GREGORY: When this happens, Peter, if it is well weighed, it is not an error but an admonition. For the supernal Goodness, out of the great bounty of His mercy, so disposes that some even after their departure suddenly return to the body, and at least, having seen them, dread the torments of hell, which they had not believed when heard. For a certain Illyrian monk, who lived with me in a monastery in this city, used to relate to me that at a certain time, while he was still dwelling in the desert, he learned that a certain monk named Peter, born of the region of Iberia, who clung to him in a place of vast solitude called Evasa, as he had learned from Peter's own account, before he sought the desert, being interrupted by a bodily ailment, had died:
but being immediately restored to the body, he testified that he had seen the punishments of hell and innumerable places of flames. He also related that he had seen certain powerful men of this world hung up in those same flames. And when he had already been led so that he too might be plunged into them, he declared that an angel of shining aspect suddenly appeared, who forbade him to be plunged into the fire. To him he also said: 'Go forth, and most carefully attend to how you must live hereafter.' After which voice, his limbs gradually growing warm again, awaking from the sleep of eternal death, he related all the things that had been done concerning him.
And afterward he so bound himself with fasts and vigils that, even if his tongue were silent, his manner of life would proclaim that he had seen and dreaded the torments of hell—for indeed by the wondrous bounty of almighty God it was brought about in his death that he should not have to die. But because the human heart is of very grievous hardness, that very showing of the punishments is not equally profitable to all. For an illustrious man named Stephen, whom you know well, used to relate about himself to me that, while he was detained in the city of Constantinople for a certain cause, he died when a bodily ailment came upon him. And when a physician and an embalmer had been sought to open him up and embalm him, and none was found on that same day, the following night his body lay unburied.
He, being led to the places of hell, saw many things which before, when heard, he had not believed. But when he had been presented to the judge presiding there, he was not received by him, so that he said: 'I did not order this man to be led away, but Stephen the smith.' He was immediately brought back into the body, and Stephen the smith, who dwelt next to him, died at that same hour. And thus it was proved that the words he had heard were true, since the effect of Stephen's death demonstrated these things. Three years ago also, in this plague which depopulated this city with a most violent slaughter—in which even by bodily sight arrows were seen to come down from heaven and to strike each single person, as you know—this same Stephen died.
Now a certain soldier in this same city of ours, being stricken, came to his end. He, being led out of the body, lay lifeless, but quickly returned and related the things that had been done with him. For he said—as that same matter then also became known to many—that there was a bridge, under which ran a river, black and murky, breathing out an intolerable mist of stench. But when the bridge was crossed, there were pleasant and verdant meadows, adorned with the fragrant flowers of herbs, in which there seemed to be assemblies of white-robed men. And so great an odour of sweetness was in that place, that its very fragrance of sweetness satisfied those walking and dwelling there. There the several dwellings of the various were full of great light.
There a house of wondrous power was being built, which seemed to be constructed of golden bricks, but whose it was, he could not learn. There were also, above the bank of the aforesaid river, some dwellings, but some of them were touched by the rising mist of stench, while others the rising stench from the river did not touch at all. Now on the aforesaid bridge there was this test: that whoever of the unjust wished to cross by it would slip into the dark and stinking river; but the just, whom no fault obstructed, would arrive at the pleasant places by a secure and free step across it.
There he confessed also to have seen Peter, the chief of the ecclesiastical household, who had died four years before, placed down below in most foul places, bound and pressed down with a great weight of iron. And when he inquired why it was so, he said he had heard those things which we who knew him in this ecclesiastical house, being aware of his deeds, recall. For it was said: 'He suffers these things for this cause, that whenever anything was ordered him for the carrying out of a punishment, he served in inflicting the blows more out of a desire for cruelty than out of obedience.' That it was so, no one who knew him is ignorant.
There he also declared that he had seen a certain pilgrim priest, who, coming to the aforesaid bridge, crossed by it with as great authority as he had here lived with sincerity. On the same bridge, too, he testified that he recognized this Stephen whom we mentioned before. Who, when he wished to cross, his foot slipped, and being already cast down from the middle of the body outside the bridge, he began to be dragged downward by the thighs by certain most foul men rising from the river, and to be dragged upward by the arms by certain white-robed and most beautiful men. And while this struggle was going on—that the good spirits dragged him upward and the evil ones downward—he himself who beheld these things returned to the body, and did not learn what had more fully been done concerning him.
In which matter it is given to understand something concerning the life of this same Stephen: that in him the evils of the flesh contended with the work of almsgiving. For he who was dragged downward by the thighs, upward by the arms, it is plainly evident that he had both loved almsgiving and had not perfectly resisted the vices of the flesh, which dragged him downward. But in that examination of the hidden Judge, what had conquered in him is hidden both from us and from him who saw it and was recalled. Yet it is certain that this same Stephen, after he had, as I related above, both seen the places of hell and returned to the body, did not perfectly correct his life; for after many years he still went forth from the body to the contest of life and death.
From which matter it is gathered that the very punishments of hell too, when they are shown, become for some a help, but for others a testimony: so that these may see the evils which they should avoid, but those may be all the more punished, in that they were unwilling to shun the punishments of hell even when seen and known. PETER: What is this, I ask you, that in the pleasant places a certain house seemed to be built of golden bricks? It is very ridiculous, if we believe that in that life we still have need of such metals.