Page:Elizabeth Elstob - An English-Saxon homily on the birth-day of St. Gregory.djvu/28

 ''wou'd be necessary for me to recount all the Actions and Occurrences of his Life, which of themselves would make a just Volume, and have been treated of by several Authors. Such as are Paulus, and Johannes Diaconi: and those that have writ concerning him, either as a Bishop of Rome, or as a learned Man. Of the former, are those who have writ the Lives of the Popes; of the latter, are those who illustrate the History of Learning: especially Church-History, and the several Editors of his Works. Amongst which the Benedictines of the Congregation of St. Maur have labour'd much, in giving us a large and full account of that great Man, in their Life of him; which was first written, and publish'd by them in French, and afterwards in their beautiful Edition of this Father's Works in Latin. I shall only speak of him in that Relation he bore to us, and wherewith the Homily intends principally to acquaint us. Of his being the English Apostle; and of which Bede speaketh in this manner. "Of whom it becomes us to discourse more largely in our Ecclesiastical History; inasmuch as by his Industry he converted ours, that is, the English Nation, from the Power of Satan to the Faith of Christ. Whom we may justly, and ought to call him our Apostle; who, being set over the Churches, first reduced our Nation, so far enslaved to Idols, into the form of a Church: that what the Apostle says of himself, might''