since so many temporal businesses press on me that I
seem as if this dignity had almost excluded me from the love of God. Not of
the Romans only am I bishop, but bishop of the Lombards, whose right is the
right of the sword, whose favour is punishment. The billows of the world so
surge upon me, that I despair of steering into harbour the frail vessel
entrusted to me by God, while my hand holds the helm amid a thousand
storms." Again, in his synodical letter[179] announcing his accession to
the patriarchs, he says: "Especially, whoever bears the title of Pastor in
this place is grievously occupied by external cares, so that he is often in
doubt whether he is executing the work of a Pastor or that of an earthly
lord". Thus thirteen hundred years ago spoke the Pope. Does his language in
the nineteenth century differ much from his language in the sixth? Shortly
after his accession, preaching to his people in St. Peter's, he said:[180]
"Where, I pray you, is any delight to be found in this world? Mourning
meets us everywhere; groans surround us. Ruined cities, fortresses
overthrown, lands laid waste, the earth reduced to a desert. The fields
have none to till them. There is scarcely a dweller in the cities. Yet even
these poor remnants of the human race are smitten daily and without
ceasing. The scourge of heaven's justice strikes without end, because even
under its strokes our bad actions are not corrected. We see men led into
captivity, beheaded, slain before our eyes. What pleasure, then, does life
retain, my brethren? If yet we are fond of such a world, it is not joys but
wounds which we love. We see the condition of that Rome which anon seemed
to be mistress of the world: worn down by sorrows which have no measure,
desolate of inhabitants, assaulted by enemies, filled with ruins. We see in
it fulfilled what long ago our prophet said against Samaria: 'Set on a
vessel; set it on, I say, and put water into it. Heap together into it the
pieces thereof.' And then: 'The seething of it is boiling hot; and the
bones thereof are thoroughly sodden in the midst thereof.' And further:
'Heap together the bones, which I will burn with fire: the flesh shall be
consumed, and the whole composition shall be sodden, and the bones shall be
consumed. Then set it empty upon burning coals, that it may be hot, and the
brass thereof may be melted.' Now the vessel was set on when our city was
founded. The water was put into it and the pieces heaped