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. 140-141.
The Lives of the Popes,
BY
B. Platina
Volume I.
SABINIAN I.
A.D. 604-606.
SABINIAN, Gregory’s successor, deserved not to have the place of his nativity remembered, being a person of mean birth and meaner reputation, and one who violently opposed the great things which his predecessor had done. Particularly, there being a great scarcity during his pontificate, and the poor pressing him hard to imitate the pious charity of Gregory, he made them no other answer but this, that Gregory was a man who designed to make himself popular, and to that end had profusely wasted the revenues of the Church. Nay, the ill-natured wretch arrived to such a degree of rage and envy against Gregory, that he was within a very little of causing his books to be burned. Some tell us that Sabinian was, at the instigation of some Romans, thus highly incensed against Gregory because he had mutilated and thrown down the statues of the ancients which had been set up throughout the city; but this is a charge as dissonant from truth as that of his demolishing the old fabrics, concerning which we have spoken in his life; and considering the antiquity of these statues, and the casualties which might befall them, and the designs which men’s covetousness or curiosity might have upon them, it is fairly probable that they might be mangled or lost, without Gregory’s being at all concerned therein. But to go on with Sabinian, it was he who instituted the distinction of canonical hours for prayer in the church, and who ordained that tapers should be kept continually burning, especially in the church of St Peter. Some tell us that, with the consent of Phocas, a peace was now made with the Lombards, and their king Agilulphus’s daughter, who had been taken captive 141 in the war, restored to him. At this time appeared divers prodigies portending the calamities which ensued. A bright comet was seen in the air; at Constantinople a child was born with four feet; and at the Island Delos were seen two sea-monsters in human shape. Some write that in the pontificate of Sabinian, John, Patriarch of Alexandria, and Latinianus, Bishop of Carthage, both persons famous for piety and learning, did wonderfully improve the dignity of those churches. Moreover, Severus, a very learned man and an intimate friend of Latinianus, wrote very much against Vincent, Bishop of Saragossa, who had fallen off to the Arian heresy; he also wrote to his sister a book concerning virginity, entitled “Aureolus.” But Sabinian, having been in the chair one year, five months, nine days, died, and was buried in the church of St Peter. By his death the see was vacant eleven months, twenty-six days.
Previous Pope: 66. Gregory I. The Great. 67. Sabinian I. Next Pope: 6. Boniface III.