human
The Eternity of Rome.
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Pelagus I. supplied the Romans with provisions during a long siege, and after the example of St. Leo, obtained from Totila some mitigation of his barbarous severities; John III. and Benedict I. ministered largely to the Italians who were dying of want, and driven from their homes by the remorseless Lombards; and writers the most adverse to the papacy--Gibbon, Daunou, [Footnote 139] Sismondi--testify to the disinterested benevolence of these and other pontiffs during the church's struggle with northern devastators. Just a century and a half had elapsed since Leo the Great's elevation, when St. Gregory ascended the papal throne amid the people's acclamation. He was at the same time doctor, legislator, and statesman; and the plain facts of his pontificate might be so related as to appear a panegyric rather than a sober history. In the midst of personal weakness and suffering, the strength of his soul and intellect were felt in every quarter of Christendom and while he composed his
human
Pastoral and his
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Dialogues,