CRISTO RAUL. READING HALL THE DOORS OF WISDOM

THE HISTORY OF THE POPES

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF POPE GREGORY I THE GREAT. A.D. 540 – 604

BOOK INTRODUCTORY

I.

GREGORY AND HIS AGE

IF the title “Great”, applied to an historical personage, may be rightly defined as implying the combination of high moral purpose with commanding ability, so used as to affect extensively the history of mankind, such title has not been without cause assigned to the first Pope Gregory. In all cases favorable circumstances are of course required, that the result may be actual, not mere potential, greatness. There must be suitable environments for the development and display of all high and influential life. Gregory might have lived and died with no renown beyond that of ascetic saintliness, had not circumstances called him when they did from his monastery to the highest seat in Christendom; and even there in a less eventful age his great qualities might not have found their adequate field for exercise. He stands out on the page of history as a striking instance of a remarkable man, at a remarkable time, being placed by Providence in a position peculiarly suitable for the exercise of his powers. The position was not of his own seeking; he shrank from it; he would fain have declined it altogether; greatness, in the sense of great estate, was “thrust upon” him; but, when it came, he showed himself at once worthy of it. And it is to be observed, that, though he sought it not, yet in one sense he himself "achieved" it, inasmuch as it was his acknowledged and peculiar fitness that caused all concerned in his elevation to force its acceptance upon him.

A brief preliminary sketch of the position of the Church, and especially of the Roman see, in relation to the world at the time of St. Gregory's accession, and of the causes that had led up to the existing state of things, will assist our understanding of his field of work.

At the close of the sixth century, when the first Gregory became pope, Paganism had long virtually disappeared from the Roman Empire; it was no longer a power to be considered, though it still lingered extensively, especially in country places, in spite of repression; Christianity was everywhere maintained and dominant. The emperors too, whether orthodox or heretical, had long taken a warm interest in church affairs, had summoned councils, promulgated and enforced their decrees; and, however morally corrupt society in high places might be, its atmosphere had been impregnated with theology. The result had been, among other things, a large advance in the importance of the hierarchy, and especially of the great patriarchal sees; but at the same time (in the East at least) increasing subservience to the imperial power, which, while treating prelates with much external respect, had been in the habit of dictating to them in fact, commanding their elevation or deposition, and at times trenching more or less even on their spiritual prerogatives by assuming to itself a kind of priestly power.

The controversies that had been the peculiar feature of Church history in the preceding centuries had furthered these results. The need felt for centers of unity and support against the aggressions of heretical speculation; the importance accruing to bishops, and especially to metropolitans and patriarchs, to whom in synod and general council the definition of the faith had been consigned, had enhanced the dignity of the episcopal order, while, on the other hand, the somewhat imperious attitude of the emperors in connection with such controversies and councils,—the latter being convened by their sole authority, controlled by them during their sittings, and dependent on them for ratification and the enforcement of their decrees—, had at the same time advanced imperialism. And, further, however important for all future time were the dogmatic decisions of that age of conflict, its immediate effects were likely to be demoralizing, as they certainly were replete with ill blood and discord. When the leaders of the Church had so long been habitually occupied in bitter controversy, dealing anathemas against each other, deposing and being deposed, their very councils often scenes of violence; when Christian communities were divided into parties, often fighting to bloodshed for rival tenets, or in support of rival bishops; when salvation had come to be regarded as dependent on accurate definitions of nice points of mysterious doctrine far more than on charity or holiness of life: the effects were necessarily disastrous to the peace and morality of the Church at large. It is to be observed, however, that throughout the period referred to the see of Rome had occupied a peculiar position, and been much less affected either by imperial domination or by doctrinal conflict than the patriarchates of the East. The tendency of events had been in fact to aggrandize exceptionally, and give a sort of sacred luster to, the occupants of St. Peter’s chair. With regard to the great controversies that had so embittered and divided the Church, the West had been comparatively free from them, and the popes had taken but little part in them; but they had with one or two temporary exceptions supported uniformly the cause of orthodoxy; they had countenanced and protected orthodox prelates who had fled to them under persecution; they had been represented, though not present, in all the general councils held in the East to define the faith, and had ratified their decrees; they had often been able to defy emperors who favored heresy with a spirit and success little known in the more subservient East, and thus advancing their claims to be, as St. Peter's successors, the unfailing guardians of Apostolical tradition, and assumed a headship over all the Churches, which though by no means universally acknowledged, had gained extensive credence.

A.

THE GROWTH OF THE PAPAL CLAIMS.

Political events had also favored the independence and influence of the Roman see. The removal of the seat of empire from Rome to Constantinople by Constantine had, from the very commencement of the State's acknowledgment of Christianity, left the bishops of the old city free from the depressing domination of a court from which their Eastern rivals continually suffered. Freedom was further secured, during the periods when there was a Western as well as an Eastern emperor, by the removal of the residence of the former under Honorius (AD 404) to Ravenna. Rome itself had, indeed, long before this removal ceased to be the usual residence of the emperors. Since the beginning of the reign of Diocletian (277) they had held their court at Milan.

In such circumstances the importance of the popes had, since the time of Constantine, gone on increasing; to their acknowledged spiritual position as the occupants of the first see in Christendom, the representatives of St. Peter, the sole great patriarchs of the West, was added a temporal position of no mean importance. As the most influential potentates in the ancient imperial city, supported by the spiritual allegiance of the West, they had been enabled, though still subjects of the emperors, to hold their own against them in ecclesiastical matters with success, and were a power which had to be counted on by the State.

The invasions of the Roman empire by barbarian hordes, which had been the most important historical event of a century or two before the time of Gregory, being destined to found a new Europe on the ruins of old Roman civilization, had further strengthened the Papal power, and opened the way for its development The most memorable of these invasions,— those which resulted in the capture of Rome itself—, had been confronted by popes of singular eminence, who more than any others asserted and advanced the prerogatives of the Holy See.

Innocent I was pope when (AD 410) Rome fell into the hands of Alaric the Goth; Leo the Great when Attila the Hun (452) and Genseric the Vandal (455) were the successive conquerors. Each event, however notoriously disastrous, left the Church, and the see of Rome, in a higher position than before. The first accomplished the breaking up and dispersion of the old Roman families which had been the props of ancient heathenism, and the demolition of the ancient temples, afterwards left in ruins or converted into churches; it was regarded as a divine judgment on old heathen, rather than on Christian, Rome, especially as the Gothic invaders, being Christians though Arians, had singularly respected places and persons of Christian sanctity: and Innocent, who had been providentially absent (not through cowardice, but on a mission of duty,) during the siege and capture, when he returned to the city after the departure of the invaders, found himself in a position of singular eminence. He was henceforth without rival the greatest man in Rome; the head and organizer of a new Christian Rome rising out of the ruins of devastated heathen Rome; both his character and his conduct during the crisis, and his position afterwards, enhanced his prestige and his power in proportion as those of the weak emperor

Honorius, timidly inefficient at Ravenna, had decayed. Then, when Attila with his heathen Huns seemed to have Italy and Rome at his feet, it had been neither emperor nor general, but Pope Leo to whom the sole glory had accrued of checking him in his career of conquest, and, apparently in a great measure through a feeling of superstitious awe, inducing him to retire. And when, soon afterwards, the Arian Vandal Genseric devastated Rome, it was the same great pope who alone obtained some mi­tigation of the horrors of the conquest; and when that storm too had passed away, it left the Western Empire wounded to the death, but the see of Rome with its prestige and its luster unimpaired.

Only fifteen years after the death of Pope Leo, the Western Empire expired in Augustulus, and the Herulian Odoacer, and after him Theodoric the Ostrogoth, both Arian Christians, became rulers in the West. Under such rule it might have been expected that the head of Western Catholicity would suffer an eclipse. But it was not so. These princes were peculiarly tolerant, treated the Catholic clergy, and especially the pope, with respect, and in no way evinced any desire to interfere in Church affairs, except, when called upon, to rectify flagrant abuses attending elections to the popedom. Under this rule it was that Felix III, and his successors for more than forty years, had been able to defy emperors and patriarchs, in the matter of Acacius, and to renounce communion with the whole Eastern Church. Under the same rule Pope Hormisdas had at length dictated his own terms of communion to the East, and, with the aid of the orthodox Emperor Justin, ended the schism in a way that was, on the whole, a striking triumph to the Apostolic See.

B.

THE THREE CHAPTERS.

The reconquest of Italy for Justinian by Belisarius (536) had, however, brought about a change in the relation of the popes to the State, and been followed, in fact, by a period of unusual humiliation to the papal chair. Religious zeal in high places, combined with principles of oriental despotism, soon proved a bad exchange for the indifference or the tolerance of the Arian ruler. The Eastern emperors had long been accustomed to ecclesiastical domination over the patriarchs and prelates in their own domain,— domination the more humiliating for the female influ­ence and court intrigues that too often were elements in its exercise—, and the bishops of Rome were now to be in like manner treated as vassals. The story is well known of the reigning pope, Silverius, after the entry of Belisarius into Rome, being peremptorily summoned to the bedchamber of Antonina, the wife of the general, and the confidante of the Empress Theodora, who, sitting on her bed with her husband at her feet, ordered then and there his deposition and banishment. It is well known too how, after this, Vigilius was, by command of Theodora, uncanonically made pope by Belisarius, on the understanding that, in return for his elevation and for a large bribe received, he should profess the Monophysite creed, which that empress favored. In these transactions Justinian himself was not personally concerned; but the very fact that they could take place without his cognizance shows only the more clearly to what degradation the immediate supremacy of a corrupt court might reduce the Church. He, however, in his own orthodox way, was also arbitrary enough, and, to whatever extent his legislation might benefit the clergy, he had no idea of even popes resisting his imperial will: especially as he himself prided himself on being a theologian. Having issued in 544, on his own authority, an edict condemning as heretical the writings (called the Three Chapters) of three deceased prelates, Theodore of Mopsuesta, Theodoret, and Ibas (though the two last had been expressly acquitted of heresy by the Council of Chalcedon), he peremptorily summoned to Constantinople Vigilius, who, along with the bishops of the West, had refused to join in the condemnation. Thrice, under pressure and contumelious usage, the unhappy pope complied, and thrice recanted. The fifth Ecumenical Council (553) which, under the emperor's dictation, condemned the three Chapters, he not only refused to attend, but also issued a defense of the writings condemned; but afterwards, in spite of his protest, accepted its decrees. He cut but a sorry figure throughout: his commencement was disgraceful; he wavered between independence and subservience during his subsequent career. His successor Pelagius, though he had previously with Vigilius defended the three Chapters, also assented after his accession to their condemnation; for which assent his authority was repudiated by several Western Churches. Between Pelagius and Gregory came the three popes, John III, Benedict I, and Pelagius II, whose reigns were singularly obscure and uneventful.

The blight of imperialism at this time dimmed the lustre of the great Roman see. Events had, however, in the meantime occurred which, while they greatly increased, in many respects, the difficulties of Gregory's position, at any rate had again relieved his see from the pressure of imperial despotism.

The Lombards had already crossed the Alps and gained possession of Northern Italy: at the time of Gregory's accession they threatened Rome, while the Emperor at Constantinople was cowed and powerless. None of the barbarian invaders of Italy have been painted by their contemporaries in such black colors as the Lombards. Their invasion was worse than that even of the hideous heathen Huns; for it was not merely that of a savage army that came and departed; it was the migration of a savage people, with their wives and families, taking savage possession of the country. Arians like the Goths, they do not appear to have had their reverence for Christian sanctities. They are said to have destroyed churches, violated virgins, spread round them devastation and terror. There may be exaggeration by the writers of the time, actuated by fear and indignation, of the enormities of their character and conduct; but such is the picture given of them. It was mainly the misery and the disorganization caused by them to which we may probably attribute the then prevalent belief, often expressed by Gregory himself, that the end of all things was approaching: it was the panic and desperation induced by their approach that caused all classes at Rome, recognizing in their need the character of Gregory, to fix on him as the only man for steering the bark of St. Peter through the storm.

C.

THE RISE OF THE EUROPEAN NATIONS.

Such was the political state of things when St. Gregory took the helm—a state of things of especial importance in this respect, that now was the period of transition from the old order to the new; from the Church under the wing of the old Roman Empire christianized, to the Church exercising independent sway from Rome over nations of new blood and new institutions which were forming themselves throughout Europe; from imperialism to the mediaeval papacy. Gregory lived at a critical time in this eventful period; a time when the Western empire had just expired and the Eastern was languishing; and when the new nations were notably gaining power and position; and it was, humanly speaking, due especially to him that the system of papal monarchy, already contemplated and prepared for by an Innocent and a Leo, took definite and lasting form.

At this time many of the Teutonic nations who were destined to constitute Christian Europe had already been more or less converted; but all except the Franks had at first or subsequently adopted Arianism. This important exception was due to Clovis, king of the Salian Franks, influenced by his queen, Clotilda (a Catholic Burgundian princess), and by a vow made at the battle of Tolbiacum (Zülpich, A.D. 496), having adopted Catholicism (being baptized by St. Remigius, bishop of Rheims), and having been followed by his subjects. Afterwards, owing partly to the example and influence of this preponderating race, others had also professed orthodoxy: the Burgundians, under their king, Sigismund (517); the Suevi, under their kings, Carrarich (550-559) and Theodemir (559-569); the Visigoths in Spain, under their king, Reccared, at the Council of Toledo (589). Since the Ostrogothic kingdom in Upper Italy, and the Vandalic in Western Africa, had been destroyed under Justinian, Arianism had also lost its hold in these territories. But the terrible Lombards, who now occupied a great part of Northern Italy and threatened the South, were still Arians. Even there, however, it was not long before Catholicity obtained a footing, through the influence of a Catholic queen, as will be seen hereafter. Orthodox churches existed in Britain and Ireland, though in Britain now driven, since the Saxon invasion (449), into the mountains of Wales, Cornwall, and the north of the island.

With regard to the authority of the Bishop of Rome—when St. Gregory took the reins—claimed or acknowledged, over the above-mentioned and other parts of the Christian world, it was of three kinds:—1st, episcopal; 2ndly, metropolitan; 3rdly, patriarchal.

His episcopate comprised only the city of Rome; as metropolitan he had oversight of the seven suffragan, afterwards called cardinal, bishops of the Roman territory, those of Ostia, Portus, Silva Candida, Sabina, Praeneste, Tusculum, and Albanum; his patriarchate seems to have originally extended (according to Rufinus, the ecclesiastical historian, writing towards the end of the fourth century) over the suburban provinces which were under the civil jurisdiction of the vicarius urbis, including Upper Italy, with the islands of Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica. But being the only patriarch in the West, he had in fact claimed and exercised jurisdiction as such beyond these original limits, including in this way all the four vicariates into which the praefecture of Italy was politically divided; not that of Rome only, but those also of Northern Italy, with its centre at Milan, Western Illyricum, with its capital at Sirmium, and Western Africa, with its capital at Carthage.

In the last-named region the popes had indeed in past times (notably in the time of Cyprian) succeeded very imperfectly in their assertions of authority; but after the oppressive domination of the Arian Vandals, the Catholics there, delivered by Justinian's conquest, AD 534, readily admitted the spiritual suzerainty of Rome.

Eastern Illyricum too, though annexed by the Emperor Gratian (379), when he divided Illyria, to the Eastern Empire, having during the Arian disputes belonged to the Western, and having been faithful to the Nicene faith, had, after the separation, turned itself to Rome rather than to Constantinople; and the popes Damasus and Siricius had taken advantage of the opportunity to assign to the bishops of Thessalonica patriarchal jurisdiction over the new praefecture as vicars of the Roman see. And this relation of East Illyria to Rome had become afterwards an accomplished fact.

In Gaul also, while still under imperial rule, the popes had long exercised spiritual authority. Disputes having arisen between the bishops of Aries and Vienne, Pope Zozimus had, as early as A.D. 417, assigned metropolitan rights to the former, making the bishop of Aries vicar of the Apostolic See, as the bishop of Thessalonica had been made in Illyria. Subsequent popes had maintained this arrangement, though not always without resistance on the part of the Gallican bishops. Further, beyond any limits that can be definitely assigned, the influence of the bishops of Rome extended.

At whatever date their claim to a sort of jurisdiction over the whole Church Catholic, as successors of the Prince of the Apostles, began, and however unknown such authority might be in more primitive times, the claim had long been made. Synodical decrees and imperial edicts had been used to support such extended jurisdiction. The Western council of Sardica (347) had accorded to the then pope, Julius, the power of sending judges to hear on the spot the appeals of condemned bishops, at any rate throughout the West; and the successors of Julius had quoted the canons of this council erroneously as those of Nice, and as empowering the popes in perpetuity to summon cases from all parts to be heard at Rome.

Further, during the ecclesiastical disputes in Gaul about the jurisdiction of Arles in the time of Pope Leo I, the Emperor Valentinian had made a law constituting the pope supreme head of the whole Western Church, with power to summon bishops from all parts to abide his judgments. In the East (except in the case of bishops courting the support of Rome against oppression) such claims had indeed been ever resisted, but even there the preeminence, as distinct from the jurisdiction, of the see of old Rome, was recognized.

And elsewhere, though with varying degrees of independence, the barbaric conquerors of Europe naturally regarded with peculiar reverence the prelate of the old Eternal City, the one great Western patriarch, the representative (as they had been taught) of the Prince of the Apostles, to whom the keys of the kingdom of heaven had been committed. With what watchfulness and judgment Gregory cultivated, as he had opportunity, the ground thus being prepared for the future harvest, as well as reformed and consolidated the part of the Church already under his fuller sway, will appear as his life goes on.

D.

THE RISE OF MONASTICISM.

For an understanding of the religious tone of the age of Gregory, as well as that of his own character, the rise and prevalence of monasticism must be taken into account. The system, having been introduced in the fourth century from the East, which was its original home, into the West, and having been encouraged and upheld from its outset by such distinguished men as St. Athanasius, St. Jerome, St. Ambrose, and St. Augustine, soon made extraordinary progress through the whole of Western Christendom, and had become universally recognized as that of the highest Christian life.

While it had doubtless afforded scope for many saintly aspirations for which the turmoil and vices of ordinary society were often too little favorable, it had also fostered much fanaticism and credulity. It had withdrawn from direct service to their fellow-men hosts of devotees, who saw the only sure road to heaven in seclusion, excessive fasting, and self-inflicted pain, and who often proved themselves capable of wild fanatical violence; it had peopled the deserts, in the imagination of men, with miraculous visitations, ministering angels, and multitudes of assaulting devils; it had also encouraged a number of roving idlers, who covered idleness and sometimes sensuality with the cloak of saintliness; but, on the other hand, it had offered to many a field for purity and undisturbed devotion, combined in many cases with manual industry and charitable deeds; and it had impressed the corrupt society of the age with the sense of there being higher aims for man than eating and drinking, worldly ambition and enjoyment.

A new impulse and form had now been quite recently given to the system by Benedict of Nursia (born 480), who, by way of reforming the abuses and disorder into which it had fallen, had founded the great Benedictine order, and established (AD 529) his famous Monastery on Monte Cassino. The principles of monasticism, and the influence of this great reformer, had taken deep hold on the mind of Gregory, affecting his whole character and modes of thought. The first monk who had ascended the papal chair, he remained one in heart throughout his life; while, both in his actions and his writings, he did much towards advancing the system, and especially towards giving a fixed and permanent form to the conceptions about the spiritual world—the mythology (so to speak) of mediaeval Christendom—which, springing mainly from the imaginations and visions of secluded enthusiasts, passed into the general creed of men.

With regard to the general moral condition of Christian society, it is usual, and not without reason, to represent it very unfavorably. The grossly corrupt civilization of the Roman empire had undoubtedly been an unpropitious field for the ameliorating influences of Christianity. The records of the preceding centuries of Christian imperialism leave on the mind a painful impression of religion taking the form of violent zeal for rival tenets rather than of charity and holiness; of vice and cruelty in Christian emperors and their surroundings; of intrigue and corruption in high places; of ambitious and violent prelates; of bloody conflicts between rival religious parties; of general corruption and disorder. The picture is not relieved when we turn to what is told us of the barbaric nations who had received the Gospel. There, however, it was not to be expected that its softening and sanctifying influences would be immediate or rapid; and we may be less surprised in reading of prevalent immorality and violence.

Of the monks, too, the theory of whose vocation was the attainment of a higher sanctity, and many of whom had doubtless taken to seclusion as a refuge from prevailing evils,—of them, too, we hear at times no flattering account from contemporary writers. We find evidence on the one hand of wild fanaticism, on the other (in the West especially) of indolence and mendicancy. The frequent decrees of synods against monastic irregularities are in themselves signs of a state of things that called for continual correction; and it was, in fact, the disorganization of the system that caused St. Benedict to attempt reform by the introduction of his rule, which provided, among other things, for a year's probation of novices, for continuance under regular discipline of such as were finally admitted, and the division of their time into fixed periods for devotion, study, and labor. The tone of some monastic communities before his reform may be gathered from an incident of his earlier life. While living as a hermit, he was invited by some neighboring monks whose abbacy was vacant to accept the post. He did so after warning them that he would not be able to endure their manners; but before long returned to his solitude on finding that, offended by his strictness, they were attempting to poison him.

Those, however, draw a hasty and erroneous conclusion who, from the generally black colors of the picture presented to us by the records of the time, would infer the absence of true Christian life from either the cloister or society at large. Common history deals with striking and prominent events, with characters and acts that come to the top and make a noise in their day; and these, in times of conflict and disorganization, are apt to be of the violent, and often atrocious order.

The quiet, unobtrusive virtues, those which it is the peculiar function of the Gospel to foster and to invest with dignity, may all the time be flourishing beneath the unobtrusive surface, and doing their silent work. History, occupied with more stirring topics, may pass them by; they lie outside the scope of satirists; divines, “vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked”, and intent on reproving sin, may depreciate them in their day, or leave scant notice of them in their writings; such evidences of them as do remain in the contemporary literature that has come down may not be perceived by ordinary readers, struck more by the eventful and the thrilling: but that the principles of a genuine Christianity were by no means so rare as has been sometimes supposed; that the dews of grace watered many a region, fruitful of piety and active charity, protesting against, rebuking, and mitigating the evils of the time, may be concluded, not only from such principles being openly preached and acknowledged by all in theory, but also from notices that have been preserved of saintly persons and saintly deeds.

St. Benedict was not the first monk of his age who had striven after holiness; he could not have gained the influence he did, had he not represented a class of devotees with aspirations corresponding to his own. St. Gregory and his family, which seems to have consisted of excellent Christians, were but specimens of what probably existed more widely than has been by some supposed, though he himself, through his talents and opportunities, towered above his age. His correspondence also shows that there were not a few who sympathized with him in his genuine piety, and responded to his appeals to their charity. And, again, with respect to the Christian nations of barbaric origin, it may be observed that even Gibbon, little inclined in general to overrate the benefits of the Gospel, owns its effects for good upon them, both in softening their existing barbarism, and in being pregnant with results in the future.

Nor can we contemplate the zealous and successful work of missionaries among these nations without recognizing large wells of living water in the churches that sent them forth. So much it has seemed true and just to say with regard to the religion and morality of the age preceding that of Gregory and that in which he worked, which there may have been a tendency in some quarters to depreciate unduly. Whether or not the religion of the period wore in all respects the complexion which we in our day most approve—whether or not it was tinged with error, credulity, and superstition—is not the question that has been before us. Genuine faith and genuine religion may at times assume distorted or even grotesque forms: the things themselves retain their true nature in spite of form.

BOOK INTRODUCTORY.

II.

BIRTH AND PARENTAGE.