God should connaturally dispose to come thither This is agreeable to vvhat St. Thomas novv cited saith ad 2 That as lightsome places are commonly assigned to illightned spirits and obscure darkned holds to spirits darkned by sins So those hot and smoky close and stiffling places of the bathes bear a convenient Metaphorical expression of such as are yet darkned unvvashed and unpurged souls It is also agreeable to vvhat St. Gregory there L. 4. C. 42. saith discoursing upon this purgatory of Paschasius For having cited these vvords Thou hast deliverd me from the lower hell He presently adds so that the higher Hell and place of lighter torments may seem to be upon the earth and the lower under the earth Now as it is not absurd to expresse the joy of spirits unto us by saying they did sing merrily as it is said of the Angels in Christs Nativitie though singing be an act as unnatural to an Angel rejoycing as serving in a bath to a spirit purging so it is not absurd by these kind of actions to express unto us the low and sad estate of those soules which should be singing with Angels if their lighter sins did not banish them from those joyes to these abect Offices The like is to be said of that other example related by St. Gregorie L. 4. C. 55. To which and the farther declaration of the former we may fitly apply what St. Thomas above cited saith art 7 ad 8. q. 69. Although separated souls are sometimes punished in the place of our aboad yet it is not because that it is the proper place of punishment But this done for our instruction that seeing their pains we may be withdrawn from offending So surely is to be understood what is said of the soul of Theodoricus cast into the gulf of Vulcan at which those who are disposed might carp as much as at his other stories though it be conteined in the Breviary of the Church yea they might as well carpe at some conteined in Holy writ as that the Devil who is a spirit should be chased away from Saul by the material sound of Davids harp And they might say that it is like a Wintertale which we read Tob. 6.9 That a piece of the heart of a fish put upon coales the smoak of it so chaseth away the devil that he returnes no more All this is by way of supererogation said in defence of this storie of Paschasius For though that should be false yet it doth not follow that those Dialogues were not vvritten by St. Gregorie And still it doth follovv that St. Gregorie thought it to be true and consequently he judged it to be a truth confirmed by Revelation That souls are deliverable from purgatory before the day of judgment and the Church judged the same vvhilst she in her Martirologe credited vvhat Saint Gregorie mentions of Paschasius Fifthly and lastly they object that nothing like such Winter tales can be found in the other worthy works of St. Gregorie A strange objection to proceed from a Scholler upon his further consideration For the least consideration of any mean Scholler might have made him reflect how often St. Gregorie in this very fourth book of his Dialogues out of which only they have gleened the few stories at which they take so great exceptions doth relate the very self same stories which he himself tels you he had formerly related in his Homilies His Homilies be so esteemed by the Church that she hath transferred more out of them into her Breviary then out of any other holy Father Yet how thick be these his Homilies stored with these stories L. 4. C. 14. I remember saith he that in my Homilies upon the gospel I told a storie of Servulus which here he repeats out of Hom. 15. Again C. 15. in the same Homilies I remember likewise how I told a certain thing of Redempta and Romula .. Again C. 16. I will here report this which I remember also to have spoke of in my Homilies concerning my Aunt Tarsilla To this Woman Felix my Grandfather sometime Bishop of Rome Hom. 39. Again C. 19. By the relation of the same Probus and other religious men I came to the Relation of such things as in my Homilies I told to my Auditors concerning the Venerable Father Steven Again C. 27. Concerning the Earle Theophanius I did in my Homilies make publick mention of such strange things as happened to him Hom. 36. verbatim Again C. 37. There was one Theodorus which story I remember in my Homilies to the people I have spoke of also who was a very unruly lad c. Hom. 19. Again he word for word C. 38. Relates that dreadfull story concerning Crisaptius just as he had related it Hom. 12. Now Note I pray that these two last cited chapters have but one chapter between them and the chapter which conteines the story of Paschasius at which they take so great exceptions And yet these considerate writers neither marked what was said so often either in the same fourth book or in these two so neer bordering chapters but boldly deny that St. Gregory in his other works hath no such stories as occurr every wherein his Dialogues Though I need not seek further to refute this apparent falsity then what hath been already cited out of his Homilies yet I cannot but tell you that you shall find some of his Epistles also most plentifully stored with divers such stories as they are pleased to compare to Winter-tales L. 3. Register Indict 12. Ep. 30. And L. 9. Register Indict 4. Epist. 38. I do not here answer a weak cavel which I find them to use so to discredit that most credible story which St. Gregorie relates of a Monk in his own Monastery whose soul was freed from Purgatory after he had appointed sacrifices for forty dayes together to be offered for his soul for when I shall bring this story in proof of our opinion I shall demonstrate that cavell to be wholly grounded in ignorance of antiquity I will end by giving my Reader an account out of what shop all this false wares have been fetcht The Enemies of the Roman Church seeing such a multitude of stories related by the great St. Gregorie to be directly opposite to their novelties have devised all the shifts they can to cry down the Authority of his Dialogus as you may see in Criticis sacris Riveti Lib. 4. C. 29. Where he cites the very place of Canus so much magnified by our adversaries to disparadge these dialogues But Rivetus could alledge no one more ancient then Clemnitius who relished not this work though he found some who imagined Pope Gregory not the third but the second of that name to have been the Author of these Dialogues which we have demonstratively as I dare say shewed to be most false And whereas Chemnitius saith that neither the stile nor the contents of this book sute well with the other works of St. Gregorie we have shewed the falsity of both by the Authorities cited out of his Homilies against which work Rivetus hath not a word to say but most ignorantly carps at Baronius and Fronto Duceus for esteeming the great St. Gregorie to have been called Dialogus by the Greeks for if it be true which he saith of Cedrenus that the occasion of this surname proceeded from the Book of Dialogues written by this Gregorius then this Gregorie must needs be the person who did write these Dialogues but the person who did write these Dialogues could neither be Gregorie the Second or the Third as hath been demonstrated but evidently is Gregory the First whom we usually call Gregorie the Great whence it remains most cleerly convinced that the Great St. Gregory is the Man who by occasion of his Dialogues was by the Grecians surnamed Dialogus as being the Author of these Dialogues we speak of FINIS
A VINDICATION OF St. Gregorie HIS DIALOGUES IN WHICH The Great St. Gregory is proved The Author of that Work LONDON Printed for John Crooke at the Ship in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1660. A Vindication of St. Gregory his Dialogues in which the Great St. Gregory is proved the Author of that Work CErtain modern writers have not long since affirmed that the Opinion avouching souls to be deliverable from Purgatory before the day of judgment was an Opinion which St. Gregory the great brought into the Church by certain petty stories That he was the Father of this Opinion and the leader unto it and that cleerly this Opinion began about his times Yet as clear as they reported this to be now of late this Clarity is clearly acknowledged by them to be a flat falsity and that in two several books whence upon fuller Consideration they profess themselves to discover the Authority of venerable Bede attributing the book of Dialogues to St. Gregory the great to be defective yea they openly profess this book to be unworthy St. Gregory Why so because say they nothing like such winter tales as are told in that book can be found in his most worthy and learned works By this they being enforced to seek out another Author upon whom they might Father these Dialogues they fall into so great a weakness as to ascribe this work to that Pope Gregory to whom Pope Zacharias did succeed whom they say to have been by the Grecians called Gregorius Dialogus who lived about the midst of the eight age that is to St. Gregory the third a Syrian All this they confirm by the the authority of Photius a Man who could not as they conceive be well ignorant thereof being so learned a person especially in books and Authors By this invention they imagine themselves to make our doctrine a hundred years later and to make it first appear in an Age of the least cultivated since the beginning of the Church of God For our parts we are no wayes ambitious to have so worthy a Father as St. Gregory the great to be Father to our Opinion For we esteem our doctrine of the deliverableness of souls before the last day to have had no later beginning then the doctrine of Purgatory it self which was delivered as part of the first faith by the Teachers of that faith neither will they ever be able to shew any other Origin of it which is an evident proof of its verity But because St. Gregory the great is so clear an Assertor of this verity in his Dialogues and a Man so far from introducing any novelty into the Church or from believing any novelty to be confirmed by miracle as he believes this verity to be his authority is not to be wrested from us by so groundless a denyall of his Dialogues which upon this their fuller consideration they most inconsiderately affirm not to be his work but to have been written by Pope Gregory the Third An opinion so full of most enormious and palpable absurdities and that in so great number that their adhering to it upon fuller consideration shews how inconsiderable their authority ought to be esteemed even when this fuller Consideration is used by them Against this Opinion we argue thus First that holy and learned St. Ildefonsus Bishop of Toledo who dyed Anno. 667. in his book de viris illustribus C. 1. whose Original manuscript is still kept in the Vatican library as Baronius certifies Anno. 604. writeth thus of St. Gregory the great He did set forth four books comprised in one Volume concerning the lives of the Italian Fathers which he would have called by the name of Dialogues In which books how great secrets of Diviniy lye hidden and what wonderfull Documents of the love of our Heavenly Countrey any carefull Reader may easily perceive Do you not see here these books known and highly esteemed in the Church before either Gregory the Third yea or Gregory the second was of age to write or read a book Again do you not see how according to the Judgment of this great Father that Reader of these Dialogues is no carefull Reader who doth not easily perceive great secrets of Divinity hidden in this book of Dialogues Which our Adversaries upon their fuller consideration think unworthy of St. Gregory and like to Winter Tales Secondly St. Julian Bishop also of Toledo who florished Anno. 688 citeth these Dialogues in his Prognosticon L. 1. C. 7. L. 2. C. 8. C. 19. C. 24. An evident proof that they were made before either of the other two Gregories especially Gregory the Third were known in the World Thirdly our Adversaries do indeed take notice that Bede cites these Dialogues and ascribes them to our Apostle St. Gregory But they did not consider in their fuller consideration where and when Bede did say what he said Where said he this In his History of England When did he write that History He himself in the end of this History tells us that he did end it Anno. 731. So that Bede did write what he writ concerning these Dialogues that very year in which Pope Gregory the Second dyed and Gregory the Third was made Pope How surely then might Bede know that these Dialogues out of which he transcribed the complaint of St. Gregory concerning the loss of his former retirement by being advanced to the Popedom were not made by Gregory the Third who as then was not made Pope neither could so fresh a work of Gregory the Second which must have been made in Bedes own florishing Age for Bede was 59. years old when he ended his History as Baronius proves Anno. 731 be so much mistaken by such a Man as Bede was for a work sâ—t forth above a hundred years before Fourthly Joannes Diaconus who most accurately did write the Life of St. Gregory the great is an Author both more ancient and of more Credit then Photius and a Man particularly versed in the works of St. Gregory the great And yet he writeth thus L. 4. These books of St. Gregory the great his Dialogues Zacharias Bishop of the holy Roman Church almost a hundred and seventy five years after translated into Greek These words Baronius in his notes upon the Martyr Dec. 23. having cited goeth on thus How much the Grecians esteemed these books you may hence understand that when they cite Gregory they call him by the very name of Dialogus that is the Dialoguist And again in his Annals Anno. 726. speaking of an Epistle of Gregory the Second The Second I say and not the Third he saith That Epistle falsely bears the Inscription of Gregorius Dialogus an errour with which we find many Grecians and some Latines to have been deceived whilst this Gregory the Second is called Dialogus which surname it is manifest out of Greek and Latine Authors to be appropriated by the Grecians to Gregory the great ever since Zacharias the Pope did translate his Dialogues into Greek so to distinguish him
from the three other Gregories Thaumaturgus Nazienzen and Nyssen Therefore our Adversaries are much mistaken who in their fuller consideration will have Gregory the Third to have been called Dialogus But least retiring themselves to consider more fully they should Father these Dialogues upon Gregory the second who dyed Anno. 731. I desire them to ponder how demonstratively the contrary is proved by the arguments already brought And yet more demonstratively if it may the same is farther proved by such arguments as I am now going to produce out of the book of Dialogues it self which if they had perused in their fuller consideration as any considerate writers would have done they would have been ashamed of so unexcusable an ignorance as apparently is committed in averring these Dialogues to have been written by Gregory the second and much more in ascribing them to Gregory the Third made Pope Anno 731. I pray note this year and then you will soon note the grosness of this absurdity Fifthly then the books of Dialogues need only an attentive Reader to make it evident that Gregory the great was and that neither Gregory the Second or Third could be the Author of that book In his Preface to his second book he writes thus What I intend to recount of St. Bennet who dyed Anno. 543. I had by Relation of four of his disciples Of Constantius who was next Abbat after him of Valentinianus of Simplicius of Honoratus who now is Abbat These Men were disciples to St. Bennet almost 200. years before Gregory the Third was Pope How then could he have what he related from their mouths Or how could any of them be living in his time Again he saith L. 3. C. 4. now I will relate such miracles as happened in my own dayes Then C. 11. He relates how Cerbonius was brought forth and caste to a Bear to be devoured in the sight of King Totilas himself and his whole army the bear doing reverence to the Saint Many of them who were present and saw it be yet living Now it is evident that Totilas dyed Anno. 553. so that you must make these many eye witnesses to have lived a hundred and fourscore years after they did see this wonder that so they might be yet living in the time of Gregory the Third And C. 12. A certain old Priest saith he who yet liveth was present when Fulgentius Bishop of Otricoli was taken by Totilas see here the same argument again And it recurs again in the next Chapter where it is said Floridus told me a notable miracle of Herculanus who did bring him up and in whose time Totilas besieged Perugia for seven years together And yet again in the fourteenth Chapter it is made further evident that the Author of the Dialogues was a neer borderer upon the day of Totilas For there he saith at such time as the Goths by Totilas first invaded Italy there was a holy Man Isaac well known to the holy Virgin Gorgonia who now dwelleth in this City And presently after he saith This holy man Isaac was not born in Italy and therefore I will only speak of such miracles as he did here in our Countrey Do not these words tell you that the Countrey of the Author of the Dialogues was Italy and not Syria But what can demonstrate more clearly that the Great St. Gregory was Author of these Dialogues then what followeth Chap. 16. There was saith he a Reverend man in Campania called Marcius whom many of our acquaintance knew very well and many things concerning him I have heard from the mouth of Pope Pelagius my Predecessor Now whose Predecessor was Pope Pelagius All the World knows St. Gregory the great did succeed him immediately As also that no Pope called Pelagius lived neerer to Gregory the third then this foresaid Pelagius the second who died Anno 590. How then could either Gregory the third or second Hear many things from the mouth of Pope Pelagius who ceased both to speak and to live a whole age before either of them were born Yet again C. 19. We had in our dayes one other miracle For not long since John the Tribune told me that when the Earle Pronulphus was there and himself also with Antharicus the King almost five years since when the River of Tiber became so great that it ran over the walls of Rome Behold here two manifest proofes that the Author of the Dialogues did write the said books five years after the Inundation which happened Anno 589. as you may see in Baronius At what time Antharith was King of the Longobards so created by them Anno 585 Though he called himself Flavius as the same Baronius in that year testifyes All this demonstrates our opinion and shames the contrary It followeth in the Chap. 31. that which the Roman Breviary did transcribe out of St. Gregory the great concerning St. Hermenigild in which be these words St. Hermenigild was converted by Leander Bishop of Sevil a man long since joyned to me in familiarity and friendship This Leander with whom St. Gregory the great was so intirely acquainted is the same to whom he writes L. 1. Epist 41. L. 4. Epist 46. L. 7. Epist 125. And our Adversaries to verifie those words in Gregory the third must make him acquainted with one who dyed above a hundred years before he was born Again Chap. 33. it is said in the time of Justinian the Emperour the King of the Wandals commanded the tongues of certain Bishops to be pulled out by the roots for preaching against the Arian Heresy yet they did as perfectly afterwards speak in defence of the true religion as before And at such time as I my self was sent to Constantinople unto the Emperor about the affairs of the Church I found there a Bishop of good years who told me that he saw them himself speak without tongues Now it is notorius that St. Gregory the great was sent about the affairs of the Church to Constantinople and that Justinian began to riegn Anno 587. that is full two hundred years before Gregory the third was Pope How then could Gregory the third speak with any Bishop who had seen those worthy Bishops whose tongues had been pulled out in the dayes of Justinian Again the Author of the Dialogues in his fourth book not only frequently cites his own Homiles which are known to be the Homilies of St. Gregory the great of which see here by and by N. 18. but C. 16. he saith I will here repeat that which I remember also to have spoke in my Homilies concerning my Aunt Tarsilla To this Woman Felix my Grandfather sometimes Bishop of Rome appeared in vision Who is so blind as not to see that these words cannot be spoken by Gregory the third who had no such Italian kindred for he was a Syrian But they are clearly spoken by the great St. Gregory so well known by his Homilies and by his Aunt and by his Grandfather And C. 26. He thus
describes the year in which he did write these Dialogues Likewise saith he in that mortality which three years since lamentably afflicted this town It is notorius by History that this great plague raged in Rome the first year of his Popedom of which see Baronius Anno 590. who well proves from hence that these Dialogues were written Anno. 593. see him in that year Moreover C. 30. The writer of these Dialogues speak thus Julian who dyed almost seven years since told me this Story In the time of King Theodoricus quoth he my Wives father being then in Sicily Theodoricus began to reign Anno 493. How could Gregory the third made Pope Anno 731. speak these words Lord where is these mens fuller consideration The Church in her Breviary is a most exact deliverer so historical Verity and not a follower of such as deliver Winter tales This Church upon the feast of St. Hemenigildus April 13. taketh the lessons of the second Nocturne out of these Dialogues of St. Gregory And upon the feast of St. John Pope and Martyr May the 27. the same Church recounts out of these Dialogues of St. Gregory one of these stories which they are pleased to Nickname Winter tales concerning a holy Eremite who did see the soul of Theodoricus cast down into the fire of Sipara the same day hower upon which he dyed of which see L. 4. C. 30. Secondly the same Church is known to have used most accurate diligence in the History of her Roman Maryrologe which she appoints to be read dayly in the Quire at the Prime as part of the divine office in which it were most grosse to follow the Relaters of Winter tales yet in a short time I found above twenty several places in that Martyrologe in which St. Gregory in his Dialogues is cited in confirmation of what is here related of which I shall speak more herafter N. 15. Lastly to all these convincing proofs I add the testimony of St. Gregory the great in that undoubted work of his epistles Where he tells us clearly that he did write the book of Dialogues and upon what occasion Thus then he writeth Epist. 50. L. 2. Regist. Indict 11. C. 89. To Maxmianus Bishop of Syracusa My Brethren who live familiarly with me do inforce me by all means briefly to commit to writing some miracles of those fathers which we have heard done in Italy for effecting whereof I stand in great need of your charitable assistance to wit that you would signifie to me such things as came to your memorie or it hath been your chance to know for I remember well You told me some things concerning Abbot Annosus who lived neer Anastasius c. Now it appears by his first book of Dialogues C. 7. that this Maximianus did write back unto him what he there relates of Abbot Annosus And by all this any man may see how inconsiderately in their fuller consideration they have proceeded who never opening their eyes to any of these so apparent verities did most unadvisedly deny these Dialogues to be written by the great St. Gregory and fathered them upon Gregorie the the third But novv they have heard our arguments which are so wholly unanswerable let us hear their very weak proofes of the contrary First they object the Authority of Photius ascribing these books to Gregory the Third a Man so learned in books and Authors that he cannot be conceived ignorant of the truth I answer that this Photius was a Grecian and nothing well skilled in sacred and Latin Authors Hear what Nicetas writeth in his Life in which he saith that he was eminent indeed in secular sciences being secretary to the Emperour Bardas But wholly devoid of all sacred literature And no wonder For as he tells us That of a Lay man he in space of six dayes was transformed into a Patriarch of Constantinople From which dignity he for his most notorius wickedness was the second time deposed Anno. 880. By which account you see also of how late a standing he is And how despicable in comparison of the Authors I have cited Secondly they object that this book is unworthy of St. Gregory the great This is directly to oppose the Judgment of St. Ildefonsus St. Julian St. Bede and of the holy and learned Pope Zachary who thought this work worthy his translation by which also Greece came so highly to esteem of St. Gregory as hath been shewed out of Baronius This is also to vilifie the authority of the Latin Church so much relying upon the authority of this book as hath been said and shall now farther be declared For you pass on farther and. Thirdly object that this book conteins many stories like Winter tales I answer that it is an unsufferable injury to the Church to say she yields so much credit to such a book so stuft with such Winter tales as you will have them An unsufferable injury to our great Apostle St. Gregory whom we have proved to be the writer of these stories concerning which he himself saith in the Preface to that work I have followed the example of St. Luke and St. Mark who learnt the gospell which they write not by sight but by the relation of others Yet least any in reading should have an occasion to doubt whether such things as I write be true or no I will set down by what manner and of whom I have learnt them I know Melchior Canus whose words our Adversaries much applaud was so bold as to say that some Anastarche or Critikes of our age would account some of the miracles related by him to be uncertain But I know also that the great Baronius whose exactness in History is famed through all Christendom examining this censure of Canus in his notes upon the Martyrologe December 23. pronounceth it to be a calumny very inconsiderately vented against a work which both the East and West Church for these thousand years held worthy all highest credit veneration and praise And then he beats down this calumny by a multitude of most grave testimonies I do cite thee O Canus saith he I do cite thee before the Tribunal of thy own most holy and most learned Spanish Doctors S. Isidor S. Ildefonsus S. Julian S. Isidor after he had enlarged himself in the endless praises of S. Gregory comes at last to conclude thus He is happy and over happy who is well versed in all his works S. Ildefonse affirmes That all antiquity could shew nothing like to him that is to the great S. Gregory That he surpassed Anthony in sincerity Cyprian in eloquence Austin in wisdom Behold he preferreth this Writer of the Dialogues which there he names with a special Encomium of that work before the great St. Austin even in point of Wisdom And yet these men dare compare him to a teller of Winter tales But Baronius goeth on and shewes with what respect these very Dialogues were cited by S. Julian cited by whole Assemblies of Holy Fathers