約伯倫理 第 35 章

Argument.—1. Gregory sends a defender into Spain to be judge of the bishops' causes. The judgment of John the defender.—2. The pope enjoins upon the same man the visitation of the monastery of the island of Capraria. His solicitude for other monasteries.—3. What he decreed concerning a bishop who omits the sacrifice of the Mass on account of infirmity.—4. How solicitous he was for procuring peace among the bishops.—5. St. Gregory's letter and little gifts to Queen Theodelinda.—6. The last labors of St. Gregory for the Church. What he answered to the consulting bishop of Messina.—7. Counsels given by him to friends. His death. His burial. His sacred cult. Translations. (In the years 603 and 604.) 1. From the lofty watchtower of the Church, St.

Gregory, beholding the Churches of Spain thrown into confusion on account of the unjust deposition of a presbyter and of certain bishops, sent thither John the defender, who, by the authority delegated to him from the Supreme Pontiff, sat as judge between the presbyter and the bishops who had suffered violence, and the others who had either unjustly deposed them, or had invaded their sees, or had ordained the invaders, and likewise between them and the glorious Comitiolus, prefect (as it is fair to believe) of Baetica, by whose agency chiefly such great evils were perpetrated in that province.

Occasion for the legation of John the defender was given by the petition, or supplicatory libel, presented to the pope by Januarius, bishop of Malaga, in which he complained that one of his presbyters had been removed from his office and deported into exile. In the same libel Januarius doubtless also complained of a like penalty inflicted upon himself. Another bishop, of uncertain place, named Stephen, deposed together with Januarius and cast into exile, had also appealed to the holy see.

That John might rightly render sentence in these causes of the bishops and presbyters, the pope gave him a twofold capitulary or memorandum, one of which prescribes whatever needed to be done in setting forth and judging these disputes; the other contains the imperial laws concerning the immunity of clerics. In the sentence of John the defender, whom all parties acknowledged as their legitimate judge, no mention is made of Stephen the bishop nor of the presbyter of Malaga, but only of Januarius, the bishop of this city, who by this solemn judgment was restored to his Church: 'I have found,' says John, 'no fault in the aforesaid Januarius that deserved to be punished with exile or deposition, but rather that he was violently cast out of the Church.'

'And although the censure of the laws most strictly smites such rashness, I nevertheless, tempering the rigor of the laws with priestly moderation, in the presence of the most holy Gospels—by which, being set before me, I sat from the beginning as investigator in this judgment—pronounce those things which were decreed against him, although in law they do not hold nor are of any moment, to be nonetheless unjust and invalid; and condemning those and those aforementioned bishops who, setting aside priestly consideration, acted unjustly and against the fear of God to the prejudice and condemnation of their brother, I ordain and decree that they be received into a monastery to do penance for a time.'

'But him who wickedly presumed to invade the place of the aforesaid most holy Januarius against the statutes of the sacred canons, I, condemning him, decree that he be deprived of the priesthood and be removed from every ecclesiastical order, so that he may both lose that which he wrongly obtained, and may not return to the office which he had before unworthily exercised. But the oft-named most holy bishop Januarius, being absolved, I decree, by God's authority, to return to his place in the degree of the episcopate' (Book XIII, Letter 45). 2. To the same defender St. Gregory gave in commission that he should visit the monastery of Capricana, or of the island of Capraria near Majorca, and amend the corrupt morals of the monks (Book XIII, Letter 46).

For they were said to act so perversely that they showed themselves to be soldiers not of God, but rather of the ancient enemy. Thus the most holy father everywhere demonstrated his zeal for preserving or repairing monastic discipline. At the beginning of the fourteenth year of his pontificate, it was his care to provide for the monastery of Saints Laurence and Zeno in the fortress of Cesena, which Concordius, bishop of this place, had thrown into disorder by the unjust deposition of the abbot Fortunatus. By his predecessor Natalis, bishop of Cesena, Fortunatus had been ordained abbot of this monastery; and, no cause existing, the new bishop had removed him from this office and appointed another abbot.

Fortunatus brought a complaint of his deposition to the supreme pontiff, who, although he had learned from Concordius's own deacon that the abbot had been unjustly despoiled, nevertheless willed that Marinianus, archbishop of Ravenna, should inquire into this matter, because, he says, the proof can be more certain in those parts where the affair was transacted. And if no manifest cause of the deposition should have existed, he ordered that Fortunatus be restored to his former rank, and that the bishop be rebuked who had striven to undo the ordination of his predecessor, though provoked by no excesses (Book XIV, Letter 6). Concerning certain abbots of the monasteries of Sardinia, St. Gregory wrote at nearly the same time

to Vitalis, the defender of this island, saying that those who, while still in the monastic and lower order, had lapsed, ought by no means to have undertaken the office of abbot, unless with a life wholly corrected and a worthy penance going before; but since they had already been made abbots, the most wise Father willed that Vitalis take care concerning their life, morals, and diligence. And if their acts were found not to be against their office, let them persevere in the order and office they had received. Otherwise, he says, let them be removed, and let others be ordained who are able to profit the souls committed to them (Book XIV, Letter 2). 3. In the letter written to Vitalis on this matter, St.

Gregory answers the question that had been proposed concerning Januarius, archbishop of Cagliari, who at the time when he was celebrating the sacrifice often suffered so great a distress that he could scarcely, after long intervals, return to the place of the canon. Hence occasion for offense was given to many, so that they doubted whether they ought to receive communion from his consecration; but they are to be admonished, says the holy Doctor, that they by no means be afraid, but communicate with all faith and confidence, because the sickness of the person neither changes nor pollutes the blessing of the sacred mystery. He willed nonetheless that it be suggested to Januarius by Vitalis, that as often as he should feel any trouble, he should not go forth to celebrate;

lest from this he should both make himself contemptible and generate scandal in the minds of the weak. Januarius's infirm health in advanced age had brought great losses upon the Churches, hospices, and monasteries in Sardinia. The pope ordered the steward and archpresbyter of the Church of Cagliari to have the care of the hospices, threatening that they would pay penalties for any negligence there might henceforth be. 4. Neither advancing age, nor the constant and ever-sharper labors of a daily-worsening disease—which foretold death close at hand—could diminish Gregory's solicitude for the whole Church; especially when it was a matter of restoring peace among the bishops. This he himself signifies in a letter written this year:

'As often,' he says, 'as the discord of those who ought to have been preachers of peace makes us sad, we must strive with great solicitude that, the matter of quarrel being taken away, they may return to concord who disagree with a will divergent from one another' (Book XIV, Letter 8). He says this on the occasion of a dispute between Alcyson, bishop of Corcyra, and John, bishop of Euria in Epirus, who, forced to flee from this city by the Barbarians together with his clergy, and having carried off with him the body of St. Donatus, had deposited those sacred relics in the fortress of Cassiope, and had fixed a see there for himself and his clerics, with the consent of Alcyson, bishop of Corcyra, to whose diocese the fortress belonged.

But contrary to ecclesiastical order, contrary to priestly modesty, contrary to the statutes of the sacred canons, he strove to withdraw the aforesaid fortress from the jurisdiction of Alcyson and to subject it to his own power, so that they became in a manner lords where they had first been received as strangers. Concerning the ungrateful spirit of the bishop and the unjust usurpation of the fortress, Alcyson made complaint both before the emperor and before Andrew, bishop of Nicopolis, the metropolitan of both; who, both by virtue of his office and by the emperor's command, having pronounced sentence, decreed that the fortress of Cassiope ought to remain under the jurisdiction of the Church of Corcyra. The pope approved the sentence of the metropolitan.

And although the fault of this quarrel seemed to require no small severity against him, inasmuch as evil had been rendered for good, 'nevertheless,' says the most clement Father, 'we must strive that benignity be not overcome by excess, nor that what is owed to strangers be denied even to brethren suffering necessity... it behooves, therefore, that the priests or clergy of the city of Euria be by no means driven away from dwelling in the aforesaid fortress of Cassiope; but let them also have leave, with due veneration, to lay away the holy and venerable body of blessed Donatus, which they carried off with them, in one of the churches of the aforesaid place that they shall choose, whether within or without.

Yet in such a way that a securing guarantee be procured for your Charity, in whose parish that fortress is situated, by a bond issued, through which the bishop of Euria shall promise that he will have no power in it, no privilege, no jurisdiction, and shall never henceforth defend any authority over it for himself or for the bishops co-ordinated with him; but that, peace being restored by God's favor, they shall return to their own by every means, having removed—if they so prefer—the venerable body of St. Donatus' (Book XIV, Letter 7). To this judgment the bishop of Euria did not immediately acquiesce, but obtained from the emperor a surreptitious command by which he claimed for himself all power over the fortress of Cassiope. St. Gregory took this ill;

but lest he should seem to do anything against the emperor's command or in contempt of him, giving no sentence from the formulas of law to either party, he was content to admonish him, through the labor of his legate Boniface, concerning the iniquity of the command surreptitiously obtained by the bishop, and to ask that he grant a contrary one, by which the judgment of the metropolitan might be confirmed as ratified by the holy see (Book XIV, Letter 8). That the bishop of Euria came to his senses is shown to us by the letter written to Alcyson (ibid., Letter 13). For he presented a capitulary in which he humbly begged of the bishop of Corcyra that leave be given him to lay away the body of blessed Donatus in the Church of St. John, situated within the fortress of Cassiope;

and he asserted himself ready to issue a guarantee by which he would of his own accord acknowledge this place to belong to the diocese of Corcyra, and would promise that he would never claim any right in it for himself. The pope exhorted Alcyson that, the requested surety having been received, he should grant it, and should pledge both to the bishop of Euria and to his clerics that, peace being restored, when it should be permitted them to return to their own Church, they should have the right of carrying off with them the body of St. Donatus. 5. We suspect that the bishop of Euria was forced to abandon his own Church by the Slavs or Avars, and not indeed by the Lombards, with whom we conjecture there was then no war, from the letters and little gifts sent by St. Gregory to Queen Theodelinda this year (Book XIV, Letter

Letter 21). She herself had written to the supreme pontiff, to make him a partaker of her joy over her son Adaloald, brought forth into the light, whom she had taken care to have baptized in the Catholic faith, although King Agilulf, his father, had not yet abjured Arianism. To the royal boy and to his sister the pope sent certain sacred gifts and other little presents, concerning which the letter written to the queen is to be read. He asked her that she would deign, in his name, to give thanks to her husband the king for the peace that had been made, and, as she had been accustomed, to incite his mind to peace for the future.

In the same letter, when he was asked by Theodelinda to reply to the writing of Secundinus the abbot, who was contending for the Three Chapters, he requests to be held excused on account of his infirmity, of which the queen's legates had been witnesses; inasmuch as they had left him, at their departure, in the utmost peril and crisis of life. 6. Nor yet did he cease to bear solicitude for the Church. For at the same time, when the Church of Ancona was vacant of a pastor, he deliberated long concerning the ordaining of a bishop who should be worthy, examining the gifts of soul, the virtues, and the morals of the three who had been chosen (Book XIV, Letter 11); and he answered most amply to the many questions of Felix, bishop of Messina (ibid., Letter

Letter 17), namely concerning the degrees of consanguinity within which he says one may marry, concerning the vexation which the bishops suffered from the laity subject to them, and concerning the churches about whose dedication there was doubt. To the first he says that those things which he indulged to the English neophytes (Book XI, Letter 64), namely that they might contract marriage in prohibited degrees, were not granted by him to all; nay, not even to the English themselves except for a time, that is, until the Christian religion should grow strong among them. To the second question he answers:

'If David, most just of kings, presumed not to lay his hand upon Saul, whom it was clear had already been reprobated by the Lord, how much more must it be guarded against that certain men lay the hand of detraction or of vituperation, or of indiscretion or of dishonoring, upon the anointed of the Lord, or upon the preachers of holy Church? For the vexation or detraction of them pertains to Christ, in whose stead they discharge a legation in the Church. Wherefore it must be most carefully guarded against by all the faithful, lest secretly or publicly they tear their bishop, that is, the anointed of the Lord, with detractions or vituperations.' But to the third question he says:

'Concerning the doubt of the dedications of churches, about which among other things you wished to consult us, this you ought rightly to hold, which we have received as handed down from our predecessors: that is, that whenever a doubt is held, both concerning the baptism of certain persons or their confirmation, and concerning the consecration of churches, and no sure account is had either by writings or by witnesses whether they have been baptized, or confirmed, or the churches consecrated: that such persons be baptized and confirmed, and the churches canonically dedicated, lest such a doubt become a ruin to the faithful; since that is not shown to be repeated, which is not shown by sure indications to have been rightly performed.' 7.

With these responses the most holy Doctor took care to instruct the whole Church, nor did he cease from privately admonishing his friends, where it seemed to be for the good of the Church. He congratulated Paul the Scholastic (Book XIV, Letter 1), both on his solicitude in coercing and punishing evildoers, and on his reconciliation with Leo, bishop of Catania; and he exhorted both to cherish peace and to foster charity: so that they might always be able to exact from one another a reciprocal affection, as it were like moneylenders lending something mutually. Hearing that a handmaid of God had been carried off by a certain soldier, he wrote concerning the punishment of so great a crime to Guduinus, duke of Naples, in these words:

'Whereas, among the many good things that are often reported to us of your Greatness, that is said to exist in you which is the more praiseworthy—namely, that you love chastity and, as is fitting, keep discipline—we have marveled not a little that no most strict punishment has hitherto been executed upon that soldier who, by diabolical instigation, has ruined a handmaid of God. For it would have been very befitting both to your morals and to your goodness that the vengeance should reach us before the wickedness of the perpetrated fault, etc.'

Solicitous for the exarch, since he knew that from an incontinence of tongue he often said things that would provoke all who loved him to enmity against him, he wrote to a certain intimate of his, that he might take care to admonish his friend about this matter (Book XIV, Letter 15). 8. Consumed by these constant labors no less than by continual maladies, Gregory at length passed over to the longed-for rest on the fourth day before the Ides of March, in the second year of the emperor Phocas, in the seventh indiction, in the year of Christ 604, and was buried in the outermost portico of the basilica of blessed Peter the Apostle, before the old sacristy. Concerning these things and concerning his epitaph, John the Deacon is to be read (Book IV, chap.

68), who says that his venerable body was translated by Pope Gregory IV before the new sacristy, apses having been constructed, and placed under an altar bearing his name, where his anniversary solemnity was celebrated by all who eagerly kept vigil through the night (ibid., chap. 80). Sacred honors were decreed to him by the English Church in the council of Cloveshoe in the year 747, canon 17: 'That the birthday of blessed Pope Gregory, and likewise the day of the deposition of St. Augustine the archbishop, be honorably venerated by all, as is fitting; so that both days be kept as festivals by ecclesiastics and by monastics.'

This most holy man merited to be venerated not by the Latins alone, but also by the Greeks, in whose menology his sacred name is inscribed on the eleventh day of March, with a most ample eulogy which Bollandus reports. Concerning the translation of the sacred relics of St. Gregory into the most celebrated monastery of St. Medard, Mabillon and Bollandus are to be read (Benedictine Century IV, part I, p. 383; Bollandus, on the 12th day of March), who treats also of the translation of the head of the same saint to the monastery of St. Peter the Living at Sens, about the year 876, by the gift of Pope John, with the favor of Charles the Bald, king and emperor of the Franks, and at the request of Ansegisus, archbishop of Sens.

The stature of the most holy Pontiff, the lineaments of his countenance, his hair, his beard, and whatever pertains to his form, John the Deacon depicts accurately enough (Book IV, chap. 84). But who could describe the state of his most excellent soul, his most ardent love toward God, his immense charity toward his neighbor, his most lowly humility, his unbroken fortitude in adversities, his modesty, his temperance, his vigilance, his prudence, and the other virtues which vied with one another to adorn our Gregory? For, that I may speak with St. Ildephonsus, 'He surpassed Antony in sanctity, Cyprian in eloquence, Augustine in wisdom' (Book on Illustrious Men, chap. 1). A MARBLE TABLET AFFIXED TO THE WALL AT THE PORTICO OF ST. PETER.

To the holy lords and most blessed Peter and Paul, princes of the Apostles, Gregory, an unworthy servant. Whatever small things we seek out to serve the uses of your praise, we render to you what is your own; we do not lavish what is ours, so that, in doing these things, we may not be puffed up over the gift, but be secure concerning the repayment. For what is ever ours without you, we who cannot repay what we have received, save that through you we have again received this very thing, namely that we might repay it? Wherefore I, your servant, calling to mind that I am much a debtor to you, blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, because from the breasts of my mother, by the grace of divine power protecting me, you nourished me within the bosom of your Church, and unto my increase through the several grades even unto

to bring me forth, though undeserving, to the very summit of the priesthood you have deigned. And therefore I have foreseen meanwhile to offer this little gift of privilege with humble devotion; for I establish, and by an irrefragable ordinance decree that it be preserved by my successors, that the places or estates with the olive-groves which are described below—which, gathering them back from the various persons by whom they were held, I have dedicated to you as your own for the trimming of your lamps—shall remain undiminished: that is, in the patrimony of Appia, the domain of the Victoriolae, olive-groves; in the estate of Rumellianus, one entire olive-grove.

In the estate of Octavianus, one entire; in the domain of Trabatiana, an olive-grove; in the estate of Burreianus, an olive-grove as above; in the estate of Appianus, olive-groves as above; in the estate of Iulianus, an entire olive-grove; in the estate of Vivianus, as above, an olive-grove; in the estate of Cattia..., an olive-grove; in the estate of Solificianus, as above, an olive-grove; in the estate of Palmis, as above, an olive-grove; in the estate of Sagaris..., an olive-grove; in the estate of Maranus, as above, an olive-grove; in the estate of Iulianus, as above, an olive-grove; in the estate of Saturrianus, as above, an olive-grove; in the estate of Canianus and Carbonaria, as above; the domain of Cesariana, an olive-grove; in the estate of Floran, as above, an olive-grove; in the estate of Priscianus and Grassianus, as above, an olive-grove; in the estate of Pascuranus, as above, an olive-grove; in the estate of Varinianus, as above, an olive-grove; in the estate of Cesarianus, as above; the domain of...

Pontiana, an olive-grove; in the estate of Pontianus, as above, an olive-grove; in the estate of Casaromaniana, as above, an olive-grove; in the estate of Tattianus, as above, an olive-grove; in the estate of Casaflorana, as above; the domain of Steiana, an olive-grove; in the estate of Berranus, as above, an olive-grove; in the estate of Caclanus, as above, an olive-grove; in the estate of Pontian, as above, an olive-grove; in the estate of Aquilianus, as above, an olive-grove; in the estate of Steianus, as above, an olive-grove; in the estate of Cassis, as above; the domain of Tertiana, as above, an olive-grove; in the estate of Cammelianus and the estate of Tortillianus, as above, an olive-grove; in the estate of Casacuculi, as above; the domain of Neviana, an olive-grove; in the estate of Arcipianus, as above, an olive-grove; in the estate of Corellianus, as above, an olive-grove; in the estate of Ursanus, as above. In the patrimony of Labicanum, the domain of...

Algisia, an olive-grove which is at Tufu near Anagnia, in its entirety; an olive-grove which is at Sibula, and the small cuttings Catagemmulum near the military road, an olive-grove; at Aplineae, in its entirety, an olive-grove which is at Clavinianus; an olive-grove which Franculus the tenant-farmer holds, in the estate of Ordinianus, in its entirety. Gregory, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to Felix, subdeacon and rector of the patrimony of Appia. Although all the things which this Apostolic Church of the blessed Peter and Paul possesses—by whose honor and benefits they were acquired—are, with God as their author, held in common; yet in the administration of affairs there ought to be a diversity of persons, so that in the things assigned to each, more diligent care may be applied.

Since, therefore, due solicitude admonishes us jointly on behalf of the church of the blessed Apostle Paul, lest there be seen to be fewer lamps there for that same herald of the faith who filled the whole world with the light of his preaching, and since it would seem exceedingly unfitting and most harsh that that possession should not specially serve him, in which, receiving the palm of martyrdom, he was beheaded that he might live: we have judged it useful to assign the same domain which is called Aquae Salviae, with all its estates—that is: Cella Vinaria, Antonianus, Villa Pertusa, Bifurcus, Priminianus, Cassianus, Silonis, Cornelii Tessellata,

and Cornelianus, with every right, equipped with its furnishing and all its appurtenances, and with everything generally pertaining to it, by the grace of Christ to be allotted for the lamps; adding also to this same cession two gardens situated between the Tiber and the porticoes of that same church, for those going out from the city gate on the right-hand side, which the river Almo divides, among the neighbors of the garden of the monastery of St. Stephen—which belongs to the handmaids of God and is situated toward St. Paul—and up to the boundaries of the possession of Pisinian; likewise also the little plots of land which are called Fossa Latronis, situated in the same way near that same portico, for those going out likewise from the gate on the left-hand side, where vineyards have now been made, which little plots adjoin on the one side the possession of Eugenitis, which belongs to the scholastic, and on the other side the possession of the monastery of St.

of St. Aristus. All which things, with God helping, we will to be administered through the provosts of the aforesaid church who shall be in office from time to time, beginning from the present seventh indiction, and whatever shall accrue therefrom to be expended upon its lamps, and they themselves thereafter to render the accounts. Therefore we enjoin your Diligence that you ought to strike out and remove from its registers the above-written domain of Aquae Salviae, with all the aforenamed estates, as well as the garden and the little plots of land which are contained above, and to convey them all to the name of the aforesaid church of the blessed Apostle Paul; to the end that the provosts serving it, henceforth deprived of all excuse, may so strive to take thought for its lamps without our solicitude, that no negligence therein may ever be able to arise. And when the conveyance of all the above-written things has been made, we will that your Diligence restore this precept to the archive of our church. Fare thou well. Given...

On the eighth day before the Kalends of February (the 25th of January), in the second year of the reign of our lord Phocas, perpetual Augustus, and the first year of his consulate, in the seventh indiction. At Rome, dedicated by blessed Gregory the Great to the holy apostles Peter and Paul. 330. The marble Donation Tablets, dedicated to the holy apostles Peter and Paul by blessed Gregory the Great for arranging the lamps, as he himself says, and affixed in the portico of St. Peter, I have judged should be placed here, so that the things I said about the ancient mode of writing in the scholia, and especially in that scholion 241, 242 (below, in the fourth tome of St. Gregory's Works, and indeed in volume 78 of the Patrologia), might be corroborated. But since I found another donation dedicated to blessed Paul by the same holy Gregory, likewise for arranging the lamps, engraved upon stone;

and formerly affixed in the portico of St. Paul to the wall of the church, but now, a few days ago, translated before the greater altar and placed on the right-hand side near one of the two columns which support the principal arch, and moreover recorded in the twelfth book, nineteenth epistle, of the Register of the same blessed Gregory: I have judged that it too should be printed in this place, in order splendidly to represent and perpetually to preserve the Christian and Apostolic piety of that Saint. For the monuments of deeds done, as reason itself persuades and experience teaches, can more easily be rescued from destruction by the typographic than by the sculptor's art.

The tablets set in the first place, and affixed to the portico of St. Peter, seem to be fragments of two tablets, as both the differing shapes of the stones and the mutilated ends of the Donations show of themselves. Concerning the marble Donation Tablets affixed in the portico of St. Peter to the wall of the church, Maphaeus Vegius speaks, in his little book on the excellence of the basilica of St. Peter, in this form of words: "Blessed Gregory, in order to furnish the lamps of the basilica of St. Peter more abundantly, donated to it many estates, and especially many olive-groves, as is established from a public document inscribed on marble tablets; which, though they were at first seven, only two are still affixed to the wall before the entrance of the basilica."

This Maphaeus Vegius [says] in the said little book, which is preserved in the library of the basilica of St. Peter. Meanwhile I warn the reader that all, even the most painstaking, industry was employed in transcribing and printing these tablets, so that the ancient custom of writing might be represented exactly—or, to speak more correctly, down to the smallest apex—only the spaces being excepted, which, although in inscriptions cut in stone are wanting between each single word, I have nevertheless taken care to supply in these printed copies, so that the text may be made easier for the reader. In some contracted words, too, the points are lacking, and lower-case letters are sometimes seen mingled with capitals.

Finally, the obsolete words, which savor of that old age of the ancient writers, we have left even as they lie; and I wish the reader to be forewarned that they are free from the blunders of the stonecutters:

for one letter is sometimes found used by the ancients in place of another, as inmutilata for immutilata, inmeritum for immeritum, inpendi for impendi, set for sed, adquisita for acquisita, adsignatis for assignatis, intro for intra (that is, an adverb in the place of a preposition), super for supra (that is, a preposition for an adverb), post hoc for posthac (for "post hoc" is said as though "after this time," whose meaning the adverb "posthac" carries), adfines (of fields) for affines and confines, adicientes for adjicientes, exsistere for existere, hortus (in the accusative case) for hortos, detenebantur for detinebantur, consolatus for consulatus.

Examples of this kind are, for the greater part, read as anciently employed in the Aldine orthography and in other inscriptions, of which Aldus the younger was wont to affirm that he had in his own keeping some sixty thousand and more transcribed; which, for the sake of brevity, I have judged should be passed over in silence: for in this matter it is enough to have cited the inscriptions of the ancient Latins copied by Aldus. For he himself observed all the abstruse monuments of antiquity in Latin writing so accurately that in this kind he had no equal. 331. Nor are there lacking writers who say that the said words were in frequent use among the ancients: whom, for brevity's sake, I omit. That same B[lessed]

Gregory's age was not seldom wont to use the letter B for V and V for B, as may be seen above in the first of the two tablets, in which is read parba for parva, olibetum for olivetum, silbula for silvula, octabiano for octaviano, devitarem for debitorem, and uveribus for uberibus. This ancient usage of writing we have explained rather fully in our scholion 246 (where above), so that the same scholion, in which some things perhaps worth knowing are set forth, might serve for this tablet as well. Other matters, too, by no means to be despised, bearing on this kind of writing and pronunciation, we have taught in our Commentary on the Vatican Library, printed in the year 1591, on pages 153 and 297.

I likewise warn the reader that, in the enumeration of the olive-groves, one always reads olibetum in the accusative case, contracted by the word in this fashion: olibet, both with a point and without it, or olibetu, now again with a point, now without it. But that the accusative case was in use without the letter m among those ancient Latins who lived in the age of blessed Gregory, many ancient inscriptions cut in stone persuade us, the examples of which too, consulting brevity, I omit. Meanwhile this ought not to be passed over in silence, namely, why olivetum, which is of the neuter gender, is in this inscription always found to be of the masculine gender:

which I judge was done by the figure synthesis (construction according to sense), which discords with the word yet agrees with its own meaning, as is that phrase of Virgil in Aeneid VIII, "Praeneste sub ipsa" (with Aldus the elder as witness), and "Camerino sub ipsa"—that is, the city: for Praeneste and Camerinum are of the neuter gender. By this same figure, synthesis, it is said: "Lilium est albissimus florum," that is, the whitest flower of all flowers; so also olivetum, which is a place or a field in which olives are planted, discords with the word and agrees with the meaning, if it be referred to the place or the field. In the second tablet, which is seen below, one reads isdem in the nominative for idem. This word isdem, in the nominative singular for idem, not only did Eucherius use twice in the second book

on Genesis, and twice in the book of Kings; but Ennius also, a most ancient author, used the same word in the nominative singular and in the ablative plural, as Cicero relates in his book On the Orator, saying isdem: "Isdem campus habit[at]" (says Ennius), and "in templis isdem," he approved, and so forth. "In templis isdem" for "iisdem" Ennius said. Hence Cicero, in the same passage, says that isdem is said both in the nominative singular and in the ablative plural, and that each was used by Ennius: for the word isdem is derived from is, ea, id and "demum," on the authority of Priscian, book 12, in the chapter On the figure. Hence, if not isdem but idem campus were read—as now indeed it is read, but corruptly—Cicero's disputation about this word would be pointless.

For Ennius, although in the nominative singular he said isdem, not idem campus, in the ablative plural also said "in templis isdem" for "iisdem"; and he preferred to use the same word in the second place, casting away the other i lest he incur a bad sound, rather than to use for "iisdem" the word eisdem, which word indeed (as Cicero says) was "richer" (opimior) than the age of Ennius bore, an age which of course savored of antiquity. Therefore, when the word isdem has been restored in Ennius's first place for idem, Cicero's passage is emended. Duo also for duos, as "hortos duo positos" (two gardens set in place).

Which passage, in the second tablet, I would have believed to be faulty, had I not read the passage of Charisius, who writes that duo for duos and ambo for ambos are rightly said, according to analogy and the Greek declension. For Charisius says, in book I: "Some, following the Greeks, 332 because they say both hos duo and hos ambo" [used these forms]. Ambo for ambos in Virgil, Eclogue 6: "nam saepe... ambo Luserat." So it is to be read from Charisius, as also from a most ancient and more distinguished manuscript codex, written in capital characters, which is preserved in the Vatican Library. The same Virgil, in book IV of the Georgics: "Verum ubi ductores acie revocaveris ambo." Thus is Virgil's passage to be emended from Charisius.

In the distinguished Vatican codex this verse does not appear, because in this fourth book of the Georgics several pages are wanting. Afranius, in the Pantaleon: "Revocas nos ambo ad praelium." The same Virgil, in book XII of the Aeneid: "Hunc congressus, et hunc; illum eminus, eminus ambo." So it is read in the most ancient and more distinguished Vatican manuscript codex. Terence, in the Andria, act II, scene 2: "Ambo opportune vos volo." So it is to be read from Charisius; for others read: "Ambo opportune: vos volo." That duo is rightly written for duos, says Charisius in book I, Attius wrote in the Epinausimache: "Manes armis duo congressos crederes." So it is to be read from Charisius. Terence, in the Adelphi, act V, scene 3: "Tu illos duo pro re olim tollebas tua." Where Helenius Acron [reads] duo for duos.

So it is read in the most ancient and more distinguished Vatican manuscript codex. So too it is read in Terence by Gabriel Faernus; also Terence's passage is to be emended from Charisius. Cicero, Against Verres, book I, act 2: "Horum Pater abhinc duo et viginti annos est mortuus." So it was read, and so it ought to be read. The same, to Atticus, book IV, the last epistle: "Duo consulares, qui te dicerent." So it is to be read. The same, to Q. Fr., book I, ep. 2: "Duo Mysos." So it is to be read, and so Paulus Manutius emended it from the book of Bessarion. The same, book Fam. III, epistle 4: "Duo enim duarum aetatum plurimi facio, Cn. Pompeium, the father-in-law of my daughter, and M. Brutus, thy son-in-law." The same, book VII, ep. 25: "Except us two, no one speaks in that manner."

So it is read, and so it ought to be read. The same, in the same book, epistle 29: "To whitewash two walls out of the same pot." The same, On Friendship: "That all affection, whether between two or among a few, might be joined." Sallust, Histories, book IV, in the epistle of Mithridates: "Between me and Lucullus, well-nigh through want, both again fell." Virgil, Eclogue 5: "And I will set up two mixing-bowls for thee." So Pierius reads, to avoid the hiss; and so it is read in the most ancient and more distinguished Vatican manuscript codex. The same, in book II of the Aeneid: "If the land of Ida had borne two other such men." So it is read in the most ancient and more distinguished Vatican manuscript codex, nor can it be read otherwise, because each syllable in the word Duo is short;

and in the first foot there is a dactyl, in which the first syllable is long and the two following are short. Priscian, in book VII, says: "It behooves one indeed to know the rule of analogy, yet rather to emulate the usage of the authors." Duo, moreover, and Ambo put forth their accusatives, according to this declension, as Ambos and Duos. C. Julius Romanus, in his little book On Analogy, lays down that the right declension is Hos duo. Therefore it must be confessed and affirmed, from Charisius and other most approved authors, that duo is rightly written for duos, and ambo for ambos. As for what pertains to orthography, two words in the first tablet are read without the diphthong, of which the first is the word quedam, the other Cesariano. But in the second tablet is read Fhoca for Phoca.

These words indeed I do not think free from the blunders of the stonecutters. Massa, in these tablets, is used not in that sense in which one speaks of a mass of gold and silver, and other things of that kind, but for an estate or villa, which is commonly called a possession. Whence he to whom the care of the whole villa is committed is named massarius 333, as it pleases Huguitio. Hence, in some places, a rustic possession, taken for a villa or estate, is wont to be called a massaria. So much concerning the glosses, or the abstruse words of the ancient Latins, inscribed on each Donation tablet: about which I wished the reader forewarned, lest anyone should suppose that the obsolete words were printed through the carelessness of the typographers, nor that anyone should suspect that all those are blunders of the stonecutters.

That Donation tablet which now stands at the basilica of St. Paul is read also in the Register of blessed Gregory, book 12, epistle 19; but in the epistle which is inserted in the Register some things are wanting: for in the epistolary salutation these words are lacking, which are present in the marble tablet: "Bishop, servant of the servants of God." And at the end of the epistle these words: "Fare thou well. Given on the eighth day before the Kalends of February, our lord Phocas being emperor, perpetual Augustus, in the second year, and the first year of his consulate, in the seventh indiction." These things are in the marble tablet. Likewise certain words, as "in foro" (in the market), for which in the tablet is read bifurco; "horos duos," for "hortos duo positos"; "id est," for "ibidem";

likewise "parte sinistra ad portam," for "similiter a porta, parte sinistra"; Eugentis, for Eugenilis; "possessionibus monasterii sancti Edistii," for "possessioni monasterii sancti Aristi"; hortos, for hortus; "deleri facias ac auferri," for "delere debeat ac auferre." Concerning these matters likewise I wished the reader forewarned, that if anyone should compare the marble tablet with the epistle inserted in the Register, he may know that this collation was not made in the printing of the Register: for the reason that, while the Register was being committed to the press, that tablet, not yet translated into the church, was affixed to the wall in the portico of St. Paul, set in a very lofty place, and hence known to very few and to almost no one—because scarcely anything of it could be read.

But I, while I was taking care to bring to light the scholia and other things elaborated by me upon blessed Gregory, being occupied with another matter, chanced upon Panvinius, who left this whole tablet written out in his little book On the Seven Churches of the City, while he was treating of the basilica of St. Peter. Wherefore, employing all diligence and industry, by seeking I found it, and having found it I faithfully culled it from the marble, and having culled it and at last printed it, for the reasons assigned at the outset it has pleased me to set it in this place.

It remains for us to explain in few words why blessed Gregory the Great dedicated and destined so many estates and lands—or so many possessions—and finally so many olive-groves to the basilicas of those same saints, solely for the lamps or torches to be kindled in honor of the holy apostles Peter and Paul: for from the revenues of so many and so great estates, and especially of olive-groves, we can gather that formerly nothing but an immense number of lamps was employed in the said churches. Which becomes plain to everyone indeed, if the Lives of the supreme pontiffs by Anastasius the Librarian and by Platina, as well as the Sacred Histories written by Peter Mallius, be read.

For after Pope Silvester—Caelestinus, Hilarius, Simplicius, Symmachus, and, after Gregory the Great, Sabinianus his successor, then Honorius, Agatho, Gregory II, Zacharias, and others—gave as gifts various kinds of silver candelabra, called by various names (that is, coronae, phara, canthara, cerostata, and rhetia), and many pounds of gold and silver, for the lamps of the basilica of St. Peter at Rome.

The same did Constantine the Great, emperor; then King Theodoric under Hormisdas, and Belisarius under Vigilius, who offered various kinds of candelabra of great price, and much weight of gold and silver, befitting imperial and royal opulence and liberality, to the church of St. Peter and likewise to that of blessed Paul. Panvinius, in his book On the Memorable Antiquities and the Excellence of the Basilica of St. Peter, book V, kept in the library of that same church, says: "Matilda, renowned for holiness, so esteemed the basilica of St. Peter that, in order that it might be the more adorned by the lamps employed, she donated her patrimony to it as a due dowry—that is, the chief parts of Liguria and Etruria, with all their towns and the rights thereof."

This Panvinius. Platina, in the very Life of Paschal II, speaks in this manner: "At this time the countess Matilda, quite worn out with old age, dying, left by testament to the Roman Church whatever pertains from the river Pissia and Saint Quiricus of the Sienese territory as far as Ceperanum, between the Apennines and the sea, 334 with Ferrara added, which is still tributary to the Roman Church." This Platina.

But Ferrara was under the dominion of the Church long before—that is, nearly a thousand years ago—namely in the time of Vitalian, as may be seen in the chronicles of Peregrinus Priscianus and of Gaspar Sardi; then in the time of Pippin, Charlemagne, Louis I, Henry I, and Otto I before Matilda; and it is established from the privileges of these same and of the other emperors after Matilda, which are guarded in the archive of the Castle of St. Angelo. Concerning this donation too, and the confirmation of the donation given by the countess Matilda in the time of Gregory VII and Paschal II in the year 1102, authentic proofs committed to writing are not lacking, which are preserved in all the archives of the Holy Roman Church.

But since I have fallen upon the discourse concerning Ferrara—not by design, but the subject itself supplying it to me—briefly and as if in passing, I will tell what befell Ferrara itself while I was committing these things concerning the lamps of the holy apostles Peter and Paul to the press. For in the past year of the Lord 1597, on the 27th day of October, when Alfonso of Este, the second and last of this name, duke of Ferrara, died without sons and descendants, our most holy lord,

Clement VIII—most vigilant pastor of the Church, and most keen and untiring defender of the patrimony of St. Peter—as soon as he learned that the duchy of Ferrara, once granted in fief by the Roman pontiffs his predecessors, had devolved to the Roman Church on account of the ending of the line of the said Alfonso, with no delay whatever interposed, together with the whole college of cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, treated gravely and wisely of its recovery, the said recovery being also urgently demanded by those same cardinals. Wherefore our most holy lord,

in the decree pronounced on this matter—human considerations set aside—with steadfast mind and with a wondrous ardor of piety assigned and consecrated the whole dominion of Ferrara to Christ the Lord, our Savior, and to the glorious and ever-Virgin Mother of God, Mary, and to the holy apostles Peter and Paul.

Therefore, the order of law and of the canons being observed, and both swords at length drawn strict, when Peter Aldobrandini—cardinal deacon of St. Nicholas in Carcere, nephew of the same Clement, born indeed to accomplish swiftly and happily most illustrious and arduous affairs on behalf of the Roman Church—had been sent with military forces to recover the duchy 335 of Ferrara, Caesar of Este, with no encounter of soldiers awaited, promised to restore the same duchy of Ferrara to its ancient and lawful lord, the Holy Roman Church, in this very year 1598 on the 12th day of January, a covenant having been entered into and committed to writing:

and by the deed itself, on the twenty-ninth day of the same month—that is, on the eve of the day consecrated to Saint Hippolytus, on which is celebrated the pontifical birthday of Clement himself, formerly named Hippolytus—he restored it freely and peacefully, not only by human, but by the express protection of divine aid; while Ferrara leaped for joy, the whole city of Rome exulted, and gave enormous thanks to God, and all Italy marveled. Thus far concerning Ferrara. Now let us return to our theme concerning the lamps once wont to be kindled in honor of the holy apostles Peter and Paul.

For Peter Mallius, in his book on the history of the Basilica of St. Peter, as may be seen in the Vatican Library, after enumerating the various kinds of gifts and revenues of the basilica of St. Peter for the kindling of the lamps, speaking of the lamps said to be perpetually alight in the Church, testifies that 150 lamps burned day and night, but at the stations 250, in his own time, in the basilica of St. Peter; and he recounts the various kinds and names of lamps and candelabra, and likewise all the places in which the candelabra were suspended, narrating them for each and every station of the whole year. There was also kindled a candelabrum which had as many lamps as there are days in the year, that is, 365.

Indeed, as Anastasius the Librarian says concerning Hadrian I: Hadrian himself gave as a gift to the basilica of Saint Peter a candelabrum representing the form of a cross, marked with 1,360 candles or lamps, which, hanging before the presbytery, was wont to be lit four times in the year — namely on the day of the Lord's Nativity, at Easter, on the feast of the holy apostles Peter and Paul, and at the election of the Roman pontiff, which is celebrated in each single year during his own lifetime; and 1,370 lamps were wont to be lit before the presbytery. Almost the same is read concerning the basilica of Saint Paul.