hen reigning,
with whom he became intimate, and with his successor Mauritius. Gregory
dwelt in the imperial palace, with some monks of his own monastery whom he
had brought with him, pursuing the Rule in all pious observances, winning
also the esteem and friendship of many distinguished men, and making
himself fully acquainted with the mechanism of the eastern court. He also
delivered the patriarch Eutychius from a false Origenistic notion, that the
bodies of the blessed after the resurrection were not glorified, but lost
their quality as bodies.[176] There also he became warmly attached to St.
Leander, who afterwards, as archbishop of Seville, greatly helped him in
recovering Spain from Arianism to the Catholic faith. The charge of Pope
Pelagius to his nuncio Gregory throws a vivid light upon the condition of
Rome at the time. His instructions ran: "Lay before our lord the emperor
that no words can express the calamities brought upon us by the perfidy of
the Lombards, breaking their own engagements. Our brother Sebastian, whom
we send to you, has promised to describe to him the necessities and dangers
of all Italy. Join him in that entreaty to succour us, for the commonwealth
is in such distress, that unless God inspire him to show us his servants
the mercy of his natural disposition, and move him to give us a single
_Magister militum_ and a single _Dux_, we are utterly destitute, for Rome
and its neighbourhood are specially defenceless. The exarch writes that he
can give us no help, for he has not force enough to guard Ravenna.
Therefore, may God command the emperor quickly to succour us, before the
army of that most wicked nation take the places still remaining to
us."[177]

Gregory returned from Constantinople in 585, and lived as one of the seven
deacons on the Coelian hill, when, on 8th February, 590, Pope Pelagius
died of the pestilence, and Gregory was unanimously chosen to succeed him.

It was a moment of the greatest depression. The Tiber had in the winter
overflowed a large portion of the city. The destruction wrought had been
followed by a terrible plague. Gregory strove to escape the charge put upon
him, and besought the emperor not to confirm his election. In the meantime,
the clergy and people urged upon him the provisional exercise of the
episcopal charge. As such he ordered a sevenfold procession to entreat the
cessation of the plague. The clergy of Rome, the abbots, the abbesses with
their nuns, the ch