How Bishop Mellitus by prayer quenched a fire in his city. [619 A.D.]
IN this king's reign, the blessed Archbishop Laurentius was taken
up to the heavenly kingdom: he was buried in the church and
monastery of the holy Apostle Peter, close by his predecessor
Augustine, on the 2nd day of the month of February. Mellitus, who
was bishop of London, succeeded to the see of Canterbury, being
the third archbishop from Augustine; Justus, who was still
living, governed the church of Rochester. These ruled the Church
of the English with much care and industry, and received letters
of exhortation from Boniface, bishop of the Roman Apostolic see,
who presided over the Church after Deusdedit, in the year of our
Lord 619. Mellitus laboured under the bodily infirmity of gout,
but his mind was sound and active, cheerfully passing over all
earthly things, and always aspiring to love, seek, and attain to
those which are celestial. He was noble by birth, but still
nobler by the elevation of his mind.
In short, that I may give one instance of his power, from which
the rest may be inferred, it happened once that the city of
Canterbury, being set on fire through carelessness, was in danger
of being consumed by the spreading conflagration; water was
thrown on the fire in vain; a considerable part of the city was
already destroyed, and the fierce flames were advancing towards
the bishop's abode, when he, trusting in God, where human help
failed, ordered himself to be carried towards the raging masses
of fire which were spreading on every side. The church of the
four crowned Martyrs was in the place where the fire raged most
fiercely. The bishop, being carried thither by his servants, weak
as he was, set about averting by prayer the danger which the
strong hands of active men had not been able to overcome with all
their exertions. Immediately the wind, which blowing from the
south had spread the conflagration throughout the city, veered to
the north, and thus prevented the destruction of those places
that had been exposed to its full violence, then it ceased
entirely and there was a calm, while the flames likewise sank and
were extinguished. And because the man of God burned with the
fire of divine love, and was wont to drive away the storms of the
powers of the air, by his frequent prayers and at his bidding,
from doing harm to himself, or his people, it was meet that he
should be allowed to prevail over the winds and flames of this
world, and to obtain that they should not injure him or his.
This archbishop also, having ruled the church five years,
departed to heaven in the reign of King Eadbald, and was buried
with his fathers in the monastery and church, which we have so
often mentioned, of the most blessed chief of the Apostles, in
the year of our Lord 624, on the 24th day of April.