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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. 183-185.

The Lives of the Popes,
BY
B. Platina

Volume I.


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183

GREGORY  III.

A.D. 731-741.

GREGORY the Third, a Syrian, his father’s name John, was unanimously elected Pope in the year seven hundred and fifty-nine. He was a person of singular learning, very well skilled in the Greek and Latin tongues, and of such an insight into the sense of holy writ, that no man was more ready at the expounding of the abstruse and difficult places in it. Nor did he work upon the people merely by his preaching and eloquence, but in all respects he gave them such a prevailing example that it is difficult to determine whether he spake or lived better. He was so valiant a defender of the Catholic faith that he thereby contracted the displeasure and hatred of the greatest Princes; but by no force or power or menace was removed one step from his resolution. Finally, his goodwill towards all men was such that he cherished and relieved the poor, redeemed captives, released insolvent debtors, and asserted the cause of widows and orphans against potent oppressors in such a manner that he deserved the name of a common father and pastor. Soon after his entrance upon the pontificate, with the consent of the clergy of Rome he excommunicated and deposed the Emperor Leo for his having rased the pictures of the saints out of the churches and destroyed their images, and also for not being orthodox in opinion concerning the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father. In the meantime Luithprandus, King of the Lombards, from an ambitious desire of enlarging his dominions, having possessed himself of all the towns round about, lays siege to Rome itself; whereupon Gregory forthwith dispatches messengers by sea, it not being safe for them to pass by land, to Charles, Prince of the French, to pray him that he would speedily aid the distressed city and Church of Rome. Indeed, formerly the Popes when they were in any great danger from abroad, had been wont to seek for succour from the Emperor of Constantinople; but Gregory now declined it, both for the causes we have just before mentioned, and also especially because Leo was now hard put to it to defend Constantinople itself against the Saracens, and therefore little able to protect others. By which means it came to pass that the Constantinopolitan Emperors being for the time to come unapplied to, 184 the protection of the church was from henceforward put into other hands. Upon Gregory’s request, Charles undertaking the church’s patronage, desires Luithprandus as his friend, and particularly on the account of his son Pipin, his near ally, to quit his enterprise, and not give the Pope any disturbance, whereupon Luithprandus raises the siege. The affairs of Italy being thus composed, Charles turns his army with success against the Burgundians; crushes the idolatrous Frisons; takes Lyons, Arles, and Marseilles from the Visigoths, who thereupon invite to their aid Athimus, the King of the Saracens, who, passing the Rhone, takes Avignon by storm, intending to make use of the convenience of that place for a citadel. But Charles, upon intelligence hereof, hastens thither with his army, and retakes Avignon, putting to the sword all the Saracens who were in garrison in it. From thence he marched to Narbonne, whither he understood that Athimus had fled. But having advice that Amoreus, another Saracen, King of Spain, was coming with a great army to the aid of Athimus, he quitted the siege of Narbonne, and marched to the Valley of Corbiere, not far off, wherein there was a fair plain very commodious to join battle in. Amoreus, thinking that Charles, having been routed, had fled thither, enters the valley, and prepares to engage, which Charles did not decline, though the number of the adversary’s army was incredibly great. The dispute having continued for some time very warm, and Amoreus himself having been slain at the beginning of the engagement, at length the Saracens were forced to betake themselves to flight, and a great part of them were killed in the fens and marches thereabouts. Athimus, as good luck would have it, making his escape by sea towards the farther part of Spain, in rage and despair laid waste, by fire and sword, all the islands which he arrived at in his passage. Much about this time the body of St Augustine, which, two hundred and fifty years before, when the Vandals wasted Africa, had been carried away from Hippo into Sardinia, was by the care of Luithprandus translated thence to Pavia, and reposited in a very honourable place of interment. The Saracens being now pretty well tamed, kept themselves within the Pyrenean Hills, upon which all the Visigoths, who possessed the hither parts of Spain and part of France, being not able to defend themselves, were subdued by Charles; and so that people, who had domineered for almost three hundred years, were utterly 185 extinguished, except some few who were saved by the people of Barcelona. Some write that Charles was in this war assisted by Luithprandus with men, who after the victory returned home laden with booty. In the meanwhile Pope Gregory, not neglecting to improve the time of peace he now enjoyed, applied himself to church work. The altar of St Peter’s he made more stately, by erecting a row of six pillars of onyx on each hand of it, whereas many of the same magnitude and figure had formerly stood, but were now decayed through age. Upon these pillars were architraves, gilt with silver, on which he set up the images of our Saviour and the apostles at equal distances. He built also an oratory in the same church, in which he reposited some of the relics of almost all the saints, and ordered Mass to be therein daily performed, in the canon of which he added these words, which were engraven upon the marble round about the oratory: “Quorum Solennitas in conspectu tuæ Majestatis celebratur, Domine Deus noster, toto in Orbe terrarum, &c.,i.e., Whose anniversaries are celebrated in the sight of Thy Majesty, O Lord our God, throughout all the world, &c., — which clause is not in the general canon now used. Moreover, he gave to this church several vessels of silver, and caused to be made at his own charge the image of the Blessed Virgin with our Saviour in her arms, of gold, which he placed in the church of St Mary ad Præsepe. He also repaired the roof of the church of St Chrysogonus, appointing monks for the daily performance of Divine service therein, and settling an estate for their maintenance. Several monasteries he either repaired or built from the ground, to the recluses whereof he prescribed rules of strict and holy living. He rebuilt also the ruined walls of the city of Rome, and in like manner those of the almost desolate Civita Vecchia. Furthermore, he ordained the celebration of Mass in the church of St Peter, almost without intermission, both by the priests in weekly attendance and by the monks; upon which account we may observe the cells of the monks and the houses of the secular priests to be in several places contiguous, each of them striving to outdo the other in diligence at their devotion. Our Gregory, having well discharged his duty towards God and men, died in the tenth year, eighth month, and twenty-fourth day of his pontificate, and was, with general lamentation, buried in St Peter’s, November the 28th. The see was then vacant only eight days.

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Previous Pope:  91. Gregory II. 92. Gregory III. Next Pope: 93. Zacharias I.

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