READING HALLTHE DOORS OF WISDOM |
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. |
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