Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 114

But neither do I keep silent about what the aforesaid Probus, the servant of God, used to tell concerning his sister, a little girl named Musa, saying that on a certain night, in a vision, the holy Mother of God, the ever-virgin Mary, appeared to her, and showed her maidens of her own age in white garments. When the girl desired to be joined among them, yet did not dare to unite herself to them, she was asked by the voice of the blessed Virgin Mary whether she wished to be with them and to live in her service. And when the same girl said, 「I do,」 she at once received from her a command that she should henceforth do nothing light or girlish, and abstain from laughter and jests, knowing for certain that on the thirtieth day she would come, among those same virgins whom she had seen, to her service.

Having seen these things, the girl was changed in all her ways, and with the hand of great gravity she wiped away from herself all the levity of a girl's life. And when her parents wondered that she had been so changed, being questioned she related the matter—what the Mother of God had commanded her, and on what day she was to go to her service—and made it known. Then, after the twenty-fifth day, she was seized by a fever. But on the thirtieth day, when the hour of her departure had drawn near, she beheld that same blessed Mother of God coming to her with the maidens whom she had seen in the vision. To her she also began to answer when called, and with eyes reverently lowered to cry out with clear voice: 「Behold, Lady, I come; behold, Lady, I come.」

And with that very cry she gave up her spirit, and went forth from her virginal body to dwell with the holy virgins. PETER: Since the human race is subject to many and countless vices, I judge that the heavenly Jerusalem can be filled for the greatest part with little ones or infants. GREGORY: Although it is to be believed that all baptized infants who die in that same infancy enter the heavenly kingdom, yet it is not to be believed that all little ones who are already able to speak enter the kingdoms of heaven; for to some little ones the entrance of that heavenly kingdom is closed by their parents, if they are badly reared. For a certain man, very well known to all in this city, had, three years ago, a son of about five years, as I judge;

whom, loving too carnally, he reared with laxity. And this same little one (which is grievous to tell) was accustomed, as soon as anything stood in the way of his mind, to blaspheme the majesty of God. This child, in this city three years ago, being struck by the pestilence, came to his death. And while his father held him in his lap, as those who were present bore witness, the boy, gazing with trembling eyes upon the malignant spirits who had come to him, began to cry out: 「Ward them off, father, ward them off, father.」 And crying out he turned his face away, so as to hide himself from them in his father's bosom. And when his father, trembling, asked what he saw, the boy added, saying: 「Black men have come, who wish to carry me off.」

And when he had said this, he immediately blasphemed the name of the divine majesty, and gave up his soul. For that almighty God might show for what guilt he had been handed over to such executioners, what his father had refused to correct in him while living, He permitted him to repeat while dying; so that he who through the patience of the Divinity had long lived as a blasphemer, should at some point, through the judgment of the Divinity, blaspheme and die; to the end that his father might acknowledge his own guilt, who, neglecting the soul of his little son, had reared no little sinner for the fires of Gehenna. But laying aside for now this sad matter, let us return to the things which we had begun to relate.