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. 192-184.
The Lives of the Popes,
BY
B. Platina
Volume I.
PAUL I.
A.D. 757-767.
PAUL, a Roman, son of Constantine, brother of Stephen the Second, became well skilled and practised in all things belonging to a churchman, by his having been educated in the Lateran Palace under Pope Gregory the Second and Pope Zachary, by which latter he was, together with his brother, 193 ordained deacon; and when upon the vacancy of the Popedom by the death of Stephen, some persons proposed Theophylact, the archdeacon, for his successor, yet others stood for Paul, as one who both for the integrity of his life and great learning, deserved to succeed his brother in that dignity. After a long dispute, therefore, Theophylact was rejected, and Paul by general suffrage chosen, in the time of Constantine and Leo. This Paul was a person of an extraordinary meek and merciful temper, and who, in imitation of our Saviour, never returned to any man evil for evil, but, on the contrary, by doing good to them, he overcame those ill men that had oftentimes injured him. He was of so kind and compassionate a nature, as that he would go about by night with only two or three attendants to the houses of poor sick people, assisting them with his counsel, and relieving them with his alms. He also frequently visited the prisons, and paying their creditors, discharged thence multitudes of poor debtors. The fatherless and widows that were over-reached by the tricks of lawyers, he defended by his authority and supported by his charity. Moreover, having assembled the clergy and people of Rome, he did with great solemnity translate the body of St Petronilla, St Peter’s daughter, with her tomb of marble, upon which was this inscription, “Petronillæ Filiæ dulcissimæ,” from the Via Appia into the Vatican, and placed it at the upper end of the church dedicated to her father. At this time the Emperor Constantine having in all places plucked down the images, and put to death Constantine, patriarch of Constantinople, for opposing him therein, and made Nicetas an eunuch, his abettor in the sacrilege, patriarch in his stead, the Pope, consulting by all means the interest of religion, sends Nuncios to Constantinople to advise the emperor to restore and set up again the images he had taken away, or upon his refusal to do so, to threaten him with the censure of excommunication. But Constantine, persisting obstinately in what he had done, not only despised this good counsel, but also granted peace to Sabinus, King of the Bulgarians, because he also made the like havoc of images with himself, though he were before engaged in a war against him. Having also associated to himself into part of the empire his son Leo the Fourth, whom he had married to the most beautiful Athenian lady Irene, he enters into a league with the Saracens, thereby to despise and provoke the orthodox Christians. In 194 the meantime Pipin entirely subdued Taxillo, Duke of the Bavarians, and admits of a league with the Saxons, but upon this condition, that they should be obliged to send three hundred horsemen to his assistance as often as he should have occasion to make an expedition. Against the Aquitains he maintained a tedious war, which at length he committed to the management of his young son Charles, himself being so worn out with age that he could not be present at it. This war being ended, Charles takes by storm Bourbon, Clermont, and several other towns of Auvergne. But Pipin, who as we have said was now very old, not long after dies, leaving in the kingdom his two sons Charles and Carloman. Some tell us that Aistulphus, King of the Lombards, who, as is above declared, had carried away the bodies of divers saints from Rome to Pavia, died at this time; and that he had built chapels to those saints, and also a cloister for virgins, in which his own daughters became nuns. He was an extraordinary lover of the monks, and died in their arms, in the six year and fifth month of his reign. At the beginning of his government, he was fierce and rash, in the end moderate; and a person of such learning, that he reduced and formed the edicts of the Lombards into laws. He was, as has been said, succeeded by Duke Desiderius; the valour of the Lombards beginning now to dissolve and lose itself in luxury. Our Paul, having repaired some old decayed churches, died in St Paul’s in the Via Ostiensis in the tenth year and first month of his pontificate; and his body was with very great solemnity carried into the Vatican. The see was then vacant one year and one month.
Previous Pope: 94. Stephen II. 95. Paul I. Next Pope: 96. Stephen IV.