BOOK IV.

FROM THE ELECTION OF GREGORY THE GREAT TO THE DEATH OF CHARLEMAGNE,

A.D. 590-814

 

CHAPTER I.

Gregory the Great, A.D. 590-604.—Columban, A.D. 589-615.

 

The end of the sixth century may be regarded as the boundary between early and mediaeval church history. The scene of interest is henceforth varied; the eastern churches, oppressed by calamities and inwardly decaying, will claim but little of our attention, while it will be largely engaged by regions of the west, unnoticed or but slightly noticed in earlier times. The gospel will be seen penetrating the barbarian tribes which had overrun the western empire, bringing to them not only religious truth, but the elements of culture and refinement, adapting itself to them, moulding them, and experiencing their influence in return. As Christianity had before been affected by the ideas and by the practices of its Greek and Roman converts, so it now suffered among the barbarians, although rather from the rudeness of their manners than from any infection of their old religions.

Yet throughout the dreariest of the ages which lie before us, we may discern the gracious providence of God preserving the essentials of the truth in the midst of ignorance and corruptions, enabling men to overcome the evil by which they were surrounded, and filling the hearts of multitudes with zeal not only to extend the visible bounds of Christ’s kingdom, but also to enforce the power of faith on those who were already professedly His subjects.

Gregory, the most eminent representative of the transition from the early to the middle period, was born at Rome about the year 540. His family was of senatorial rank, and is said by some authorities to have belonged to the great Anician house; he was great-grandson of a pope named Felix—either the third or the fourth of that name. Gregory entered into civil employment, and attained the office of praetor of the city; but about the age of thirty-five he abandoned the pursuit of worldly distinctions, and employed his wealth in founding seven monasteries—six of them in Sicily, and the other, which he dedicated to St. Andrew, in his family mansion on the Caelian hill at Rome. In this Roman monastery he took up his abode, and entered on a strictly ascetic life, in which he persevered notwithstanding the frequent and severe illness which his austerities produced. About the year 577, he was ordained deacon, and was appointed to exercise his office in one of the seven principal churches of the city; and in 578, or the following year, he was sent by Pelagius II as his representative to the court of Tiberius II, who had lately become sole emperor on the death of the younger Justin. The most noted incident of his residence at Constantinople was a controversy with the patriarch Eutychius, who maintained the opinion of Origen, that the “spiritual body” of the saints after the resurrection would be impalpable, and more subtle than wind or air. Gregory on the contrary held, according to the doctrine which had been recommended to the western church by the authority of Augustine, that, if the body were impalpable, its identity would be lost; it will, he said, be “palpable in the reality of its nature, although subtle by the effect of spiritual grace”. Tiberius ordered a book in which Eutychius had maintained his opinion to be burnt; and the patriarch soon after, on his death-bed, avowed himself a convert to the opposite view, by laying hold of his attenuated arm and declaring, "I confess that in this flesh we shall all rise again".

After his return to Rome, Gregory was elected abbot of his monastery, and also acted as ecclesiastical secretary to Pelagius. On the death of that pope, who was carried off by a plague in January 590, he was chosen by the senate, the clergy, and the people to fill the vacant chair. He endeavoured by various means to escape the promotion; but the letter in which he entreated the emperor Maurice to withhold his consent was opened and detained by the governor of Rome; miracles baffled his attempts to conceal himself; and notwithstanding his reluctance he was consecrated, in September 590.

The position which Gregory had now attained was one from which he might well have shrunk, for other reasons than the fear ascribed to him by an ancient biographer, “lest the worldly glory which he had before cast away might creep on him under the colour of ecclesiastical government”. He compares his church to an “old and violently-shattered ship, admitting the waters on all sides,—its timbers rotten, shaken by daily storms, and sounding of wreck”. The north of Italy was overrun, and its other provinces were threatened, by the Lombards. The distant government of Constantinople, instead of protecting its Italian subjects, acted only as a hindrance to their exerting themselves for their own defence. The local authorities had neither courage to make war nor wisdom to negotiate; some of them, by their unprincipled exactions, even drove their people to espouse the interest of the enemy. The inhabitants of the land had been wasted by war, famine, and disease, while the rage for celibacy had contributed to prevent the recruiting of their numbers. In many places the depopulated soil had become pestilential. The supplies of corn, which had formerly been drawn from Sicily to support the excess of population, were now rendered necessary by the general abandonment of husbandry. Rome itself had suffered from storms and inundations, in addition to the common misfortunes of the country. So great were the miseries of the time, as to produce in religious minds the conviction, which Gregory often expresses, that the end of the world was at hand.

Nor was the aspect of ecclesiastical affairs more cheering. Churches and monasteries had been destroyed by the Lombards; the clergy were few, and inadequate to the pastoral superintendence of their scattered flocks; among them and among the monks, the troubles of the age had produced a general decay of morals and disciplined. The formidable Lombards were Arians; the schism which had arisen out of the question as to the “Three Articles” continued to hold Istria and other provinces separate from Rome, and had many adherents in Gaul. In Gaul, too, the church was oppressed by the extreme depravity of the princes and nobles, and by the general barbarism of the clergy as well as of the people. Spain had just been recovered from Arianism, but much was yet wanting to complete and assure the victory. In Africa, the old sect of Donatists took occasion from the prevailing confusions to lift up its head once more, and to commit aggressions on the church. The eastern patriarchates were distracted by the Nestorian and Monophysite controversies; a patriarch of Antioch had been deprived, and the bishop of Rome had reason to look with jealousy on his brother and rival of the newer capital.

The collection of Gregory’s letters, nearly eight hundred and fifty in number, exhibits a remarkable picture of his extensive and manifold activity. And it is in this that their value mainly consists; for, although questions of theology and morality are sometimes treated in them, they do not contain those elaborate discussions which are found among the correspondence of Jerome and Augustine. Gregory had neither leisure nor inclination for such discussions; but his capacity for business, his wide, various, and minute supervision, his combination of tenacity and dexterity in the conduct of affairs, are truly wonderful. From treating with patriarchs, kings, or emperors on the highest concerns of church or state, he passes to direct the management of a farm, the reclaiming of a runaway nun, or the relief of a distressed petitioner in some distant dependency of his see. He appears as a pope, as a virtual sovereign, as a bishop, as a landlords. He takes measures for the defence of his country, for the conversion of the heathen, for the repression and reconciliation of sectaries and schismatics; he administers discipline, manages the care of vacant dioceses, arranges for the union of sees where impoverishment and depopulation rendered such a junction expedient, directs the election of bishops, and superintends the performance of their duties. He intercedes with the great men of the earth for those who suffered from the conduct of their subordinates; he mediates in quarrels between bishops and their clergy, or between clergy and laity; he advises as to the temporal concerns of churches, and on such subjects he writes in a spirit of disinterestedness and equity very unlike the grasping cupidity which was too commonly displayed by bishops where legacies or other property were in question. In his letters to the emperors, although the tone is humble and submissive, he steadily holds to his purpose, and opposes everything which appears to him as an encroachment on the rights of the church.

Gregory lived in a simple d and monastic style, confining his society to monks and clergy, with whom he carried on his studies. He endeavoured to provide for the education of the clergy, not indeed according to any exalted literary standard, but in such a manner as the circumstances of his time allowed. He introduced a new and more effective organization into his church. He laboured for the improvement of the liturgy, and gave to the canon of the mass the form which it still retains in all essential respects. He instituted a singing-school, selected music, and established the manner of chanting which derives its name from him. He superintended in person the exercises of the choristers; the whip with which he threatened and admonished them was preserved for centuries as a relic. The misconduct of persons who on account of their vocal powers had been ordained deacons had become scandalous; Gregory, with a council, attempted to remedy the evil, not by requiring a greater strictness of behaviour in the singers, but by enacting that the chanting should be performed by subdeacons, or clerks of the inferior orders. He laboured diligently as a preacher, and it was believed that in the composition of his discourses he was aided by a special inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who appeared in the form of a dove whiter than snow. When Rome was threatened in 595 by the Lombards under Agilulf, the pope expounded the prophecies of Ezekiel from the pulpit, until at length the pressure of distress obliged him to desist, as he found that in such circumstances his mind was too much distracted to penetrate into the mysteries of the book. “Let no one blame me”, he says in the last homily of the series, “if after this discourse I cease, since, as you all see, our tribulations are multiplied: on every side we are surrounded with swords, on every side we fear the imminent peril of death. Some come back to us maimed of their hands, others are reported to be prisoners or slain. I am forced to withhold my tongue from exposition, for that my soul is weary of my life”. In his last years, when compelled by sickness to withdraw from preaching in person, he dictated sermons which were delivered by others.

The wealth of his see enabled the pope to exercise extensive charities, which were administered according to a regular scheme. On the first day of every month he distributed large quantities of provisions, and among those who were glad to share in this bounty were many of the Roman nobility, who had been reduced to utter poverty by the calamities of the time. Every day he sent alms to a number of needy persons, in all quarters of the city. When a poor man had been found dead in the street, Gregory abstained for some time from the celebration of the Eucharist, as considering himself to be the cause of his death. He was in the habit of sending dishes from his own table to persons whom he knew to be in want, but too proud or too bashful to ask relief. He entertained strangers and wanderers as his guests; and his biographers tell us that on one occasion he was rewarded by a vision, in which he was informed that among the objects of his hospitality had been his guardian angel. At another time, it is related, the Saviour appeared to him by night, and said to him, “On other days thou hast relieved Me in my members, but yesterday in Myself”.

Gregory found himself obliged to take an active part in political affairs. He desired peace, not only for its own sake, but as necessary in order to the reform and extension of the church. He laboured for it against many discouragements, and notwithstanding repeated disappointments by the breach of truces which had been concluded. He took it upon himself to negotiate with the Lombards, and, although slighted and ridiculed by the court of Constantinople for his endeavours, he found his recompense in their success, and in the gratitude of the people whom he had rescued from the miseries of war.

The property of the Roman see, which had come to be designated as the “patrimony of St. Peter”, included estates not only in Italy and the adjacent islands, but in Gaul, Illyria, Dalmatia, Africa, and even Asia. These estates were managed by commissioners chosen from the orders of deacons and subdeacons, or by laymen who had the title of defensors. Through agents of this class Gregory carried on much of the administration of his own patriarchate and of his communications with other churches; and, in addition to these, he was represented by vicars—bishops on whom, either for the eminence of their sees or for their personal merits, he bestowed certain prerogatives and jurisdiction, of which the pall was the distinctive badge. His more especial care was limited to the suburbicarian provinces, and beyond these he did not venture to interfere in the internal concerns of churches. By the aid of Gennadius, governor of Africa, the pope acquired a degree of authority before unknown over the church of that country. In Gaul and in Spain he had vicars : his influence over the churches of these countries was undefined as to extent, and was chiefly exercised in the shape of exhortations to their sovereigns; but he succeeded in establishing by this means a closer connexion with the Frankish kingdom than that which had before existed; and by thus strengthening his interest in the west, he provided for his church a support independent of the power of Constantinople.

In his dealings with the bishops of the west, he upheld the authority of St. Peter’s chair as the source of all ecclesiastical privileges—the centre of jurisdiction to which, as the highest tribunal, all spiritual causes ought to be referred. His agents, although belonging to the lower grades of the ministry, were virtually the chief ecclesiastical authorities within their spheres; we find that subdeacons are in this character empowered not only to admonish individual bishops, but even to convoke those of a whole province, to administer the papal rebuke to them, and to report them to the apostolical chair in case of neglect. When, however, the agents exceeded their general authority, and allowed causes to be carried before them without reference to the diocesan, Gregory admonished them to respect the rights of the episcopate. Yet notwithstanding this lofty conception of the authority of his see, and although he must unquestionably be reckoned among those of the popes who have most effectively contributed to the extension of the papal dominion, it would appear that in his own person Gregory was unfeignedly free from all taint of pride or assumption.

Gregory always treated the eastern patriarchs as independent. He spoke of the bishops of Alexandria and Antioch as his equals—as being, like himself, successors of St. Peter, and sharers with him in the one chair of the same founder; and, although he was involved in serious differences with the bishops of the eastern capital, these differences did not arise from any claim on the Roman side, but from a supposed assumption on the part of Constantinople. John, styled for his ascetic life “the Faster”, was raised to the patriarchate in 585, after having struggled to escape the elevation with an appearance of resolute humility, which Gregory at the time admired, although he afterwards came to regard it as the mask of pride. In 587 a great synod of eastern bishops and senators was held at Constantinople for the trial of certain charges against Gregory, patriarch of Antioch. Over this assembly John presided, in virtue of the position assigned to his see by the second and fourth general councils; and in the acts he assumed, like some of his predecessors, the title of “ecumenical” (which the Latins rendered by universal) bishop. The meaning of this term, in Byzantine usage, was indefinite; there was certainly no intention of claiming by it a jurisdiction over the whole church but Pelagius of Rome, viewing with jealousy the power of Constantinople, and apprehensive of the additional importance which its bishops might derive from the presidency of a council assembled for so important a purpose, laid hold on the title as a pretext for disallowing the acts of the assembly, although these had been confirmed by the emperor, and forbade his envoy to communicate with John.

Gregory, on succeeding Pelagius, took up the question with much earnestness. After repeated, but ineffectual, remonstrances through his apocrisiary, he wrote to the patriarch himself, to the emperor Maurice, and to the empress. To Maurice he urged that the title assumed by the patriarch interfered with the honour of the sovereign. He declared that John was drawn by his flatterers into the use of the “proud and foolish” word; that the assumption was an imitation of the devil, who exalted himself above his brother angels; that it was unlike the conduct of St. Peter, who, although the first of the apostles, was but a member of the same class with the rest; that bishops ought to learn from the calamities of the time to employ themselves better than in claiming lofty designations; that, appearing now when the end of the world was at hand, the claim was a token of Antichrist's approach. The council of Chalcedon, he said, had indeed given the title to the bishops of Rome; but these had never adopted it, lest they should seem to deny the pontificate to others. Gregory also wrote to Eulogius of Alexandria, and to Anastasius of Antioch, endeavouring to enlist them in his cause. To allow the title to John, he said, would be to derogate from their own rights, and would be an injury to their whole order. “Ecumenical bishop” must mean sole bishop; if, therefore, the ecumenical bishop should err, the whole church would fail; and for a patriarch of Constantinople to assume the proud and superstitious name, which was an invention of the first apostate, was alarming, since among the occupants of that see there had been not only heretics, but heresiarchs. These applications were of little effect, for both the Egyptian and the Syrian patriarchs had special reasons to deprecate a rupture of the church’s peace, and to avoid any step which might provoke the emperor. Anastasius had been expelled from his see by the younger Justin, and had not recovered it until after an exclusion of thirteen years (A.D. 582-595), when he was restored on the death of Gregory; Eulogius was struggling with the difficulties of the monophysite schism : while to both of them, as being accustomed to the oriental use of language, the title of ecumenical appeared neither a novelty nor so objectionable as the Roman bishop considered it. Eulogius, however, reported that he had ceased to use it in writing to John, as Gregory had directed , and in his letter he addressed the bishop of Rome himself as “universal pope”. “I beg”, replied Gregory, “that you would not speak of directing; since I know who I am, and who you are. In dignity you are my brother; in character, my father. I pray your most sweet holiness to address me no more with the proud appellation of universal pope, since that which is given to another beyond what reason requires is subtracted from yourself. If you style me universal pope, you deny that you are at all that which you own me to be universally. Away with words which puff up vanity and wound charity!”.

John of Constantinople died in 595, leaving no other property than a small wooden bedstead, a shabby woollen coverlet, and a ragged cloak,—relics which, out of reverence for the patriarch's sanctity, were removed to the imperial palace. His successor, Cyriac, continued to use the obnoxious title; but Gregory persevered in his remonstrances against it, and, although he accepted the announcement of Cyriac’s promotion, forbade his envoys at Constantinople to communicate with the new patriarch so long as the style of ecumenical bishop should be retained.

 

A.D. 595-603. MAURICE AND PHOCAS.

 

During his residence at Constantinople, Gregory had been on terms of great intimacy with Maurice, who at that time was in a private station. But since the elevation of the one to the empire, and of the other to St. Peter's chair, many causes of disagreement had arisen. Maurice favoured John personally; he represented the question of the patriarch's title as trifling, and was deaf to Gregory's appeals on the subject. He often espoused the cause of bishops or others whom Gregory wished to censure, and reminded him that the troubles of the time made it inexpedient to insist on the rigour of discipline. By forbidding persons in public employment to become monks, and requiring that soldiers should not embrace the monastic life until after the expiration of their term of service, he provoked the pope to tell him that this measure might cost him his salvation, although, in fulfilment of his duty as a subject, Gregory transmitted the law to other bishops. Moreover, there were differences arising out of Gregory’s political conduct, which the exarchs and other imperial officers had represented to their master in an unfavourable light. Thus the friendship of former days had been succeeded by alienation, when in 602 a revolution took place at Constantinople. The discontent of Maurice's subjects, which had been growing for years, was swelled into revolt by the belief that, for reasons of disgraceful parsimony, he had allowed twelve thousand captive soldiers to be butchered by the Avars when it was in his power to ransom them. The emperor was deposed, and the crown was bestowed on a centurion named Phocas, who soon after caused Maurice and his children to be put to death with revolting cruelties, which the victims bore with unflinching firmness and with devout resignation. The behaviour of Gregory on this occasion has exposed him to censures from which his apologists have in vain endeavoured to clear him. Blinded by his zeal for the church, and by his dislike of the late emperor’s policy, he hailed with exultation the success of an usurper whom all agree in representing as a monster of vice and barbarity; he received with honour the pictures of Phocas and his wife, placed them in a chapel of the Lateran palace, and addressed the new emperor and empress in letters of warm congratulation. Encouraged by the change of rulers, he now wrote again to the patriarch Cyriac, exhorting him to abandon the title which had occasioned so much contention. Phocas found it convenient to favour the Roman side, and for a time the word was given up or forbidden. But the next emperor, Heraclius, again used it in addressing the bishops of Constantinople; their use of it was sanctioned by the sixth and seventh general councils; and it has been retained to the present day.

Gregory was zealous in his endeavours to extend the knowledge of the gospel, and to bring over separatists to the church. He laboured, and with considerable, although not complete, success, to put an end to the schism of Aquileia and Istria, which had arisen out of the controversy as to the “three articles” and the fifth general council. In order to this purpose, he was willing to abstain from insisting on the reception of that council: the first four councils, he said, were to be acknowledged like the four Gospels; “that which by some was called the fifth” did not impugn the council of Chalcedon, but it related to personal matters only, and did not stand on the same footing with the others. By means of this, view he was able to establish a reconciliation between Constantius, bishop of Milan, an adherent of the council, and Theodelinda, queen of the Lombards, although the queen persisted in refusing to condemn the three articles. The influence of this princess was of great advantage to the pope, both in religious and in political affairs. According to the usual belief, she was daughter of the prince of the Bavarians, and had been trained in the catholic faith. It is said that on the death of her husband, the Lombard king Authari, her people desired her to choose another, and promised to accept him as their sovereign; and her choice fell on Agilulf, duke of Turin, who out of gratitude for his elevation was disposed to show favour to her religion, and to listen to her mediation in behalf of the Romans. The statement of some writers, that Agilulf himself became a catholic, appears to be erroneous; but his son was baptized into the church, and in the middle of the seventh century Arianism had become extinct among the Lombards.

Towards those who were not members of the church Gregory was in general tolerant. That he urged the execution of the laws against the Donatists, is an exception which the fanatical violence of the sect may serve to explain, if not even to justify. He protected the Jews in the exercise of their religion, and disapproved of the forcible measures by which some princes of Gaul and Spain had attempted to compel them to a profession of Christianity. When a bishop of Palermo had seized and consecrated a synagogue, Gregory ordered that, as after consecration it could not be alienated from the church, the bishop should pay the value of it to the Jews. On another occasion, when a convert from Judaism, having been baptized on Easter eve, had signalized his zeal by invading the synagogue of Cagliari on the following day, and placing in it his baptismal robe, with a cross and a picture of the blessed Virgin, he was censured for the proceeding, and it was ordered that the building should be restored to the rightful owners. Sometimes, however, Gregory endeavoured to expedite the conversion of Jews by holding out allowances of money or diminution of rent as inducements, and by increasing the rent of those who were obstinate in their misbelief; and, although he expressed a consciousness that conversion produced by such means might be hypocritical, he justified them by the consideration that the children of the converts would enjoy Christian training, and might thus become sincere believers in the gospel.

Gregory endeavoured to root out the remains of paganism which still existed in same parts of Italy and in the islands of Sardinia and Corsica. He wrote in reproof of landowners—some of them even bishops—who allowed their peasants to continue in heathenism, and of official persons who suffered themselves to be bribed into conniving at it. Sometimes he recommended lenity as the best means of converting the pagan rustics; sometimes the imposition of taxes, or even personal chastisement.

But the most memorable of Gregory’s attempts for the conversion of the heathen had our own island for its scene. It is probable that many of the Britons who had become slaves to the northern invaders retained some sort of Christianity; but the visible appearance of a church no longer existed among them, and the last bishops within the Saxon territory are said to have withdrawn from London and York into Wales about the year 587. The zeal of religious controversy has largely affected the representations given by many writers of the subject at which we have now arrived. Those in the Roman interest have made it their object to narrow as much as possible the extent of the British Christianity, to disparage its character, and to reflect on the British clergy for their supineness and uncharitableness in neglecting to impart the knowledge of salvation to their Saxon neighbours. And while some Anglican writers have caught this tone, without sufficiently considering what abatements may fairly be made from the declamations of Gildas and from the statements of ancient authors unfriendly to the Britons; or whether, in the fierce struggles of war, and in the state of bondage which followed, it would have been even possible for these to attempt the conversion of their conquerors and oppressors—other protestants have committed the opposite injustice of decrying the motives and putting the worst construction on the actions of those who were instrumental in the conversion which proceeded from Rome.

It will be enough to allude to the familiar story of the incident which is said to have first directed Gregory’s mind towards the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons—the sight of the fair-haired captives in the Roman market, and the succession of fanciful plays on words by which he declared that these Angles of angelic beauty, subjects of Aella, king of Deira, must be called from the ire of God, and taught to sing Alleluia. Animated by a desire to carry out the conversion of their countrymen, he resolved to undertake a mission to Britain, and the pope (whether Benedict or Pelagius) sanctioned the enterprise; but the people of Rome, who were warmly attached to Gregory, made such demonstrations that he was obliged to abandon it. Although, however, he was thus prevented from executing the work in person, he kept it in view until, after his elevation to the papal chair, he was able to commit it to the agency of others.

Ethelbert had succeeded to the kingdom of Kent in 568, and in 593 had attained the dignity of Bretwalda, which gave him an influence over the whole of England south of the Humbert About 570, as is supposed, he had married a Christian princess, Bertha, daughter of Charibert, king of Paris, and the saintly Ingoberga

As a condition of this marriage, the free exercise of her religion was secured for the queen, and a French bishop, named Luidhard, or Letard, accompanied her to the Kentish court. It is probable that Bertha, in the course of her long union with Ethelbert, had made some attempts, at least indirectly, to influence him in favour of the gospel; perhaps, too, it may have been from her that Gregory received representations which led him to suppose that many of the Anglo-Saxons were desirous of Christian instruction, and that the Britons refused to bestow it on them. In 595, during an interval of peace with the Lombards, the pope despatched Augustine, provost of his own monastery, with a party of monks, to preach the gospel in England; and about the same time he desired Candidus, defensor of the papal estates in Gaul, to buy up English captive youths, and to place them in monasteries, with a view to training them for the conversion of their countrymen. But the missionaries, while in the south of France, took alarm at the thought of the dangers which they were likely to incur among a barbarous and unbelieving people whose language was utterly unknown to them; and their chief returned to Rome, entreating that they might be allowed to relinquish the enterprise. Instead of assenting to this petition, however, Gregory encouraged them to go on, and furnished them with letters to various princes and bishops of Gaul, whom he requested to support them by their influence, and to supply them with interpreters.

In 597 Augustine, with about forty companions, landed in the Isle of Thanet. Ethelbert, on being apprised of their arrival, went to meet them; and at an interview, which was held in the open air, because he feared lest they might practise some magical arts if he ventured himself under a roof with them, he listened to their announcement of the message of salvation. The king professed himself unable to abandon at once the belief of his fathers for the new doctrines, but gave the missionaries leave to take up their abode in his capital, Durovernum (Canterbury), and to preach freely among his subjects. They entered the city in procession, chanting litanies and displaying a silver cross with a picture of the Saviour. On a rising ground without the walls they found a church of the Roman-British period, dedicated to St. Martin, in which Luidhard had lately celebrated his worship; and to this day the spot on which it stood, overlooking the valley of the Stour, is occupied by a little church, which, after many architectural changes, exhibits a large proportion of ancient Roman materials. There Augustine and his brethren worshipped; and by the spectacle of their devout and self-denying lives, and of the miracles which are said to have accompanied their preaching, many converts were drawn to them. Ethelbert himself was baptized on Whitsunday 597, and declared his wish that his subjects should embrace the gospel, although he professed himself resolved to put no constraint on their opinions.

Gregory had intended that Augustine, if he succeeded in making an opening among the Saxons, should receive episcopal consecration. For this purpose the missionary now repaired to Arles; and from that city he sent some of his companions to Rome with a report of his successes. The pope’s answer contains advice which may be understood as hinting at some known defects of Augustine’s character, or as suggested by the tone of his report. He exhorts him not to be elated by his success or by the miracles which he had been enabled to perform; he must reckon that these were granted not for his own sake, but for that of the people to whom he was sent. Having accomplished the object of his journey into Gaul, Augustine returned to England by Christmas 597; and Gregory was able to announce to Eulogius of Alexandria that at that festival the missionaries had baptized ten thousand persons in one day.

In the summer of 601 the pope despatched a reinforcement to the English mission. The new auxiliaries—among whom were Mellitus and Justus, successively archbishops of Canterbury, and Paulinus, afterwards the apostle of Northumbria—carried with them a large supply of books, including the Gospels, with church plate, vestments, relics which were said to be those of apostles and martyrs, and the pall which was to invest Augustine with the dignity of a metropolitan. Gregory had written to Ethelbert, exhorting him to destroy the heathen temples in his dominions; but, on further consideration, he took a different view of the matter, and sent after Mellitus a letter for the guidance of Augustine, desiring him not to destroy the temples, but, if they were well built, to purify them with holy water, and convert them to the worship of the true God; thus, it was hoped, the people might be the more readily attracted to the new religion, if its rites were celebrated in places where they had been accustomed to worship. By a more questionable accommodation of the same sort—for which, however, the authority of Scripture was alleged—it was directed that, instead of the heathen sacrifices and of the banquets which followed them, the festivals of the saints whose relics were deposited in any church should be celebrated by making booths of boughs, slaying animals, and feasting on them with religious thankfulness.

About the same time Gregory returned an elaborate set of answers to some questions which Augustine had proposed as to difficulties which had occurred or might be expected to occur to him. As to the division of ecclesiastical funds, he states the Roman principle—that a fourth part should be assigned to the bishop and his household for purposes of hospitality; a fourth to the clergy; another to the poor; and the remaining quarter to the maintenance of churches. But he says that Augustine, as having been trained under the monastic rule, is to live in the society of his clergy; that it is needless to lay down any precise regulations as to the duties of hospitality and charity, where all things are held in common, and all that can be spared is to be devoted to pious and religious uses. Such of the clerks not in holy orders b as might wish to marry might be permitted to do so, and a maintenance was to be allowed them. In reply to a question whether a variety of religious usages were allowable where the faith was the same—a question probably suggested by the circumstance of Luidhard’s having officiated at Canterbury according to the Gallican rite,—the pope’s answer was in a spirit no less unlike to that of his predecessors Innocent and Leo than to that of the dominant party in the Latin church of our own day. He desired Augustine to select from the usages of any churches such right, religious, and pious things as might seem suitable for the new church of the English; “for”, it was said, “we must not love things on account of places, but places on account of good things”. With respect to the degrees within which marriage was to be forbidden, Gregory, while laying down a law for the baptized, under pain of exclusion from the holy Eucharist, did not insist on the separation of those who from ignorance had contracted marriages contrary to his rule: “for”, he said, “the church in this time corrects some sins out of zeal, bears with some out of lenity, connives at some out of consideration, and so bears and connives as by this means often to restrain the evil which she opposes”. In answer to another inquiry, Augustine was told that he must not interfere with the bishops of Gaul beyond gently hinting to them such things as might seem to require amendment; “but”, it was added, “we commit to your brotherhood the care of all the British bishops, that the ignorant may be instructed, the weak may be strengthened by your counsel, the perverse may be corrected by your authority”.

It was Gregory’s design that Augustine should make London his metropolitical see, and should have twelve bishops under him; that another metropolitan, with a like number of suffragans, should, when circumstances permitted, be established at York; and that, after the death of Augustine, the archbishops of London and York should take precedence according to the date of their consecration. But this scheme, arranged in igno­rance of the political divisions which had been intro­duced into Britain since the withdrawal of the Romans, was never carried out. Augustine fixed himself in the Kentish capital, as London was in another kingdom; and his successors in the see of Canterbury have, although not without dispute from time to time on the part of York, continued to be primates of all England.

The bishops of the ancient British church were not disposed to acknowledge the jurisdiction which Gregory had professed to confer on his emissary. In 603, Augustine, through the influence of Ethelbert, obtained a conference with some of them at a place which from him was called Augustine’s Oak—probably Aust Clive, on the Severn. He exhorted them to adopt the Roman usages as to certain points in which the churches differed, and proposed an appeal to the Divine judgment by way of deciding between the rival traditions. A blind Saxon was brought forward, and the Britons were unable to cure him; but when Augustine prayed that the gift of bodily light to one might be the means of illuminating the minds of many, it is said that the man forthwith received his sight. The Britons, although compelled by this miracle to acknowledge the superiority of the Roman cause, said that they could not alter their customs without the consent of their countrymen; and a second conference was appointed, at which seven British bishops appeared, with Dinoth, abbot of the great monastery of Bangor Iscoed, in Flintshire. A hermit, whom they had consulted as to the manner in which they should act, had directed them to submit to Augustine if he were a man of God, and, on being asked how they should know this, had told them to observe whether Augustine rose up to greet them on their arrival at the place of meeting. As the archbishop omitted this courtesy, the Britons concluded that he was proud and domineering; they refused to listen to his proposal that their other differences of observance should be borne with if they would comply with the Roman usages as to the time of keeping Easter, and as to the manner of administering baptism, and would join with him in preaching to the English; whereupon Augustine is said to have told them in anger that, if they would not have peace with their brethren, they would have war with their enemies, and suffer death at the hands of those to whom they refused to preach the way of life. In judging of this affair, we shall do well to guard against the partiality which has led many writers to cast the blame on the Romans or on the Britons exclusively. We may respect in the Britons their desire to adhere to old ways and to resist foreign assumption; in the missionaries, their eagerness to establish unity in external matters with a view to the great object of spreading the gospel: but the benefits which might have been expected were lost through the arrogant demeanour of the one party, and through the narrow and stubborn jealousy of the other.

Augustine is supposed to have died soon after the conference. Before his death he had consecrated Justus to the bishopric of Rochester, and Mellitus to that of London, the capital of Saberct, nephew of Ethelbert, and king of Essex; he had also consecrated Laurence as his own successor, and he left to him the completion of the great monastery which he had begun to build, without the walls of Canterbury, in honour of St. Peter and St. Paul, but which in later times was known by the name of the founder himself. The threat or prophecy which he had uttered at the meeting with the Britons, was supposed to be fulfilled some years after, when Ethelfrid, the pagan king of Bernicia, invaded their territory. In a battle at Caerleon on the Dee, Ethelfrid saw a number of unarmed men, and on inquiry was told that they were monks of Bangor who had come to pray for the success of their countrymen. “Then”, he cried, “although they have no weapons, they are fighting against us”; and he ordered them to be put to the sword. About twelve hundred, it is said, were slain, and only fifty escaped by flight.

Amidst the pressure of his manifold occupations, and notwithstanding frequent attacks of sickness, Gregory found time for the composition of extensive works. The most voluminous of these, the Morals on the book of Job, was undertaken at the suggestion of Leander, bishop of Seville, with whom he had made acquaintance at Constantinople, where the Spanish prelate was employed in soliciting the emperor to aid his convert Hermenegild. It cannot be said that Gregory’s qualifications for commenting on Holy Scripture were of any critical kind; he repeatedly states that (notwithstanding his residence of some years at Constantinople), he was ignorant even of Greek, and the nature of his work is indicated by its title. From the circumstance that Job sometimes makes use of figurative language, he infers that in some passages the literal sense does not exist; and he applies himself chiefly to explaining the typical and moral senses—often carrying to an extreme the characteristic faults of this kind of interpretation—strange wresting of the language of Scripture, and introduction of foreign matter under pretence of explaining what is written. He regards Job as a type of the Saviour; the patriarch's wife, of the carnally-minded; his friends, as representing heretics; their conviction, as signifying the reconciliation of the heretics to the church.

The Morals were greatly admired. Marinian, bishop of Ravenna, caused them to be read in church; but Gregory desired that this might be given up, as the book, not being intended for popular use, might be to some hearers rather a hindrance than a means of spiritual advancement.

The Pastoral Rule written in consequence of Gregory’s having been censured by John, the predecessor of Marinian, for attempting to decline the episcopate, also contains some curious specimens of allegorical interpretation; but it is marked by a spirit of practical wisdom and by an experienced knowledge of the heart. It was translated into various languages; the Anglo-Saxon version was made by king Alfred, who sent a copy of it to every bishop in his kingdom for preservation in the cathedral church. In France it was adopted as a rule of episcopal conduct by reforming synods under Charlemagne and his son; and some synods ordered that it should be put into the hands of bishops at their consecration.

In his Dialogues, addressed to Queen Theodelinda, Gregory discourses with a deacon named Peter on the miracles of Italian saints. The genuineness of the work has been questioned, chiefly on account of the anile legends with which it is filled. But the evidence of the authorship is generally admitted to be sufficient; and it is to be noted to Gregory’s praise that he repeatedly warns his disciple against attaching too much value to the miracles which are related with such unhesitating credulity. In the fourth book, the state of the soul after death is discussed. Peter asks why it is that new revelations are now made on the subject, and is told that the time is one of twilight between the present world and that which is to come; and that consequently such revelations are now seasonable. The doctrine of Purgatory is here advanced more distinctly than in any earlier writing. The oriental idea of a purifying fire, through which souls must pass at the day of judgment, had been maintained by Origen; but at a later time the belief in a process of cleansing between death and judgment was deduced from St. Paul’s words, that “the fire shall try every man’s work”, and that some shall be saved “as by fire”; and it was supposed that by such means every one who died in the orthodox faith, however faulty his life might have been, would eventually be brought to salvation. St. Augustine earnestly combated this error, and maintained that the probation of which the apostle spoke consisted chiefly in the trials which are sent on men during the present life. He thought, however, that, for those who in the main had been servants of Christ, there might perhaps be a purging of their remaining imperfections after death; and, although he was careful to state this opinion as no more than a conjecture, the great authority of his name caused it to be soon more confidently held. Gregory lays it down that, as every one departs hence, so is he presented in the judgment; yet that we must believe that for some slight transgressions there is a purgatorial fire before the judgment day. In proof of this are alleged the words of our Lord in St. Matthew XII. 32, from which it is inferred, as it had already been inferred by Augustine, that some sins shall be forgiven in the world to come; and the doctrine is confirmed by tales of visions, in which the spirits of persons suffering in purgatory had appeared, and had entreated that the eucharistic sacrifice might be offered in order to their relief. A work in which religious instruction was thus combined with the attractions of romantic fiction naturally became very popular. Pope Zacharias (A.D. 741-752) rendered it into his native Greek; it was translated into Anglo-Saxon under Alfred’s care, by Werfrith, bishop of Worcester; and among the other translations was one into Arabic.

Gregory has been accused of having destroyed or mutilated the monuments of ancient Roman greatness, in order that they might not distract the attention of pilgrims, and of having, from a like motive, burnt the Palatine library, and endeavoured to exterminate the copies of Livy’s History. These stories are now rejected as fictions invented during the middle ages with a view of doing honour to his zeal; but it is unquestionable that he disliked and discouraged pagan literature. In the epistle prefixed to his Morals he professes himself indifferent to style, and even to grammatical correctness, on the ground that the words of inspiration ought not to be tied down under the rules of Donatus. And in a letter to Desiderius, bishop of Vienne, who was reported to have given lessons in “grammar”, he does not confine his rebuke to the unseemliness of such employment for a member of the episcopal order, but declares that even a religious layman ought not to defile his lips with the blasphemous praises of false deities. However this contempt of secular learning may be excused in Gregory himself, it is to be regretted that his authority did much to foster a contented ignorance in the ages which followed.

In other respects the pope’s opinions were those of his age, controlled in some measure by his practical good sense. His reverence for the authority of the church may be inferred from his repeated declarations that he regarded the first four general councils as standing on the same level with the four Gospels. It has been argued from some passages in his works that he held the doctrine of transubstantiation in the Eucharist; but his words, although sometimes highly rhetorical, do not seem to affirm any other than a spiritual presence of the Saviour’s body and blood in the consecrated elements.

After what has been said of his character and history, it is hardly necessary to state that Gregory was a zealous friend to monachism. He protected the privileges and property of monastic societies against the encroachments of the bishops, and in many cases he exempted monks from episcopal jurisdiction as to the management of their affairs, although he was careful to leave the bishops undisturbed in the right of superintending their morals. But, notwithstanding his love for the monastic life, he detected and denounced many of the deceits which may be compatible with asceticism; perhaps his disagreement with John the Faster may have aided him to see these evils the more clearly. With reference to the edicts of Justinian which had sanctioned the separation of married persons in order to enter on the monastic profession, he plainly declares that such an act, although allowed by human laws, is forbidden by the law of God. Nor, although he contributed to extend the obligation to celibacy among the clergy, was his zeal for the enforcement of it violent or inconsiderate; thus, in directing that the subdeacons of Sicily should in future be restrained from marriage, he revoked an order of his predecessor, by which those who had married before the introduction of the Roman rule were compelled to separate from their wives.

A veneration for relics is strongly marked in Gregory’s writings. It was his practice to send, in token of his especial favour, presents of keys, in which were said to be contained some filings of St. Peter's chains. These keys were accompanied by a prayer that that which had bound the apostle for martyrdom might loose the receiver from all his sins; and to some of them miraculous histories were attached. The empress Constantina—instigated, it is supposed, by John of Constantinople, with a view of bringing the pope into trouble—asked him to send her the head, or some part of the body, of St. Paul, for a new church which was built in honour of the apostle. Gregory answered, that it was not the custom at Rome to handle or to dispose of the bodies of martyrs; that many persons who had presumed to touch the remains of St. Peter and St. Paul had been struck with death in consequence; that he could only send her a cloth which had been applied to the apostle’s body, but that such cloths possessed the same miraculous power as the relics themselves. He added, that the practice of removing relics gave occasion to fraud, and mentioned the case of some Greek monks who, when called in question for digging up dead bodies by night at Rome, had confessed an intention of passing them off in Greece as relics of martyrs.

Two of Gregory’s letters are addressed to Serenus, bishop of Marseilles, who, on finding that some images were the subjects of adoration, had broken them; and these letters have a special interest from their bearing on the controversy as to images which arose somewhat more than a century later. The pope commends Serenus for his zeal, but blames him for the manner in which it had been displayed. He tells him that modesty ought to have restrained him from an action for which no bishop had given any precedent; that pictures and images serve for the instruction of those who cannot read books; and that for this purpose they ought to be preserved in churches, while care should be taken to guard against the worship of them.

Gregory’s infirmities had long been growing on him. For some years he had been seldom able to leave his bed; he professed that the expectation of death was his only consolation, and requested his friends to pray for his deliverance from his sufferings. On the 12th of March 604 he was released.

While the conversion of the English was reserved for the zeal of Italian monks, a remarkable body of missionaries set out from the shores of Ireland. Their leader, Columban, born in the province of Leinster about 560, was trained in the great Irish monastery of Bangor, which, with the houses and cells dependent on it, contained a society of three thousand monks, under the government of its founder, Comgal. Columban resolved to detach himself from earthly things by leaving his country, after the example of Abraham, and in 589 he crossed the sea with twelve companions into Britain, and thence into Gaul. He had intended to preach the gospel to the heathen nations beyond the Frankish dominions; but the decayed state of religion and discipline offered him abundant employment in Gaul, and at the invitation of Guntram, king of Burgundy, he settled in that country. Declining the king’s offers of a better position, he established himself in the Vosges, where a district which in the Roman times was cultivated and populous had again become a wilderness, while abundant remains of Roman architecture and monuments of the old idolatry were left as evidence of its former prosperity. Here he successively founded three monasteries—Anegray, Luxeuil, and Fontaines. For a time the missionaries had to endure great hardships; they had often for days no other food than wild herbs and the bark of trees, until their needs were supplied by means which are described as miraculous. But by degrees the spectacle of their severe and devoted life made an impression on the people of the neighbourhood. They were looked on with reverence by men of every class, and, while their religious instructions were gladly heard, their labours in clearing and tilling the land encouraged the inhabitants to exertions of the same kind. The monasteries were speedily filled with persons attracted by the contrast which Columban’s system presented to the general relaxation of piety and morals among the native monks and clergy; and children of noble birth were placed in them for education.

The Rule of Columban was probably derived in great measure from the Irish Bangor. The main principle of it was the inculcation of absolute obedience to superiors, the entire mortification of the individual will—a principle which is dangerous, as relieving the mind from the feeling of responsibility, and as tending either to deaden the spirit, or to deceive it into pride veiled under the appearance of humility. The diet of the monks was to be coarse, and was to be proportioned to their labour. But Columban warned against excessive abstinence, as being “not a virtue but a vice”. “Every day", it was said, “there must be fasting, as every day there must be refreshment”; and every day the monks were also to pray, to work, and to read. There were to be three services by day and three by night, at hours variable according to the season. The monastic plainness was extended even to the sacred vessels, which were not to be of any material more costly than brass; and, among other things, it is noted that Columban in some measure anticipated the later usage of the Latin church by excluding novices and other insufficiently instructed persons from the eucharistic cup. To the Rule was attached a Penitential, which, instead of leaving to the abbot the same discretion in the appointment of punishments which was allowed by the Benedictine system, lays down the details with curious minuteness. Corporal chastisement is the most frequent penalty. Thus, six strokes were to be given to every one who should call anything his own; to every one who should omit to say “Amen” after the abbot’s blessing, or to make the sign of the cross on his spoon or his candle; to every one who should talk at meals, or who should fail to repress a cough at the beginning of a psalm. Ten strokes were the punishment for striking the table with a knife, or for spilling beer on it. For heavier offences the number rose as high as two hundred; but in no case were more than twenty-five to be inflicted at once. Among the other penances were fasting on bread and water, psalm-singing, humble postures, and long periods of silence. Penitents were not allowed to wash their hands except on Sunday. They were obliged to kneel at prayers even on the Lord's day and in the pentecostal season. Columban warned the monks against relying on externals; but it may fairly be questioned whether his warnings can have been powerful enough to counteract the natural tendency of a system so circumstantial and so rigid in the enforcement of formal observances.

Columban fell into disputes with his neighbours as to the time of keeping Easter, in which he followed the custom of his native country. He wrote on the subject to Gregory and to Boniface (either the third or the fourth pope of that name), requesting that they would not consider his practice as a ground for breach of communion. In his letters to popes, while he speaks with high respect of the Roman see, the British spirit of independence strongly appears. He exhorts Gregory to reconsider the question of the paschal cycle without deferring to the opinions of Leo or of other elder popes; “perhaps”, he says, “in this case, a living dog may be better than a dead lion”. He even sets the church of Jerusalem above that of Rome : “You”, he tells Boniface IV, “are almost heavenly, and Rome is the head of the churches of the world, saving the special prerogative of the place of the Lord’s resurrection”; and he goes on to say that, in proportion as the dignity of the Roman bishops is great, so ought their care to be great, lest by perversity they lose it. Another letter on the subject of Easter is addressed to a Gaulish synod. He entreats the bishops to let him follow the usage to which he has been accustomed, and to allow him to live peaceably, as he had already lived for twelve years, amid the solitude of the forest, and beside the bones of his seventeen deceased brethren.

After a residence of about twenty years in Burgundy, Columban incurred the displeasure of king Theodoric II, by whom he had before been held in great honour.

Brunichild, the grandmother of Theodoric, according to a policy not uncommon among the queen-mothers of India in our own day, endeavoured to prolong her influence in the kingdom by encouraging the young prince in a life of indolence and sensuality. Columban repeatedly, both by word and by letter, remonstrated against Theodoric’s courses : he refused to bless his illegitimate children, and, with much vehemence of behaviour, rejected the hospitality of the court, making (it is said) the dishes and drinking-vessels which were set before him fly into pieces by his word. The king, whom Brunichild diligently instigated against him, told him that he was not unwise enough to make him a martyr, but ordered him to be conducted to Nantes with his Irish monks, in order that they might be sent back to their own country. The journey of the missionaries across France was rendered a series of triumphs by the miracles of Columban and by the popular enthusiasm in his favour. On their arrival at Nantes, the vessel which was intended to convey them to Ireland was prevented by miraculous causes from performing its task; and Columban, being then allowed to choose his own course, made his way to Metz, where Theodebert II of Austrasia gave him leave to preach throughout his dominions. He then ascended the Rhine into Switzerland, and laboured for a time in the neighbourhood of the lake of Zurich. At Tuggen, it is said, he found a number of the inhabitants assembled around a large vat of beer, and was told that it was intended as a sacrifice to Woden. By breathing on it, he made the vessel burst with a loud noise, so that, as his biographer tells us, it was manifest that the devil had been hidden in it. His preaching and miracles gained many converts, but after a time he was driven, by the hostility of the idolatrous multitude, to remove into the neighbourhood of Bregenz, on the lake of Constance, where he found circumstances favourable to the success of his work. The country had formerly been Christian; many of its inhabitants had been baptized, although they had afterwards conformed to the idolatry of the Alamanni who had overrun it; and the Alamannic law, made under Frankish influence, already provided for Christian clergy the same privileges which they enjoyed in France. Columban was kindly received by a presbyter named Willimar: he destroyed the idols of the people, threw them into the lake, and for a time preached with great success. But in 612 Theodebert was defeated by Theodoric, and Columban found it necessary to leave the territory which had thus fallen into the possession of his enemy. He meditated a mission to the Slavons, but was diverted from the design by an angel, and crossed the Alps into Italy, where he was received with honour by Agilulf and Theodelinda, and founded a monastery at Bobbio. At the request of his Lombard patrons, he wrote to Boniface IV on the controversy of the Three Articles. His knowledge of the question was very small: he had been possessed with opinions contrary to those of the Roman bishops respecting it; and perhaps this difference of views, together with the noted impetuosity of his character, might have led to serious disagreements, but that the danger was prevented by Columban's death in 615. In the preceding year he had refused an invitation from Clotaire II, who had become sole king of France, to return to his old abode at Luxeuil.

Both Luxeuil and Bobbio became the parents of many monasteries in other quarters. But the most celebrated of Columban's followers was his countryman Gall, who had been his pupil from boyhood, and had accompanied him in all his fortunes, until compelled by illness to remain behind when his master passed into Italy. Gall founded in the year 614 the famous monastery which bears his name, and is honoured as the apostle of Switzerland. He died in 627.

 

 

CHAPTER II.

MAHOMET.—THE MONOTHELITE CONTROVERSY.

A.D. 610-718.