GREGORY: Nor let me pass over in silence what I came to know from the same region, by the narration of the venerable priest Sanctulus; of whose words you yourself do not doubt, since you are by no means ignorant of his life and faith. At that same time also, in the parts of the province of Nursia, there dwelt two men in a life and habit of holy conversation, of whom one was called Eutychius, the other Florentius. But this Eutychius had grown in spiritual zeal and in fervor of virtue, and busied himself in leading the souls of many to God by exhortation; whereas Florentius led a life given to simplicity and prayer. Now not far off there was a monastery which had been left destitute by the death of its superior, and its monks wished this same Eutychius to preside over them.
Yielding to their entreaties, he governed the monastery for many years, and trained the souls of his disciples in the pursuit of holy conversation. And lest the oratory in which he had formerly dwelt should be left standing alone, he left there the venerable man Florentius. While Florentius dwelt there alone, on a certain day he prostrated himself in prayer, and asked of the almighty Lord that He would deign to grant him there some comfort for his dwelling. As soon as he had finished the prayer and gone out of the oratory, he found a bear standing before the doors. And when it bowed its head to the ground and showed no fierceness in its movements, it plainly gave to understand that it had come for the service of the man of God—which the man of the Lord also at once recognized.
And because in that same cell there remained four or five sheep which there was no one at all to pasture and guard, he gave charge to that bear, saying: 「Go, and drive these sheep out to pasture, but return at the sixth hour.」 So it began to do this unceasingly. The pastoral care was laid upon the bear, and the fasting beast pastured the sheep which it had been wont to devour. When the man of the Lord wished to fast, he bade the bear return with the sheep at the ninth hour; but when he did not, at the sixth. And so in all things the bear obeyed the command of the man of God, so that, bidden for the sixth hour, it would not return at the ninth, nor, bidden for the ninth, return at the sixth. And when this had gone on for a long while, the fame of so great a wonder began to spread far and wide in that same place.
But because the ancient enemy, where he sees the good grow bright unto glory, thence by envy hurries the perverse to their punishment, four of the disciples of the venerable Eutychius, vehemently envious that their own master worked no signs, while this man, who had been left alone by him, appeared so illustrious through this miracle, lay in wait and killed that same bear. And when at the hour it had been bidden it did not return, the man of God Florentius was made anxious; and waiting for it until the hour of evening, he began to be afflicted, because the bear, which out of great simplicity he had been wont to call brother, was not returning. But on the next day he went out to the field to seek both the bear and the sheep; and he found it slain.
But diligently inquiring, he quickly found out by whom it had been slain. Then he gave himself over to lamentations, bewailing the malice of the brethren more than the death of the bear. The venerable man Eutychius, having had him brought to himself, strove to console him; but this same man of the Lord, kindled with the goads of great grief before him, uttered an imprecation, saying: 「I hope in almighty God that in this life, before the eyes of all, they may receive vengeance for their malice, who slew my bear that harmed them in nothing.」 Divine vengeance at once followed upon his utterance. For the four monks who had killed that same bear were straightway struck with the elephantine disease (leprosy), so that they perished with their limbs rotting away.
The man of God Florentius was greatly terrified at this deed, and dreaded that he had thus cursed the brethren. For all the time of his life he wept, because he had been heard, and cried out that he was cruel, that he was a murderer in their death. This we believe the almighty Lord did for this reason, lest the man of wondrous simplicity, however moved by grief, should presume any longer to hurl the dart of malediction. PETER: Do we then believe it to be very grave, if perchance we curse someone who provokes us to anger? GREGORY: Why do you ask me about this sin, whether it be grave, when Paul says: 「Neither shall revilers possess the kingdom of God」 (1 Cor. 6:10)? Weigh then how grave a fault it is, which separates from the kingdom of life. PETER.
What if a man perchance hurls a word of malediction at his neighbor not out of malice, but out of carelessness of tongue? GREGORY: If before the strict Judge, Peter, even an idle word is reprehended, how much more a hurtful one? Weigh then how damnable he is who is not free from malice, if even that speech is penal which is void of the benefit of usefulness. PETER: I assent. GREGORY: The same man of God did another thing which ought not to be passed over in silence. For when his great reputation grew ever more widely known, a certain deacon dwelling far off took pains, wrongly, to come to him, that he might commend himself to his prayers. When he came to his cell, he found the whole grove round about full of countless serpents. And when he was greatly terrified, he cried out, saying:
「Servant of God, pray!」 Now there was at that time a wondrous serenity of weather. But Florentius, going out, stretched his eyes and his palms to heaven, that the Lord, as He knew how, might take away that plague. At his voice the sky suddenly thundered, and that same thunder slew all those serpents which had occupied that place. When the man of God Florentius beheld them slain, he said: 「Behold, Thou hast slain them, O Lord; who now shall lift them away from here?」 And forthwith at his word there came as many birds as there had been serpents slain; and carrying off each one and casting them further away, they rendered the grove of his dwelling wholly clean of serpents. PETER: What virtue, what merit shall we say there was, that almighty God became so near to his mouth?
GREGORY: With the singular purity of almighty God, and with His simple nature, Peter, the purity and simplicity of the human heart avails much. For by this very thing—that His servants, set apart from earthly actions, know not how to speak idle words, and avoid scattering and defiling their mind through speech—they obtain, above others, a hearing from their Author. With whom, so far as is possible, they are in a kind of concord already through a certain likeness, by the very purity and simplicity of their thought. But we, mingled with the crowds of the people, while we frequently speak idle things, and sometimes even grievously hurtful things, our mouth becomes as far from almighty God as it is near to this world.
For we are dragged downward much, while by continual talk we are mingled with worldly men. This Isaiah well reproved in himself, and repented, after he had seen the Lord, the King, the Lord of hosts, saying: 「Woe is me, because I was silent, for I am a man of polluted lips」 (Isa. 6:5). And why he had polluted lips he disclosed, when he added: 「I dwell in the midst of a people that has polluted lips」 (ibid.). For he grieved that he had pollution of lips; but whence he had contracted it he indicated, when he declared that he dwelt in the midst of a people having polluted lips.
For it is exceedingly difficult that the tongue of worldly men should not defile the mind which it touches, since, while for the most part we condescend to speak of certain things with them, being little by little accustomed, we come to hold even with delight that very manner of speech which is unworthy of us, so that we no longer care to return from that to which, as it were by condescension, we came unwillingly. And so it happens that we pass from idle to hurtful words, from light to graver speech; and our mouth is so much the less heard by the almighty Lord in prayer, the more it is defiled by foolish speech, because, as it is written: 「He who turns away his ear that he may not hear the law, his prayer shall be an abomination」 (Prov. 28:9).
What wonder, then, if when we ask we are heard slowly by the Lord, we who hear the Lord commanding either slowly or not at all? And what wonder if Florentius was heard quickly in his prayer, who heard the Lord quickly in His precepts? PETER: There is nothing that can be answered to so plain a reasoning. GREGORY: But Eutychius, who had been the companion of the aforesaid Florentius in the service of the Lord, shone great after his death in the virtue of signs. For though the citizens of that city are wont to tell many miracles concerning him, yet this is the chief: that even down to these times of the Lombards, almighty God deigned to work continually through his garment.
For whenever rain was lacking, and a long drought burned up the land with excessive heat, the citizens of that city, gathered together in one, were wont to lift up his tunic and to offer it, with prayers, in the sight of the Lord. And when they went through the fields with it, praying, suddenly rain was granted, such as could fully satisfy the land. From which thing it became clear how much virtue and how much merit his soul possessed, whose garment, shown outwardly, turned away the wrath of the Creator.