Galla

ON ST. GALLA, WIDOW, AFTERWARDS A NUN, AT ROME, PERHAPS IN THE YEAR 546.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Galla, widow, afterwards a nun, at Rome. (S.)

BY J. G.

§ I. The memory of the Saint in the sacred Fasti on various days. Whether she is rightly announced in the Benedictine Hagiologies? Her eulogy from Ferrari: her distinction from matrons of the same name: the credit of the Acts.

Among the more illustrious widows who, by holiness of manners no less than by splendour of birth, were an ornament to the Church of God and to the monastic Order, St. Galla, in the more recent Martyrologies on this day St. Galla, a Roman widow, and afterwards a nun at Rome at the church of St. Peter, can with the best right be reckoned. She, passed over, by I know not what unhappy chance, in the ancient classic Martyrologies, was celebrated with due eulogy in the sacred Fasti by Greven, by Adam Walasser in the German Martyrology which is commonly ascribed to Canisius, by Felicius, Galesini, Maurolico and Baronius, all of whose announcements it is not necessary to transcribe here, provided we hear the most learned writer praised just now speaking on this day in the present Roman Martyrology. He says thus: At Rome, of St. Galla, widow, daughter of the consul Symmachus, who, her husband having died, remained for many years at the church of blessed Peter intent on prayer, almsgiving, fasting and other holy works. Whose most happy passing St. Gregory the Pope described. To this announcement, as regards its substance, the more recent hagiologists also chime in on this day: Nicolò Brauzi, bishop of Sarsina, in the Poetic Martyrology, Filippo Ferrari in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, Arthur du Moustier in the Gynaeceum, Carlo Piazza in the sacred Hemerologium and in the Roman Sanctuary, Chastelain and others; who, however, differ from Baronius and the other martyrologists praised before in this, that, although after their example they announce St. Galla on the V day of October, they judge nevertheless that she is more rightly commemorated on the VI day of April, and in fact commemorated her also on that day, which they establish as her day of death, some with a succinct, others with a diffuse eulogy.

[2] Nor indeed was this done by them without reason. For, as St. Gregory the Great witnesses, book 4 of the Dialogues, chapter 13, St. Galla exchanged this toilsome life for a happier and immortal one thirty days before St. Benedicta, a nun at Rome, of whom it was treated in our Work at the VI day of May, page 107, then also announced on the VI of April, as her day of death,. Since St. Benedicta is commonly believed to have passed to those above on the VI day of May, and by the common consent of the hagiologists is commemorated in the sacred Fasti on that same day, it follows that St. Galla, who died thirty days before St. Benedicta, should have her place in the Martyrologies on the VI day of April, as her true day of death. Hence I would readily believe with Wion, book 3 of the Lignum Vitae, page 128, that the third day before the Nones of October is consecrated not to the deposition of the holy Widow, but to the translation of the whole body or of notable relics, the documents of which still lie hidden, or certainly to her commemoration; but that the VI day of April is in fact her day of death. So too our Henschen seems to have judged, when, treating of our Saint in tome 1 of April, page 532, among the Passed Over at the VI day of April, he wrote in these words: St. Galla, a Roman widow and nun at St. Peter's, is believed to have passed from this life on this day. This, however, neither did he hold as certain, nor would I dare to hold it, since it is not ascertained from the testimony of any contemporary or nearly contemporary writer that St. Benedicta died on the very VI day of May, and so neither can it turn out certain that St. Galla passed to a better life on the VI day of April. However it be, the praised hagiologists certainly did rightly in making mention of our holy Widow also on the VI day of April.

[3] Further, there is no reason why anyone who has at heart the ornaments of the Benedictine Order should be angry with Baronius and the other martyrologists already cited because they did not make St. Galla a Benedictine nun. wrongly, however, as a Benedictine nun, For although the writer of the Calendar of the Saints of the Order of St. Benedict, taken from a Manuscript of the monastery of St. Saviour of the Cistercian Order, on the IV day of October, and Wion, Dorganius, Ménard, Bucelin and other more recent hagiologists of the Benedictine Order, both German and Spanish, inserted her in their Fasti on the V day of October, their authority is nevertheless not so great that our Saint ought to be reckoned among the Benedictine nuns without the testimony of fitting antiquity. And indeed in the Martyrology of the Saints of the Order of St. Benedict which is subjoined at the end of the Roman, enlarged and corrected by Pope Benedict XIV, St. Galla nowhere appears among the nuns of this Order; indeed Mabillon, in the Index of the Saints of the 1st Benedictine Century, did not even put before her name the asterisk (*), by which mark, as he himself notes, he wished the genuine pupils of St. Benedict of either sex to be designated; although nevertheless (let the reader judge whether consistently enough) Mabillon gave her a place in the subjoined Calendar of the Benedictine Saints at the VI day of April; but perhaps only (for thus it could not be said that he contradicts himself) he reckoned her in that Calendar not as a genuine Benedictine, but as related to his Order, and bound to it by I know not what connexion. Whatever that may be, I certainly do not see why St. Galla should be numbered among the Benedictine nuns, who, as will afterwards appear, had embraced the monastic life some years before St. Scholastica, the leader and standard-bearer of the Benedictine nuns, first had a monastery founded for herself and her virgins.

[4] [She is especially venerated at Rome and at Lucca, where also her relics are kept.] Besides the memory of St. Galla in the cited Hagiologies, there now come to be recorded those things which make for her Ecclesiastical veneration on this day and for her other cult. Carlo Antonio Erra, in the History of the Image and Church of St. Mary in Portico in Campitelli, written in Italian and printed at Rome in the year 1750, after he had asserted at page 19 that the relics of Pope St. John I, kept in the church of his Congregation, though not notable, were honoured by concession of the sacred Congregation of Rites in the year 1736 with an Ecclesiastical Office of double rite, presently affirms that the Office of St. Galla is recited with the same rite; and finally, at page III, recounting the Saints whose Office is done in the same church with similar rite, he expressly makes mention of St. Galla the widow at the V day of October; so that accordingly there can be no doubt at all about her cult on this day. Further, what pertains to designating her sacred relics he expresses at page 21 rather meagrely and not very assertively, speaking in Italian roughly thus: That the head of St. Galla is kept in the church of St. Mary in Portico Severano and Panciroli assert, who perhaps spoke not of the entire head but of a part of it. We have, he says, one of her sacred relics, which is inserted in a half-length image of her; and our fathers of Lucca have another in the sacred church which has its name from St. Mary Corteorlandini. And presently he adds: When the old altar of St. Galla was destroyed, a crystal urn was found in which many relics were kept, among which, now placed in the more recent altar, perhaps the head of the holy Widow exists. From which words you could establish nothing certain about the place where the head of St. Galla, or which parts of her sacred body singly, are held in veneration, whether at Rome or at Lucca. The praised writer speaks more expressly at page 6 of the Roman church dedicated to the same holy Widow, asserting that the old church of St. Mary in Portico was destroyed by order of the most reverend Tommaso Odescalchi, kinsman of the venerable Pope Innocent XI, in the year 1683, and in its place a new one was built, to which the name of St. Galla was given.

[5] Her eulogy is given from Ferrari, Having described, as far as the scarcity of records allows, the Ecclesiastical honours which are lawfully paid to the holy Widow, I am glad now to subjoin the eulogy composed for her by Ferrari, from which, as from a brief tablet, it may appear how signal in virtues was the Handmaid of God whose Ecclesiastical cult we have treated above. He speaks thus, then, in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy at this day, pages 630 and 631: Galla, most noble daughter of the consul Symmachus, when the husband whom she had married died within the year, could never be persuaded to marry another: although, after her kinsfolk, the physicians too exhorted her to second nuptials, lest through her excessive heat she should put forth a beard, like men . But living in the church and convent at St. Peter's with some virgins, she gave herself to prayers, almsgiving, fasting and other holy works. When a sacred disease had arisen in her breasts, and she, lying long in bed, was greatly afflicted by the pain and stench of the ulcer, she was visited by the Prince of the Apostles, who one night consoled her in sleep, and was warned of her death; and since among the virgins she especially loved Benedicta, she prayed of the Apostles that she might depart from this life with her; to whom the Apostle said that another nun would pass away with her, but that Benedicta would herself also fly away to heaven after XXX days. When she had told this to the abbess, after three days, fortified with the Sacraments, she departed this life on the III day before the Nones of October.* Thus far Ferrari, praising in the first place St. Gregory the Great, book 4 of the Dialogues, chapter 14, in which same book, but in the Paris edition at a different chapter, namely 13, the holy Pontiff did indeed hand down similar things about St. Galla, except only the day of death, which from his words, and from what we said at number 2, seems rather to be fixed on the VI day of April than today. Whether, however, as Ferrari asserts in another eulogy of the Saint at the VI day of April, she fell asleep in the Lord about the year 542, will have to be discussed below.

[6] Meanwhile, lest anyone less skilled in chronology, or ignorant of which Symmachus has been treated above, and her distinction from those of the same name is declared. should run the risk of confusing our Saint with other illustrious matrons who had one and the same name, I would have two things carefully observed here. The one is that St. Gregory the Great, and Ferrari following him, spoke here of no other Symmachus than Q. Aurelius Memmius Symmachus, ex-consul ordinary and patrician, whom Theodoric, king of the Goths in Italy, by the height of wickedness ordered to be slain in the year of Christ 525, of whose surpassing endowments discourse will recur below: and the other, that the most worthy offspring of this Symmachus, our St. Galla, came into the light towards the end of the fifth century, or certainly not later than the beginning of the sixth century, as will be shown below; from which it follows, as the most learned Baronius also thinks in the Notes to the Roman Martyrology, that ours is different from that Galla of whom Q. Aurelius Symmachus, son of Lucius and the Orator, wrote thus, book 6, Letter 32: The infirmity of my little granddaughter Galla contracts not moderately the security of our leisure. For since she was born either of Q. Flavianus Symmachus, or of Q. Aurelius Symmachus, grandson of Symmachus the Orator, who was consul with Aetius in the year 446, she certainly could not have reached nearly the middle of the sixth century unless she had been more than a hundred years old, or at least had come very near that age; and even if we should establish that she too was living about the year 542, that she is altogether different from ours is clear from this alone, that ours was scarcely fifty years old when she exchanged life for death, the sixth century having advanced nearly to its middle part, as will also be proved afterwards. On which matter, besides what is to be said below, go, if you please, to the consular Fasti published by Pieter Reland, and to the Notes of our Sirmond on the 25th Letter of book 7 of Ennodius of Pavia. That ours is different also from Galla, mother of Gallus Caesar, from Galla Augusta, wife of Theodosius, and also from Galla Placidia, daughter of Theodosius, is taught both by the very reckoning of the times in which it is established that these lived, and by the fact that none of these was the daughter of Symmachus, ex-consul and patrician. Nor yet can ours be in any way confused with holy matrons of the same name, for instance Galla, wife of St. Eucherius, or Galla the widow, whom St. Augustine, Letter 212, otherwise 103, calls an honourable handmaid of God and a precious member of Christ, since these are older than she by almost a whole century, and have nothing in common with her besides the name, holiness and the married state. Whether, however, ours is the same as or different from that Galla the widow to whom St. Fulgentius wrote a letter on the death of her husband and on the state of widows, will come to be disputed in the following §, the words of Fulgentius being compared and weighed with those of the Acts of St. Galla.

[7] As regards the authority and credit of these, St. Gregory the Great, whose, against heretics and incredulous smatterers, let not the heterodox, with the hypercritics of their sect, object to us here that the four books of Dialogues, of which the fourth, chapter 13, comprises some deeds and the death of St. Galla, were written not by St. Gregory the Great but by Gregory II, who is 115 years younger than the other, and so that what Ferrari related above, and what we are going to say below, is not even drawn from a writer nearly contemporary with St. Galla. For so futile are the reasons, or rather conjectures, by which they contend this, and they have been so solidly refuted and crushed by Haeften in the Prolegomena to the Life of St. Benedict, by Mabillon in the Preface to the 1st Benedictine Century, §2, by Goussainville in the Vindication of the Dialogues of St. Gregory, tome 2 of the Works of St. Gregory the Great, Paris edition of the year 1705, and lately by Rémi Ceillier, tome 17 of the History of the sacred Authors, from page 205, and by other men illustrious in learning, that no one who is of sound brain can take those books away from St. Gregory the Great: whence I do not choose to dwell here on transcribing or illustrating the arguments of the Catholics. But perhaps someone from among the present-day smatterers of the baser sort will object that credit ought not to be given to the prodigies related by St. Gregory the Great, because he was, as they indeed assert, rather easy in admitting marvels and rather simple in relating them. Truly those men, who thus seem to themselves to be very wise along with impious writers, are foolishly and vehemently mad. For beyond all doubt the Pontiff, supreme in learning no less than in dignity, knew the laws of writing history much better, and directed his Work according to their prescription, than do those know and keep them whom these people now love to follow with closed eyes as guides of history, not at all anxious to inquire from what source proceed, or on what authority rest, the things which have been thrown onto paper by wanton writers no less rashly than here and there impiously. St. Gregory the Great certainly entered on another way, who, having despised the report of the unskilled crowd no less than having put aside the affections of a disordered mind, committed to writing only those things which he had either himself seen when present, or had ascertained from witnesses and records of the most approved and entire credit.

[8] his authority and credit are vindicated, But to treat specially of the authority and credit of Gregory the Great in narrating certain deeds and the death of St. Galla, I admit indeed that the most learned Pontiff does not assert himself an eyewitness of these things; but if on that account his narrative can be called into doubt or credit denied to it, what, I ask, will you find at last in almost all Annals and histories that is not charged with doubtful credit under this title? And indeed, although Gregory himself did not stand by the dying Galla, nor saw with his own eyes all that he relates about her, being still young in age when she passed to those above, he could certainly have received whatever he narrates about her a few years later from eyewitnesses worthy of credit, and, being most eager in collecting memorable things and distinguished by great learning from his youth, have entered them in his tablets or committed them to memory, which was most retentive in him; and it must with full right be said that he did so in fact. Certainly he related nothing about our most illustrious Widow which, as he testifies at the beginning of chapter 13, book 4 of the Dialogues, had not been ascertained by him from the relation of grave and faithful persons. At the time when the holy Pontiff wrote the 4 books of Dialogues, that is, in the year 593 or 594, that deed, as he asserts at the end of the chapter on St. Galla, remains memorable to this day in the same monastery, and so, handed down by the preceding mothers (or nuns of advanced age), the younger ones, who are now nun virgins, are wont to narrate it there minutely, as if they themselves had been present at that time at so great a miracle. Finally, unless the things which he handed down in the books of his Dialogues had been certain and ascertained by public credit, that great Pontiff would not have been so imprudent as to send them to Theodelinda, queen of the Lombards, to persuade both the king and the gentiles and subjects to the Catholic faith. For if he had brought forward false, suspect, doubtful things, or the fictions of the unskilled crowd, he would have borne the hisses of indignant readers rather than the applause of approving ones, and would have stirred up everywhere derision rather than holy esteem of the Catholic religion, which he was striving to propagate and knew well could not be propagated by fables. That the contrary happened is manifest from Paul the deacon, book 4 On the deeds of the Lombards, chapter 4. What of the fact that these books, as soon as they saw the light, were received throughout the whole Christian world with the highest applause of all, which surely would not have been received with such congratulation by the pious and learned unless their historical credit and authority had been established manifestly enough?

[9] And these things it seemed good to set before, in order that the Acts of St. Galla, which we are going to publish from book 4 of the Dialogues, described some of her deeds and her death. chapter 13, may keep their authority safe and sound against present-day smatterers. Now it may help to indicate in a few words on what occasion St. Gregory the Great wrote about St. Galla, and for what reason he did not narrate more fully, and with chronological notes also expressed, all the things he could have known about her. For the holy Doctor had proposed to himself, especially in book 4 of the Dialogues, not so much to act as biographer of the Saints as to provide for the salvation of those whom he had found doubting about the life of the soul after the death of the body. Hence, both by arguments sought from reason and by miracles related which had been ascertained with certain credit, and visions of Saints appearing to others after death, he proves the immortality of the soul and the future resurrection of the flesh, namely to this end, that, as he says, chapter 7, book 4, examples may persuade the wavering mind of what reason cannot fully. And when, having adduced some examples, he had taught how departing souls were seen, or how great things they themselves saw while they were departing, he at length concludes chapter XI thus: It commonly happens to the just that in their death they behold visions of Saints who have gone before, lest they should dread the very penal sentence of their death: but, while the fellowship of the inner citizens is shown to their mind, they may be loosed from the bond of their flesh without the weariness of pain and fear. And that he may prove by examples also the things which he asserted here, he treats in distinct chapters of the soul of Probus, bishop of the city of Rieti, and of the passing of Galla, the handmaid of God, and of other Saints. It ought, then, to seem surprising to no one that the holy Pontiff kept deep silence about the year of birth of the holy Widow and about many things pertaining to her which made nothing nearer to the argument he was treating, nor comprised the course of her life at length with chronological notes. Hence, if anything is drawn from elsewhere about St. Galla with at least a plausible reason, against it there will be slight, indeed no, force of argument which might be sought against us from the silence of St. Gregory.

* men

§ II. The illustrious birth and kindred of the Saint: to her most probably St. Fulgentius wrote the Letter on Consolation over the death of a husband and on the state of widows: hence the year of her birth is determined after a fashion.

Our Saint, who had as father Symmachus the consul, Although St. Gregory the Great had undertaken to describe only the happy and wonderful passing of St. Galla to those above, and did not have it in mind to celebrate her with worthy praises from the nobility of her family; nevertheless, since among several most illustrious matrons who had the name of Galla he had to distinguish the one of whom he was treating and designate her by some proper character, he could not but call her a most noble girl of the Roman city and daughter of Symmachus, consul and patrician. Hence everyone understands in how illustrious a place on many counts St. Galla was born, who knows Q. Aurelius Symmachus, her father. For this is he

to whom Priscian, inscribing to him his book On Weights and Measures, wove a signal eulogy, which, since it contributes very much to the praise of our Saint, and, as Ecclesiasticus chapter 3 witnesses, the glory of a man comes from the honour of his father, I shall gladly subjoin here. So the praised Priscian: Report indeed formerly made you, Symmachus, venerable to us in your absence, celebrated with every splendour of nobility, excelling in every gift of nature, shining with every light of virtue, flourishing also in the studies of the best arts and disciplines, and most justly proving the prosperities of fortune by the merits of your life: but now truth, surpassing the praises of report, has shown you present. For of a most lofty moderation, by which you tread down the swellings of pride, and by the most weighty weights of piety you surpass all things. But lest you think these to be the words of a writer in a dedicatory Epistle, as often happens, flattering his patron rather than declaring true things about him, hear Procopius speaking with no less praise of the same Symmachus and his son-in-law Boethius, book 1 of the History of the Goths, partly translated, partly arranged in order by Hugo Grotius, page 142: Symmachus and Boethius his son-in-law, sprung of most noble stock, were senators and had attained the consulship: both were practised in the studies of wisdom, both were observant of right beyond what could be said: ready to relieve the want of many citizens and many strangers too, distinguished in fame, they brought forth for themselves thence the envy of most bitter men. Hear also the greatest man of his time, and a man ignorant of pretence, Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, praised above, in book 2 of the Consolation of Philosophy, Prose 4, speaking of the parent of our Saint in these words: That most precious ornament of the human race, Symmachus your father-in-law, flourishes unharmed, and — what you would not be slow to buy at the price of your life — a man made wholly of wisdom and virtues, secure about his own injuries, groans at yours.

[11] Here would be the place, as our Henschen promised in the Commentary on the Life of St. Avitus, tome 1 of February, page 666, number 32, likewise a most illustrious mother, and as sister Rusticiana, to say more about the same Symmachus, and there could be brought here the honourable eulogies of the most weighty authors, in which they recount the nobility of this very great man, his learning both sacred and profane, his natural endowments, his virtues and his illustrious deeds: but since Papebroch forestalled us in this on the occasion of Pope John I, contemporary of Symmachus, tome VI of May, from page 704, sending the curious reader there, we forbear to discharge further the promise given by Henschen in tome 1 of February. St. Galla, begotten of so illustrious a father, beyond doubt had a mother not unlike. But neither her name, which is greatly to be lamented, nor her illustrious deeds are found handed down to memory. That she was a wife worthy of Symmachus and a mother worthy of most holy offspring, who, besides St. Galla and, most probably, as we shall show below, her other full sister named Proba, not only gave to the world Rusticiana also, wife of Boethius, never sufficiently to be praised, but also formed them to pious and holy manners, may rightly be believed. Further, of this sister of our Saint, Rusticiana, his most beloved wife, Boethius speaks thus in the place cited: Your wife lives, modest in disposition, excelling in the modesty of chastity, and, to include all her endowments briefly, like her father. Her munificent liberality towards the needy, and the endurance of the pitiable calamity which befell her when the city of Rome was afterwards taken by Totila, the praised Procopius expressed in these words, book 3, page 356: So it came about that both others of the Romans and men of the senatorial order, and even Rusticiana herself, formerly the wife of Boethius, the daughter of Symmachus, who had bestowed her means on the needy, covered in servile or rustic dress, lived by the mercy of the enemy, asking now bread, now some other necessary thing. Nor were they, who a little before had been so distinguished, ashamed to knock at the doors from house to house and to coax by prayers the nourishments of misery. And the Goths indeed were burning to kill Rusticiana… But Totila suffered no harm to be done her, whether because the barbarian himself revered the blood of the Symmachi, or because, captivated by her wonderful integrity of manners and her more than manly fortitude in bearing calamities, he looked up to virtue in an enemy herself, and proposed in his mind to win immortal praise for himself by preserving so signal a matron.

[12] That besides Rusticiana, the wife of Boethius, there was moreover another sister of St. Galla, and another, as appears, named Proba; most probably she is not different named Proba, who shone with the beauty of virginal chastity and of other virtues, no one can doubt who is persuaded, according to the opinion of Baronius, to be confirmed below, that that Galla the widow to whom St. Fulgentius, bishop of Ruspe, wrote a letter on Consolation over the death of a husband and on the state of widows, is one and the same with our Saint. For he expressly calls Proba the virgin, born of consuls through grandfathers and great-grandfathers, the sister of Galla, writing thus to her in chapter 16: For we propose, if the Lord will and if we live, to write something on fasting and prayer to YOUR SISTER, the holy virgin of Christ Proba, whom the Lord has deigned to give at this time in the city of Rome as a chief example of virginity and humility, as my promise is contained in the letter which I lately sent: whose holy conversation is to be imitated by you especially in all things, who, although she is born of consuls through grandfathers and great-grandfathers, … such humility is in her … that … she no longer knows that she was ever a lady. In which words, if I rightly take the sense, St. Fulgentius intends to stir Galla to the exercise of chastity, humility, mercy and the other virtues by no other than the household example of her full sister: hence he addresses Galla thus: Set her, therefore (your sister, the virgin of Christ, Proba) before you as a mirror, and from the consideration of her know what of holy studies and works is already in you, or what is still lacking; and although she excels in the signal gift of virginity, she ought to have you as companion in the other virtues, namely those which Galla herself, as St. Fulgentius had said before almost word for word, knew more fully by seeing than he could explain in words. All of which indicate not obscurely that a familiar intercourse of life, and no other daily use than that which is wont to be between full sisters, flourished between Galla and Proba, and that they were sisters by blood.

[13] whatever may be opposed to the contrary, But, you will say, it can not undeservedly be doubted whether Fulgentius did not give that illustrious letter, which is extant in tome 9 of the Library of the Fathers, Lyons edition, page 86 and following, to another widow altogether distinct from ours. For although the holy Prelate says that Galla the widow to whom he wrote was born of consuls through grandfather and father, indeed through grandfathers and great-grandfathers, he nowhere calls her the daughter of Symmachus, which ours certainly was. Add that in chapter 16 he testifies that the same widow had a consul as father-in-law and husband, which St. Gregory the Great nowhere handed down of our Saint. There is added finally that, as St. Gregory the Great witnesses, St. Galla, as soon as her husband had died, having cast off the secular habit, gave herself to a monastery at the church of blessed Peter the Apostle for the service of almighty God; whereas on the contrary that widow to whom Fulgentius wrote seems not to have cast off the secular habit even after not a few months, and perhaps after one or two years from her husband's death, as is not obscurely drawn from chapter 1 of the same Letter, where St. Fulgentius speaks to his Widow in these words: Some months ago, from the certain narrative of my deacon (namely, returned from Rome to St. Fulgentius in Sardinia) coming from the City, I learned not only the death of your husband, but also the holy path of your purpose, in which you now walk, He leading you who is the way, the truth and the life. Further, that this path of holy purpose which he praises is not the monastic life is clear from the fact that in chapter 12 he exhorts the same woman to wear such a habit as does not excite to wantonness but provokes to continence, which does not entice to lust but restrains to fear; and then in chapter 13, to have as partakers of her table such women as are not wont to praise the delights of the flesh but of the heart, and to join conversation with such, and frequent their tables, so that, when she feeds them with bodily food, she may approach the merit of holy conversation for herself; and finally not now to fill her table with such delicacies as those with which she filled it when she was serving carnal marriage. Such admonitions, you will say, Fulgentius would have given in vain if this widow had, immediately after the death of her husband, as Gregory the Great relates of St. Galla, given herself to the service of God in a convent, having taken the monastic habit. Whence it may seem beyond doubt that the widow praised by Fulgentius is altogether different from her whom St. Gregory celebrates.

[14] from Galla the widow to whom St. Fulgentius wrote. I admit that these arguments are of such a kind that the Baronian opinion praised at number 12 seems at first sight to be overthrown by them, or certainly not lightly shaken. Nevertheless, since a fitting answer to them is not lacking, and from elsewhere enough signs concur which indicate that St. Galla is not different from the widow to whom Fulgentius wrote, I would rather think with Baronius, Sirmond and others than depart from the common opinion without more certain arguments. Further, it helps to hear by what reasons Baronius established his opinion. So he discourses at the year of Christ 504, number 59: But before I enter further upon the field of the narrative (which namely he had entered on the occasion of the Works of St. Fulgentius), you see, he says, by how many signs you have it expressed that the same Galla the widow of whom St. Fulgentius writes is one and the same with her of whom St. Gregory treats. For first she agrees in name, that she is called Galla; in country, that she is Roman; in profession, that she is a widow; in time also, that she was under the king of the Goths (Theodoric), and that St. Gregory testifies that he received those things about Galla from his forebears. She agrees besides also in the consulship of her father, namely that she was the daughter of Symmachus the consul, to whom some letters of Ennodius of Pavia are extant… Add finally that as a very young girl she was bereaved of a very young husband; since Fulgentius equally testifies that her husband was swiftly snatched from human affairs in the very flower of youth. To these may be added two other indications which look to the same: Galla the widow, of whom Fulgentius speaks, did not leave children of the flesh, as he himself writes in chapter 18; but neither is our Widow, who was bereaved of her husband after a short space of time, read in St. Gregory the Great or others to have received offspring from him. What of the fact that St. Gregory the Great, when he narrates that ours preferred widowed continence to second nuptials, seems to have used the very sentence of St. Fulgentius in which he had expressed this in the Letter to his Galla, whence it can be said not rashly that St. Gregory himself too designated the same widow to whom the latter wrote? Hear Fulgentius, chapter 1, addressing his widow: *I learned … also the holy path of your purpose, in which you now walk,

He leading you who … knows how to bestow on His faithful, through a momentary sadness, the gift of everlasting gladness. Hear now St. Gregory discoursing not otherwise of the widowed continence which St. Galla had embraced: She (St. Galla) chose rather to be joined to God in spiritual nuptials, in which one begins from mourning but arrives at eternal joys. So that it is permitted to say with Baronius in the place cited: that there is plainly nothing about which you can rightly doubt whether that Galla is other than this, but you may know for certain that one and the same was the signal glory and ornament of Christian chastity, increased by nobility of family and the splendours of birth.*

[15] This opinion of Baronius would have to be embraced as certain and ascertained The first difficulty which is objected, if in fact St. Fulgentius, as Baronius intimates, had expressly called his Galla the daughter of Symmachus too: but he called her only illustrious through grandfather, father, father-in-law and husband as consuls, the names of all these being suppressed. From this silence of St. Fulgentius, however, since it was by no means necessary for him to enumerate their names in his Letter to Galla, nothing is taken away from the probability of the Baronian opinion, unless someone should first show that our Galla was not illustrious through grandfather, father, father-in-law and husband as consuls, and cannot be established as such. But so far is it from being possible to show this clearly, that rather the contrary is demonstrated partly from the ancient writers themselves, partly by plausible reason. That Q. Aurelius Symmachus held the consulship in the year of Christ 446 with Aetius, consul for the third time, the Novel of Valentinian, title 4, laws 1 and 2, and the consular Fasti of Reland testify with unanimous consent: and that this Symmachus was the father of the Symmachus unjustly slain by king Theodoric, and consequently the grandfather of St. Galla, no one, I think, will deny. And that Symmachus himself, the father of our holy Widow, held the consulship in the year 485 the consular Fasti also proclaim, and St. Gregory himself addresses St. Galla as the daughter of Symmachus, consul and patrician. And so it is beyond controversy that she was born of consuls through grandfather and father, indeed also, since their forebears were L. Aurelius Symmachus, colleague of Tatianus, and L. Aurelius Symmachus, colleague of Gallicanus, through grandfathers and great-grandfathers. That she had a father-in-law and husband also adorned with consular dignity cannot indeed be shown in like manner from the ancients, since neither St. Fulgentius nor St. Gregory the Great expressed their names: yet to me indeed it does not seem to be doubted that the husband of St. Galla was both the son of a consul and at least an honorary or designated consul, if not himself also at some time holding the ordinary consulship.

[16] as also the second What moves me to think so is this, that it is by no means probable that Symmachus, the father of St. Galla, who would not give his elder daughter Rusticiana in marriage to another than Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, a consul's son and himself a consul, wished to take for himself another son-in-law, to whom he might give Galla, than one who was not unlike Boethius, his former son-in-law, and who was both a young man of consular family and could himself also attain the consulship. Nor can it be objected against his having at some time attained the consulship that, in the judgment of Baronius praised above, he was only a very young man when he departed from the living; since these words of the most learned writer are to be expounded in no other sense than that in which St. Fulgentius called him young in age, as nothing at all forbids calling a man of forty or less; and who accordingly had no hindrance from his age to prevent him from being able to attain the consulship, equally with Boethius, on account of the splendour of his ancestral family and his illustrious endowments of mind. However that is, since so many and such agreeing indications concur with most apt clearness which, as was shown at number 14, designate one and the same Galla the widow, I judge that the opinion of Baronius and Sirmond can be held, if not as altogether undoubted, certainly as most probable. Nor, as it seems to me at least, does anything hinder its probability in that St. Fulgentius did not call the widow to whom he wrote the daughter of Symmachus, and that St. Gregory the Great did not say that St. Galla was illustrious through grandfather, father, father-in-law and husband as consuls. For neither of them can be said on that account to have denied these things because he kept silent about them, both because it did not pertain to the purpose of either to relate these things, however conformable to the truth, and because from elsewhere these things were known to all enough and more than enough, and so did not need so express a mention.

[17] and the third is solved And so I consider that the first and second difficulties proposed at number 13 have been sufficiently met; I now turn therefore to the third. To anyone reading through the letter of St. Fulgentius, written some months after the death of the husband of Galla the widow, it will occur that she had not yet at that time betaken herself to any monastery or put on the monastic habit. Nor yet can this widow on that account be established as different from St. Galla, although Gregory the Great writes thus of her, book 4 of the Dialogues, chapter 13: As soon, therefore, as her husband died, having cast off the secular habit, she gave herself to a monastery at the church of blessed Peter for the service of almighty God. For even if the Manuscript codex of Bec of the Works of St. Gregory the Great, praised in the Paris edition of the year 1705, were less accurate in this, and did not present the genuine reading, which I would not dare to assert, when it relates simply that St. Galla, soon after the death of her husband, turned herself to the service of almighty God in the church of blessed Peter, no mention namely being made of her sudden entry into a monastery; nevertheless the words of St. Gregory adduced above against us ought not to be taken with the utmost rigour, as though scarcely a few days intervened between the death of her husband and the withdrawal of St. Galla into a monastery. For against their having to be or being able to be so understood stands both the very nature of the event, requiring some interval of time, and the not unfounded opinion of learned and pious men, by which it is commonly believed that St. Galla, before betaking herself to a monastery, converted her house into a church.

[18] Either, then, expound the mentioned words of St. Gregory thus, by a fitting exposition of the words of St. Gregory the Great. that soon, or a few days after the death of her husband, St. Galla cast off the secular habit, namely that magnificent one which she was wont to wear, while her husband lived, according to the splendour of her birth, and at the same time took one more modest and more suited to the mourning of widows and to her purpose of keeping continence, and only afterwards, or after one year, her palace having now been converted into a sacred building, gave herself to a monastery to serve God there in perpetuity; or, if you contend that that particle soon used by St. Gregory must be understood not only of the more splendid ornaments of the world cast off, but also of the withdrawal into a monastery, by what reason will you prove that the particle soon does not here admit some breadth of time? Not indeed so much, I would have it, as it has in Virgil, book 1 of the Georgics, verse 24, of about twenty years; nor so much as it admits in Suetonius, book 6, in the Nero, number 6, namely of eleven years (when namely he says here that Nero as an infant was soon adopted by Claudius, which Nero, however, as the same Suetonius witnesses at number 7, was adopted by him only in his eleventh year); but at least so much as it admits in excellently Latin authors cited by Robert Estienne under the word mox, where this particle mox is used for afterwards, or for an indefinite subsequent time, though not very long; so that the same particle mox may be said to be used by St. Gregory for afterwards, or for the space of one or two years, not otherwise than by these Latin writers. But if that exposition of his words seems less apt to you, and you would have that particle soon, taken in its ordinary signification, to be understood of the entry of St. Galla into a monastery, you will not yet thereby have made out what you contend against the opinion of Baronius; since, even if St. Galla had spent some months, indeed a whole year and more time, in bidding farewell to the world, converting her palace into a building sacred to God, and, her household affairs having been set in order, betaking herself to a monastery, it could nevertheless be said that she did this soon. For that is rightly said to be done soon which is accomplished in the shortest time in which it can be done. Since, however, for a matron distinguished by the highest dignity and abounding in wealth, to send her notice to the world, to dispose her ample household affairs in order, and to enter a monastery, is a work not of two or three days but of several months, even so it could most rightly be said that St. Galla, as soon as her husband died, having cast off the secular habit, gave herself to a monastery for the service of almighty God; since both the casting off of the more splendid habit and magnificent state, and the ordering of her household affairs over a year, paved the way to the perfect service of almighty God in a monastery, and these things seem not to have been able to be done in order sooner than the space of one year.

[19] The birth of the Saint, from the aforesaid letter of St. Fulgentius For the rest, from the praised Letter of St. Fulgentius, written most probably to our Saint, as we have shown at number 14 and following, I now undertake to determine after a fashion the year of her birth on earth. As St. Gregory the Great witnesses, book 4 of the Dialogues, chapter 13, St. Galla had not yet passed the bounds of adolescence when she was given in marriage to that husband by whose death within the space of one year she was made a widow, on which occasion St. Fulgentius a few months later sent that letter by which he might console Galla over the death of her husband, and either more ardently stir her or more abundantly confirm her to keep widowed continence, adducing many reasons and examples of holy widows. Whether, then, from the law Non aliter, §1, On Legacies 1, you set the bounds of adolescence on either side at the 14th and the 25th year of age, or with Pliny call a person adolescent from the 12th year to the 21st, namely as long as a person is said to go on growing in length and to grow up, or rather with Jordanes, bishop of Ravenna, contemporary with our Saint, you begin adolescence, as he himself does in chapter 55 of the Getica, at the 18th year of age, and close it, as is commonly done, at the 25th; our matter will come back at last to this, that at the time when Galla's husband died she certainly had not exceeded 25 years by many months, and perhaps was only twenty-four years old. That she was such at that time, whom youthful age and a very fiery constitution of body called and enticed to repeat the marriage-bed, Gregory the Great, praised above, does not allow us to doubt. If, then, as will appear below, St. Fulgentius gave the aforesaid letter not later than the year 523 nor earlier than the year 520, it follows that our Widow at that time certainly numbered not more than 25 years, completed by a few months, as being, when she was given in marriage,

not yet past the bounds of adolescence, and bereaved of her husband within the space of one year. So that she was given to the world about the end of the preceding century, or at the very beginning of the sixth century, and accordingly not a few years younger than her sister Rusticiana, whose children by Boethius seem to have been distinguished with the consulship in the year 522, unless perhaps Rusticiana married at a much younger age than her Sister, or these were raised to the consulship while still very young men, as Boethius himself does not forbid us to believe, book 2 of the Consolation of Philosophy, Prose 4, where he still calls them boys.

[20] as written between the years 520 and 523, is determined after a fashion. That the aforesaid letter was given to Galla not before the year 520 nor after the year 523 I show thus: St. Fulgentius, when he was deported again as an exile into Sardinia by Thrasamund, king of the Vandals, as his disciple the biographer witnesses, with us in tome 1 of January, page 41, chapter 25, filled by the Holy Spirit with prophetic grace, foretold to Juliateus (otherwise Juliteus and Viliateus), a religious man, that he would soon return from there, addressing him thus: Do not weep longer; we shall soon return to you; the liberty of the Catholic Church having been restored, you will see us. Not long, then, nor certainly, as appears, beyond three years did this second exile of St. Fulgentius last. And so, since, as the same biographer witnesses, chapter 28, the death of king Thrasamund and the wonderful goodness of Hilderic (who began to reign in the year 523, as Pagi teaches at the year 525, number 16, from Noris) restored liberty to the Catholic Church established throughout Africa, and St. Fulgentius returned to Africa in that year, as he had foretold he would soon return; the letter which was given to Galla from Sardinia during this exile cannot be established as written earlier than the year 520 or later than the year 523, unless you should establish, against his biographer, that St. Fulgentius, having landed in Africa in the year 523, did not return soon as he had prophesied, and likewise draw out his second exile beyond three years. And that it may be clear that the Fulgentian letter praised above was written during his second exile, I am glad to adduce the words of that aforesaid disciple in chapter 28, where, treating of this second exile of his holy master, he speaks thus: He wrote at the same time a letter to the Carthaginians, clear with sublime exhortation. And after a little: Now familiar letters, in which, however, spiritual edification is contained, he frequently directed both to those dwelling there and in Sardinia and to those living in Africa, and especially to Roman senators, and to widows and virgins whose fame was held praiseworthy. To Proba, virgin of Christ, he wrote two little books on Fasting and Prayer, namely those which he had promised he would write in his Letter to Galla, Proba's sister, chapter 16. A little before, then, he wrote those two little books in Sardinia to the virgin Proba, he had already sent the letter of which we treat to Galla the widow, and it accordingly, as altogether appears, must be reckoned one of those which Fulgentius, in the time of his second exile, directed to Roman widows whose fame was held praiseworthy, as his biographer witnesses.

§ III. Whether the wonderful apparition of the icon of Blessed Mary in Portico, which is reported to have been made to St. Galla while still a younger widow, can be confirmed by the testimony of contemporary writers, as Pope Benedict XIV writes.

of this apparition, besides very many others, have treated At the time when our holy Widow, moved partly by the affection of piety implanted in her by God, partly by the praiseworthy example of the works of mercy of her late husband, as St. Fulgentius witnesses, chapter 1, and partly by the exhortation of Fulgentius himself, was pressing on with prayers, fasts and works of mercy, and whatever, as he had persuaded her in chapter 16, she had withdrawn from her state she gave to the hungry, and whatever she had deducted from herself she spent on the needy — at that time, I say, which preceded her withdrawal into the convent, that there happened in her house the wonderful apparition of the icon of the Virgin Mother of God, which sacred image thereafter, held in the highest veneration at Rome, stood forth as a saving defence for the City and the World against onrushing and raging calamities, is the pious and no less than recent opinion of the faithful of Christ; to be held, as to the substance of the fact, the firmer and more solid because the commemoration of the event is publicly celebrated at Rome every year on the XVII day of July with solemn rite, in the church of St. Mary in Campitelli, with an Ecclesiastical Office together with an Octave, by lawful indult of the sacred Congregation of Rites issued on the XIII day of June in the year 1679. On this subject, as Carlo Antonio Erra, praised at number 4, witnesses, besides some authors of his own congregation of the Clerks Regular of the Mother of God whom he himself recounts at pages 1 and 2 of the aforesaid Work, there have treated either expressly or in passing Cardinal Baronius, Onofrio Panvinio, Ottavio Panciroli, Justinus Miechoviensis, Georges Colvener, Ambrogio Novidio, Giovanni Lupardo, Andrea Vittorelli, Francesco Scoto, Fioravante Martinelli, Bartolomeo Piazza, Mario Crescimbeni, Felini of the Order of the Servants of Blessed Mary, Carocci of the Society of Jesus, and Father Casimiro of the Order of Minors Observant, and many others whom it would be too long to enumerate here. But, he says, in Italian words rendered by me in Latin, not to be confused with the others, but on the contrary to be praised here before the rest, is the Most Eminent Prospero Lambertini, now (in the year 1750, in which Carlo Erra's Work was printed) Benedict XIV, happily reigning, who in his most learned and never sufficiently praised Work on Beatification and Canonization makes honourable mention of that admirable image, praising the sacred Congregation of Rites because it granted to the church of St. Mary in Portico proper Lessons of the Ecclesiastical Office on this matter, to be recited, namely, as will presently be said, by the Clerks Regular of the Congregation of the Mother of God in Campitelli.

[22] Pope Benedict XIV, for it, the decree of the sacred Congregation of Rites I too shall bring here before the rest the words of this most learned Pontiff, as also of the praised clerk regular of the Congregation of the Mother of God, both because these have very recently treated this subject, and because they have either brought forward into the midst the documents which chiefly conduce to establishing the credit of the event, or have openly professed where these were kept and what they seemed to them to be. These, according to my office, with the leave of both writers which the zeal for illustrating truth merits, I shall afterwards bring to examination, lest anyone, if he should see this prodigious apparition of the icon of the blessed Virgin asserted and confirmed promiscuously by spurious as well as by genuine testimonies, should rather withhold belief on account of the former than willingly and gladly give it on account of the latter. And so Benedict XIV, tome 4 of the praised Work, part 2, chapter 7, number 6, even in the third edition itself, enlarged and more corrected, printed at Rome in the year 1749, speaks thus word for word about that apparition: A proper Office together with an Octave is recited in the City on the XVII day of July by the Clerks Regular of the Congregation of the Mother of God, by indult of the sacred Congregation on the XIII day of June MDCLXXIX, in commemoration of the apparition of the sacred image of St. Mary in Portico. For it is reported that the image of the most blessed Virgin which is now venerated in the City, and notably in the church of St. Mary in Campitelli, appeared wonderfully in the house of St. Galla, a Roman patrician, near the theatre of Marcellus within the portico of Octavia, John I being supreme Pontiff, while the same Galla, according to her daily custom, was giving a meal to twelve poor people in honour of God and the blessed Virgin Mary. So it is read in the proper Lessons of the second Nocturn of the Office just indicated.

[23] and praising Manuscripts, contemporary, as he judges, with St. Galla, Thus far the most learned Pontiff, who presently recounts in these words the documents which seemed to him to establish the credit of the event: And for the truth of this matter (the apparition of the wonderful icon) there not only militated an immemorial tradition, but the whole matter was contained in two verses carved in the time of St. Gregory VII on the very ancient ciborium of the church of St. Mary in Portico, and in two ancient manuscripts drawn up in the time of St. John I, supreme Pontiff, of which one was kept with the Clerks Regular of the Congregation of the Mother of God, the other in the Angelica library of St. Augustine in the City, besides another manuscript of the Vatican library under Martin V having been added. In the judgment, then, of the Most Eminent writer, afterwards Pope Benedict XIV, at the time when he was writing these things, or certainly at that when the aforesaid indult of the sacred Congregation of Rites came out, not only an immemorial tradition and verses carved on the ciborium under St. Gregory VII, but also, what is chiefly to be noted here, two ancient documents drawn up by hand in the time of Pope St. John I, or in the same year in which that memorable thing happened, or the following one, established the credit of the prodigy here treated of; from which head, if the most learned author wrote rightly here, that apparition would turn out historically certain and undoubted, as attested not only by immemorial tradition and a monument of the eleventh century, but — which is the head of the matter — by two contemporary documents, of which one is kept with the Clerks Regular of the Congregation of the Mother of God, the other in the Angelica library of St. Augustine in the City, on his own witness.

[24] Now let us hear Carlo Antonio Erra, praised above, discoursing about the same apparition of the sacred icon. and Carlo Erra, whose words on the matter So he, as to substance, in the Italian tongue, page 3 and following: That the sacred image of the Virgin Mother of God in Portico appeared in a wonderful manner in the house of St. Galla, when she was giving a meal to the needy for love of Christ the Lord, all, he says, agree. But this apparition has this in common with many signal relics and prodigious deeds, that it was not committed to writing by contemporary writers, or, as he then adds, that their testimonies either still lie hidden or have altogether perished. But, he says at page 4, tradition and public report supply the place of writers of this kind, which if you repudiate, you must also repudiate in great part the most attested histories. And a little after he asserts that these and other things were not said by him as though that history of the apparition were destitute of all authority and support of writers, since on the contrary, he says, very many and excellently authentic written testimonies are at hand for us, by which he himself judges that apparition to be altogether established. And in the first place among them he recounts a parchment written in Latin, and a copy of it drawn up in the Italian tongue, found by the ancient fathers of his Congregation and formerly exposed to the eyes of all in the first church of St. Mary in Portico, now called St. Galla's, which he himself affirms are extant at this time in his archive, namely the same in which Benedict XIV asserts the manuscript drawn up in the time of Pope John I is kept. Of this Manuscript, in which the history of the apparition of that icon is related summarily, he proceeds to speak thus: *So far indeed as it seems, this manuscript was exposed there in the times of Paul II, who obtained the Pontificate in the year MCDLXIV, since the things which happened in subsequent times concerning the aforesaid image, more recent and much

different, were written in different characters. And after some things by which he strives to win authority for this writing, he adds: He, then, who drew it up in the very times of Paul II, whom namely he expressly mentions, believed that whatever he wrote in it was true, and accordingly had before his eyes other documents on which he could rely; nor has anything contrary to it come forth hitherto, so that rather the documents which have emerged from hiding agree with it most perfectly.*

[25] Then among his very many and excellently authentic documents the praised Erra recounts another Manuscript, similar to the former as to substance, and various documents mentioned by him are related which he relates at page 5 is extant in the signal Angelica library of St. Augustine in the City, likewise assigned by Benedict XIV, but faulty through the writer's fault and in some part openly false. Then about his third Manuscript he teaches this in Italian: More ancient and more authentic is the Manuscript of the Vatican library, made under Pius II, elected Pontiff in the year MCCCCLVIII, by the vicar of St. Mary Major, which has this title: On the sacred Image of the Mother of God which is kept in her major basilica at Rome; where (the aforesaid vicar), treating of our image, says thus: This, as they say, revealed itself shining with wonderful splendour. Then the aforesaid Erra proceeds presently thus about his fourth Manuscript: In the same library (the Vatican) there is extant another Manuscript, composed some years before by Niccolò Signorili, secretary of the Roman people, by order of Martin V, who was created supreme Pontiff in the year MCCCCXVII. It has this title: On the Rights of Kindly Rome. In it too there is discourse about the tradition everywhere admitted concerning the prodigious apparition of this image made to St. Galla, in these words: It (the image of the Mother of God) is said to have appeared miraculously to the lady Galla, patrician, in her house, which she therefore turned into a church under the title of Blessed Mary. At length, proceeding to far more ancient monuments, as he speaks, he recites at page 5 two Leonine verses carved on the ciborium of the church of St. Mary in Portico, and afterwards discourses somewhat about the age of that ciborium. What, further, is designated here by the word ciborium, it may help to indicate in passing. Ecclesiastical writers, says Du Cange, call ciborium what the Roman Order calls the covering and canopy of the altar. And he describes it thus in his Lexicon: It was raised on four columns, and those very lofty, and, carried up into a gabled form, covered the whole altar; which description, besides other examples which I omit, Anastasius the Librarian, speaking of St. Gregory the Great, confirms in these words: He made for blessed Peter the Apostle a ciborium with its four columns of pure silver.

[26] and from his particular Work on this subject And these indeed are those very many and excellently authentic writings, to which, the often-praised Erra professes at page 5, others before him adhered and he himself will adhere without fear of error. For the rest, the Manuscript which at the very page cited he promises he will publish at the end of his Work, and which he praises everywhere in its course, we shall set here before the eyes of readers, both because it supplies the subject of the whole controversy, and in order that the learned reader may, according to his judgment, either approve or disapprove what we are going to say about the age and credit of this and other writings of this kind. This instrument, which in the same Carlo Erra has this title: History of the venerable and incorruptible Image of the glorious Virgin Mary, which was miraculously placed in the church which is called St. Mary in Portico, runs thus word for word, page 136 and following: In the times of Pope John the First, and of Justin, the grandfather of Justinian Augustus himself, and of Theodoric, the heretic king of the Goths, oppressing Italy, there was in the City a most powerful girl, daughter of Symmachus, consul and patrician, named Galla, pre-eminent among the Romans in riches and nobility, lofty in patrician dignity, surnamed Patricia, blessed in manners and life. For she so used temporal goods as not to desert the law of the Lord and in no way to turn aside from the divine commandments.

[27] For the honour of God and the blessed Virgin Mary she had the custom of giving refreshment in her palace every day to twelve poor people. A Manuscript instrument, by which the time of that apparition And because she took care to serve Christ diligently, and with prudent circumspection kept entire and unharmed the image and likeness of her Creator in herself, she merited to have the image of Christ and of blessed Mary in her palace through the hands of the holy Angels. For one day, while her household was dining with the twelve poor people sitting round, above the cupbearer's table the venerable Image of the blessed Mother and the almighty Son appeared in the air with exceeding brightness. The cupbearer, struck by its immense light, returned before his Lady, and, terrified, announced what had happened. Presently Galla, rising from the table, came to the place, and saw a certain splendid light, but could not see the beautiful image. Having taken counsel, then, and accompanied by a concourse of many nobles, she hastened to the Lateran palace, and narrated to the holy Pontiff John the apparition of the light with religious gravity, and asking with pious tears and petitioning with great prayers that the lord Pope would deign to come to the palace of the Handmaid of the Lord, where, God giving and revealing, he would learn the new thing more fully.

[28] The Pontiff, wondering, acquiescing in her holy prayers, and various prodigious circumstances, came on foot in procession to Galla's Palace with bishops, priests and deacons, Cardinals, with the whole clergy, the chief men of the city and the Roman people, with great lights, and approaching the place, with arms spread out and eyes raised to heaven, prayed most devoutly within the light. At once all the bells of the most holy Lateran, and of the Apostles Peter and Paul, and of the churches of the whole city began of themselves to ring with the greatest joy. And while the venerable Pope, hearing the very great sound of the bells, was persisting in prayer, he saw between the arms of two Seraphim the most sacred image of Christ and of Blessed Mary the virgin His mother, to which he prayed with outstretched hands, saying: O most holy Mother of God, deign to grant me so great a grace that I may be able to touch with my hands this thy most holy image. Which venerable image the Seraphim, standing in the air, placed in the hands of the same Pontiff. He, receiving the same sacred image between his arms, showed it to the surrounding multitude and to the whole people to be adored, with tears of fear and love and joy; and at once a most grievous plague, which up to that day, which was the seventeenth of the month of July, about the year from the Nativity of the Lord five hundred and thirty-four, had raged wonderfully, ceased.

[29] After this Galla Patricia, endowed from heaven with so great a gift, the indulgences granted to those visiting that icon, built in the same place of the palace, for the honour, praise and glory of God and of the same blessed virgin mother Mary, a church which has been commonly named St. Mary in Portico, that the most holy image might be venerated there where, brought by the sign of light through the hands of the holy Angels, Christ had chosen a seat; and instituting that church heir of her palace and of all her possessions, she endowed it, consecrated by the hands of the same holy Pope John, with most religious affection. The aforesaid image she brought with due veneration and pious zeal into a lofty icon-case in the same church. Which Pontiff gave and granted to all who, truly contrite and confessed, should devoutly visit the same church of Blessed Mary in Portico from the first Vespers of the feast of the finding of the same most holy image, and of the consecration of the same church, which was the aforesaid XVII day of the month of July, to the last Vespers of its Octave inclusive, and should stretch out helping hands for its preservation, an indulgence and plenary remission of all their sins, from penalty and guilt, to last for all time.

[30] the benefits obtained through it, Afterwards, in the time of St. Gregory the first Pope, when a most savage plague was rushing on, the aforesaid St. Gregory with the whole clergy of the City went in procession to the same church of Blessed Mary in Portico, where the most holy image was and is; and taking it in his own hands he carried it in procession to the threshold of the Apostles Peter and Paul; and on the morrow again carried it back in procession to its place; and the plague ceased universally. Then, having seen such great miracles, the aforesaid St. Gregory confirmed the aforesaid indulgence and remission of all sins from penalty and guilt. Successively Pope Alexander the second confirmed the same Indulgence and remission of all sins from penalty and guilt granted, as was said above, by the holy Pope John the first. Then Gregory the seventh restored and consecrated the aforesaid church, ruined through age, and confirmed the indulgence and the aforesaid remission of all sins from penalty and guilt. Pope Celestine the third confirmed the said indulgence and remission of all sins from penalty and guilt. In the time of Pope Callixtus the third, a very great plague raging in the city, the said Pontiff ordered the aforesaid most holy image to be carried in procession through the said city, and at once the plague ceased. Which Pontiff confirmed the indulgence and the aforesaid remission of all sins.

[31] another prodigy, Pope Paul the second, having heard the fame of the beauty of the same most holy image, ordered it to be carried to his palace by the bishop of Forlì . Which he placed at night in his secret chapel; and, morning having come, wishing to look again at the said image, he did not find it. Then he commanded the same bishop to go to the place whence he had taken it. He went, and saw that the aforesaid sacred image had been miraculously translated to its place. Which Pope Paul the second, seeing so great a miracle, confirmed the abovesaid indulgence and remission of all sins, and gave and granted to all truly contrite and confessed who should devoutly visit the aforesaid church from the first Vespers of the festivity of the Assumption of the same blessed virgin Mary to the last Vespers of its Octave inclusive, an indulgence and plenary remission of all their sins in the customary form of the Church, to last for all time.*

[32] the structure of the icon It is, therefore, to be wondered at by us that the said church was consumed and ruined by the long age of times and the tempest of frequent wars; but the Lord by His custody has preserved in the same place, unharmed and incorrupt to this present day, amid so many tempests and frequent ruins, the most holy image of the Virgin Mary, Mother of God. This most holy image, moreover, is to be wondered at by us, which the hand neither of a painter nor of an erring sculptor marked or coloured, but the Omnipotence of the Creator formed and blessed; who, as when He appeared at the oak of Mamre with three persons, that He might be adored by Abraham, and in the furnace of burning fire, standing by as a fourth with the three children, like the son of man, He declared Himself, so in the palace of the glorious and most holy Galla He showed an image of Himself to be prayed to, when He willed and how He willed. The finger of God also, which, while Moses prayed within the cloud, carved on tablets of stone the law for the Israelites to live rightly, to the Roman Pontiff

praying within the light, assigned a venerable figure for the benefit of the Christian religion. And as, at the Lord's command, the bronze serpent was lifted up in the desert, that those hurt by serpents might be healed at the sight of it, so also this sacred image was lifted up in the City, that the concourse of the people at the sight of it might not suffer the venom of the ancient serpent, nor the hurt of the plague.

[33] Of how great merit and how great blessedness of life the aforesaid Galla the patrician was, and the eulogy of Galla is related; it is recited entire; blessed Gregory, describing it, plainly shows in the fourth book of the Dialogues, chapter 13, saying: There was in the time of the Goths a most noble girl of this city, Galla, daughter of Symmachus, consul and Patrician; whom, while the abundance of the world was burning, to repeat the marriage-bed, etc., she chose rather to be joined to God in spiritual nuptials, in which one begins from mourning and arrives at eternal joys, than to be subjected to carnal nuptials, which always begin from gladness and tend to their end with mourning. Blessed are they who shall be compared to her, since in this world they will merit to see the figure of the Virgin Mary, and in the other the desired face of the Lord; and they will be freed everywhere from the hurt of the ancient serpent, and from plague, and from every distress. Now I set forth candidly, for the love of truth, what is my opinion about the words of Benedict XIV recited at numbers 22 and 23, and about the documents praised by Carlo Erra.

[34] I could indeed wish that, the rules of sound criticism being preserved, and it is proved that that Manuscript is not so ancient, I might here be permitted to stand by the words of the most learned Pontiff already praised, and by all the instruments produced by him, so that the highest weight of authority from contemporary writings might accrue to the history of that apparition, and it might turn out historically certain. But truly, to anyone weighing these words of his more attentively and comparing them with the statements of the aforesaid Antonio Erra, the greatest wonder will be stirred. For either those two Manuscripts which are said by the most learned Pontiff to have been drawn up in the time of St. John I, supreme Pontiff, or between the years of Christ 523 and 526, are the same as those which the aforesaid Erra, pages 4 and 5, asserts are kept in the same libraries which Benedict XIV indicated, and which we have already dealt with at numbers 24 and 25; or those Manuscripts are altogether different from these. If they are different, and were, as the praised Pontiff asserted, in fact drawn up in the time of St. John I, supreme Pontiff, it is strange that they were altogether unknown to Carlo Erra, clerk Regular of the congregation of the Mother of God, who searched his archive most diligently on this matter; strange that they were published by no one; strange finally, to omit the rest, that that apparition of the image of the Mother of God here treated of, if it rests on a double testimony, and that contemporary and most worthy of credit, is asserted by Benedict XIV not as historically certain but as resting on pious belief and immemorial tradition, and that he did not say: It is certain that the image of the Virgin appeared wonderfully in the house of St. Galla; but only this: For it is reported that the image of the Most Blessed Virgin … appeared wonderfully, etc. But if, as altogether appears, they are the same Manuscript documents which the learned Pontiff and the praised Erra affirm are kept in the same places and in almost the same words, it will be no less to be wondered at that it could be asserted by him so undoubtingly that those Manuscripts were drawn up in the time of St. John I, supreme Pontiff, which were composed nine hundred and more years after the Pontificate of St. John I and labour under not a few chronological and historical blemishes. Wherefore the most learned Pontiff will have to be said not to have surveyed those instruments with his own eyes, but to have received what he wrote from the not sufficiently faithful relation of others.

[35] indeed to be about 900 years more recent than St. Galla, And lest anyone think that these things have been brought forward by me rashly, let him consult Carlo Erra himself, who, after reading the Work of Benedict XIV on the Beatification and Canonization of the Saints, and after holding a mature and diligent examination of the Manuscript documents which he praises, grants the palm of antiquity to the Manuscript made under Martin V; and since that Pontiff ascended the Chair of Peter only in the year 1417, everyone sees that the Manuscripts kept in the library of the Clerks of the Mother of God and in the Angelica of St. Augustine in the City, as having been made under Paul II and Pius II, successors of Martin V after the year 1457, are about nine hundred years removed from the time of Pope John I, contrary to what Benedict XIV affirms in his illustrious Work on the Beatification of the Servants of God and the Canonization of the Blessed, book 4, part 2, chapter 7, number 6. And indeed, if these had been drawn up while Pope John I was living, or between the years of Christ 523 and 526, their maker could not have written that that apparition of the image of the Mother of God happened ABOUT the year from the nativity of the Lord five hundred and thirty-four; that is, eight years after the death of the same John I; nor would it have been necessary for him to use the particle about; since it would have been easy, in the first place, for a writer of the same time to define most exactly the very year in which these things happened under John I. There is added that in the Manuscripts praised by Benedict XIV the epoch of the prodigious apparition is designated by the years from the Nativity of Christ; which manner of computing years was not yet in use among writers in the year 523 or 526, as Mabillon rightly observes, On Diplomatics, book 2, chapter 23, page 176, letter C, speaking thus: This reckoning, although composed by Dionysius from the year of Christ DXXXIII, was nevertheless admitted not at once, but long afterwards. Of the historians the venerable Bede (who flourished in the 8th century) seems to have been the first to observe this epoch in his History. What more? The very Manuscript instrument published by Carlo Erra at page 136 and following reaches down, the same character of letters being always kept, as he himself, an eyewitness, affirms, to the times of Pope Paul II, elected in the year 1464, and comprises also the things that were done under him; and so, since, as the same Erra admits, the Manuscript kept in the Angelica library is similar to the former as to substance and more recent than the year 1457, both these Manuscripts most openly betray their age to be far more recent than the time of St. John I.

[36] as also erroneous in various things, As for what concerns the authority of both Manuscripts, it, besides having nothing from its age by which it may be commended, as we have shown, is also, in many of the things that are related there, so openly slight, indeed none, that, were it not necessary, I should be ashamed to recount their errors and to confute them even briefly. And first, in the very opening of his narrative, the author of the Manuscript slips shamefully when he makes the emperor Justin the grandfather of Justinian Augustus himself, although Marcellinus Comes, in the Chronicle at the year 527, expressly testifies that Justinian was born of Justin's sister, with which the other writers also altogether agree. Then presently he contradicts himself so shamefully that he cannot by any reason be reconciled with himself even in the least. For since he had said before that the apparition of the sacred icon happened in the times of Pope John I and of Justin Augustus and Theodoric king of the Goths, and that the aforesaid Pontiff came on foot in procession to Galla's palace with bishops, priests and deacons, Cardinals, with the whole clergy, the chief men of the city and the Roman people, with great lights, and showed that same sacred image, given between his arms by two Seraphim, to the surrounding multitude to be adored … and at once the most grievous plague … ceased, he presently adds that all these things were done on the seventeenth of the month of July about the year from the Nativity of the Lord five hundred and thirty-four, when namely neither John I, nor Justin, nor Theodoric were any longer among the living. Nor can it be replied that the year 534 was written for 524 by the copyist's fault, unless it can at the same time be proved that, either some interval before the year 524 or certainly at the beginning of this year, a most grievous plague raged at Rome up to the XVII day of July, and that then at length, that venerable icon of the Mother of God having been shown to the people, that abominable pestilence at once ceased; both of which things, memorable above all, no historian hitherto besides the author of that Manuscript has anywhere recorded by even the least indication.

[37] I do not wish to recall the rest which is narrated in that Manuscript to the balance of fair criticism, as partly from learned writers nor to dispute whether it is sufficiently probable that Pope St. John I betook himself to the palace of St. Galla with that pomp, as was said a little before, and thronged about by the crowd of bishops, priests and deacons, Cardinals, of the whole clergy and the chief men of the City and the people; nor whether the use of bells was already then common in all the Roman churches, and whether they began of themselves, as that Manuscript has it, to ring with the greatest joy. These things, I say, I dismiss, and I go now to show that what is related there about plenary indulgences granted by Pope John I, Gregory I, Alexander II, Gregory VII and Celestine III has no appearance of truth. I profess indeed and hold as undoubted that the institution of indulgences flourished in a certain manner from the very cradle of the Church, and that the most ample power of loosing even from the temporal penalties of sins was conferred by Christ the Lord on St. Peter and his lawful successors; but the learned also hold as undoubted that in the sixth century, or the time of Pope St. John I, the manner and form of indulgences was not such as is described in that Manuscript published by us above, nor were the Roman Pontiffs, either at that time or long after, so liberal in relaxing canonical penalties that on the occasion of the finding of some sacred image or the dedication of a church they would grant plenary indulgences from the first Vespers of the festivity to the last of its Octave, in favour of pious places to be honoured or helped, to last in perpetuity. It is not necessary to bring here the long series of authors who think with me, and the arguments by which they demonstrate it, since for all may be consulted on this matter Morin, On the Administration of the Sacrament of Penance, book X, chapter 20, number 9 and following, and chapter 23; likewise our Papebroch in the Response to the exhibition of errors published by the Reverend Father Sebastian of St. Paul, part 1, page 186 and following, and again part 2, page 66 and following.

[38] And the former indeed, after he had washed away the testimonies objected to him at the cited number 9, and by name from Morin concludes in these words, chapter 20: *Truly, whoever turns over in his mind with how great severity in the eighth, ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries the Pontiffs cultivated and imposed canonical penances, of which very many examples and decrees have been related in the whole seventh book; whoever weighs with himself that the Pontiffs are nowhere read, in approved authors or in their own writings, to have relaxed anything in the least like these indulgences,

although criminals came together to Rome itself for the imposition of penance, will not, I think, persuade himself that the Pontiffs in those ages granted so great a favour of indulgences. For they would scarcely have granted so great a favour of canonical penances at the end of the twelfth century in a like cause, as he himself shows in many places in his illustrious Work on the Administration of the Sacrament of Penance. I forbear, lest I be too prolix, to recount the words of Papebroch, in order that in their place I may relate the clear testimony on this matter of the venerable servant of God Giuseppe Maria Cardinal Tommasi, which Benedict XIV himself praised in this manner in his encyclical Letter of the year 1751 for the extension of the Jubilee.

[39] [and is made manifest from the very words of the encyclical Letter of Pope Benedict XIV.] On which words (namely of Pope Urban II, granting a plenary indulgence to those who should betake themselves to that region to fight for the recovery of Palestine from the hands of the infidels) the venerable servant of God Giuseppe Maria Cardinal Tommasi (the words are Benedict XIV's), whom we gladly cite especially in this matter, since we were formerly colleague of that most illustrious man in the office of consultor of the Congregation of Cardinals set over Indulgences, left written thus: "This plenary indulgence, in which the work enjoined was most grievous with expenses, inconveniences, most laborious journeys and imminent dangers of life, so that it might rather seem a commutation of penance than an absolute relaxation of it, etc., this, I say, plenary indulgence for the Holy Land other supreme Pontiffs afterwards always confirmed. Nor does any other plenary indulgence occur to me until the beginning of the fourteenth century, in which Boniface VIII bestowed it for the year of Jubilee M. CCC." So that learned and pious Cardinal in a certain manuscript Opuscule which will perhaps shortly come out into the light among his other Works, of which a most accurate edition is being prepared at this time. Thus far the praised Benedict XIV, whose other no less express words on the same subject and on the Portiuncula indulgence you may see in tome 2 of October, page 898, number 103. From all of which it is clearer than midday light that the Manuscript instruments mentioned above are not only of a more recent age, but of slight, indeed of no authority in themselves, and not worthy to be held authentic or sufficiently fit in themselves for the admirable apparition of the image of the Mother of God, made in the house of St. Galla, to be rendered historically certain from them.

otherwise Farensem*

* wishing

* he found

perhaps add per*

§ IV. The wonderful apparition of the same icon, as to substance, is shown to be prudently credible by the constant and ancient tradition of the faithful, confirmed by its proofs. After this apparition St. Galla entered the monastery at St. Peter's, of another Order than the Benedictine, and there piously died.

By the constant tradition of the faithful, What has already been argued by me above against the Manuscript testimonies praised by Benedict XIV and Carlo Antonio Erra does not look to this, that I would have all credit withdrawn from the history of the apparition of the image of the Mother of God; indeed these things were brought forward by me into the midst with no other design than that, rejecting the spurious instruments by which it was wrongly established, I might confirm it by more genuine ones and show it piously and prudently credible, namely from the most ancient tradition of the faithful, confirmed by its monuments, and the common consent of men illustrious both in learning and in piety, to which, when nothing stands against them from elsewhere, pious and prudent belief can be given. For although that Ecclesiastical tradition which is irrefragable and of the supreme order does not militate for the truth of that apparition, there is not lacking to it, nevertheless, a tradition of an inferior order, which if you repudiate without solid reasons to the contrary, you must also take away many of those things which have long been kept with religious piety in the Church. What, further, the constant tradition and the consent of learned men bear concerning that apparition of the image of the Mother of God, I am glad to recount here. To ascend from the more recent to the more ancient, the words of Benedict XIV adduced at number 22, the praised indult of the sacred Congregation, and the Manuscript instruments themselves, of which we have already treated, give undoubted proof that for three centuries at least that history, as to substance, has been generally admitted by the faithful, and seen as such that it could be committed to public records under the eyes of the Roman Pontiffs themselves and exposed to the faithful in the church of St. Mary in Portico. And thus far indeed I assent to Carlo Antonio Erra, affirming at page 4 that the supreme Pontiffs and their vicars always watched over this, that altogether fabulous or fictitious deeds should not be exposed in churches, nor the religion of pious men thus be mocked; although in the fifteenth century the studious care of the Pontiff's vicars was not always wont to extend itself so far as to allow no tablet, whether written or painted, to be hung in churches, unless it agreed most exactly in all the circumstances of the historical fact with the rules of more accurate criticism and with chronological notes.

[41] Nor was the consent of the faithful at Rome about the admirable apparition of the image constant only in the last three or four centuries, which not only for 7 centuries but in the twelfth century also it flourished very greatly, as is drawn clearly enough from the words of Baronius at the year 1198, number 3. For he says thus in the place cited: At Rome, moreover, the same Pope Celestine (III), by the more inclined zeal with which he was held towards the cult of the venerable image of Mary, Mother of God, which had belonged to Galla Placidia (rather to Galla the patrician, as Carlo Erra also rightly notes at page 22), placed … in the church called St. Mary in Portico, built beside it a hospital house for the sick, which he also enriched with revenues. And concerning the venerable image itself this old inscription endures to this day:

"This is that image of Mary, the loving Mother, Which appeared to Galla as she reclined, afraid."

So in the same place the most learned father of the Ecclesiastical Annals. By which verses is openly indicated the very thing which the common tradition already then bore, namely that that image of the Virgin Mother of God, surrounded with wonderful light, appeared in the house of St. Galla when she was reclining at table, and that the pious Widow was vehemently astonished by that prodigy. But at what time were those verses carved on that very ancient ciborium, namely, in which that venerable image was wont to be kept? If we are to stand by the words of the praised Benedict XIV, recited at number 23, this happened under St. Gregory VII, and so about the year 1073. And two things above all seem to patronize this opinion; the one, that the mentioned verses are of that kind which they call Leonine, and that kind of verses seems not to have prevailed before the times of the same Gregory VII; the other, that that canopy of the altar, or ciborium, seems to have been made by order of the same Gregory, as can be gathered from two other verses inscribed on a stone lying under the ciborium, in these words:

Gregory the Seventh, prelate, relying on the Roman summit, Consecrated this temple to Christ for ever.

[42] but that it flourished also long before is shown from the seal of the ciborium Nevertheless, if we believe the praised Carlo Erra, discoursing on the same subject at pages 5 and 6, those skilled in antiquarian matters commonly judged that that ciborium could not be ascribed to St. Gregory VII, not only because the structure, characters and style of the ciborium did not allow it, but also because a hieroglyph, formed also in mosaic work, denoted a much more ancient time. That hieroglyph indeed, and the covering of the altar itself or ciborium, is not extant today, since in the year 1683 the old church of St. Mary in Portico was destroyed that a new one might be built, which now has its name from St. Galla: the figure of both, however, as the praised Erra witnesses at page 6, has been transmitted to posterity, and that ciborium was similar to the ciborium of St. Clement, which Ciampini exhibited in part 1 of the Ancient Monuments, page 180, plate 44, figure 1, whom accordingly let the curious reader consult in the place cited; the hieroglyph the same Carlo Erra exhibits in this manner from the History of Father Giuseppe Matraja: Further, that by the cross expressed without the effigy of Christ suffering, Christ the Lord Himself was often designated by the ancient Christians, and that by A and Ω the divinity of Christ was signified by them, as He who in the Apocalypse, chapters 1 and 22, is called Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, no one will deny who has consulted the monograms of the ancient Christians and the monuments exhibited in the praised Ciampini, part 2, plate 24, and often elsewhere. Whence there is no doubt that here also he who was the author or artificer of this hieroglyph wished to indicate Christ the Lord by the cross, and His divine nature by A and Ω; so that from this, and from the monogram carved on this ciborium, which is Μήτηρ Θεοῦ, or Mother of God, the age of this hieroglyph and ciborium, and consequently the antiquity of the tradition mentioned above, can be shown.

[43] For, although it is not certain, as some nevertheless contend, by a hieroglyph, perhaps made in the 6th century, that hieroglyphs of this sort prevailed among the Catholics immediately after the synod of Ephesus celebrated in the year 431, in order that even thus they might execrate the Nestorian heresy, which impiously denied to the Virgin Mother the title of Mother of God, and profess her to be Θεοτόκον or Mother of God; it is undoubted nevertheless that hieroglyphs of this kind were in use in Italy before the middle of the sixth century, since, as the praised Carlo Erra witnesses, at Ravenna in the most celebrated church of St. Vitalis, decorated with mosaic pictures about the year 547, as Ciampini also shows, part 2, page 65, a similar hieroglyph of equal antiquity is seen. Whence the often-praised Erra suspects not without reason that the one exhibited above also was made by the same artificers who applied themselves to the mosaic work at Ravenna in the church of St. Vitalis. This author does not deny indeed, at page 7, that those hieroglyphs were used afterwards also under Paschal I about the year 820. But, he says, these are somewhat different from ours, which is most exactly similar to those which are seen elsewhere, made under Pope John VI, Roman Pontiff in the year DCCI. Since, then, nothing occurs from which it can be established for certain whether that ciborium, adorned with mosaic work, was made under Pope John I or his nearest successors by the same artificers who worked at Ravenna, or under Pope John VI about the year 701, I leave that matter in the middle, content at least to have attributed to it the highest antiquity. Nor does it follow from the two little verses adduced at the end of number 41 that that ciborium was not built before the times of St. Gregory VII, since by those verses it is only asserted that the holy Pontiff consecrated to Christ for ever the temple of St. Mary in Portico, namely restored before; which things are most true even if that ciborium was 4 or 5 centuries older than that restored temple.

[44] It could be replied here, however, that although the structure, characters and hieroglyph of that ciborium whose so great antiquity the Leonine verses do not overthrow seem to indicate a greater age than that of Gregory VII, elected pontiff in the year 1073, yet more recent

its age is manifestly shown from the Leonine or like-ending verses inscribed on it, which were generally used only in the eleventh century and the following ones. But I answer that, even if those rhythmic and ὁμοιοτέλευτα, or like-ending, poems were called Leonine from a certain Leo, a poet of the twelfth century, who especially affected them, it does not thence follow that no rhythmic and like-ending verses were composed even before the eleventh century: For in any age, as Ciampini, praised above, rightly notes, part 1 of the Ancient Monuments, chapter 3, page 29, it could happen that poets were found who loved the art of composing similar verses. For since the poets at the beginning of the middle age found rhythmic verses, or those which we now call Leonine, in the Latin writers of the golden age, for instance this one of Virgil, book 12 of the Aeneid:

Ora citatorum dextra contorsit equorum,

and in Ovid in the Speech of Ulysses:

Si Troiae fatis aliquid restare putatis,

and again in the Letter of Hermione to Ulysses:

Vir precor uxori, frater succurre sorori,

and in Quintilian these verses of Marcus Tullius, although they were hissed off by some while he was living:

Cedant arma togae. Concedat laurea linguae. O fortunatam, natam, me consule, Romam!

When, I say, the poets of the middle age found verses of this kind among the ancients, that kind of poem could have pleased them, whether because they believed some euphony to be in them, or because they judged that verses of this kind, homotonous or rhythmic, were committed to memory more easily than others; and accordingly it was natural for them to use that kind of poem in the inscriptions of monuments.

[45] the verses attached to the ciborium, And indeed that like-ending or Leonine verses were in use before Pope Gregory VII is manifestly shown both from the verses inscribed on the royal chasuble of the kingdom of Hungary, in Frölich, page 40, and from the leaden bull attached to a diploma of Conrad Augustus issued in the year 1038, on whose reverse side the effigy of Rome is seen carved with this verse:

Roma caput mundi regit orbis frena rotundi.

That diploma you may see in Muratori, Italian Antiquities of the middle age, tome 3, Dissertation 40, column 697. Indeed, as it seems to the most learned Cardinal Baronius at the year 538, number X, before the middle of the sixth century these verses were cut, by his order, in stone before the doors of the church which Belisarius caused to be erected in order to propitiate the offended Deity:

This church the patrician Belisarius, friend of the city, Founded for pardon of his fault. Therefore, you who set foot in this sacred house, Pray God often that He may have mercy on him.

The praised Muratori, at page 689, does not hold so great an antiquity of this inscription as certain: Yet, he says, there are things which persuade that the inscription was set up in the very sixth century of the Christian era. For scarcely after many centuries (or after the eleventh century, in which similar poems are said to have prevailed) would the people have had to be asked to obtain mercy from God for Belisarius by repeated prayers. Ciampini also refers the age of homotonous verses, as very probable, to the 6th or 7th or at least the 8th century. For in part 1 of the Ancient Monuments, page 28, concerning the door of the church of St. Pudentiana built in the city of Rome, on which, besides other rhythmic verses, these are read:

Occurrit sponso Praxedis lumine claro Nos pia Praxedis prece sanctas confer ad edis.

he speaks in these words: If one may conjecture, both from the characters and from the figure of the lamb indicated above (by him), I judge that (this door) savours of the times of the VI or VII century, especially from canon 82 of the Quinisext or Trullan conventicle, where with too wicked a daring that pseudo-synod presumed to correct the Roman Church, which had been wont to paint the lamb of the law on the wall… Wherefore I would say that that lamb was expressed either before the said synod (and so either in the V or VI century) or a little after (and accordingly about the beginning of the VIII century) in confutation of the said canon. More poems of this kind, now called Leonine, you have in the praised Muratori, tome 3, Dissertation 40, column 689 and following, and in Ciampini, Ancient Monuments, part 1, page 26 and following, likewise part 2, pages 5 and 165, and in the Mantissa of Emendations and Additions published at Milan in the year 1729, number 4. All of which inscriptions, framed in Leonine metre, I do not know whether it would be safe enough to wish to remove to the beginning of the XII century or the end of the XI.

[46] However it be, even from the Leonine verse alone inscribed on the leaden bull of Conrad Augustus, [that history of the apparition is established as prudently credible as to substance.] it is sufficiently clear that the former verses drawn on the ciborium of the image of the Mother of God are not, on this head, that they are Leonine, to be referred to the end of the XI century or the beginning of the following, nor can anything be lawfully concluded from them against the immemorial antiquity of the mentioned tradition. But if nevertheless anyone should absolutely wish that those verses, not otherwise than those recited at the end of number 41, were inscribed on that ciborium in the times of St. Gregory VII, I shall not indeed oppose it so greatly, provided nothing else is contended than that that holy Pontiff, when in the year 1073, as Baronius witnesses at number 81, he restored and consecrated the diaconate called St. Mary in Portico, restored that ciborium together with the temple itself, and, in place of its ancient inscription, framed perhaps in prose, in which the wonderful apparition of that image of the Mother of God was related, ordered another inscription, witness of the same thing, which could be read and committed to memory more easily than the ancient one, to be cut, framed in rhythmic metre according to the usage then prevailing. Whether, then, as Pietro Felini contends in the praised Erra, page 7, that venerable image of the Mother of God, which had appeared wonderfully in the house of St. Galla, was placed by St. John I himself in a ciborium furnished either by himself or by our holy Widow; or whether, as the same Carlo Erra conjectures, Pope John VI, devoted to constructing works of this kind, as Anastasius the Librarian witnesses, ordered that covering or ciborium to be made, and placed in it, as he was a Greek by nation, that A and Ω, a Greek hieroglyph, and the image of the Mother of God clothed in Greek dress, illustrious by the wonderful apparition; or whether finally that ciborium, whose structure, characters, hieroglyph and monogram are nevertheless older than the times of Gregory VII by the common judgment of the antiquaries, as Erra witnesses, be said to have been partly restored by that Pontiff and adorned with a new inscription framed in Leonine verses; this will always remain untouched, that that apparition was confirmed already before the times of St. Gregory VII by so immemorial and so constant a tradition, and perhaps also by written testimonies, that, since nothing militates strongly to the contrary, it can be prudently believed by the faithful as to substance.

[47] Nor ought it to seem so surprising that St. Gregory the Great said nothing about that apparition nor does the silence of St. Gregory and of Anastasius hinder it. made to St. Galla, since he, as I taught at number 9, had by no means proposed to himself to describe minutely the Life of St. Galla and all her deeds, but only her wonderful passing to those above. And that Anastasius the Librarian also did not mention that apparition in the Acts of Pope St. John I is no more to be wondered at, since that matter, though done in the time of St. John I, did not pertain closely to the eulogy of the same Pontiff. The rest, namely what pertains to the figure, cult and translation of this image and the benefits granted to those devoutly venerating it, since we are not writing the history of that image, it is not ours to record here. Whoever desires to learn these things thoroughly, let him go to Carlo Piazza, decade 2 of the Life of St. Galla, and to the History of this image published in the year 1750 by the very often praised Carlo Erra, where he will find many things worth knowing treated, but which do not pertain to this Commentary. Further, from what has been disputed above I wish to conclude this also: how rightly it is believed that St. Galla, after the death of her husband, remained in the world for some time, as St. Fulgentius also intimates at number 13, say one year or a little more, in order that she might convert her house, in which the venerable image of the Mother of God had prodigiously appeared, into a church to be consecrated to God under the invocation of the same Mother of God; and also that, having distributed her opulent means partly for the help of churches, and perhaps by name of that of St. Stephen called Catagalla, and of their ministers, partly to the needy, she reserved no more for herself than that from which, through the course of her life, she could spend works of alms still abundant, as St. Gregory the Great witnesses, on the indigent.

[48] After this apparition, the monastery at St. Peter's, It remains that we now investigate in a few words whether St. Galla afterwards entered a monastery of the Benedictine Order, as some will have it, and whether she met death about the year 550, as Mabillon asserts in the 1st Benedictine Century, page 113. And first, that she is not to be reckoned among the genuine nuns of the Order of St. Benedict Mabillon himself seems to have recognized, when in the Index of the Saints of the 1st Benedictine Century he did not put before the name of St. Galla the asterisk (), as I taught at number 3, by which character he is wont to designate the pupils of either sex strictly so called of his Order. Since, however, several Benedictine hagiologists nevertheless make her a pupil of their Order, I am glad here, as I promised before, to show that she embraced the monastic life some years before the first monastery was founded for Benedictine nuns, and so that that monastery at the church of Blessed Peter into which St. Galla withdrew was certainly not of the Benedictine Order at that time. And indeed, even if it should be liberally granted to Mabillon in the Preface to the 1st Benedictine Century, number 48 — which, however, as he himself admits, is uncertain — that St. Scholastica suddenly had very many companions and sharers of her institute in cells or convents, she certainly did not have them in the city of Rome itself before the first Parthenon had been erected near Cassino for herself and her nuns, or, to use in part the words of a certain old poet, before she had joined her Virginal house to her brother's*; which, since it is certainly some years later than the monastery of Cassino, begun to be founded by St. Benedict in the year 528, it follows that the monastery at the church of St. Peter into which St. Galla betook herself about the year 523 or 524, or a year or two after the death of her husband, as is gathered from number 19 and following, is not a few years, and perhaps half or a whole century, older than the first Benedictine parthenon.

[49] which was not then of the Order of St. Benedict, I know indeed that it is said by Panciroli, in the Hidden Treasures of kindly Rome, region 7, church 7, page 509, that there was formerly at St. Peter's a convent of nuns, who in a certain private Manuscript of the archive of St. Peter are called Nuns of St. Benedict,

the name of St. Catherine having been given to their church; but besides that it can by no means be proved that the holy Widow betook herself into that convent of St. Catherine, and not rather into another of the neighbouring ones, of which Piazza treats in decade 1, chapter 9 of the Life of St. Galla, that Manuscript document, which Panciroli does not commend on the score of antiquity, and which the aforesaid Piazza, page 50, holds not a little suspect, is either more recent, or certainly has not so great authority that, against the reasons brought by me, that monastery into which St. Galla withdrew could be said to have been of the Benedictine Order before the first convent of St. Scholastica was founded near Cassino, as Mabillon writes. There is added that, even if the document praised by Panciroli were both ancient and genuine, nothing could thence be proved against our opinion, since that monastery could indeed at one time, as Panciroli will have it, have been of Benedictine Nuns, namely when, either long or not so long after the founding of the first parthenon, their institute began to be spread; although that same convent was not for that reason of the Benedictine Order either from its beginning or in the times of St. Galla. For the rest, what that Rule of religious life was which St. Galla followed, whether that of St. Basil, which seems then to have flourished generally in the Italian monasteries, or of another holy founder, since St. Gregory the Great is silent, I would not dare to define.

[50] As for what pertains to determining the time of the holy Widow's death, St. Galla entered, and there piously died about the year 546. Mabillon and Ferrari disagree somewhat between themselves: the former, when, in the 1st Benedictine Century, page 113, relating the death of St. Galla from St. Gregory, he writes that it happened about the year 550; the latter, when, in the Eulogy of St. Galla which he published at the VI day of April, he fixes her death to about the year of Salvation DXLII. But which of the two established it more probably? For my part nothing is at hand by which I may certainly determine the year of the Saint's death; but, if there is room for conjecture here, I do not know whether our illustrious Widow survived the city of Rome's capture by Totila in the year 546, as Muratori writes in the Annals of Italy, since Procopius, whose words about Rusticiana, sister of St. Galla, I gave at number XI, does not mention our holy Widow by even a word, which he would otherwise very likely have done if she too had survived the disaster of her native city and had seen, or experienced the like of, the extreme calamity of her sister. Since, however, as St. Gregory the Great witnesses, St. Galla served God in the monastery at the church of St. Peter FOR MANY YEARS, given to simplicity of heart and to prayer, and the beginning of this monastic life seems, from what has been said above, to be referred to about the year 523 or 524, it will not be without reason, in order that those many years in number may be found the more probably, to prolong the life of our holy Widow, contrary to what Ferrari did, up to the running year of Christ 546; in which year perhaps, lest she should be compelled to see with her own eyes the calamity of her country and, besides the most grievous pains of body with which she was struggling, to undergo a most bitter hardship, she was called by God to eternal joys and the reward of her virtues. Have now her Acts, which St. Gregory the Great wrote under the title: Of the Passing of Galla, the handmaid of God, in book 4 of the Dialogues.

ACTS

From book IV of the Dialogues of St. Gregory, Pope I, chapter XIII, Paris edition of the year 1705, tome 2, column 392.

Galla, widow, afterwards a nun, at Rome. (S.) BHL Number: 3234

Galla, having lost a noble husband, rejects second nuptials, Meanwhile I think that this also should not be passed over in silence, which I have learned from the relation of grave and faithful persons ^a. For in the times of the Goths ^b Galla, a most noble girl of this city ^c, daughter of Symmachus, consul and patrician ^d, given to a husband within the years of adolescence, was widowed by his death within the space of one year ^e. When, while the abundance of the world was burning, both wealth and age called her to repeat the marriage-bed, she chose rather to be joined to God in spiritual nuptials, in which one begins from mourning but arrives at eternal joys ^f, than to be subjected to carnal nuptials, which always begin from gladness and tend to their end with mourning. Now since there was in her a very fiery temperament ^g of body, the physicians began to say that unless she returned to the embraces of a man, she would, through excessive heat, against nature have beards ^h: which also so happened afterwards. But the holy Woman feared nothing of outward deformity, who loved the beauty of the inward Spouse. Nor did she fear that, if this were disfigured in her, that which was not loved in her by the heavenly Spouse would be.

[2] having become a nun she is afflicted with cancer, and foreknows her death, As soon ⁱ, therefore, as her husband ^k had died, having cast off the secular habit, she gave herself to a monastery at the church of blessed Peter the Apostle for the service of almighty God ^l, and there for many years, given to simplicity of heart and to prayer, she spent large works of alms on the needy ^m. And when almighty God had decreed now to render the perennial reward to her labours, she was struck with the ulcer of a cancer ⁿ in the breast. Now at night-time two candlesticks were accustomed to give light before her bed: because, namely, being a friend of light, she held in hatred not only spiritual but also bodily darkness. When one night she was lying wearied by this same infirmity, she saw blessed Peter the Apostle ^o standing between the two candlesticks before her bed: nor was she terrified with fear, but, taking boldness [p] from love, she exulted, and said to him: What is it, my Lord? Are my sins forgiven me? To whom he, as he is of most benign countenance, bowing his head, assented, saying: They are forgiven; come. But since she loved a certain nun in the same monastery above the rest, Galla at once added: I ask that sister Benedicta [q] may come with me. To whom he answered: No, but such a one [r] shall come with you; this one, however, whom you ask for, shall follow on the thirtieth day [s].

[3] and she dies with one companion, the other following afterwards. These things then accomplished, the vision of the Apostle standing by and speaking with her was taken away. But she at once summoned the mother [t] of the whole Congregation, and indicated to her what she had seen and what she had heard. And on the third day she died with the sister who had been named [u] [x]. She, however, whom she herself had asked for followed on the thirtieth day. Which deed remains memorable to this day [y] in the same monastery, and so, handed down by the preceding mothers [z], the younger ones, who are now nun virgins, are wont to narrate it there minutely, as if they themselves too had been present at that time at so great a miracle.

ANNOTATA.

p. Although in Sallust, in the Catiline, audentia is of fortitude and audacia of rashness; here, however, audacia is taken in a good sense, namely for a certain holy confidence and security, by which she did not fear to address freely the Prince of the Apostles appearing to her.

q. On this holy nun see tome 2 of May, page 107.

r. Who she was, one would divine in vain.

s. In fact she followed her at the aforesaid time. But whether on the VI day of May, on which St. Benedicta is announced in the Roman Martyrology, has not been ascertained from the testimony of the ancients. Consult number 2.

t. Hence it is clear how ancient that custom is, that the superior or abbess of nuns is called by the name of mother.

u. Named, that is, foretold or foreannounced.

x. Hence it would manifestly follow that St. Galla died on the VI day of April, if it were certain by the authority of the ancients that St. Benedicta passed to those above on the VI day of May.

y. St. Gregory was writing this in the year 593 or 594, as we said at number 8.

z. The most recent editors of the Works of St. Gregory the Great note here that nuns also come under the name of mothers, especially those who are of advanced age.