The Dialogues of Saint Gregory the Great: Re-edited with an Introduction and NotesHaving witnessed the endless string of disasters that shattered his beloved Italy in the late 6th century AD, Pope Saint Gregory the Great set down in the Dialogues a sequence of tales to help his contemporaries escape from their worldly troubles and contemplate eternal life. Peter, Gregory's interlocutor, laments that he has never heard of anyone famous in Italy for virtue. To set him straight, Gregory offers an entire litany of stories of Italian saints-from Honoratus of Funda who pinned a great rock to a mountainside to prevent it from crushing an abbey, to the holy virgin Tarsilla who received a vision of Pope Felix immediately before her death. Several of these stories are well known even to this day, while others, like the story of Florentius and his ill-fated bear, are merely strange and picturesque. Perhaps most importantly, Gregory's Dialogues contain an entire book dedicated to the life of Saint Benedict of Nursia. This portion of the Dialogues represents the most detailed and lengthy biography of Benedict from a near contemporary and is the source of many of the stories told about this important saint. Often viewed as mere folk-history, the Dialogues served a higher function than simple history-they were a spiritual exhortation to Gregory's worn and weary countrymen. To modern readers, these tales of visions, miracles and extraordinary Christian virtue paint a vivid portrait of daily life amid the wreckage of once-prosperous Roman Italy. In addition, the Dialogues offer a glimpse into the theology of one of the great minds of the Church during the time when Roman authority ebbed forever in the West and ecclesiastical authority emerged to fill the void. |
Contents
| 3 | |
Of Libertinus Prior of the same Abbey | 9 |
Of a Monk that was gardener to the same Abbey | 15 |
Of Constantius Clerk of St Stephens Church | 23 |
Of Anastasius Abbot of the Monastery called Suppen | 29 |
Of Severus a Priest in the same Province | 46 |
The Second Book | 51 |
How he brake a glass with the sign of the Cross | 55 |
Of Fulgentius Bishop of Otricoli | 120 |
Of the servants of God Euthicius and Florentius | 128 |
Of Marcius the Monk of Mount Marsico | 133 |
Of a Monk dwelling in the mountain called Argentario who raised up a dead man | 136 |
XVIII Of Bennet the Monk | 139 |
Of the church of St Zeno the martyr into which the swelling waters came not any farther than to the door | 140 |
Of Stephen a Priest in the Province of Valeria | 141 |
Of a Nun that with her only authority dis possessed a devil | 142 |
How by prayer he made water to spring out of | 62 |
Of a miracle wrought by his sister Scholastica | 94 |
How and in what manner he saw his sisters soul going out of her body | 96 |
How he wrote the rule of his order | 99 |
How a mad woman lying in his cave was cured | 100 |
The Third Book I Of Paulinus Bishop of the City of Nola | 105 |
Of Pope John | 109 |
Of Datius Bishop of Milan | 110 |
Of Sabinus Bishop of Camisina 판 III | 111 |
Of Cassius Bishop of Narni 9 | 113 |
Of Constantius Bishop of Aquinum | 116 |
Of Frigidianus Bishop of Lucca | 117 |
Of Sabinus Bishop of Placentia who by his letters made the river of Po to retire into his channel | 118 |
Of Cerbonius Bishop of Populonium | 119 |
Of a Priest in the Province of Valeria that held a thief at his sepulchre | 143 |
XXIII Of the Abbot of Mount Preneste and his Priest | 145 |
Of Theodorus Clerk of St Peters Church in Rome | 146 |
Of Abundius Clerk of the same Church | 147 |
Of an Arian Bishop strooken blind | 151 |
Of certain Bishops of Africk that had for | 157 |
Of Maximianus Bishop of Syracusis | 164 |
Of a vision which appeared to Redemptus Bishop | 173 |
That an infidel liveth not without faith | 179 |
That as the life of the soul whiles it remaineth | 186 |
That some are by revelation strengthened not | 242 |
| 277 | |