CRISTO RAUL. READING HALL THE DOORS OF WISDOM |
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THE HISTORY OF THE POPES |
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THE LIFE AND TIMES OF POPE GREGORY I THE GREAT. A.D. 540 – 604
BOOK INTRODUCTORY.
SEPARATION BETWEEN MONKS AND CLERGY
BEFORE proceeding further to note in order the leading
events of Gregory's episcopate, let us take a general view of the manner of his
administration, especially with regard to discipline, selecting in illustration
a few salient instances.
He was no less diligent from the beginning of his
reign in correcting abuses among the orthodox monks and clergy, in Italy and
elsewhere, than in his attempts to suppress heresy. It is to be observed that
at that time the distinction was marked between the monastic and clerical
orders. The exercise of clerical functions was accounted inconsistent with the
seclusion of monastic life. Gregory himself had indeed, though a monk, been
ordained deacon by Pope Benedict in order to qualify him for his mission to Constantinople,
and as a deacon he returned to his monastery. But monks, as such, were laymen.
The whole theory of the monastic life as conceived by
Gregory was that those devoted to it should be secluded from the world with all
its affairs and temptations, should live altogether in the spiritual sphere,
engaged in reading, prayer, and heavenly contemplation; thus alone could the
closest communication with Heaven be attained, and the way of salvation secured
from risk; and with such a life holy orders were considered as inconsistent as
purely secular occupations were, for they were understood then as necessarily
involving pastoral responsibility, and intercourse with the world. A priest
might, indeed, become a monk, as was the case with the great father of
monasticism in the West, St. Jerome; but in this case he must cease to
officiate as a priest, even within his convent, for priestly responsibility was
one thing, the monastic life another. Gregory showed the importance he
attached to this theory by ordering, after his accession, that no monk after
ordination should be allowed to remain in his monastery, and no priest to enter
one except to perform necessary priestly offices, or become a monk without
relinquishing clerical ministrations. He also promoted the system, which proved
in after-ages of such practical importance, of exempting monasteries from
episcopal superintendence, to which they had originally been always subject,
and which had been insisted on by a canon of the Council of Chalcedon. In many
cases indeed he directed bishops to correct the irregularities of monks
according to the old system, but in others forbade them to celebrate mass in
person within the walls of convents, to ordain their inmates without the abbat’s leave, to interfere with their revenues or require
an account of them, or to burden them by demanding entertainment. In particular
instances he exempted convents from all episcopal interference, except for
ordaining abbats chosen by the monks, or
commissioning priests to say mass when required. He seems to have become more
adverse to the old system as his experience grew; for lastly, in the Lateran
Council held under him, AD 601, he issued a general decree to all bishops,
confirming the liberties of monasteries everywhere, and exempting them in all
respects from episcopal control. He also was active in correcting the
prevailing irregularities of monks, which Benedict's reform had failed to
extirpate. A great number of his letters, addressed to various persons in
various places, are on this subject. In some cases he animadverts on the
wandering habits of monks, or their relapse to secular life, or even to the
enormity of marriage; in others, on the evils arising in convents from the
laxity or the undue severity of abbats. To one abbat he writes: "As the careless remissness of thy
deceased predecessor saddened us, so thy solicitude rejoices us. Restrain
therefore those who are committed to thee from gluttony, pride, avarice, vain
discourse, and all uncleanness. In which correction know that this order is to
be observed, that thou love the persons but persecute their vices, lest, shouldest
thou act otherwise, correction pass into cruelty, and thou ruin those whom thou desirest to amend."
As an instance of laxity of discipline, a case occurs
where the monks were in the habit of leaving their convent and wandering where
they pleased whenever their abbat attempted to
enforce the rule. Of one way in which severe discipline might be exercised we
find a curious instance in St. Gregory's Dialogues, where he tells us of a
saintly monk called Libertinus, whom his superior in
a fit of anger, not having a rod “at hand, beat over the head and face with a
footstool till he was black and blue. In this case the discipline had no bad
moral effect on the sufferer, but the contrary; for with exemplary patience he
submitted without complaint, and being afterwards asked how his face had come
into so sad a plight, showed his regard at once to his superior and to truth by
replying, "Yesterday, for my sins, I came in contact with a footstool, and
suffered this”.
VENANTIUS.
Among the letters in connection with monasticism are
some to Venantius, a noble Roman, who had given up monastic life and married.
He pleads with him in most urgent strains to return, reminding him, among other
things, that if Ananias was struck dead for abstracting money due to God, much
sorer judgment must be due to one who has abstracted himself. He failed,
however, in his attempt to reclaim him, and was unable, or unwilling, in this
case to insist on the rule in other cases laid down of requiring such renegades
to return under pain of excommunication, for he afterwards carried on a
friendly correspondence with him, sent compliments to his daughters, and
sympathized with him under an attack of gout. In one of his letters he refers
to a serious quarrel between Venantius and his bishop, in the course of which
the armed retainers of the former had made an attack on one Episcopius,
and the bishop had repelled him from communion. Gregory on this occasion wrote
in a very courteous and conciliatory tone to his noble friend, whom, from
personal regard, or desire of keeping up influence over him, or from both
motives combined, he seems anxious not to offend, excusing the conduct of the
bishop, and exhorting to reconciliation. He also desired the bishop, in a letter
addressed to him, to condone the offence of Venantius, and to allow masses to
be celebrated in his house as had been done before the quarrel, and even to
officiate in person if desired. But, while he thus bore with the noble
renegade, he never gave up the hope of reclaiming him at last to the
fulfillment of his early vows, for, on hearing of his dangerous illness in the
year 601, he wrote to John, bishop of Syracuse, desiring him to press the
subject on the dying man:— "The first care which your holiness must not
neglect is to bid him think of his soul, exhorting him, imploring him, putting
before him the terrible judgment of God, and promising him His unspeakable
mercy, that he may return, even at the last hour, to the monastic life, lest
the guilt of so great a fault stand against him in the eternal judgment."
In the same letter, with characteristic tenderness, he shows equal solicitude
for the two daughters of his friend, Barbara and Antonina, now about to be left
orphans, whom as being likely from some cause to be involved in difficulties,
the father had commended to the Pope's protection. To them, also, his “most
sweet daughters”, he wrote a tender, fatherly letter, which is worth quoting at
length:—“Having received your letter, which speaks in tears rather than in
words, I am affected no less than you, most beloved daughters, by grief for
your father’s illness, for we cannot regard as extraneous the sadness which has
been made our own by the law of charity. But, since in no despair is the
compassion of our Redeemer to be distrusted, cheer up your spirits for your
father’s comfort, and place all your hope in the hand of Almighty God. And we
trust in His protection that He will guard you from all adversity, and cheer
your tribulation, and mercifully grant your affairs to be arranged according to
your father’s desires. But should he pay the debt of humanity, let not any
despair overwhelm you, nor the words of any person terrify you, for, after God,
who is the governor and protector of orphans, we will be so solicitous for your
necessities, and, with God's help, to hasten to provide as we can for your
interests, that no attempts of unjust men may disturb you, that we may repay in
all things the debt we owe to the goodness of your parents. So may heavenly grace
nourish you with its favor, defend you by its protection from all evils, so
that the happiness of your life may be our joy”.
The above account of Gregory’s correspondence
with and about Venantius has involved some digression from the subject
immediately before us, viz. his measures with respect to monks and monasteries,
but it seemed too interesting to be passed by, bringing out as it does the
considerateness and tenderness of the man, never quenched by ascetic theories.
Considering his severe view of the sinfulness of the marriage of Venantius,
there is something peculiarly graceful in his passing allusion to their
deceased mother in his letter to the sorrowing daughter, when he speaks of the
goodness to himself of both their parents.
NUNNERIES: SANCTITY OF MARRIAGE.
Nunneries also, which were not always what they should
have been, received an equal share of his attention. In some cases nuns had
left their convent, and even married: such he orders to be sent back to
seclusion and penance, and all who should obstruct their return to be
excommunicated. We find allusions to scandals, in one instance from a medical
man having been allowed access to a nunnery. Some bishops are reproved for not
looking better after the state of the female communities under their jurisdiction;
in other cases he protects such communities from interference with their rights
or endowments.
There is, however, no sufficient reason from his
letters to conclude that abuses of the kind complained of were the general rule
in convents, though there was evidently a liability to them, and they not
unfrequently occurred. In one of his letters he objects strongly to a scheme
that was afoot of founding a monastery of men in the neighborhood of a female
one, which shows his sense of the inconveniences that might attend such an
arrangement. The following are among the regulations he made for the rectifying
of abuses, some of which show what good sense modified his monastic zeal. No
man was to become a monk under eighteen years of age; two years of probation
were always to be required (Benedict's rule having required only one year),
and, in the case of soldiers, three years; no married person was to be received
unless both the man and wife were willing to embrace the monastic life. He
spoke strongly on this last point, showing how clearly, notwithstanding his
monastic predilections, he recognized the sanctity of marriage.
“For”, he writes on one occasion, “when two have been
made one flesh by the bond of marriage, it is incongruous that one part should
be converted, and the other part remain in the world”.
Again, “If any say that marriages ought to be
dissolved for the sake of religion, let them know that, though human law has
allowed this, yet divine law has forbidden it. For the Truth Himself says,
‘Those whom God hath joined together, let not man put asunder’. Who then may
contradict this heavenly legislator? For we know how it is written, ‘They two
shall be one flesh’.”
In one instance he ordered a husband who had gone into
a monastery without his wife's consent to be immediately sent back to her, even
though he should have received the tonsure. He further laid down the rule that
not even an abbat was to leave his convent except on
urgent occasions, and no one ever alone; that no monk or nun should retain any
private possession; that no young woman was to be made an abbess, and none
"veiled" (i.e. finally and irrevocably consecrated by solemn ceremony
to virginity) under sixty years of age. Forty appears to have been the previous
limit of age fixed by canons of councils.
Further, in order to secure to the monastic
communities the freedom from worldly cares which the theory of their life
required, he was careful to provide them with endowments, and to protect them
in the possession of such as had been assigned to them by bequests or
otherwise. He contributed largely from the revenues of “the patrimony” for this
purpose, in some cases causing monasteries to be rebuilt and refounded; and in Corsica, where before his time there had
been none, founding new ones. He evinced his accustomed attention to details in
reference to such matters, laying down accurately the amount and sources of
revenue to be enjoyed by various communities: assigning, for instance, to a
nunnery in one case, as a condition of the bishop being allowed to consecrate
it, a revenue of ten solidi free of taxes, together with three male servants,
three yoke of oxen, five slaves, ten mares, ten cows, a prescribed number of
vines, forty sheep &c, “according to custom”.
APPOINTMENT OF BISHOPS.
The state of the clergy called for and received equal
attention with that of the monastic orders. In the exercise of his patriarchal
jurisdiction we find him rebuking and sometimes deposing bishops, writing them
letters of direction and advice, appointing commissions to inquire into charges
against them, and to take action during the vacancy of sees. On the death of a
bishop, the visitor appointed by him for the purpose was to see to the
canonical election of a successor by clergy and people, and to his fitness for
the office. Fitness consisted in such points as these:—he must be already in
Holy Orders, not bound to any secular office, free from bodily defects, of good
life and conversation, well-versed in Holy Scripture, and especially the
Psalms, benevolent and charitable; not a youth, or one who had married a second
wife or a widow, or who had young children. He was to be chosen from among the
clergy of the church he was to rule, if a proper candidate could be found among
them, but not otherwise. Above all things simony in all forms was to be
strictly forbidden, nor were powerful persons to be allowed to influence
elections. The election having been made, Gregory still reserved to himself the
right of granting or withholding confirmation, and there were many cases in
which he withheld it. For example, in 591 he directs Severus, whom he had
appointed visitor of the Church of Ariminum during a
vacancy, to disallow an election that had been made, without giving any
definite reason, and to require the inhabitants either to select a more fit
candidate, or to appoint the person indicated by himself. In 595, two persons
having been chosen for the bishopric of Naples by two parties in the church
there, he rejects both; one because he had a young daughter, the other because
he was too “simple” for the post, and because he was reported to have given his
money on usury. He directs, however, the charges against the second candidate
to be more fully inquired into, but requires the Neapolitans to nominate a
third person for consecration, in the event of these charges being established.
In some cases, when the Lombard invasion had caused
episcopal cities to be insecure or depopulated, he authorized the transference
or amalgamation of sees. With one metropolitan, John of Ravenna, he had a long
dispute about the use of the pallium. This article of ecclesiastical costume,
sent by the popes to metropolitans by way of connecting them and their
jurisdiction with the see of Rome, was worn by them ordinarily in the
celebration of Mass only. John wore it on other occasions, pleading the ancient
custom of the Church of Ravenna. Gregory denied any authorization from Rome of
this custom, which he regarded as savoring of pride, and forbade its
continuance. John, however, though writing to the pope with the utmost respect,
persisted till his death. His successor, Marinianus (who had been a monk with
Gregory at St. Andrew’s in Rome) continued the contest, which was at length compromised
by his being allowed to wear the pallium as formerly on four great festivals
during the year. In Sicily, where great laxity seems to have prevailed, there
had been no metropolitan, the bishops having been directly subject to the
bishop of Rome. There at first a general supervision of the Church was
committed to the subdeacon Peter, who had been sent as “ruler of the
patrimony”; and afterwards Maximinianus, bishop of Syracuse (Gregory’s
predecessor in the abbacy of St. Andrew’s), was made the Pope’s vicar for
ecclesiastical purposes, and had the pallium sent him, but on the understanding
that the vicariate should not be considered as permanently attached to his see.
In 596 John, who succeeded Maximinianus, had the same jurisdiction, with the
pallium, assigned to him. The Sicilian bishops, who were nine in number, had
been required by Pope Leo to visit the threshold of the Apostles, each once in
three years. Gregory, in the interest, we may suppose, of their dioceses,
substituted five years for three. But, while he thus claimed and exercised such
large powers of supervision and discipline over bishops and metropolitans, he was
careful to respect and defend their traditional rights, to allow them
ordinarily free action when once appointed, and never unnecessarily to
interfere with their canonical election. Writing in 592 to Dominicus of
Carthage, in Africa, where (as has been seen) some jealousy of his interference
was felt, he thus expresses his principles in this regard:—
“But as to what your fraternity has written about
ecclesiastical privileges, have no doubt whatever about this, that, as we
defend our own rights, so we preserve those of every single Church. I neither
grant to any one, through favor, more than he has a claim to, nor, through
ambition, derogate from the just rights of any: but I desire to honor my
brethren in all respects, but that each should be so honored that his rights be
not opposed to those of another”.
It would be highly unjust to accuse Pope Gregory
of a policy of aggression in his ecclesiastical government. Whether or not the
large powers he claimed were in accordance with the primitive constitution of
the Church is not the question before us. All we say is that they were such as
he sincerely believed to belong to St. Peter’s see, and such as popes had
claimed before him, though none had brought them to bear with equal power and
system. And it cannot be doubted that he used them so as to benefit the Church
at large. Nor is his tone ever harsh or domineering. One old bishop (Januarius
of Cagliari, in Sardinia) he spares on account of his grey hairs, though he
seems to have been a very unsatisfactory character. There are many letters to
him or about him. He was culpably remiss in looking after the female convents;
he charged exorbitant burial fees; on one occasion he had on Sunday before mass
reaped a neighbor’s crop, and after officiating had returned to remove his
landmark. For this last offence Gregory writes to him:
“Since we still spare thy grey hairs, we exhort thee,
wretched old man, to bethink thee in time, and restrain thyself from such
levity of manners and perversity of deeds. Sentence might have been launched
against thee: but, knowing thy simplicity together with thy age, we are in the
meantime silent. Those under whose counsel thou hast done these things we
excommunicate for two months, but so that if they should die within this time
they be not refused the viaticum. But guard against their counsels for the future,
lest, if thou be their pupil in evil whose master thou oughtest to be in good, we spare henceforth neither thy simplicity nor thy old age”.
NATALIS: CORRECTION OF CLERKS.
Another bishop (Natalis of Salona), whom he had
reprehended for addiction to banquets, and who had defended his practice by
Scripture arguments, he answers in a good-humored strain. To the bishop’s
adducing of the example of Abraham entertaining the three angels, Gregory
replies: “Not even we would blame your blessedness in respect of feasts if we
were aware that you were in the habit of entertaining angels as guests”; and in
another part of his letter says: “Your holiness rightly praises banquets in common
which are made with the intention of charity; but these only proceed from
charity in which no absent person is backbitten, no one derided, no idle
stories about secular affairs, but the words of sacred reading are heard; where
no more is taken than is necessary for refreshing the weakness of the body that
it may be kept in health for the practice of virtue. If your banquets are of
this sort, I confess that you are masters of abstainers”.
He gave frequent and detailed directions also with
respect to the inferior clergy, holding that “bad priests are the cause of the
people’s ruin”, that “what is but a fault in laymen is a crime in clergymen”,
and “that a clergy corrupt within cannot long stand in relation to the world
outside”.
We find continual admonitions to legates,
metropolitans, and others, that they should inquire into and correct reported
clerical delinquencies by excommunication, degradation, imprisonment, and even
in one case by stripes. He forbade any to be ordained who were engaged in any
public office, civil or military: he recalled itinerant clerks to their sphere
of work, and most urgently he pressed upon all the paramount duty of succoring
the poor and oppressed. With this view he maintained the right of asylum in churches
and their precincts, but not so as thereby to defeat the ends of justice.
Maurilio, for instance, an ex-prefect of Ravenna, having fled into sanctuary
from the prosecution of the prefect Georgius, he directed the bishop to protect
him there, but is careful to add, “not that we doubt (far from it!) the justice
of the most excellent Lord Prefect Georgius, one whose proved character in the
administration of his dignified office we are well assured of, but that the
glorious Maurilio may on his side defend his cause without suspicion of
oppression”.
Again, to Romanus, his defensor in
Sicily, he writes: “We have been informed that certain men of small discretion
desire to implicate us in their own perils, and to be so defended by
ecclesiastical persons that the latter may be themselves held parties to their
misdeeds. Wherefore, I hereby admonish thee, and through thee our brother and
fellow-bishop John, and others whom it may concern, so to regulate your
ecclesiastical protection that no one implicated in public theft may appear to
be unjustly defended by us, lest, by attempting indiscreet defense, we transfer
to ourselves the reputation of evil-doers. But, as far as becomes the Church,
by admonitions and intercessions, succour those whom
you can, so as both to afford them help, and to avoid injury to the reputation
of the Church”.
All reference to lay tribunals was forbidden to
the clergy, who were regarded as an order apart, and amenable only to their
ecclesiastical superiors. Further, their claim to exemption from the civil
jurisdiction, even in criminal cases, and at the suit of laymen, which caused
such conflict between Church and State in a later age, had its support in the
position taken by Gregory on the subject. He writes to Bonifacius, his defensor in Corsica: “If any one has a cause
against a clerk, let him refer it to his bishop. Should the bishop be
suspected, let him (i.e. the bishop), or, should this be objected
to by the prosecutor, do you yourself depute someone who shall compel the
parties to choose arbitrators by mutual consent; by whom whatever shall be
decided, whether through thy solicitude or the bishop's, let it be carried out
in all respects, that there may be no case for further litigation”.
In all the clergy he required strict celibacy; they
were to have no women in their houses but mothers, sisters, or wives married
before ordination, from whom they were to live separately. Bishops he
recommends to imitate Augustine by banishing from their houses even such female
relatives as the canons allowed.
But even in matters of this kind, however important
he considered them, he could show forbearance and discretion. In Sicily the
rule of celibacy had, in 588, been extended to sub-deacons. This rule he
enforced so far as to order bishops to require a vow of celibacy from all
future sub-deacons; but, owning the hardship of the rule on those who had made
no promise at their ordination, he contented himself with forbidding
advancement to the diaconate of existing sub-deacons who had lived with wives.
Simony also, which appears to have been very prevalent, he did all he could to
suppress, and set the example by himself refusing the annual presents which the
bishops of Rome had received from their suffragans, or payment for palls sent
to metropolitans. Payments under the last head were forbidden in perpetuity by
a Roman synod held under him in 595.
MANAGEMENT OF THE PATRIMONY.
Secular matters also in connection with the
administration of the papal estates received from him careful and minute
attention. Indeed the extent, evinced by the voluminous collection of his
letters, to which he was able to make himself acquainted with, and direct the
details of, business of all kinds both sacred and secular, in so many regions
of the world, is remarkable. The see of Rome had large possessions,
constituting what was called the “Patrimony of St. Peter”, not only in Italy
and the adjoining-islands, but also in remoter parts, including Illyria, Gaul,
Dalmatia, and even Africa and the East. They were managed by officers called
“Rulers of the Patrimony”, and “Defensores”, to whom
Gregory continually wrote, directing them about the management of the farms
and the protection of the peasants. He was very particular on the latter head.
Their payments were fixed, and they were to be allowed to make them by
installments, assisted by loans; dues payable on the marriages of serfs were
lowered, and legal forms of security were to be furnished to peasants, so as to
provide against the recurrence of oppression; the families of farmers were
secured in their succession to tenancy, and their rights in other ways guarded.
He enters into very minute particulars on such matters, taking anxious care
lest the claims of the Church should be pressed so as to trench on private
rights, or cause hardship or wrong to any. It may be here observed that the
possession by the Pope of this extensive patrimony, and Gregory's careful
supervision of it, had an important result as securing the temporal
independence of the Roman See. He did not indeed by any means set up on the
strength of it a claim to independent sovereignty. He ever professed himself,
and acted as, a loyal subject of the Emperor. But, including as it did several
important cities, Nepte in Tuscany, Otranto,
Gallipoli, and, as some assert, Naples, and as the political state of affairs
at the time allowed, and even necessitated, the Pope’s unfettered sway over it,
it undoubtedly gave him a sort of princely position which he could not
otherwise have maintained, and paved the way to the independent sovereignty of
a later age.
The revenues accruing from the Patrimony were expended
under Gregory's personal superintendence according to the fourfold division
customary in the West—to the bishop, to the clergy, to the fabrics and services
of the Church, and to the poor. He was unbounded in his charitable donations; a
great part of the population of Rome depended on them; daily when he sat down
to dinner a portion was sent to the poor at his door; he had the poor and
infirm searched out in every street, and kept a large book for the names of the
objects of his bounty.
Such prodigal almsgiving might of course, for aught we know, encourage and perpetuate indolence and pauperism. But it would be absurd to look for modern principles of political economy in St. Gregory. Those saints of old time interpreted literally the Gospel precepts about almsgiving, and at any rate they did not evade them. And, indeed, the state of Rome at that time appears to have been such as left no alternatives but general almsgiving or starvation. The population, long accustomed, even in prosperous times, to depend on the doles of the rich, was now, thinned though it was by plague and famine, out of proportion to the ordinary supply of food; fields of industry were cut off, the country round was devastated, and never safe from the Lombards. Whether or not there was truth in the cries of the populace after his death, blaming his too prodigal expenditure for the famine which then ensued, there was undoubtedly during his reign an abnormal need of succor; and among the Christian virtues of Gregory we are justified in estimating highly his personal self-denial and his unbounded charity to the poor.
BOOK INTRODUCTORY.IV.THE CHURCH IN SPAIN
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