GREGORY: The very power of souls sometimes, by its own subtlety, foresees something. Sometimes, however, souls about to go forth from the body come to know things to come through revelation. But sometimes, when it is already near that they should forsake the body, being breathed upon by God, they send the incorporeal eye of the mind into the heavenly secrets. For that the power of the soul sometimes, by its own subtlety, knows those things which are to come, is clear from this: that a certain advocate, who in this city died two days ago of a pain in the side, a little before he died, called his servant and ordered garments to be prepared for him for going forth.
And when the servant, seeing him as it were raving, obeyed his orders not at all, he arose, clothed himself with the garment, and said that he would set forth by the Appian Way to the Church of blessed Xystus. And when, a little afterward, as the affliction grew heavier, he had died, it had been decided that his body ought to be laid near the blessed martyr Januarius on the Praenestine Way. But because this seemed long to those who were caring for his funeral, a plan suddenly arising, going out with his funeral procession by the Appian Way, and not knowing what he had said, they laid him in that very church which he had foretold.
And since we have known that this same man was bound by secular cares and gaping after earthly gains, whence could he foretell this, unless because the very power and subtlety of the soul foresaw that which was to be for his body? But that often, even by revelations, it comes about that future things are foreknown by the dying, we can gather from those things which we know were done among us in the monasteries. For in my monastery a certain brother, ten years ago, was called Gerontius. When he had been laid low by a grievous affliction of the body, in a nocturnal vision he beheld men clad in white, and of altogether shining aspect, descending into this very monastery from above. And when they stood before the bed of the one lying there, one of them said:
「For this we have come, that we may send certain brethren from the monastery of Gregory into military service」; and commanding another, he added: 「Write down Marcellus, Valentinian, Agnellus,」 and others whom I now scarcely recall. When these were finished, he added, saying: 「Write down also this very man who gazes upon us.」 From which vision the aforesaid brother, rendered certain, when morning came made known to the brethren who and which men were shortly to die from that same cell, whom he also declared himself to be about to follow; and when, on another day, the aforesaid brethren began to die, they followed one another in death under the same order in which they had been named in the writing down. But at the last he too died, who had foreseen those same brethren about to die.
Also in that mortality which three years ago devastated this city with a most vehement plague (namely in the year 590), in the monastery of the city of Portus there was a monk called Mellitus, still placed in his youthful years, but a man of wondrous simplicity and humility; who, as the day of his calling drew near, being struck by that same plague, was brought to his last. When Felix, a man of venerable life, bishop of that same city—from whose relation also I learned these things—heard this, he took care to approach him, and, that he should not have had to fear death, to comfort him with persuasive words, and began even still to promise him longer spans of life out of the divine mercy.
But to this he replied that the times of his course were completed, saying that a young man had appeared to him, and had brought letters, saying: 「Open, and read.」 When these were opened, he asserted that he had found both himself and all who at that same time had been baptized by the aforesaid bishop at the Paschal festivity, written in those same letters with golden letters. First indeed, as he said, he found his own name, and then those of all who had been baptized at that time. Concerning which he held it certain that both he and they were to depart from this life in haste. And it came to pass that on that same day he himself died, and after him all those who had been baptized so followed him, that within a few days none of them remained in this life.
Concerning whom it is doubtless established that the aforesaid servant of God had seen them written in gold for this reason: because eternal brightness held their names fixed with itself. And so, just as these men were able through revelations to know things to come, so sometimes souls about to go forth can even foretaste heavenly mysteries, not through a dream, but while waking. For you well know Ammonius, a monk of my monastery, who, while he was placed in the secular habit, having obtained in marriage the natural daughter of Valerian, an advocate of this city, adhered diligently and unremittingly to his services, and knew whatever was done in his household.
He, now placed in the monastery, related to me that in that mortality which vehemently afflicted this city in the times of the patrician Narses, in the household of the aforesaid Valerian there was a boy, Armentarius, of outstanding simplicity and humility. But when the household of that same advocate was being devastated by that same plague, the same boy was struck, and brought even to his last. Suddenly taken up from the presence of those there, he afterward returned, and had his master called to him. To whom he said: 「I have been in heaven, and I have come to know who from this house are to die. That man, and that man, and that man are to die; but you, do not fear, for at this time you are not going to die. And that you may know truly that I confess I have been in heaven, behold, I have received there that I should speak in all tongues.
Was it not unknown to you that I do not know the Greek tongue at all? And yet speak in Greek, that you may know whether it be true that I testify I have received all tongues.」 To him then his master spoke in Greek, and so he replied in that same tongue, that all who were present marveled. In that house also of the aforesaid Narses there remained a swordbearer, a Bulgarian by nation; who, quickly brought to the field, spoke to him in the Bulgarian tongue; but so did that boy, born and reared in Italy, reply in that same barbarian speech, as if he had been begotten of that same people. All who heard marveled, and from the experience of the two tongues which they had known him formerly not to know, they believed concerning all those which they were in no way able to prove.
Then for two days his death was deferred, but on the third day, for a reason known by a hidden judgment, he tore his hands and arms and muscles with his teeth, and so went forth from the body. When he had died, all those whom he had foretold were at once withdrawn from this light, and no one in that house died in that same calamity who had not been declared by his voice. PETER: It is very terrible, that one who deserved to receive such a gift should also, after this, be smitten with such a punishment. GREGORY: Who knows the hidden judgments of God? Those things which we cannot comprehend in the divine examination we ought rather to fear than to discuss.