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Dialogues
St Gregory the Dialogist, tr. P. W., 1608
Book 1, 3. Of a Certain Monk, that Was Gardener to the Same Abbey
GREGORY. Felix, called also Corvus, one whom you know very well, and who not long since was Prior of the same Abbey, told me divers very strange things, some of which I will pass over with silence, because I hasten to other, but one there is which by no means I can omit. This it was.
In the same Abbey there lived a certain monk, very virtuous, who was the gardener. A thief likewise there was, that used to climb over the hedge, and so to steal away the worts. The holy man, seeing that he did set many which afterward he could not find, and perceiving that some were trodden down, and other stolen away, walked round about the garden to find the place where the thief came in, which when he had found, by chance also as he was there, he lighted upon a snake, which he willed to follow him, and bringing him to the place where the thief entered, gave him this charge: “In the name of Jesus,” quoth he, “I command thee to keep this passage, and not to suffer any thief to come in.” Whereupon the snake forthwith, obeying his commandment, laid itself across in the way, and the monk returned to his cell. Afterward in the heat of the day, when all the monks were at rest, the thief, according to his custom, came thither, and as he was climbing over the hedge and had put one leg on the other side, suddenly he saw the snake, which stopped the way, and for fear falling backward, he left his foot hanging there by the shoe upon a stake, and so he hung with his head downward, until the return of the gardener; who, coming at his usual hour, found the thief hanging there in the hedge, whom when he saw, he spake thus to the snake: “God be thanked, thou hast done what I bade thee, and therefore now go thy way”: upon which licence, the snake by and by departed. Then, coming to the thief, he spake thus unto him: “What meaneth this, good brother? God hath delivered you, as you see, into mine hands: why have you been so bold as so often to rob away the labour of the monks?” and speaking thus, he loosed his foot, without doing him any harm, willing him also to follow him; who brought him to the garden gate, and gave him those worts which he desired to have stolen, speaking also to him in sweet manner after this sort: “Go your way, and steal no more; but when you have need, come hither to me, and what sinfully you would take, that will I willingly bestow upon you for God’s sake.”
PETER. I have hitherto, as I now perceive, lived in an error: for never did I think that there had been any holy men in Italy, which had wrought miracles.