Here the Abbot of the St. Andrew's Convent walked about,
gave drink to the sick, and spoke comfort to the dying. "Why do you
fear death, children?" he said. "Fear life, for that is the real
death." He seemed to be quite in his element here, showed a calm,
cheerful temper, and sought to decipher on the faces of the dead,
"whether they were happy on the other side."
Death would have nothing to do with him. Often he went to the other
hills, and walked about among the sick and dying, so that the people
began to think that he was an immortal who had come down to comfort
them. The older ones remembered him as Prefect, when he defended the
city against the Goths, Vandals, and Longobards, and his fame
continually grew.
The pestilence raged, and the number of the dead increased, so that
the corpses could no longer be buried. All occupations ceased, and
the peasants brought no more food into the city. There was a famine.
The Abbot of the St. Andrew's Convent, Gregory, lost courage, and
wanted to abandon all, "I cannot fight against God, and if it be His
will that Rome perish, it is godless to wish to prevent it." In the
midst of this tribulation, Pelagius II, the Bishop or Pope of Rome,
as he was afterwards called, died. The people with one voice
clamoured for the Abbot Gregory to succeed him.
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