"As thou didst loose Trajan from punishment, by the earnest intercession of thy servant Gregory, the dialogue writer, hear us likewise who pray unto thee."
And, therefore, to them doth Hugo Etherianus thus appeal for justifying the truth of this narration:
"Do not, I pray you, say in your hearts, that this is false, or feigned. Enquire, if you please, of the Grecians; the whole Greek Church surely doth testify these things."
He might, if he had pleased, being an Italian himself, have enquired nearer home of the Romans, among whom this feat was reported to have been acted, rather than among the Grecians, who were strangers to the business. But the Romans, as we understand by Johannes Diaconus, in the Life of St. Gregory, found no such matter among their records; and when they had notice given them thereof out of the legends of the Church of England, (for from thence received they the news of this and some other such strange acts, reported to have been done by St. Gregory among themselves,) they were not very hasty to believe it; because they could hardly be persuaded that St. Gregory, who had taught them that
"infidels and wicked men, departed out of this life, were no more to be prayed for than the devil and his angels, which were appointed unto everlasting punishment,"
should in his practice be found to be so much different from his judgment.
The second tale toucheth upon the very times of the Apostles, wherein the Apostless Thecla is said to have prayed for Falconilla, (the daughter of Tryphæna, whom St. Paul saluteth, Rom. xvi. 12.)
"a Gentile and an idolatress, altogether profane, and a servitor of another God," to this effect: "O God, Son of the true God, grant unto Tryphæna, according to thy will, that her daughter may live with thee, time without end."
Or, as Basil, Bishop of Seleucia, doth express it:
"Grant unto thy servant Tryphæna, that her desire may be fulfilled concerning her daughter; her desire therein being this, that her soul may be numbered among the souls of those that have already believed in thee, and may enjoy the life and pleasure that is in paradise."
The third tale he produceth out of Palladius's historical book written unto Lausus, (although neither in the Greek set out by Meursius and Fronto Ducæus, nor in the three several Latin
