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PROLOGUE For you who request it, here is an ordered little book about the series of pontifical succession of bishops who entered the see of St. Apollinaris, just as the honesty and explanation of your Agnellus , also known as Andreas, of the orthodox see of Ravenna, has been able to discover and know it.              P       It is necessary for you to thank God the Father, and his Son, together with the Holy Spirit, triple in majesty, unique in power, for he has unclosed my polluted lips and made my dry tongue eloquent , insofar as it pleased him. For indeed by your prayers I trust that God will give the grace of speaking to my words; so that, in that you have compelled me to speech, I might recall to memory as much as I could, whatever deeds each of the holy preceding bishop-fathers of the see of the Ravennate church had accomplished in his time, that I might reveal to your ears not only what I have seen of their deeds, but indeed what I have heard, those things which our elders have reported to me. Indeed Moses, that most excellent man, wrote down the book of Genesis by God’s inspiration, for he said: “Ask your fathers, and they will inform you, your elders, and they will tell you,” and Job: “Inquire of former generations, and diligently give heed to the memory of the fathers.”1 For Moses was descended from the stock of Abraham, and before Abraham was born, it is told that the creation of all this world was made by God. Indeed Mark, the disci- . Deut. :; Job :.  ple of the apostle Peter and his son in baptism, did not physically follow the footsteps of the Lord, nor did he see any miracles done by him, but wrote the gospel as Peter narrated it. Luke, the attendant of the apostle Paul, instructed in doctrine by him, opened the fountain of his gospel.2 Indeed many others have composed volumes based on hearsay of things, as it is read in the Lives of the Fathers:3 “A certain old man told me .l.l.” etc. Did not Gregory, bishop of the see of the Roman church, in several places in his Books of Dialogues recount thus: “Such and such a man told me,” and other things like this?4 But I cannot say that I am at all similar to these men. For indeed I confess that just as a faint spark placed in the sight of the burning sun at noon is overshadowed, and its light does not appear , thus are my pages completely extinguished in the presence of the philosophers. Nevertheless, I am able to draw out other things like them; I use discourse, parchment, and ink. For I am like those who are placed in woods or the wilderness, and see dense trees around them, places opaque and dark and impassable with many thorns, and do not know what part to seek or where to cut through, if there is no safe road to escape into cultivated areas. Thus, on account of this narration of the holy bishops of this see of Ravenna, it is as if I have entered into the hazards of the sea, just as if the tempestuous gale should struggle against me, or the tumult of the whole abyss should pursue me, or the waters of the cerulean waves.5 But I do not fear, since I am sheltered by your prayers, and the Lord is with me, who is blessed forever.          . Cf. Luke :. . It has been suggested that this refers to Gregory of Tours’s Life of the Fathers (e.g., Holder-Egger, LPER, , n. ) but it is more likely that it simply refers to saints’ Lives in general. . This entire justification for the use of oral sources is very similar to Gregory’s argument at the beginning of the prologue of the Book of Dialogues. . The convention of the author facing a tempest is common in medieval literature ; Gregory the Great uses it in the prologue to the Book of Dialogues. See Sot, “Rhétorique et technique,” , n. . ...

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