Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 89

GREGORY: Another there, not long ago, as our elders relate, a guardian of the church, was called Acontius, a man of great humility and gravity, so faithfully serving Almighty God that the blessed Apostle Peter himself showed by signs how great an esteem he had of him. For when a certain paralytic girl, remaining in his church, crept upon her hands, and, her loins being disjointed, dragged her body along the ground, and for a long while had asked of the same blessed Apostle Peter that she might deserve to be healed, on a certain night he stood by her through a vision and said: 'Go to Acontius the mansionary, and beseech him, and he himself will restore you to health.'

And when she was certain of so great a vision, but did not know who Acontius was, she began to drag herself hither and thither through the places of the church, that she might find out who Acontius was. Suddenly the very man whom she sought became her companion, and she said to him: 'I beg you, Father, tell me who is Acontius the guardian?' To her he answered: 'I am he.' But she said: 'Our shepherd and nourisher, the blessed Apostle Peter, has sent me to you, that you should free me from this infirmity.' To her he answered: 'If you have been sent by him, rise.' He held her by the hand, and at once raised her up into her upright posture. And thus from that hour all the nerves and members in her body were made solid, so that no signs of that dissolution remained any longer.

But if we should try to unfold all the things that we have come to know were done in his church, we should without doubt fall silent from the narration of them all. Whence it is necessary that our narration turn itself back to the modern Fathers, whose life has shone forth throughout the provinces of Italy.