Dialogues

GREGORY. Wonder nothing at this, Peter, for you knew very well Redemptus, Bishop of the city of Ferenti, a man of venerable life, who died almost seven years since: with whom I had familiar acquaintance, by reason that he dwelt not far from the Abbey in which I lived. This man, when I asked him (for the matter was very well known far and near), told me that which by divine revelation he had learned concerning the end of the world, in the time of John the younger, who was my predecessor. For he said that upon a certain day, as he was, according to his manner, visiting of his diocese, he came to the church of the blessed martyr Euthicius: and when it was night he would needs be lodged nigh to the sepulchre of the martyr, where after his travel he reposed himself. About midnight, being, as he said himself, neither perfectly waking, nor yet sleeping, but rather heavy of sleep, he felt his waking soul oppressed with great sorrow: and being in that case, he saw the same blessed martyr Euthicius standing before him, who spake thus: "Art thou waking, Redemptus?" to whom he answered, that he was. Then the martyr said: "The end of all flesh is come: the end of all flesh is come": which words after he had repeated thus three times, he vanished out of his sight.

Then the man of God rose up, and fell to his prayers with many tears: and straight after, those fearful sights in heaven followed; to wit, fiery lances, and armies appearing from the north. Straight after likewise the barbarous and cruel nation of the Lombards, drawn as a sword out of a sheath, left their own country, and invaded ours: by reason whereof the people, which before for the huge multitude were like to thick corn-fields, remain now withered and overthrown: for cities be wasted, towns and villages spoiled, churches burnt, monasteries of men and women destroyed, farms left desolate, and the country remaineth solitary and void of men to till the ground, and destitute of all inhabitants: beasts possessing those places, where before great plenty of men did dwell. And how it goeth in other parts of the world I know not, but here in this place where we live, the world doth not foretell any end, but rather sheweth that which is present and already come. Wherefore so much the more zealously ought we to seek after eternal things, by how much we find all temporal so quickly to be fled and gone. Surely this world were to be contemned, although it did flatter us, and with pleasant prosperity contented our mind: but now, seeing it is fraught with so many miseries and divers afflictions, and that our sorrows and crosses do daily increase and be doubled, what doth it else but cry unto us that we should not love it?

Many more things yet remain of the worthy acts of God's servants, but because I have resolved now upon another course, I will now pass them over with silence.

PETER. For as much as I perceive that many Christians do doubt of the immortality of the soul, after the dissolution of the body: I beseech you for the spiritual good or many, to set down some reasons for proof thereof: or the examples of some souls which have testified the same, if you remember any: to the end that those which be troubled with any such temptations, may learn that the soul doth not die together with the body.

GREGORY. This is a work of great labour, especially for one that is busied with other affairs, and hath other things to attend unto: yet if any profit by my means may redound to others, willingly do I prefer that before mine own will and pleasure: and therefore, God's grace assisting me, in this fourth book following, I will clearly show that the soul doth live after the death of the body.

[3:44] 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.