Peter the Monk (via Gregory the Great)

A certain Slav was a monk and lived with me here in this city in my monastery. He used to tell me that when he lived in the wilderness he knew a monk named Peter, who was born in Spain. He lived with him in the vast desert called Evasa. He said that Peter told him how, before he came to dwell in that place, he had died from a certain illness and was immediately restored to life again.

He declared that he had seen the torments and innumerable places of hell and many people, who were mighty in this world, hanging in those flames. As he himself was carried to be thrown also into the same fire, an angel in beautiful attire suddenly appeared. The angel would not allow him to be cast into those torments but spoke to him in this manner: “Go back again, and from now on look carefully after yourself and how you lead your life.” After these words his body grew warm little by little. Waking out of this sleep of everlasting death, he reported all those things that happened around him. Then devoted himself to such fasting and vigils that, although he said nothing, his very life and conversation still spoke of the torments that he had seen and still feared. Thus God’s merciful providence arranged by his temporal death that he did not die forever.

Eileen Gardiner, Visions of Heaven & Hell Before Dante (New York: Ithica Press, 1989) p. 47.