Dialogues

GREGORY. Neither is that miracle to be passed over with silence, which almighty God vouchsafed to work by his servant Maximianus, now Bishop of Syracusis, but then the father and governor of mine Abbey. For at such time as I was, upon the commandment of my Bishop, sent to Constantinople to the Emperor, about affairs of the Church, the same reverent man, Maximianus upon charity, with other of his monks, came thither unto me: who in his return homeward to Rome, fell into a great tempest upon the Adriake sea: in which both himself and all those that were in his company, after a most strange and miraculous manner, tasted both of the indignation and favour of almighty God. For the sea did so rage with the fury of the winds, that they had spent their mast: the sails floated upon the waves: and the ship, beaten and torn with boisterous billows, did leak water so fast, that it was now come to the upper deck, in such sort that the ship seemed not so much to be in the waters, as the waters in the ship.

The mariners and passengers, troubled with the fear of death, not as a thing far off, but even present before their eyes, void of all hope of this life, prepared themselves for the next: and so, mutually giving the pax or kiss of peace one to another, they received the body and blood of our Saviour: commending themselves to almighty God, that he would vouchsafe mercifully to receive their souls, who had delivered their bodies to so fearful a death: but God, who had wonderfully terrified their minds, did more wonderfully preserve their lives. For the same ship although full of water, yet did it hold on her course for eight days together, and upon the ninth, it arrived at the port of Cothronum:^[3:39] and when all the rest were safely gone out, then last of all the reverent man Maximianus went also forth: and no sooner was he upon land, than the ship sunk in the haven: as though, by their departure, it had wanted that which did preserve it: and whereas before, being at sea, it was full of men, and carried also abundance of water, and yet sailed onward: now when Maximianus with his monks were landed, it could not in the haven carry the waters alone: whereby God gave them to understand, that, when it was laden, himself with his divine hand did govern and preserve it: seeing when it was empty it could not for a small time continue above the water.

[3:38] Chapter XXXVI. p. 164. Maximianus, Bishop of Syracuse and formerly abbot of St. Gregory's abbey of Sant' Andrea on the Caelian Hill, was a constant friend and correspondent of the latter; he died in 594. St. Gregory was sent to Constantinople as apocrisiarius or papal legate, by Pope Pelagius II., in 579, and stayed there until about 585. While there he composed his great Moralia.

[3:39] Ibid, p, 165. "Cothronum" is Cotrone, on the east coast of Calabria.