For what reason is it that their patron, AEsculapius, should be struck with thunder for restoring Hippolitus from death to life: "Nam Pater omnipotens, aliquem indignatus ab umbris Mortalem infernis ad lumina surgere vitae, Ipse repertorem medicinae talis, et artis Fulmine Phoebigenam Stygias detrusit ad undas;" and his followers be pardoned, who send so many souls from life to death?
This recommendation, as he well knew, was equivalent to a command. In the prologue he expresses his sense of the affront with great manliness and force of language. We quote some lines from it, as a specimen of the best plebeian Latin; "Necessitas, cuius cursus, transversi impetum Voluerunt multi effugere, pauci potuerunt, Quo me detrusit paene extremis sensibus?
Gregory had the force of the remedies of Aesculapius, who recalled Hippolytus from Hades; and, if he had continued to make such prayers, God would have waxed wroth, like Jupiter in Vergil: At pater omnipotens aliquem indignatus ab umbris Mortalem infernis ad lumina surgere vitae, Ipse repertorem medicinae talis et artis Fulmine Phoebigenam Stygias detrusit ad undas.
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