[Rank]
S. John pope and martyr;;Simplex;;1.1;;vide C4

[Rule]
vide C4;
1 et 2 lectiones

[Lectio2]
Pope John I. was a Tuscan, who ruled the Church during the reign of the Emperor Justinian. He went to Constantinople to get help from Justinian in the troubles which the heretic King Theodoric was then causing in Italy. It pleased the Lord to mark this journey with wonders. A certain nobleman at Corinth lent to the Pope for his journey a very quiet horse on which his own wife was used to ride. But when the horse was returned to his owner he was found become so vicious, that by his restiveness and plunging he was always throwing off his mistress, as though he were not content to carry the lady after having carried the Vicar of Jesus Christ. When the nobleman and his wife found the beast to be thus worthless, they gave him for a present to the Pope. But a thing much more marvellous was that when the Pope, accompanied by the Emperor, and under the gaze of an immense multitude of people, who had come forth with Justinian to do him honour, was at the entering in of the Golden Gate of Constantinople, he gave sight to a blind man. 

[Lectio3]
Even the Emperor fell at his feet to show him respect. When he had arranged his business with Justinian he returned into Italy, and forthwith sent out a letter to all the Bishops of Italy, bidding them hallow for Catholic worship the churches of the Arians, and adding these words: We Ourselves when We were at Constantinople on some matters pertaining to the Catholic Religion and others pertaining to the King Theodoric, hallowed as Catholic all their Churches which We were able to find in those parts. Theodoric took this rule very ill, and, having enticed John by fraud to come to Ravenna, he cast him into prison, wherein, in a few days, he died of filth and hunger. He had sat in the chair of Peter two years, nine months, and fourteen days, within which time he had ordained fifteen Bishops. A little while afterward Theodoric also died. St Gregory writeth that a certain hermit saw him between Pope John and Symmachus the Patrician, whom he had likewise slain, going down into the fiery crater of Lipari, as though they who had been his victims were become the judges of his punishment. The body of John was carried from Ravenna to Rome, and there buried in the Church of St Peter.
&teDeum
