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{Francis Aidan Gasquet, O.S.B., published an edition of a manuscript , giving the earliest Life of St Gregory the Great, which he had found in the Benedictine Abbey of St Gall, Switzerland, MS. 567, titling it Vita Beatissimi Papae Gregorii Magni Antiquissima, in 1904 (its manuscript title is 'Liber beati et laudabili viri Gregorii pape urbis Rome de vita atque virtutibus'). That volume was found, fittingly, in St Hilda's Priory Library of the Anglican Order of the Holy Paraclete and I thank them both for their hospitality and their encouragement for this work. The manuscript's text had originally been written out at Streoneshalch, today, Whitby, in A.D. 713. The Venerable Bede was to make much use of it for his later History of the English Church and People (III.1, IV.23, etc.). Cardinal Gasquet believed the Vita Antiquissimi was first written by a monk of Whitby, though we cannot rule out that it may have been written by a Whitby nun at that double monastery, for in Hilda's day women could be equally as learned as were men - or more so, having introduced to them Christian Latin literacy in place of the men's pagan Germanic runes, and converted them. However, a credible candidate for the text would be the Whitby-educated Bishop Oftfor, who devoted himself to reading and applying the Scriptures in both Hilda's monasteries, then travelled to Kent to visit and study with Archbishop Theodore, next travelling to Rome, returning to become Bishop of the Hwiccas, then ruled by King Osric (Bede, History of the English Church and People, IV.23). The episodes the text gives concerning English history clearly influenced Bede, and those of Italian history would later be retold in the poetry of Dante Alighieri, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Emily Dickinson. The scribe of the manuscript carefully placed stress and scansion marks over words for oral delivery of its Latin. If any of the readers of this booklet would care to translate it and to correct this present poor work for the benefit of others who need the text in English, their improved and fuller translation would be used and most gratefully acknowledged.
[The text begins by speaking of the fame of holy Gregory, next of how
he was a Roman, his parents being called Gordian and Sylvia, and how he
was sent as an envoy to Constantinople where he deeply grieved the loss
of his monastic cloister and sought the 'sign of Jonah'. Throughout, scriptural
quoations are used and also passages from the writings of St Jerome. The
account that follows is later to be used by Bede in his History of the
English Church and People (II.1).]
{Est igitur narratio fidelium, ante predictum eius pontificatum, Romam venisse quidam de nostra natione forma et crinibus candidati albis. Quos cum audisset venisse, iam dilexit vidisse; eosque albe mentis intuitu sibi ascitos, recenti specie in consueta suspensus et, quod maximum est, Deo intus admonente, cuius gentis fuissent inquisivit. (Quos quidam pulchros fuisse pueros dicunt, quidam vero crispos iuvenis et decoros.) Cumque respondÿearent: 'Anguli dicuntur illi de quibus sumus'; ille dixit: 'Angeli Dei'. Deinde dixit: 'Rex gentis illius quomodo nominatur?' Et dixerunt: Aelli; et ille ait: 'Alleluia, laus enim Dei esse debet illic'. Tribus quoque illius nomen de qua erant proprie requisivit. Et dixerunt: 'Deire'. Et ille dixit: 'De ira Dei confugientes ad fidem'.
Therefore to tell truly, it was before his pontificate, when there came
to Rome some of our nation who were fair of form having blond curls. Those
with him heard that they had come, now saw how he delighted in seeing them
. . . . He questioned them as to whose people they were . . . . When they
replied: 'We are those who are spoken of as Angles', he said, 'You are
angels of God'. Then he said: 'What is the name of the king of these people'.
And they said: 'Aelle', and he said: 'Alleluia, for God ought now to be
praised. What is the tribe's name to which you belong?' And they said:
'Deira'. And he said: 'They shall flee from the wrath of God (De ira) to
faith'.
[Gregory wished to undertake the missionary journey himself but was
unable to do so as at that time the Roman people revolted. When Pope Benedict
died, Gregory was elected Pope, and so sent Augustine, Mellitus and Laurence
instead.]
{Per hos igitur regum omnium primus Angulorum Edilbertus rex Cantuariorum ad fidem Christi correctus, eius baptismo dealbatus cum sua enituit natione.
Through these therefore the first king of all the Angles, King Ethelbert
of Kent, was brought to the Christian faith, and was baptised with all
his nation.
[The Whitby writer gives a further and lengthy paragraph on Gregory's puns upon Angles and angels, Aelle and Alleluia, citing John in the Apocalypse, and the Gospels. Then he gives the baptism of Edwin and of the members of his family by Paulinus at York (influencing Bede, History of the English Church and People, II. 14).]
Post hunc in gente nostra, que dicitur Humbrensium, Eduinus, Aelli prefati filius, quem sub vaticinatione Alleluiatica laudationis divine non immerito meminimur, rex precepit tam sapientia singulari, quam etiam sceptro dicionis regie, a tempore quo gens Anglorum hanc ingreditur insulam.
After that, amongst our people, who are called Northumbrians, was Edwin,
son of the before mentioned Aelle, of whom it was prophesied that he would
not be unworthy of singing divine Alleluias, a king taught with such singular
wisdom, who reigned over the above mentioned land, at the time that the
English people had invaded this island.
[Later, Edwin is driven into exile, where he has a vision of Christ
who appears to him crowned and who consoles him, promising him a prosperous
reign if he will obey him. After this Paulinus dies, and is seen to ascend
to heaven in the form of a fair white swan. The bones of King Edwin are
commanded in a vision to be brought from Hatfield to Streanaeschalch, where
is the convent 'quod est coenobium famosissimum', of Edwin's great-granddaughter,
'adhuc in vita monastica vivente Aeonfleda filia religiosi regis prefati
Eduini . . . femina valde iam religosa'. This is done.
The Whitby writer next gives miracles concerning Pope Gregory, two of
them involving women. In the first we learn about the manner of Communion
in the early medieval Roman church, the communicants still bringing their
own bread for the rite. ]
{Cumque illa venisset se communicare de manu Dei hominis atque illum audivit dicentem: 'Corpus Domini nostri Ihesu Christi conservet animam tuam', subrisit. Quod vir Domini videns, clausit manum suam contra os eius, et nolens ei dare sanctum corpus Domini, posuit super altare, eiusque vestimento ut sibi placuit abscondit. Missa vero peracta, sibi advocans interrogavit cur subridaret quando communicare debuit. Illa respondens, ait: Ego ipsos panes meis feci manibus, et tu de illis dixisti quia corpus Domini essent.
And when she came to communicate from the hand of the man of God and
hearing him say, The Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ preserve your soul,
she smiled. Which, the man of the Lord seeing, he closed his hand over
her mouth and, not wishing to give her the holy body of the Lord, placed
it on the altar . . . . The Mass having been completed, calling her, he
asked why she had smiled when she ought to have communicated. She replied,
saying, That very bread I made with my own hands, and you said of it that
it was the body of the Lord.
[In order to undo her incredulity he prayed, then showed her the bread which he had placed upon the altar, which was bleeding, quoting to her John 6.54 and 57, and, after the entire congregation had prayed for her faith, he communicated her.
The text next gives further miracles, then discusses St Gregory's writings, his Sermons, his teaching concerning the Angels, his commentary to Ezekiel, dictated by a white dove, his Moralia in Job and Dialogues, XXIV-XXVII.
Then the writer gives the story of the Miracle of the Salvation of Trajan.]
{Quidam
quoque de nostris dicunt narratum a Romanis Sancti Gregorii lacrimis, animam
Traiani imperatoris refrigeratam vel baptizatam, quod est dictu mirabile
et auditu. . . . Nam die quadam transiens per forum Traianum, quod ab eo
opere mirifico constructum dicunt, illud considerans repperit opus tam
elemosinarium eum fecisse paganum, ut Christiani plus quam pagani esse
posse videretur. Fertur namque contra hostes exercitum ducens propere pugnaturus,
unius ad eum voce vidue misericorditer mollitus, substetisse totius imperator
orbis. Ait enim illa: 'Domne Traiane, hic sunt homines qui filium meum
occidearunt, nolentes mihi rationem reddere'. Cui, 'cum rediero', inquit,
'dicito mihi, et faciam eos tibi rationem reddere'. At illa: 'Domine, ait,
si inde non venies, nemo me adiuvet'. Tunc iam concite reos, in eam fecit
coram se in armis suis subaratam ei pecuniam componere quem debearunt.
Hoc igitur sanctus inveniens Gregorius, id esse agnovit quod legimus; 'Iudicare
pupillo et defendite viduam et venite et arguite me dicit Dominus'. Unde
per eum quem in se habuit Christum loquentem ad refrigerium anime eius
quid implendo nesciebat, ingrediens ad sanctam Petrum solita direxit lacrimarum
fluenta, usque, dum promeruit sibi divinitus revelatum fuisse exauditum,
atque ut numquam de altero illud presumpsisset pagano.
And here we narrate somewhat of the tears of Roman Saint Gregory restoring
the soul of the Emperor Trajan and baptizing it, which is marvelous to
say and hear. . . . Now one day when he was going through Trajan's Forum
. . . he thought about the work of mercy the pagan had performed, which
seemed to him more Christian than pagan. For as he was leading his army
forth to fight against the enemy, he was softened by the voice of a widow
pleading for mercy, halting the Emperor of the whole world. For she said,
'Lord Trajan, here are men who have killed my son, who will not render
me justice'. He replied, 'When I return, speak to me, and I will render
justice to you'. And she, 'Lord, and if you do not return, there is none
to help me'. Then he acquiesced to the judgement, and from the midst of
the bronze armour put together the money that was owed. Thus, St Gregory
concluded, he who had not known the passage, Judge the orphan and defend
the widow and come and reason together, said the Lord (Isaiah 1.16-17),
had done it. And weeping, he entered St Peter's . . .
Dante uses this episode in Purgatorio
X, showing the scene sculpted upon the marble wall of the gallery beside
the Annunciation to Mary. Botticelli and many other artists illuminated
the scene from Dante's text. Langland uses the figure of Trajan as the
virtuous pagan in Piers Plowman. The Pearl Poet, in St
Erkenwald, combines this story with others from Bede's History of
the English Church and People and Geoffrey of Monmouth's History
of the Kings of Britain, to create a similar one whose setting is St
Paul's Cathedral in London. Elizabeth Barrett Browning puts the scene of
Trajan and the Widow into Aurora Leigh, setting it on the Appian
Way rather than in Trajan's Forum, and Emily Dickinson borrows her lines
for 'A Soul Selects her Own Society', to describe an emperor kneeling before
her low grave.
Thus a monk or nun at Whitby, writing this tale in the eighth century, influenced further writings, in Europe and in America, from the fourteenth through the nineteenth centuries. Most important, he, or she, is Bede's predecessor and thus a source for the History of the English Church and People, as well as a source for Dante Alighieri's Divina Commedia. He or she helped shape the histories of not one but two nations.
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