From The Lives of the Popes from the Time of our Saviour Jesus Christ to the Accession of Gregory VII. Written Originally in Latin by B. Platina, Native of Cremona, and translated into English (from an anonymous translation, first printed in 1685 by Sir Paul Rycaut), Edited by William Benham, Volume I, London: Griffith, Farran, Okeden & Welsh, [1888, undated in text]; pp. 135-136.
The Lives of the Popes,
BY
B. Platina
Volume I.
PELAGIUS II.
A.D. 578-590.
PELAGIUS, a Roman, son of Vinigildus, was from the time of Tiberius to that of his son-in-law, the Emperor Mauritius, to whom, though he were a Cappadocian, yet the empire was committed, upon the account of his great courage and ability in the management of affairs. At this time the Lombards having, after the death of Alboinus, for twenty years been governed by dukes, make Autharis their king, whom they also called Flavius, a name which was afterwards used by all the kings of Lombardy. But Mauritius, endeavouring to drive the Lombards out of Italy, hires Childebert, the French king, to engage in a war against them; who forthwith raising a great army of Gauls and Germans, fights Autharis, but with great loss is discomfited. The Lombards being flushed and heightened by this victory, marched on as far as to the Straits of Sicily, possessing themselves all along of the cities of Italy, and at length besieging for a long time Rome itself, of which certainly they had made themselves masters, had they not been driven from its walls by the great rains which fell so violently and incessantly, and made such an 136 inundation, that men looked upon it as a second Noah’s flood.
This was the only cause why Pelagius was made Bishop of Rome without the consent of the Emperor, the city being so closely besieged that none could pass to know his pleasure therein. For at this time the Roman clergy’s election of a bishop was not valid unless they had the Emperor’s approbation. Hereupon Gregory, a deacon, a man of great piety and learning, was sent to Constantinople to appease the Emperor; where, having effected what he came for, he neglected not to employ his time and parts, but both wrote books of morals upon Job, and also at a disputation in the presence of the Emperor himself, he so baffled Eutychius, Bishop of Constantinople, that he was forced to retract what he had written in a book of his concerning the Resurrection, in which he asserted that our bodies in that glory of the Resurrection should become more thin and subtle than the wind or air, and so not tangible. Which is contrary to that of our Saviour, “Handle Me and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see Me have” (Luke xxiv.). As for Pelagius, having, at the request of the citizens of Rome, recalled Gregory, turned his father’s house into an hospital for poor old men, and entirely built the cemetery of Hermes the martyr, and the church of Laurence the martyr, he died of the pestilence, which at that time was very epidemical throughout Europe, after he had been in the chair twelve years, two months, ten days, and was buried in St Peter’s in the Vatican. The see was then vacant six months, twenty-eight days.
Previous Pope: 64. Benedict I. 65. Pelagius II. Next Pope: 66. Gregory I. The Great