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| To Sabinianus, Deacon.
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Epistle
XLVII.
To Sabinianus, Deacon1570
| 1570 He was the
pope’s apocrisiarius at Constantinople. | .
Gregory to Sabinianus, &c.
Thou knowest what has been done in the case of the
prevaricator Maximus1571
| 1571 See III. 47, note
2. | . For after
the most serene Lord the Emperor had sent
orders that he should not be ordained1572
| 1572 In his letter to
Maximus (IV. 20), Gregory had only expressed a suspicion that the
alleged order of the Emperor for his consecration had been
fictitious. He now seems to have satisfied himself that it was
so. For a review of the whole case, see III. 47, note 2. | , then he broke out into a higher pitch of
pride. For the men of the glorious patrician Romanus1573
| 1573 Romanus Patricius
was the Exarch of Italy. See I. 33; II. 46; III. 31; V. 24. | received bribes from him, and caused him
to be ordained in such a manner that they would have killed Antoninus,
the sub-deacon and rector of the patrimony, if he had not fled.
But I despatched letters to him, after I had learnt that he had been
ordained against reason and custom, telling him not to presume to
celebrate the solemnities of mass unless I should first ascertain from
our most serene lords what they had ordered with regard to him.
And these my letters, having been publicly promulged or posted in the
city, he caused to be publicly torn, and thus bounced forth more openly
into contempt of the Apostolic See. How I was likely to endure
this thou knowest, seeing that I was before prepared rather to die than
that the Church of the blessed apostle Peter should degenerate in my
days. Moreover thou art well acquainted with my ways, that I bear
long; but if once I have determined not to bear, I go gladly in the
face of all dangers. Whence it is necessary with the help of
God to meet danger, lest he be driven to sin
to excess. Look to what I say, and consider what great grief
inspires it.
But it has come to my ears that he has sent [to
Constantinople] a cleric, I know not whom, to say that the bishop
Malchus1574
was put to death
in prison for money. Now as to this there is one thing that thou
mayest shortly suggest to our most serene lords;—that, if I their
servant had been willing to have anything to do with the death of
Lombards, the nation of the Lombards at this day would have had neither
king nor dukes nor counts, and would have been divided in the utmost
confusion. But, since I fear God, I
shrink from having anything to do with the death of any one. Now
the bishop Malchus was neither in prison nor in any distress; but on
the day when he pleaded his cause and was sentenced he was taken
without my knowledge by Boniface the notary to his house, where a
dinner was prepared for him, and there he dined, and was treated with
honour by the said Boniface, and in the night suddenly died, as I think
you have already been informed. Moreover I had intended to send
our Exhilaratus to you in connection with that business; but, as I
considered that the case was now done with, I consequently abstained
from doing so.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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