A.D. 594.] THE SEAMLESS COAT. 55 that time discharged, the office of archdeacon at Rome, and commanded a sevenfold litany to be made on account of the pestilence. It is called the sevenfold litany, inasmuch as in the first place were all the clergy, in the second all the abbats with their monks, in the third all the abbesses with their nuns, in the fourth all the children, in the fifth all the laity, in the sixth all the widows, in the seventh all the married. Having thus arranged all in classes, the man of God pacified the divine anger, and the city was entirely freed from the pestilence. Pope Gregory. In the year of grace 592, the blessed Gregory, by the acclamation of the people and the clergy, was elected pope, but withal so much against his will that he absented himself; but he was at length found and enthroned. Among his other works of piety, he by his merits delivered from the pains of hell the soul of the emperor Trajan, although a pagan. He composed an Antiphonary; he ordered the Kyrie Eleeson,with the Hallelujah, to be sung at mass ; and in the canon of the mass he profitably added these three sentences, " Order our days in thy peace; save us from eternal damnation; and number us with thine elect." Ceolrie, king of the West-Saxons. In the year of grace 593, Ceaulin and his brother Guichelm died, and Ceolric succeeded Ceaulin in the kingdom of the West-Saxons, over whom he reigned five years. At this time pope Gregory directed the Lord's Prayer to be said over the host. In the same year, on the death of Ella,* king of the Deiri, Ethelfrid, king of the Bernicii, expelled his son Edwin from the kingdom of Deira, and reigned with great vigour over both kingdoms. The exiled Edwin took refuge with Redwald, king of the East-Angles, by whose means he was eventually restored to his kingdom. Finding of the seamless coat of our Lord. In the year of grace 594, the coat of our Lord and Saviour was found, by the confession of Simeon, a Jew, in the city of * This should he Ethelric, who continued the persecution against Edwin befrun by his father Ella. He succeeded to Bernicia in 586, and to Deira in 588.