教牧守則·對話錄與書信 第 92 章

At the same time also, when other Lombards held about four hundred captives, they sacrificed a goat's head to the devil after their own manner, running around it in a circle and dedicating it to him with an abominable song. And when they themselves first, with bowed necks, worshipped it, they likewise compelled those whom they had captured to worship it as well. But of these same captives a very great multitude, choosing rather to reach immortal life by dying than to keep mortal life by adoring, refused to obey the sacrilegious commands, and scorned to bow to a creature the neck they had always bent to the Creator. Whence it came to pass that the enemies who had captured them, kindled with grievous wrath, slew with the sword all those whom they had not for partners in their error.

What wonder is it, then, if in the outbreaking time of persecution those could have been martyrs who, even in the very peace of the Church, by ever afflicting themselves held to the narrow way of martyrdom, when, at the sudden onset of persecution, those also deserved to receive the palm of martyrdom who in the peace of the Church seemed to be following the broad ways of this world? Yet this which we say of these same chosen men we by no means hold as a rule concerning all. For when the time of open persecution rushes in, just as many can undergo martyrdom who seem despicable in the peace of the Church, so sometimes they fall into the cowardice of weakness who before were believed to stand strongly in the peace of the Church.

But we confidently confess that those of whom we spoke could have been true martyrs, because we already gather this from their end. For those could not have fallen even in open persecution concerning whom it is established that they persevered even to the end of their life in the hidden virtue of the soul. PETER: It is as you assert. But I marvel at the dispensation of divine mercy toward us unworthy ones, who so moderates the savagery of the Lombards, that He in no way permits their sacrilegious priests, who seem as it were victors of the faithful, to persecute the faith of the orthodox. GREGORY: This, Peter, they have often endeavored to do, but heavenly miracles have withstood their savagery.

Whence I relate one miracle which I learned but three days ago through Boniface, the steward of my monastery, who until four years ago dwelt among the Lombards. When the bishop of the Lombards, namely an Arian, had come to the city of Spoleto, and had no place there in which to celebrate his rites, he began to ask a church from the bishop of that city, which he might dedicate to his error. And when the bishop utterly refused this, the same Arian who had come declared that on the next day he would violently enter the church of the blessed Apostle Paul, which was situated nearby there. When the guardian of that same church heard this, he ran in haste, closed the church, secured it with bolts; and when evening came, he put out all the lamps and hid himself in the inner parts.

But at the very dawn of the following day the Arian bishop, having gathered a multitude, arrived, prepared to break down the closed doors of the church. But suddenly all the gates together, shaken by divine power, with their bolts cast far off, were opened, and with a great sound all the bars of the church stood open; and light being poured down from above, all the lamps that had been extinguished were kindled. But the Arian bishop, who had come to do violence, was struck with sudden blindness, and was led back to his dwelling by the hands of others. When all the Lombards settled in that region came to know this, they by no means presumed any further to violate what was catholic.

For the thing was done in a wondrous manner, that, because on account of this same Arian the lamps in the church of the blessed Paul had been extinguished, at one and the same time both he himself lost the light, and the light returned to the church.