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Dialogues
St Gregory the Dialogist, tr. P. W., 1608
Book 4, 40. Of the Soul of Paschasius the Deacon
1 For when I was yet in my younger years, and lived.a secular life, I heard from the mouth of mine elders, who knew it to be true: how that Paschasius, a Deacon of this Roman church (whose sound and eloquent books of the holy Ghost be extant amongst us), was a man of a wonderful holy life, a marvellous giver of alms, a lover of the poor, and one that contemned himself. This man, in that contention which, through the exceeding hot emulation of the clergy, fell out betwixt Symmachus and Lawrence, made choice of Lawrence to be Bishop of Rome: and though he was afterward by common consent overcome, yet did he continue in his former opinion till his dying day: loving and preferring him, whom the Church, by the judgment of Bishops, refused for her governor. This Deacon ending his life in the time of Symmachus, Bishop of the Apostolic see: a man possessed with a devil came and touched his dalmatic, as it lay upon the bier, and was forthwith delivered from that vexation. Long time after, Germanus, Bishop of Capua (before mentioned), by the counsel of physicians, for the recovery of his health went to the baths: into which after he was entered, he found there standing in those hot waters the foresaid Paschasius, ready to do him service. At which sight being much afraid, he demanded what so worthy a man as he was did in that place: to whom Paschasius returned this answer: “For no other cause,” quoth he, “am I appointed to this place of punishment, but for that I took part with Lawrence against Symmachus: and therefore I beseech you to pray unto our Lord for me, and by this token shall you know that your prayers be heard, if, at your coming again, you find me not here.” Upon this, the holy man Germanus betook himself to his devotions, and after a few days he went again to the same baths, but found not Paschasius there: for seeing his fault proceeded not of malice, but of ignorance, he might after death be purged from that sin. And yet we must withal think that the plentiful alms which he bestowed in this life, obtained favour at God’s hands, that he might then deserve pardon, when he could work nothing at all for himself.
PETER. What, I pray you, is the reason, that, in these latter days, so many things come to light, which in times past were not known: in such sort that by open revelations and manifest signs, the end of the world seemeth not to be far off?
Notes
- Chapter XL. pp. 234, 235. Pope Anastasius II., whom Dante (Inf. xi. 7-9) condemns as a heretic, died in November 498. Two rival conclaves met: the one, which represented the majority, was held in the Lateran, and elected the Sardinian deacon Symmachus to the papacy; the other, which favoured a reconciliation with the Emperor (Anastasius I.), in S. Maria Maggiore, chose for Pope the Archdeacon Laurentius, who was a Roman. After a violent struggle, an appeal to the arbitration of Theodoric resulted in the general recognition of Symmachus. The struggle was afterwards renewed, until Laurentius finally withdrew in 505. In the synod (Synodus palmaris) which was called in 501 to investigate the charges against Symmachus, the famous principle of the Church of Rome was established: Summa sedes a nemine judicatur. Cf. Grisar, Geschichte Roms und der Päpste im Mittelalter, nos. 308, 309. Paschasius died a few years before the death of Symmachus (514); he is venerated as a saint on May 31. A work on the Holy Ghost, De Spiritu Sancto libri duo, is attributed to him, and identified with the “rectissimi et luculenti de Sancto Spiritu libri,” of which St. Gregory here speaks (Migne, P.L. lxii.); but its authenticity has been disputed, and it is included by Augustus Engelbrecht among the works of Bishop Faustus o. Riez (Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, vol. xxi., Vienna, 1891.) A letter from Paschasius to Eugippius, the biographer of St. Severinus, is extant (In Migne, tom. cit., and ed. Pius Knoell in Corp. Script. Eccles. Lat., vol. ix. pars 2, Vienna, 1886). The scene of this apparition is laid by St. Gregory in Angulanis thermis, that is, the baths of Angulus, or Paterno, near the modern Castel Sant’ Angelo in the Abruzzi. This story of Paschasius is cited by mediaeval writers on the place of Purgatory as implying that souls are punished in the places on earth where they committed their faults. In his Commentary upon the Sentences of Peter the Lombard (In Lib. IV. Sententiarum, dist. xx. pars i. art. i. q. 6), St. Bonaventura combats this theory, declaring that the case of Paschasius was a special dispensation, and not according to the general purgatorial rule; for “it appears altogether incredible, or at least improbable, that all the souls who sinned in Paris should be punished in Paris.”