Gregory the Great, Dialogues (1911) Book 3.  pp. 105-174

[Footnotes moved to the end and combined with editorial notes]

1. Chapter I. pp. 105-108. St. Paulinus (Meropius Pontius Anicius Paulinus) was born at Bordeaux in 353 or 354, of a noble house with vast estates in Gaul, Italy, and Spain. In middle life he left the world, and from 409 until his death in 431 was Bishop of Nola in Campania (a province of which he had been governor in early manhood). Many of his letters and poems (he had been a pupil of Ausonius) have been preserved. His feast is on June 22. The story here told by St. Gregory presents various chronological difficulties. The Vandals established their kingdom in Africa between 429 and 439 (in which latter year Gaiseric, or Genseric, took Carthage) ; their ravages in Italy (culminating in the sack of Rome by Gaiseric in 455) did not begin in the lifetime of Paulinus ; and Gaiseric himself, who is evidently the king here referred to, did not die until 477, more than forty years after the death of Paulinus. As a matter of fact, Alaric took Nola in 410, after his sack of Rome, and Paulinus, then newly appointed Bishop, was made prisoner. "Our Paulinus, Bishop of Nola," writes St. Augustine, "who from one most wealthy had become voluntarily poor and most abundantly holy, when the Barbarians sacked Nola, and he was held captive, prayed thus in his heart, as we afterwards learned from him : Lord, let me not be tormented on account of gold and silver, for Thou knowest where all I have is" (De Civitate Dei,i. 10). Alaric died within the year. It seems not impossible, as M. André Baudrillart suggests (Saint Paulin Evêque de Nole,pp. 167-170), that the foundation for St. Gregory's story is some tradition connected with the taking of St. Paulinus in 410, and that the Vandals have been confused with the Visigoths, Gaiseric with Alaric. There is no evidence that St. Paulinus was ever a prisoner in Africa.

1. Chapter II. p. 109. For "Justinian the elder" read "Justin the elder " (the mistake is not the translator's, but due to the Latin text that he used). John I., a Tuscan by birth, was elected Pope in 523, in succession to Pope Hormisdas, whose reconciliation of the Roman See with the Eastern Empire, as represented by Justin I., had weakened the power of Theodoric in Italy. In 525 he was compelled by the Gothic king to go on an embassy to Justin, here recorded by St. Gregory, with a view of persuading the Emperor to adopt less vigorous methods against the Arians. At Constantinople he crowned the Emperor. On his return to Ravenna, Theodoric threw him into a dungeon, where he died in May, 526. He is the last Pope whom the Church of Rome venerates as a martyr. Cf.below, Bk. IV. chap. 30.

1. Chapter III. p. 109. Agapitus I., a Roman noble, was elected Pope in 535, when Justinian, the nephew and successor of Justin, was preparing to reconquer Italy from the Goths. He went to Constantinople, at once to make peace (in which he was unsuccessful) and to procure the deposition of the patriarch Anthimus, who adhered to the Monophysite heresy and was supported by the Empress Theodora. There the Pope suddenly died in April 536. Dante (Par.vi. 10-21) makes Justinian represent himself as converted from the Monophysites by the words of Agapitus :

" Cesare fui, e son Giustiniano, Che, per voler del primo amor ch'io sento, D'entro le leggi trassi il troppo e il vano. E prima ch'io all'opra fossi attento, Una natura in Cristo esser, non piue, Credeva, e di tal fede era contento ; Ma il benedetto Agapito, che fue Sommo pastore, alia fede sincera Mi dirizzò con le parole sue. Io gli credetti, e ciò che in fede sua era Veggio ora chiaro, si come tu vedi Ogni contraddizion e falsa e vera."

1. Chapter IV. p. 110. Datius, Archbishop of Milan, a great champion of orthodoxy and an active ecclesiastical politician, was closely associated with Pope Vigilius in his struggle with Justinian and Theodora. He died at Constantinople in 552. This legend probably refers to his earlier visit to the Byzantine Court, circa 544.

1. ¹ Isai. 14, 13, 14.

1. Chapter V. p. 111. Sabinus, Bishop of Canosa in Apulia, has been already mentioned, Bk. II. chap. 15. This story shows Totila in a different light from that in which he usually appears in Gregory's pages.

1. Chapter VIII. p. 116. The Pope in question is usually identified with John III. (561-574) ; but the previous reference to Constantius, Bishop of Aquino, as a contemporary of St. Benedict (cf.Bk. II. chap. 16), seems to point to John II. (533-535).

1. Chapter IX. p. 117. Frigidianus or Frigdianus (in Italian, San Frediano) was an Irishman. He died in 588, and is celebrated on March 18 and November 18. For "Anser" read Auser,now called the Serchio.

1. Chapter X. p. 118. Placentia is the modern Piacenza, in Lombardy.

1. Chapter XI. p. 119. Cerbonius died about 575. Populonium, or Populonia, a few miles from Piombino in the Maremma of Tuscany, was an important place in antiquity by reason of the smelting of the iron from Elba. It was the chief Etruscan seaport.

1. Chapter XII. p. 120. Otricoli (Ocriculum)is near Orte in Umbria. This St. Fulgentius (d. 540) is not to be confused with his contemporary, St. Fulgentius, Bishop of Ruspe (d. 533).

1. Chapter XIII. p. 121. The capture of Perusia (the modern Perugia) by the Goths and the martyrdom of St. Herculanus (Sant' Ercolano) took place in 549, after a siege of three years, during which the city was gallantly defended by a Greek imperial garrison under Cyprian. According to the legend, when the defenders were reduced to extremities, Herculanus ordered a lamb or an ox to be fed with all the store of grain that remained, and then hurled down from the walls, in order that the besiegers might suppose that supplies abounded, and abandon their hope of reducing the city by starvation. A young ecclesiastic, either accidentally or by treachery, revealed the trick to the Goths, who straightway took the city by storm.

1. Chapter XIV. p. 123. There were a number of Syrian monks in Italy during the sixth century (Herculanus of Perugia is said to have been a Syrian). Nothing more is known concerning this Isaac of Spoleto, who, if he lived "almost to the last days of the Goths," must have died about the middle of the century (Teias, the successor of Totila, and the last king of the Goths in Italy, was slain in 553). He is not to be confused with two other Syrians of the same name, the presbyter Isaac of Antioch (middle of fifth century) and Isaac of Nineveh, the Nestorian bishop of that city in the latter half of the seventh century. For the last-named, seeJ. B. Chabot, De S. Isaaci Ninivitae vita, scriptis, et doctrina(Paris, 1892), and a more recent article by J. P. Arendzen in the Catholic Encyclopedia,vol. viii. (New York, 1910). The Latin Liber de contemptu mundiis a kind of collection from the writings of Isaac of Nineveh (translated from a Greek version of the Syriac original) ; upon this is based an Italian work of the fourteenth century, variously entitled De la perfectione de la vita contemplativaand Collazione dell' Abate Isaac,erroneously attributed to St. Gregory's Isaac of Spoleto, which has been several times reprinted (the latest edition is that of Bartolommeo Sorio, published at Rome in 1845, together with the letters of Giovanni dalle Celle).

1. ¹ Judges 3, 1. 127

1. Chapter XV. p. 128. Euthicius (better, Eutychius) died about 540 ; Florentius about 547.

1. ¹ 1 Cor. 6, 10.

1. ¹ Isai. 6, 5.

1. ¹ Prov. 28, 9. 132

1. Chapter XVI. p. 133. Marcius is called Martinus in the Latin text. Mons Marsicus is either Monte Marsicano in the Abruzzi, or the mountain of the same name near Marsico Nuovo in Basilicata. Pope Pelagius II., Gregory's immediate predecessor, reigned from 579 to 590.

1. Chapter XVII. p. 136. Buxentum, in Lucania, is either Pisciotta or Policastro on the coast of Calabria. Monte Argentario, in the Tuscan province of Grosseto (formerly a part of the republic of Siena) is famous in the annals of the order of the Passionists.

1. ¹ I Cor. 7, 3. 138

1. Chapter XVIII. p. 139. This monk Benedict (who, of course, is not the same person as his more famous contemporary, St. Benedict of Nursia) is commemorated on March 23.

1. ¹ Daniel 3.

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

1. ¹ Matt. 8,31.

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

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

1. ¹ Daniel 8, 27.

1. ¹ Matt. 20, 22-23.

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

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

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

1. ¹ John 12, 24.

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

1. ¹ John 1, 1.

1. ¹ Lamentations 3, 48.

1. ¹ Joshua 15, 19.

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

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

1. ¹ 1 John 3,16.

1. ¹ Isai. 57, 1.

1. ² Jerem. 50, 26.

1. ³ Eccles. 3, 5.

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

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

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