XVI. CHAP.* 1.1
i.2. &c The death of S. Gregory the Great: his admirable Sanctity, &c.
1. THE year of Grace six hundred and four is memorable to the whole Church,* 1.2 but especially to Brittany for the death of S. Gregory the Supreme Pastor, and the glorious Apostle of our Nation, as like∣wise for the Generall Synod of Brittany con∣voked by S. Augustin, in which there was a convention not only of Saxon and Brittish Bishops, but likewise of severall from among the Picts and Scotts.
2. As touching S. Gregory we read thus in S. Beda:* 1.3 The blessed Pope Gregory after he had most gloriously governed the Roman and Aposto∣lick Church thirteen years, six months and ten days, departed this life, and was translated to an eternall Throne in the Kingdom of Heaven. Whose memory we are obliged to celebrate in our History, as being truly the Apostle of our Na∣tion, which by his industry was converted from the power of Satan to the Faith of Christ. For being elevated to the Pontificat over the whole world, and made a Prelat of Churches already embracing the true Faith, he made our Nation, till his days enslaved to Idols, a Church of Christ: so that to him we may apply that of the Apostle: For the seale of his Apostleship are we in our Lord.
3. His Memory is celebrated through the whole Chuch of God both Eastern and Western on the twelfth of March: On which day we thus read in the Roman Martyrologe,* 1.4 At Rome, the commemoration of S. Gregory Pope, and emi¦nent Doctour of the Church, who for many illu∣strious acts, and converting the English Nation to the Faith of Christ hath the Title of Great, and is called the Apostle of the English.
4. The many glorious Gests of this Holy Pope not pertaining to our present subject, I willingly omitt, because either generally well known, or easily to be found in Eccle∣siasticall Historians: and I will content my self with adioyning here a double Character given of him by two learned and Holy Bishops of Spain, S. Isidor of Sevill and S. Ildefonsus of Toledo.* 1.5 The former of which thus writes of him, Pope Gregory Prelat of the Roman and Apostolick See, was a Man full of compunction and fear of our Lord, eminent in humility, and endued with so great light of Divine knowledge by the grace of Gods Spirit, that none was ever equall to him either in the times he lived in, or any before him. In the next place S. Ilde∣fonsus gives this parallel description of the Pope,* 1.6 He shone so bright, saith he, with the perfection of all vertues and merits, that exclu∣ding all comparisons of any other illustrious per∣sons, Antiquity never shewed the world any one