Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 94

GREGORY: As we have learned by the report of many who come from the parts of Spain, recently Hermenegild, son of Leovigild king of the Visigoths, was converted from the Arian heresy to the catholic faith by the preaching of that most reverend man Leander, bishop of Seville, who long ago was familiarly joined to me in friendship. His father, an Arian, endeavored both to persuade him with rewards and to terrify him with threats, that he might return to the same heresy. And when he most constantly answered that he could never forsake the true faith which he had once acknowledged, the angered father deprived him of his kingdom and stripped him of all his goods.

And when he was not able even thus to soften the strength of his mind, shutting him up in close custody, he bound his neck and hands with iron. And so the young king Hermenegild began to despise the earthly kingdom, and, seeking the heavenly one with strong desire, to lie bound in a hair-shirt, to pour forth prayers to almighty God to strengthen him, and to despise the glory of the passing world the more loftily, the more, being fettered, he had recognized that there was nothing which could have been taken away. But the day of the Paschal feast coming on,

in the silence of the untimely night his perfidious father sent to him an Arian bishop, that from his hand he might receive the communion of sacrilegious consecration, and through this might deserve to return to his father's favor. But the man given over to God reproached the coming Arian bishop as he ought, and repelled his perfidy with worthy rebukes; for although outwardly he lay bound, yet within himself he stood secure on the great height of his mind. And so, the bishop having returned to him, the Arian father raged, and immediately sent his officers, who should slay the most constant confessor of God there where he lay; which was also done. For as soon as they had entered, fixing an axe in his brain, they took away the life of his body;

and in this they were able to destroy that which he himself also, who was slain, had determined within himself to despise. But for the showing forth of his true glory, heavenly miracles also were not lacking. For in the nocturnal silence there began to be heard the singing of psalmody at the body of that same king and martyr; and therefore he was truly a king, because he was also a martyr. Some also report that there appeared lamps kindled in that place in the night-time; whence it came to pass that his body, as being that of a martyr, ought by right to be venerated by all the faithful. But the perfidious father and parricide, moved with penitence, grieved that he had done this, yet not to the point of obtaining salvation.

For he acknowledged that the catholic faith was the true one, but terrified by fear of his own people, he did not merit to attain to it. Having fallen into sickness and been brought to his last, he took care to commend to bishop Leander, whom before he had grievously afflicted, his son king Reccared, whom he was leaving in his own heresy, that in him also he might do such things as he had done in his brother by his own exhortations. This commendation completed, he died. After whose death king Reccared, following not his perfidious father but his martyr brother, was converted from the depravity of the Arian

heresy's depravity, and so led the whole Visigothic nation to the true faith, that he permitted no one to serve as a soldier in his kingdom who did not fear to exist as an enemy of the kingdom of God through heretical perfidy. Nor is it any wonder that he became a preacher of the true faith, who is the brother of a martyr, whose merits also assist him in this, that he brings back so many to the bosom of almighty God. In this matter it is to be considered by us that all this could by no means have been done, had not king Hermenegild died for the truth. For as it is written: 'Unless the grain of wheat falling into the earth die, it remains alone; but if it die, it brings forth much fruit' (John 12:24).

We see done in the members that which we know was done in the Head. For in the Visigothic nation one died, that many might live; and while one grain fell faithfully to obtain the life of souls, a great harvest sprang up. PETER: A marvelous thing, and stupendous in our times.