r he re-established the abbey of Mount Cassino, sending
thither, from Rome, the holy abbot St. Petronax, to take upon him the
government, one hundred and forty years after it had been laid in ruins
by the Lombards. This holy abbot lived to see monastic discipline
settled here in so flourishing a manner, that in the same century,
Carloman, duke or prince of the French, Rachis, king of the Lombards,
St. Willebald, St. Sturmius, first abbot of Fulda, and other eminent
persons, fled to this sanctuary.[1] Our holy pope commissioned zealous
missionaries to preach the faith in Germany, and consecrated St.
Corbinian bishop of Frisingen, and St. Boniface bishop of Mentz. Leo,
the Isaurian, protected the Catholic church during the first ten years
of his reign, and St. Gregory II. laid up among the archives of his
church several letters which he had received from him, from the year 717
to 726, which proved afterwards authentic monuments of his perfidy. For,
being infatuated by certain Jews, who had gained an ascendant over him
by certain pretended astrological predictions, in 726 he commanded holy
images to be abolished, and enforced the execution of his edicts of a
cruel persecution. St. Germanus, and other orthodox prelates in the
East, endeavored to reclaim him, refused to obey his edicts, and
addressed themselves to pope Gregory. Our saint employed long the arms
of tears and entreaties, yet strenuously maintained the people of Italy
in their allegiance to their prince, as Anastasius assures us. A
rebellion was raised in Sicily, but soon quelled by the death of
Artemius, who had assumed the purple. The pope vigorously opposed the
mutineers, both here and in other parts of the West. When he was
informed that the army at Ravenna and Venice, making zeal a pretence for
rebellion, had created a new emperor, he effectually opposed their
attempt, and prevented the effect. Several disturbances which were
raised in Rome were pacified by his care. Nevertheless, he by letters
encouraged the pastors of the church to resist the heresy which the
emperor endeavored to establish by bloodshed and violence. The tyrant
sent orders to several of his officers, six or seven times, to murder
the pope: but he was so faithfully guarded by the Romans and Lombards,
that he escaped all their snares. St. Gregory II. held the pontificate
fifteen years, eight months, and twenty-three days, and died in 731, on
the 10th of February; but the Roman Martyrology con