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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 October 2024
Gregory the Great's Moralia in Job has been said to mark a transitional phase in the development of atonement doctrine. I argue that the Moralia cohesively portrays Christ's redemptive work as achieving something in two directions: towards God, a vicarious payment of humanity's debt of punishment; towards humanity, an efficaciously convicting and restorative example. This sustains a spirituality in which exacting and self-denying moral effort rests on freedom from judgement and on the death accomplished by the Mediator. Engaging the Moralia in this manner illuminates patristic exegetical sensibilities and proves instructive about how the fathers fit into later taxonomies of atonement models.
1 The former is the phrasing of L. W. Grensted, the latter of Robert S. Franks. See Grensted, L. W., A Short History of the Doctrine of the Atonement (Manchester: The University Press, 1920), p. 99Google Scholar; Franks, Robert S., The Work of Christ: A Historical Study of Christian Doctrine (Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1962), p. 107Google Scholar.
2 Grensted, Doctrine of the Atonement, p. 96.
3 Green, Bernard, ‘The Theology of Gregory the Great: Christ, Salvation and the Church’, in Neil, Bronwen and Santo, Matthew J. Dal (eds), A Companion to Gregory the Great (Leiden: Brill, 2013), p. 152Google Scholar.
4 Gregory the Great, Moralia in Job, Epistle, II [henceforth Mor, followed by book, chapter, section]. Where not otherwise stated, I use the widely available older translation (with some archaic expressions modified) in Gregory the Great: Morals on the Book of Job, vols. 18, 21, 23, 31 of Library of the Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church (Oxford: J. H. Parker, 1844). I have also consulted the recent translation in Gregory the Great, Moral Reflections on the Book of Job, trans. Brian Kerns OCSO, 6 vols. (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2014). The introduction to the first volume provides extensive historical context to the Moralia. For the Latin I have used Jacques-Paul Migne, Patrologiae Cursus Completus: Series Latina, 1862, vols. 75–76.
5 Mor Epistle, II.
6 Mor Epistle, V.
7 Wilken, Robert Louis, ‘Interpreting Job Allegorically: The Moralia of Gregory the Great’, Pro Ecclesia 10/2 (2001), p. 213CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
8 Thomas Aquinas, Expositio super Iob ad Litteram, Prae. 6.
9 Mor Epistle, III. As most editors point out, this pattern holds more true for the first few books of the Moralia, after which Gregory moves more swiftly to the spiritual senses.
10 Mor Epistle III.
11 Mor Epistle III.
12 ‘this we most earnestly entreat, that he that lifts up his mind to the spiritual signification, do not desist from his reverence for the history.’ Mor 1.37.56.
13 ‘sometimes, he who neglects to interpret the historical form of words according to the letter, keeps that light of truth concealed which is presented to him, and in laboriously seeking to find in them a further interior meaning, he loses that which he might easily obtain on the outside.’ Mor Epistle, IV.
14 This is explored in Mark DelCogliano's introduction to Gregory the Great, Moral Reflections on the Book of Job, pp. 24–5.
15 Mor Preface 5.12.
16 Mor Preface 5.12.
17 Mor Preface 5.12.
18 Indeed, ‘there never was any Saint who did not appear as His herald in figure.’ Mor Preface 6.14.
19 Mor Preface 6.13.
20 Mor Preface 6.14.
21 Mor Preface 7.16.
22 Mor Preface 6.15.
23 Wilken, ‘Interpreting Job Allegorically’, p. 216.
24 On scope or skopos, there is a useful discussion in Greene-McCreight, Kathryn, ‘He Spoke Through the Prophets: The Prophetic Word Made More Sure’, in Seitz, Christopher R. (ed.), Nicene Christianity: The Future for a New Ecumenism (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2001), pp. 167–75Google Scholar. See especially p. 171: ‘we can see that speaking of the skopos of Scripture assumes an objective reality not entirely identifiable with the text itself but related to it and borne by it’.
25 Nieuwenhove, Rik Van, ‘“Bearing the Marks of Christ's Passion”: Aquinas’ Soteriology’, in Van Nieuwenhove, Rik and Wawrykow, Joseph P. (eds), The Theology of Thomas Aquinas (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, 2010), p. 287CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
26 Poena and passive forms of punio.
27 Mor 2.20.34.
28 Mor 2.20.35.
29 Mor 2.20.34, 2.20.37. Similarly, ‘For He that creates all things marvellously, Himself regulates them, that after having been created, they should agree with themselves.’ Mor 9.5.5.
30 Mor 1.18.31.
31 Mor 1.10.17.
32 Neque enim omnipotens Deus, qui mala bene punit, inordinate esse ullo modo vel tormenta permittit, Mor 9.65.98 (PL 75:913b); damnatum quemque juxta modum criminis et retributio sequitur ultionis, Mor 9.65.98 (PL 75:913b). See also Mor 15.33.39: ‘the strict justice of Almighty God exacts punishment from lost sinners for their froward deeds’.
33 Mor 2.3.3.
34 Mor 3.9.15.
35 Amore enim praesentiam ab auctoris nostri dilectione recessimus… ut unde homo culpam non timuit superbus admittere, inde poenam corrigendus inveniret. Mor 3.9.15 (PL 75:607a).
36 Per culpam quippe Deo discordes exstitmus; dignum ergo est ut ad pacem illius per flagella redeamus. Mor 3.9.15 (PL 75:607b).
37 Mor 9.27.42.
38 Mor 4.24.45.
39 Van Nieuwenhove, ‘Bearing the Marks of Christ's Passion’, p. 187. Van Nieuwenhove's discussion is particularly relevant as he connects Aquinas’ logic to Gregory's taxonomy of causes for affliction.
40 Mor 9.20.31.
41 Carole Straw is technically right, then, in saying that ‘original sin is not critical in solving the question of God's justice’ for Gregory in the same way as it might have been for Augustine, in that Job's suffering is more crucially explained by divine purposes other than retribution. However, this downplays the importance of original sin in justifying God's ways with humanity and the existence of suffering in general. Straw, Carole, ‘Job's Sin in the Moralia of Gregory the Great’, in Harkins, Franklin T. and Canty, Aaron (eds), A Companion to Job in the Middle Ages (Leiden: Brill, 2017), p. 88Google Scholar.
42 Mor 9.26.40. Similarly, Mor 9.18.28: ‘as we have often said, all human righteousness is proved unrighteousness, if it be judged by strict rules’.
43 Mor 35.7.9. I am not persuaded by Straw's argument that this is a major change of mind for Gregory (though in such a long work a change of mind is hardly inconceivable). Rather, I think Gregory is simply wrestling with the traditional problem for commentators of how to square the assertion of Job's innocence in 1:22 and 42:7 with his repentance in 42:6. His discussion in Mor 32.4.5 (to which Straw refers) of the way Job speaks of the injustice of his punishment seems to me to cohere fully with his discussion of how the sufferings can be said to be with/without cause in Book 1. Straw, ‘Job's Sin in the Moralia’, p. 93.
44 Sed pensandum est quomodo justus sit, et omnia juste disponat, si eum, qui non debet puniri condemnat. Mediator etenim noster puniri pro semetipso non debuit, quia nullum culpae contagium perpetravit. Mor 3.14.27 (PL 75:613b).
45 Or ‘the punishment of the flesh’. Frustra quippe afflictus est, qui et culpae ultione pressus est, et culpae contagio inquinatus non est. Frustra afflictus est, qui incarnatus, propria admissa non habuit, et tamen poenam carnalium sine culpa suscepit. Mor 3.14.26 (PL 75:613a).
46 damna injustitiae nostrae sustineret, Mor 3.14.27 (PL 75:613c). Kerns does not employ the vocabulary of punishment for damno in this locus as the older translation does, but still renders the summary Pater ergo cum justus sit, justum puniens as ‘The Father is just; he punishes the just one.’ Gregory the Great, Moral Reflections on the Book of Job, Vol. 1, 205.
47 ‘though in respect of Himself He was “afflicted without cause”, in respect of our deeds it was not “without cause”’. Mor 3.14.27.
48 sed tamen culpam hujus superbiæ sine culpa Mediator exsolvit. Mor 3.14.26 (PL 75:613b).
49 Quo is qui est super omnia damna injustitiae nostrae sustineret. Mor 3.14.27 (PL 75:613c).
50 poenam malitiae suscepit… et iram judicis moriendo temperavit. Mor 9.38.61 (PL 75:894a).
51 poenam nostram miserando suscepit. Mor 24.2.3 (PL 76:238b).
52 nisi vitae nostræ conditor ad poenam usque mortis nostræ venire. Mor 29.10.22 (PL 76:489b).
53 ad propitiandum hominibus… in quo juste hominibus propitiarer inveni… Dominus… poenam nostram moriendo toleravit. Mor 24.3.6 (PL 76:290b).
54 Venit itaque sine vitio, qui se subjiceret sponte tormento; ut debita nostræ iniquitati supplicia eo reos suos juste amitterent, quo hunc a semetipsis liberam injuste tenuissent. Mor 3.14.27 (PL 75:613c). Kerns renders this: ‘[He] came without vice, so that the punishment our sins deserved might justly be escaped by us, the guilty ones, by dint of having laid hold of him, the unjust one, unjustly.’ Gregory the Great, Moral Reflections on the Book of Job, vol. 1, p. 204.
55 While I am not interested in claiming that Gregory held to a penal theory identical with Reformation thought, Carole Straw's description of this aspect of Gregory's thought is striking: ‘Man's predicament with God must be rectified as well, for every sin offends God and demands its recompense. Though deeply indebted for his sins, man alone cannot make satisfactory compensation. For this reason, Christ takes on suffering and death in payment of man's sins. Though perfect himself, he deigns to take on the punishment and chastisement due man's iniquities. This sacrifice of his unjust suffering substitutes for man and propitiates God's wrath. As both a rational creature and a sinless one, only Christ could be man's substitute. His sacrifice atones for man's sin because he has suffered the punishment that cleanses and removes man's transgressions.’ Straw, Carole, Gregory the Great: Perfection in Imperfection (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1988), p. 155Google Scholar. This could be lifted straight from a textbook description of penal substitutionary atonement.
56 For example, Mor 4.35.27, 15.9.10.
57 Redemptor noster morte sua humani generis poenam solveret. Mor 4.29.56 (PL 75:666b).
58 Mor 17.2.46. Gregory even entertains, briefly, a form of the double punishment argument in Mor 18.22.35.
59 Mor 3.14.27. Similarly, ‘For so long as we are tied and bound by the penalty of a corrupt state, we never by whatsoever right works appropriate real cleanness to ourselves, but only imitate it…’ Mor 9.36.57.
60 Mor 4.16.3. This the Mediator does in that ‘His own single Death He reckoned to our account.’
61 Mor 9.27.41 and 9.27.42.
62 Mor 9.32.48.
63 Green, ‘Christ, Salvation and the Church’, p. 152.
64 Mor 1.24.32.
65 Mor 1.25.34.
66 Mor 1.27.38.
67 Mor 1.35.48.
68 Straw, Gregory the Great, p. 179.
69 Mor 3.9.15.
70 For example, Mor 3.30.59.
71 Mor 4.15.27.
72 Mor 4.18.34.
73 As Green rightly says, it would be a mistake to think that ‘Gregory regarded Christ's saving work as inadequate and the efforts of Christians as separate and supplementary to it. He is absolutely clear that Christ's passion and death have redeemed humanity; he is equally clear that the Christian is sharing in that passion as they strive to fulfil it con-crucified with Christ.’ Green, ‘Christ, Salvation and the Church’, p. 154.
74 ‘We know well that we do not deserve pardon, but, by the grace of God preventing us, we are freed from our sins by His secret counsels’. Mor 4.16.29.
75 Mor 4.16.31. Similarly, ‘what we prosecute with weeping, will never be urged against us by the Judge to come’. Mor 4.18.36. ‘For we offer our own selves a sacrifice to God, when we dedicate our lives to the service of God, and we set the members of the sacrifice cut into pieces upon the fire, when we offer up the deeds of our lives dividing them in the virtues.’ Mor 9.55.84.
76 Mor 9.38.61.
77 ‘For the wrath of Almighty God does herein execute the force of its severity every day, that those who live unworthily it swallows up in most worthy punishments. Which wrath now indeed “passes by”, but at the end it “quite passes by”, in that now it is executed, but at the end of the world it is finally consummated. Yet this wrath as to the souls of the righteous “quite passed by” on the coming of our Redeemer…’ Of course, as Gregory cautions, wrath is spoken only analogically of God, ‘in that no disquieting influence disorders the simple nature of God’. Mor 12.10.14.
78 Nos enim quia a Deo mente recessimus, et carne ad pulverem redimus poena duplae mortis astringimur. Sed venit ad nos qui pro nobis sola carne moreretur, qui simplam suam duplae nostrae conjungaret, et nos ab utraque morte liberaret. Mor 9.27.41 (PL 75:881b-c).
79 In Gregory's rendering, this verse reads: ‘Neither is there any that is able to convict both of us, and to lay his hand upon us both.’
80 Mor 9.38.61.
81 Nullus quippe ante hunc exstitit, qui sic pro alienis reatibus intercederet, ut proprios non haberet. Aeternae igitur morti tanto quis in aliis obviare non poterat, quanto hunc reatus de propriis astringebat. Venit itaque novus homo ad homines, contradictor ad culpam, amicus ad poenam; mira monstravit, crudelia pertulit. Manum ergo suam in ambobus posuit, quia unde reum recta docuit, inde iratum judicem placavit. Mor 9.38.61 (PL 75:894a-b).
82 Mor 9.40.63.
83 Mor 9.41.64, 9.42.65.
84 Myers, Benjamin, ‘The Patristic Atonement Model’, in Sanders, Fred and Crisp, Oliver D. (eds), Locating Atonement: Explorations in Constructive Dogmatics (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2015), p. 86.Google Scholar
85 To claim that the presence or dominance of one theme excludes another is a fallacy, on which see Williams, Garry J., ‘Penal Substitutionary Atonement in the Church Fathers’, Evangelical Quarterly 83/3 (2011), p. 215Google Scholar.
86 Mor 9.32.48.