John VI
CONCERNING HOLY JOHN VI, C. 778–85 . John, the forty-second bishop, young .l.l.1 Having heard these bitter words, the bishop changed his expression , and his heart became like the raging of a lion, and he said to his archdeacon, “O what insanity you excite in your body! Help him, if you can.”Then with anger piling upon anger, like a cloud raising itself in the sky, or swelling waves raised to the highest point and striking the shore, thus various hearts of the priests were beating.2 Then the archdeacon said to the archpriest, “Do you want us to go, that we may take him outside?” And he said, “Let’s go.” And they said to the rest of the priests, “Let us go, brothers, let us visit our brother, let us suffer with him. He is our limb and our flesh, we are from one flock, we have one Father and one incorrupt mother, washed in one font.” And all went to the Cuthine door, and with knees straight, the archdeacon together with the archpriest broke the door of that prison, striking it with a stone, and they brought him outside, and everyone went into the church with him, and they sat in the sacrarium , until the time when the messenger came back, he asked that they all go in [to the church], as is the custom. And they found the bishop arguing and raging loudly, but his priests were not terrified by his threats. . Then one day, when the said bishop was sitting behind the apse of the church3 with the priests and many of the people, suddenly John, the abbot of the monasterium of St. Donatus which is called in Monterione, outside the gate of St. Laurence next to Wan- . The beginning of this Life is missing, and the narrative takes up in the middle of a story, but there is no gap in the manuscript. . It is difficult to know what this story is about, although, like several other stories in the LPR (cc. – and ), it seems to pit the bishop against the archdeacon, the archpriest, and the rest of the clergy. Holder-Egger, LPER, , n. , notes that Gratiosus, the next bishop, was the archdeacon in the time of John VI, as Agnellus tells in c. . . Since the episcopal palace was located behind the cathedral, this presumably refers to a location within the palace. dalaria, not far from the monasterium of St. Mary which is called ad Blachernas (where God willing I am abbot) fell forward to the ground and went into ecstasy, and his spirit went out from him. And, returning to his own senses, asked by those standing around why it had happened, he, standing up, said to them, “If I tell you, death will consume me.” Then in front of everyone the bishop asked him, “For what reason has this happened to you?” And he answered, “Leo ipatus4 is suddenly dead, and I saw his soul wrapped in the cleanest linen by an angel who was carrying it with an eager face to heaven.” All those present were amazed, those standing around marveled, and in order that the truth might be proved, the bishop immediately sent one of his attendants to find out the truth; and he found him dead in that hour. And indeed that abbot died after eight days. . I will hasten to tell you of the death of the bishop. Stand and behold the divine and just judgments of God! There was in this city my mother’s uncle, the son of a most noble man, who after the death of his father held possession of the monasterium of St. Martin which is called in Aqua Longa.5 The bishop plotted continuously to be able to take control of the said monasterium ; and since he could not bring force against him on account of the nobility of his parents, he fell on him with the sword of malediction and with blasphemous words. On the day of the birth of St. Apollinaris, that boy, whom he was cursing, offered to him an oblation, which the bishop refused, but cursed him, saying after the curse, “Let me see your death and at once I will die.” He went away weeping, repulsed and offended. Indeed after the celebration of the mass was complete, he went to his mother, widowed of her husband, and told her everything . Holder-Egger, LPER, , suggested that either this word is for...
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