Many more miracles occurred, but are omitted to avoid tedium.
[23] Nor should this be passed over in silence. St. Charles, the Archbishop of this diocese, when he first visited this noble and religious monastery in the year 1581, from the last day of May, entering the inner church of the Saints, pronounced it to be a place of sanctity. visited by St. Charles Borromeo. The bodies of the Saints were still entombed there at that time. That church is moreover adjacent to the ancient one of St. Victor the Martyr, somewhat taller, close to the laurel trees in which they had been saved, built by the Saints themselves, with a crypt added. For they judged that the earlier church, which stood there at the time when they had escaped the danger of death, should by no means be demolished, even though a larger one had been built. But that ancient church is now called St. John the Baptist, either because it was not thought very fitting that two churches so close together should be dedicated to the same Saint, or for whatever other reason the devotion of the nuns provided: and it seems that, when the village began to be inhabited, it was the parish church, because in the middle there still stands a very large vessel of brickwork which appears to exhibit the form of a baptismal font. and the cave: The same most holy Archbishop entered the cave where the Saints had once devoted themselves to piety and the mortification of the flesh, carefully contemplating everything, pervaded by a singular sense of piety, so that his attendants could scarcely draw him away from there. For this reason he afterward had the conversion of these Saints carved on the stalls of the metropolitan church of Milan. they are venerated at Milan. Public veneration is paid to them at Milan in the church of St. Francis, the most religious Fathers of that same monastery celebrating their anniversary feast with musical concert and festive pomp, in the chapel of Doctor Giulio Cesare Corio.
AnnotationCHAPTER III
The relics of SS. Aymo and Veremundus solemnly translated by Cardinal Federico Borromeo.
[24] The bodies of SS. Aymo and Veremundus lay in the church dedicated to their name, adjacent to the temple which they had once built to St. Victor, but enclosed within the inner precincts of the monastery, so that they seemed not so much exposed to the veneration of the people as removed from the sight and knowledge of all. This distressed the nuns, who perceived that neither was the honor which the most holy Founders of their monastery deserved being given to them, nor was the fruit of piety and heavenly gifts which they desired flowing from them to other mortals. to translate their bodies, They had long entreated, by whatever means were proper, Cardinal Federico Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan, to decree that these sacred relics should be translated to a more fitting and more conspicuous place, the nuns petition: and enclosed in a more elegant shrine, for the spiritual consolation of the nuns themselves and for the public benefit.
[25] He at length acceded to their long-standing desire. Alexander Mazenta, who was later Archpriest of the Church of Milan, Cardinal Federico Borromeo assents, was then Archdeacon and Vicar General of the nuns, a man of outstanding judgment and prudence, and was sent ahead to Meda to investigate the benefactions of these Saints, and with all things duly examined, their ancient veneration, and the prodigies long since wrought to attest their sanctity. All of which was entered into the official record by Giovanni Ambrosio Lonato.
[26] The Cardinal himself at last, on April 24, 1619, having duly celebrated the sacred rites, and having inspected the exterior church of St. Victor, together with the same Mazenta, Aloisio Bosso, an ordinary Canon and Theologian of the Metropolitan Church, the Confessor of the monastery and a few others, and the notary Lonato, entered the monastery itself: received with great joy by the nuns, who sang the psalm "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel": and so, conducted under a canopy to the inner church, he briefly venerated the sacred Eucharist in prayer, and then proceeded with the same ceremony to the church of the Saints, where their bodies lay. Prostrate at their tomb, he offered his prayers, and examined by himself, then ordered to be read aloud the records already previously entered into the official records concerning their conversion, their holy life, and miracles, and compared them with the ancient painting in which the same events were depicted. Then, asked by the Abbess to deign to examine their relics, he visits the relics themselves on April 14, 1619, he ordered part of the tomb to be broken open: and so he inspected and approved the sacred bones and ashes. Then, to render thanks to God, the bells were rung and the Te Deum laudamus was sung. Afterward he ordered the tomb to be sealed up again, and -- what the nuns especially desired -- a new altar to be built in the greater church of St. Victor, and a shrine for the more honorable placement of the sacred relics. and he orders the necessary preparations for the translation made: For this purpose two altars were erected of the most precious kind of marble, one in the inner church, the other in the outer, but contiguous, by such a device that the repository of the sacred remains, placed beneath the inner altar, could be viewed by the people from the outer church, through the front altar, which was open below. Three thousand gold coins were spent for this purpose.
[27] When these preparations were completed, the Abbess Praxedes of Lodi and the rest of the nuns petitioned the Cardinal through the same Mazenta to bring the favor to its completion and translate the sacred treasure to the place he had appointed. At length the most gracious Prince, having frequently taken counsel with his advisors and having maturely considered everything, with Mazenta as the chief administrator of the entire affair, fixed the day for completing the translation: the Sunday which falls within the octave of the solemnity of Corpus Christi, he decrees the translation to be made on June 14, 1626: which in that year 1626 fell on June 14. So that everything might be arranged properly, two days before, namely on the 12th, Alexander Mazenta, Giulio Cesare Visconti, Aloisio Bosso, Girolamo Settala, ordinary Canons of the Metropolitan Church of Milan, set out for Meda together with Francesco Casato, the master of ceremonies. They, having completed the divine service, inspected the entire church and designated the place where the Cardinal's throne, pulpit, and canopy should be set up, to lend greater grace and majesty to the entire proceedings.
[28] The Cardinal arrived the next day at the ninth hour, lodging at the house of the parish priest of Cormano: as he approached Meda, he comes to Meda the day before, he was saluted by two companies of ecclesiastical infantry from the legion of Ginetti, which was at that time stationed in that area as a garrison for the Valtellina. Torquato de' Conti, the supreme Commander of that militia, had ordered that honor to be paid to the Cardinal by them. Many noblemen from Meda and other places also came out to honor his arrival. He alighted from his litter at the bottom of the steps by which one ascends to the church of St. Victor. Entering this church, he offered his prayers before the sacred Eucharist, which was placed on a side altar: then he retired to the house of the parish priest to put off his traveling clothes and restore his strength with a brief rest.
[29] Shortly afterward he returned to the same church and put on his sacred vestments. Present, as he had commanded, were Giulio Cesare Visconti, the Primicerius, vested in a cope, Alexander Mazenta the Archdeacon, Girolamo Settala the Grand Penitentiary, clothed in tunicles which they call Dalmatics, and Aloisio Bosso the Theologian. Then the Cardinal began to dedicate the new high altar, he dedicates the new altar, which had been more elegantly constructed -- the old one having been removed -- for the purpose of depositing the sacred bodies beneath it, with those rites which the Roman Pontifical prescribes, placing within it, as is customary, relics of Saints, namely of St. Victor himself, of St. Zeno, and of other Martyrs excavated from the Roman Catacombs. Afterward he offered the sacrifice of the Mass at the same altar, and addressed a very brief discourse to the nuns seated within the enclosure. Then he returned to the house of the parish priest, where he had chosen his lodging.
[30] At the twentieth hour, having placed a stole over the Cardinalitial short cape which they call a Mozzetta, he enters the monastery with a sacred retinue, he entered the monastery, accompanied by Mazenta, Visconti, Bosso, and Settala, wearing red copes, and also by Giovanni Paolo Corio, the Master of Ceremonies, the Cross-bearer, and the one they call the Train-bearer, holding up the train of the Cardinal's vestment. While the bells rang in a festive manner, and the nuns, who walked two by two ahead, sang the "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel" in musical measures, he processed to the inner church: then, having adored the Eucharist and offered prayers before it, he was conducted in the same order to the other church of SS. Aymo and Veremundus, likewise closed off from secular access. Here stood their tomb, built of baked bricks, rising two cubits above the ground, adorned around with painted panels exhibiting the miracles of the same Saints. As he approached, two noble girls -- from those who are educated under the nuns' instruction in letters, piety, and good morals -- greeted him in alternating verse. He himself, prostrate at the tomb and having offered a brief prayer, took his seat on the Gospel side beneath a canopy, the tomb being opened, with those whom we mentioned above attending, and the nuns looking on: then he ordered part of the tomb to be broken open, as far as seemed necessary for extracting the relics. The Canons, vested in stoles over their copes, he himself places the extracted relics in a new shrine, reverently drew out the relics one by one and placed them in a lead shrine, to be afterward enclosed within a marble one -- itself lined on the inside with white linen, with which the relics also were covered and wrapped. The Cardinal himself placed them in the shrine with his own hands, in the position and manner that seemed most fitting: he then retained two small fragments for himself, of which he gave one to Giovanni Paolo Corio, to be placed in the parish church of St. Zeno in the village of Castano, belonging to the district of Dairago; and a part in another church, the other he sent to Virginia Spinola Coria, to be deposited likewise in the parish church of SS. Nazarius and Celsus, in the village of Bussero, in the district of Gorgonzola. In a certain smaller wooden shrine, some bones from the heads of each of the Saints were placed, and that shrine was sealed with locks and a seal affixed, which he also seals, so that they might thereafter be proposed for public veneration, enclosed in a silver head-reliquary or some other kind of case which was to be prepared by the zeal of the nuns, who had requested that this permission be granted to them.
[31] These things having been thus completed, the Cardinal reverently washed his hands, with which he had touched the sacred relics. which, through the garden, Afterward a procession was formed from there through the garden of the monastery: with the Cross carried before, the nuns walked first, carrying lighted candles and singing in harmony the psalm "Praise the Lord from the heavens." The bier, on which the shrine was placed, covered with precious cloths, was carried by Mazenta, Visconti, Bosso, and Settala: a silken canopy above the same shrine was held aloft on poles by six of the leading nuns, and the same number of others carried torches. The Cardinal followed the bier. When they reached the door leading into the atrium and the atrium, which is before the outer church of St. Victor, because this was outside the canonical enclosure of the monastery, another prepared canopy stood there, which six noblemen carried, along with several priests summoned from neighboring places, vested in surplices and carrying candles in their hands: the most numerous people, arranged in an excellent order, closed the procession. All entered the neighboring church, with bells ringing, trumpets, organs, drums, and soldiers also repeatedly firing their muskets as a sign of veneration and common joy. When they reached the high altar, the shrine was placed on two supports beneath it. The nuns sang the Litanies with voices and organ. they are carried to the church. The Cardinal sang the proper prayer for these Saints, and then, having solemnly blessed those present in the customary manner, he granted an indulgence of one hundred years, and having again briefly venerated God and the Saints in prayer, he retired to his lodging around the twenty-third hour. The nuns kept watch in turns at the relics in holy supplications.
[32] On the following day, which was Sunday, June 14, around the thirteenth hour, the Cardinal proceeded to the same outer church of St. Victor, with a numerous retinue of noblemen who had gathered partly from nearby castles and villages, June 14, Sunday, partly from Milan, for these heavenly spectacles. The companies of infantry, mentioned above, distributed into various platoons, saluted him as he passed with a festive discharge of firearms. He himself, having offered a brief prayer, vested in pontifical attire, with the Canons previously mentioned assisting him -- some in copes, others in Dalmatics -- Mass celebrated, solemnly celebrated Mass, and imparted the holy Communion of the Eucharist to the nuns. Then, having put on a cope, he ascended the pulpit which had been erected beforehand on the Gospel side for that purpose, shaded by a canopy, and addressed the very large crowd concerning the heavenly manner of life of these Saints; the Cardinal preaches about the Saints: gravely and solidly affirming, both by their example and by other arguments, that even Noblemen can not only attain eternal salvation but also the glory of illustrious sanctity, so that their names may even be inscribed in the public records of the Church: but that those err who think that the marks and praises of true nobility consist in surpassing others in games, blasphemies, perpetrating murders, oppression of the poor, ambition, pleasures, and other transient things of that sort: for the supreme nobility is this, that one should serve God, the supreme Prince and Monarch, and humble oneself in His sight and aid one's neighbors: and finally that adversities, though they befall us against our will, often lead mortals to the knowledge of God: for thus the danger which threatened those holy youths Aymo and Veremundus from wild beasts had provided the occasion for establishing a most holy manner of life. Having expounded these things, Cardinal Federico Borromeo, with the outstanding efficacy and sweetness of speech for which he was renowned, descended from the pulpit and confirmed five girls from those who were being educated in that monastery with the sacrament of Confirmation.
[33] At length at the sixteenth hour he brought the officer of the Pontifical legion to his lodging for dinner. The Canons and other Noblemen, and the Cardinal's own household, after dinner, dined in the outer guesthouse of the monastery. Abundant provisions were furnished to the soldiers: for they stayed in that village for two days, taking turns in keeping honorary watches in the area of the church and at the Cardinal's lodging. After Vespers had been sung, the Cardinal came again to the church, and having put on pontifical vestments, after the nuns had sung in concert with the organ some sacred canticle, he himself sang the prayer of the Saints, offered incense to honor the sacred relics, and afterward intoned the hymn Te Deum laudamus, with the nuns continuing in musical measures. Meanwhile a procession was formed in this order toward the garden door by a solemn procession, through which one enters within the precincts of the monastery. The Cardinal's Cross was carried before: then the parish priests of neighboring villages in surplices, carrying candles in their hands, other clerics with thuribles, incense boat, and torches: the bier with the sacred shrine, borne by the Canons Visconti and Settala, Sebastiano Riccio and Bernardo Porro -- the former Provost of Secreto, the latter of Canto, both from neighboring places -- each wearing a white cope: the canopy was borne by six men of the leading nobility of that district: the Cardinal followed close behind, attended by Mazenta and Bosso.
[34] When they reached the enclosure of the monastery, impervious to outsiders, the others were ordered to halt, also through the garden, and the Cardinal entered with those who carried the bier, and with the two assisting Canons, the Master of Ceremonies, the Confessor of the nuns, Giovanni Paolo Corio, and a few of his household wearing surplices. Those entering were received by the procession of the nuns, with the Cross carried before, torches gleaming, and another canopy under which the bier was carried. The door was closed to the rest, and the sacred relics, having been carried out before through the same door, were brought back to the inner church, but from this the crowd of seculars was excluded, while the entire community of nuns sang the hymn Te Deum laudamus. Before the altar beneath which they were to be deposited within the marble chest, they were placed on a table prepared for that purpose. The Cardinal sang the same prayer as before and solemnly blessed all.
[35] Then Visconti and Settala, together with the craftsman who had made those altars and some workers, who the day before had raised the slab of the high altar -- made from a single stone -- to a height by means of mechanical devices, the relics, brought back, are deposited beneath the inner altar, placed the lead casket within the marble one beneath the altar: in such a way, indeed, that it can be viewed by those who offer prayers in the outer church, through the high altar of the same outer church, but so that they can also be seen from the church, which is open in the lower part, furnished only with iron grilles expertly polished and decorated with various ornaments. Although the sacred deposit itself can also be opened from the outside, should anyone of conspicuous dignity wish to venerate and contemplate the heavenly treasure; otherwise it is closed with two keys, of which the Confessor of the monastery keeps one and the Abbess the other.
[36] Within the lead casket itself there was also enclosed a lead plate an inscription placed within the shrine, on which the following inscription was engraved:
TO GOD, THE BEST AND GREATEST.
THE BODIES OF THE SAINTS AYMO AND VEREMUNDUS,
BROTHERS, COUNTS, OF THE CORIO KINDRED,
FROM THE ANCIENT CHURCH OF THE MONASTERY, TO THIS
ALTAR, TRANSLATED BY CARDINAL FEDERICO, ARCHBISHOP.
THE 18TH DAY BEFORE THE KALENDS OF JULY, 1626.
On the base of the same altar of the inner church, fabricated from snow-white marble but elegantly adorned with black marble set around it, which adds a singular splendor to the work, was inscribed in uncial letters: and another inscription carved on the base: The bodies of the Saints Aymo and Veremundus, Counts de Coiris, first the foundations and now the ornaments of this monastery, the sacred Virgins, so that they might venerate those whom they have as more propitious in heaven by having them nearer in place, caused them to be translated hither from the nearby chapel of St. Victor, where they had long been preserved, by the direction of Cardinal Federico, Archbishop of Milan. 1626. The 18th day before the Kalends of July.
[37] While the craftsmen placed and secured the stone of the high altar once more, as we described, the Cardinal joyfully observes everything: with the nuns singing various canticles in voices accompanied by the organ, the Cardinal, having set aside his pontifical vestments, sat down at the side, contemplating with great delight of soul what was being done by the workmen. When this was completed, he viewed the shoots growing from the root of each of the two laurel trees into which the Saints had escaped, he inspects the shoots of the sacred laurel trees: having avoided the danger of death: and then he returned to his lodging. On the early morning of the following day, he went to the church of St. Victor and, having offered his prayer, he entered the place in which, with a grille interposed, outsiders are permitted to address the nuns. There all the nuns, exulting with joy, rendered him immense thanks the next day he returns to Milan. because he had so graciously carried out the translation of their founders and patron Saints, so long and so ardently desired by them. He himself, having wished them well, returned to Milan.
[28] The reader will wonder that we make no mention of the exterior decoration employed for that solemnity. The nuns indeed desired -- being naturally magnanimous and vehemently desirous of splendor in those things which pertain to the honor of God -- to employ the most magnificent display possible; but their zeal was restrained by the moderation of the authorities, and a certain measure was prescribed, lest they go beyond in expense and magnificence what the conditions of that calamitous time would allow. The outer church, already frequently mentioned, was built in the year 1620 by the Abbess Maria Cleofa Carcana, what the decoration of the outer and inner church was, of the most elegant form and workmanship, thirty-five cubits long, seventeen wide, and twenty-eight high, adorned with splendid images of Saints and with five altars. Equal in size and elegance is the inner church, where also the stalls of the nuns are skillfully and beautifully made, and there is a triple organ. Both churches, besides the splendor we have mentioned, dazzled the eyes and minds of the beholders with silver vessels, lights, natural and artificial flowers, as well as tapestries. Various arches were erected outside, and of the atrium, adorned with paintings, inscriptions, and verses. All of which the cited author Emmanuel of Lodi sets forth in detail.
Annotation