For very many of the dyers who dwell here testify to what also befell in this city: that a certain foremost man of their craft, when he had died, was buried by his wife in the church of the blessed martyr Januarius, next to the gate of Saint Lawrence. But on the following night, from that same burial place, in the hearing of the guardian, his spirit began to cry out: 'I burn, I burn.' And when he had for a long while sent forth these voices, the guardian announced this to his wife. His wife then sent to the church men of that same craft who might diligently inspect it, wishing to learn in what state his body was in the tomb, concerning which it cried out such things.
They, opening the tomb, indeed found his garments untouched, which even now up to the present are kept in that same church as a testimony of this matter, but his body they found not at all, as if it had never been placed in that same tomb. From which thing it is to be gathered with what vengeance his soul was condemned, whose very flesh too was cast out from the church. What then do sacred places profit the buried, when those who are unworthy are by divine power cast out from those same sacred places? PETER. What then can there be that may avail to profit the souls of the dead? GREGORY. If the faults after death are not insoluble, the sacred offering of the saving victim is wont to aid souls greatly even after death;
so that sometimes the souls of the dead themselves seem to demand this. For the aforesaid bishop Felix asserts that he learned from a certain priest of venerable life—who lived until two years ago, and dwelt in the diocese of the city of Centumcellae, and presided over the church of blessed John, situated in the place called Taurania—that this same priest, in the same place where hot waters send up abundant vapours, whenever the necessity of the body demanded, was accustomed to bathe. Where, when on a certain day he had entered, he found a certain unknown
man prepared for his service, who would draw the shoes from his feet, receive his garments, and offer him a linen cloth as he came out from the heat, and perform every ministry with great attendance. And when this happened often, the same priest, being about to go to the baths one day, thinking within himself, said: 'I ought not to appear ungrateful to that man who is wont so most devotedly to serve me at bathing, but it is necessary that I carry something to him as a gift.' Then he brought with him two crowns of offering bread. And as soon as he came to the place, he found the man, and, after his custom, made use of his service in all things.
So he bathed, and when, now clothed, he wished to go out, that which he had brought with him he offered as a blessing to the man who served him, asking that he would kindly receive what he offered him out of the grace of charity. To him that man, mourning and afflicted, replied: 'Why do you give me these things, Father? This bread is holy; I cannot eat it. For I whom you see was once lord of this place, but for my sins I have been appointed hither after death. If, however, you wish to help me, offer this bread to almighty God for me, that you may intercede for my sins. And know that you have been heard when you come here to bathe and do not find me at all.'
With these words he disappeared, and he who had seemed to be a man, by vanishing away made known that he was a spirit. But that same priest for a continuous week afflicted himself in tears for him, offered the saving victim daily, and returning afterward to the bath, found him there no more. From which thing is shown how much the immolation of the sacred offering profits souls, since even the spirits of the dead themselves ask this of the living, and give signs by which they appear to be absolved through it. But neither do I think this ought to be passed over in silence, which I remember was done in my monastery three years ago.
For a certain monk named Justus, imbued with the art of medicine, was wont diligently to serve me when I was established in that same monastery, and to keep watch over me in my constant sicknesses. He then, being overtaken by a bodily weakness, was brought to the point of death. His own brother named Copiosus served him in that very illness, who himself also now in this city, by that same art of medicine, pursues the wages of temporal life. But the aforesaid Justus, when he already knew that he had come to his end, made known to that same brother of his, Copiosus, that he had three gold pieces hidden.
This, without doubt, could not be concealed from the brethren, but investigating subtly and searching through all his medicines, they found those same three gold pieces hidden in a medicament. When this was announced to me, I could not with equanimity bear so great an evil concerning a brother who had lived in common with us, since it had always been the rule of our monastery that all the brethren should so live in common that it was permitted to none of them individually to have anything as their own. Then, stricken with immense grief, I began to consider both what I might do for the purgation of the dying man, and what I might provide as an example for the living brethren. So, summoning to me Pretiosus, prior of that same monastery, I said:
'Go, and let none of the brethren join himself to him as he dies, nor let him receive a word of consolation from the mouth of any of them; but when, set in death, he asks for the brethren, let his own carnal brother tell him that he is abhorred by all the brethren on account of the coins he secretly kept, so that at least at death the bitterness may pierce through his mind, and purge him from the sin he committed. But when he is dead, let his body not be placed with the bodies of the brethren, but make a pit somewhere in the dunghill, and cast his body into it, and there throw upon him the three gold pieces which he left, all crying out together: Your money go with you to perdition (Acts 8:20); and thus cover him with earth.'
In both of these things, I wished the one to profit the dying man, but the other to profit the living brethren, so that both the bitterness of death might make him loosable from his fault, and so great a condemnation of avarice might keep these others from being mingled in the same fault; which was so done. For when that same monk had come to death, and anxiously sought to commend himself to the brethren, and none of the brethren applied himself to him or deigned to speak, and his carnal brother disclosed why he was abhorred by all, he straightway groaned vehemently over his guilt, and in that very sorrow of his went forth from the body, and was so buried as I had said.
But all the brethren, troubled by that sentence upon him, began each one to bring into the midst even the meanest and cheapest things, which it had always regularly been permitted them to have, and to fear exceedingly lest there should be anything with them for which they might be reproved. But when after his death thirty days had now elapsed, my mind began to have compassion on the departed brother, and to weigh his punishments with heavy grief, and to seek whether there might be any remedy for his deliverance. Then, having called to me that same Pretiosus, prior of our monastery, I said sadly: 'It is long that our brother who died is tormented in fire; we ought to expend some charity upon him, and to help him, as far as we can, that he may be delivered.'
'Go therefore, and from this present day take care to offer the sacrifice for him for thirty continuous days, so that no day at all be omitted on which the saving victim is not immolated for his absolution.' He straightway went off and obeyed what was said. But while we were occupied with other cares and not numbering the days that had elapsed, that same brother who had died appeared one night in a vision to his own brother Copiosus. And when the latter saw him, he inquired, saying: 'What is it, brother? How are you?' To him he replied: 'Up to now I have been ill, but now at last I am well, because today I received communion.' Which same thing Copiosus, going straightway, disclosed to the brethren in the monastery.
But the brethren carefully computed the days, and it was the very day on which the thirtieth offering had been completed for him. And whereas Copiosus knew not what the brethren were doing for him, and the brethren were ignorant of what Copiosus had seen concerning him, at one and the same time, while the one learns what these others had done, and these others learn what he had seen, the vision and the sacrifice agreeing together, the matter clearly shone forth that the brother who had died escaped punishment through the saving victim.