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Gregory the Great: Reader, Writer and Read

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Daniel Anlezark
Daniel Anlezark*
Affiliation:
University of Sydney
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Extract

An episode unique to the late ninth-century Life of Gregory the Great by John the Deacon reports a famine that occurred in the year of Gregory’s death; a hostile party blamed the lavish generosity of the late pope for Rome’s suffering. The fury of the people was roused and they set out to burn Gregory’s books. However, the deacon Peter, Gregory’s familiarissimus, intervened to dissuade them, telling the people that Gregory’s works were directly inspired by God. As proof he asked God to take his life, and promptly dropped dead. This episode is not found in the earlier accounts of Gregory’s life: the brief account in the mid seventh-century Liber pontificalis, the early eighth-century Life by an anonymous monk of Whitby, and the mid eighth-century account by Paul the Deacon. Doubtful as John the Deacon’s account of the exchange between Peter and the mob may be, it does tell us something about the status of Gregory and his works in the mid 870s, when Pope John VIII commissioned the new hagiography. Gregory the Great became one of the most widely read authors of the Middle Ages, and even in his lifetime some of his works were eagerly sought after. With his popularity and influence Gregory not only added to the body of Christian literature, but also made a lasting contribution to the debate over what kinds of works it was appropriate for Christians to read. This essay will survey his works and discuss his ideas on reading and literature, and on the establishment of a Christian literary canon. The influence of Gregory’s works and ideas will be examined in relation to one particular medieval nation - Anglo-Saxon England. As the instigator of the Anglo-Saxon mission, Gregory enjoyed a great reputation as an author in Anglo-Saxon England, where his ideas on literature and society had a lasting impact.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 48: The Church and Literature , 2012 , pp. 12 - 34
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2012

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References

1 Vita Gregorii Magni 4.69 (PL 75, 59–242, at 222); Richards, Jeffrey, Consul of God: The Life and Times of Gregory the Great (London, 1980), 72–3 Google Scholar. See Smalley, Beryl, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1952)Google Scholar, 12, on the inspired nature of Gregory’s works.

2 Liber pontificalis, ed. L. Duchesne, 2nd edn, 3 vols (Paris, 1955–7), 2: 312; The Earliest Life of Gregory the Great by an Anonymous Monk of Whitby, ed. Bertram Colgrave (Lawrence, KA, 1968); Paul the Deacon, Historia Langobardorum 3.21–5, 4.1–19 (MGH SRL, 45–187, at 103–5, 114–22); accounts of Gregory’s life are also found in Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People 1.23–30, 2.1; ed. Bertram Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford, 1969), 68–109, 122–35; some (unreliable) detail is found in Gregory of Tours, Historia Francorum 9.20, 10.1 (MGH SRM 1/1, 437, 475–81); see also n. 19 below.

3 Richards, Consul, 2.

4 Markus, R. A., Gregory the Great and his World (Cambridge, 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 1.

5 ‘Vir autem bene Deo subditus scit inter transeuntia stare, scit inter lapsus decurrentium temporum mentis gressum figere’: Gregory, Moralia in lob 31.28.55 (CChr.SL 143–143B, 1590); ET Morals on the Book of Job 18, 21, 23, 31, Library of Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church, 3 vols in 4 (Oxford, 1844–50), 3: 468; see Markus, Gregory, 3. On Gregory’s integration of Stoicism, see below. In this essay Gregory’s works are quoted in translation, with the original in the notes; works by other authors in Latin (and Old English) are given only in translation, unless a textual relationship is being discussed.

6 Markus, Gregory, 8, notes that there is no record of the family’s bearing secular office until Gregory himself.

7 Ibid. 14–16.

8 Gregory, Registrum epistolarum libri (CChr.SL 140, 140A) [hereafter: Epist.]; see Martyn, John R. C., transl., The Letters of Gregory the Great, 3 vols (Toronto, ON, 2004)Google Scholar.

9 Gregory, , Règle pastorale, ed. and French, transl. Judic, B., 2 vols (Paris, 1992)Google Scholar; ET Pastoral Care, transl. H. Davis, ACW 11 (Westminster, MD, 1950).

10 Markus, Gregory, 86.

11 Gregory, , Dialogues, 3 vols (SC 251, 260, 265); ET Dialogues, transl. Zimmerman, O. J. (New York, 1959)Google Scholar.

12 See Markus, Gregory, 15–16, who accepts the Dialogues as genuinely Gregorian; Clark, Francis, The Pseudo-Gregorian Dialogues, 2 vols (Leiden, 1987)Google Scholar; Meyvaert, Paul, ‘The Enigma of Gregory the Great’s Dialogues: A Response to Francis Clark’, JEH 39 (1988), 335–81 Google Scholar.

13 Gregory, Homiliae in Euangelia (CChr.SL 141) [hereafter: Hom. Euang.]; ET Forty Gospel Homilies, transl. D. Hurst, Cistercian Studies 123 (Kalamazoo, MI, 1990).

14 Gregory, Homiliae in Hiezechihelem [hereafter: Hom. Hiezech.] (CChr.SL 142); ET Homilies on the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, transl. T. Tomkinson (Etna, CA, 2008).

15 St Columbanus requested a copy of the work: Dudden, F. Homes, Gregory the Great: his Place in History and Thought, 2 vols (London, 1905), 2: 92 Google Scholar.

16 Gregory, Expositiones in Canticum canticorum, in librum primum Regum (CChr.SL 144); see Paul Meyvaert, ‘The Date of Gregory the Great’s Commentaries on Canticles and on I Kings’, Sacris Erudiri 23 (1978–9), 191–216.

17 See Adalbert de Vogüé, ‘L’auteur du Commentaire des Rois attribué à saint Grégoire: Un moine de Cava?’, Revue bénédictine 106 (1996), 319–31. Some works have been lost; see Markus, Gregory, xiv, 16.

18 Markus, Gregory, 34; Gregory, Dialogues 3.37.20 (on 1 Cor. 1:18–25); Straw, Carole, Gregory the Great: Perfection in Imperfection (Berkeley, CA, 1988), 6 Google Scholar.

19 Bartelink, G.J.M., ‘Pope Gregory the Great’s Knowledge of Greek’, transl. Meyvaert, Paul, in Cadavini, John C., ed., Gregory the Great: A Symposium (Notre Dame, IN, 1995), 117–36 Google Scholar; Markus, Gregory, 34–5. Glowing praise of his learning from his contemporary Gregory of Tours must be treated cautiously (see n. 2 above).

20 See Bowen, James, A History of Western Education. The Ancient World: Orient and Mediterranean (London, 1972), 297 Google Scholar.

21 Markus, Gregory, 36.

22 Ibid.

23 ‘Hanc quippe saecularum scientiam omnipotens deus in plano anteposuit, ut nobis ascendendi gradum faceret, qui nos ad diuinae scripturae altitudinem leuare debuisset’: Gregory, In I librum Regum 5.84 (CChr.SL 144, 472). See Markus, Gregory, 38–9.

24 See n. 17 above.

25 ‘Sed post hoc peruenit ad nos quod sine uerecundia memorare non possumus, fraternitatem tuam grammaticam quibusdam exponere. Quam rem ita moleste suscepimus ac sumus uehementius aspernati, ut ea quae prius dicta fuerant in gemitu et tristitia uerteremus, quia in uno se ora cum Iouis laudibus Christi laudes non capiunt. Et quam graue nefandumque sit episcopo canere, quod nee laico religioso conueniat, ipse considera’: Gregory, Epist. 11.34 (June 601; Martyn, transl., Letters, 3: 777); cf. Markus, Gregory, 37.

26 The letter dates from June 601. Compare three other letters dated 22 June 601: Gregory, Epist. 11.35, to Queen Bertha; ibid. 11.36, to Augustine; ibid. 11.37, to King Ethelbert. All three emphasize the fight against paganism. Epist. 11.38 (22 June 601), to Virgil of Aries, mentions the English mission, and warns Virgil on avarice, a form of idolatry.

27 See Markus, Gregory, 36–9.

28 Gregory, Moralia 33.10.19; see Straw, Perfection, 128–46.

29 Gregory, Moralia, Ad Leandrum 3.

30 See Markus, Gregory, 36–7.

31 See Lubac, Henri de, Medieval Exegesis: The Four Senses of Scripture, transl. Sebanc, M. and Macierowski, E. M., 2 vols (Grand Rapids, MI, 1998), 2:24–5, 37–8 Google Scholar; Smalley, Study of the Bible, 32–5.

32 See Grover A. Zinn Jr, ‘Exegesis and Spirituality in the Writings of Gregory the Great’, in Cadavini, ed., Symposium, 168–80; Markus, Gregory, 42; cf. Hom. Hiezech. 1.10.3–4.

33 ‘Sciendum uero est, quod quaedam historica expositione transcurrimus et per allegoriam quaedam typica inuestigatione perscrutamur, quaedam per sola allegoricae moralitatis instrumenta discutimus, nonnulla autem per cuneta simul sollicitus exquirentes tripliciter indagamus. Nam primum quidem fundamenta historiae ponimus; deinde per significationem typicam in arcem fidei fabricam mentis erigimus; ad extremum quoque per moralitatis gradam, quasi superducto aedificium colore uestimus’: Gregory, Moralia, Ad Leandrum 3.

34 ‘Diuinus etenim sermo sicut mysteriis prudentes exerciet, sic plerumque superficie simplices refouet’: ibid. 4.

35 For a full discussion of Gregory’s adaptation of Augustine’s complex ideas on signification, see Markus, R. A., Signs and Meanings: World and Text in Ancient Christianity (Liverpool, 1996), 45–70 Google Scholar; idem, Gregory, 49.

36 Gregory, Hom. Euang. 1.1.1.

37 Gregory, Epist. 3.29 (Martyn, transl., Letters, 1: 255); cf. Markus, Gregory, 53.

38 ‘Id circo enim pictura in ecclesia adhibetur, ut hi qui litteras nesciunt saltern in parietibus uidendo legant, quae legere in codicibus non ualent’: Gregory, Epist. 9.209 (Martyn, transl., Letters, 2: 674). See Markus, Gregory, 175; Celia Chazelle, ‘Memory, Instruction, Worship: “Gregory’s” Influence on Early Medieval Doctrines of the Artistic Image’, in Cadavini, ed., Symposium, 181–215.

39 Gregory, Epist. 10.16 (Martyn, transl., Letters, 3: 727); Straw, Perfection, 6.

40 ‘sed ualde incongruum credidi ut aquam despicabilem hauriret quern constat de beatorum patrum Ambrosii atque Augustini torrentibus profunda ac perspicua fluenta assidue bibere. Sed rursum dum cogito quod saepe inter cotidianas delicias edam uiliores cibi suauiter sapiunt, transmisi minima legend potiora, ut, dum cibus grossior uelut pro fastidio sumitur, ad subtiliores epulas auidius redeatur’: Gregory, Hom. Hiezech. Praefatio.

41 See Straw, Perfection, 61, 75.

42 Ibid. 14–15.

43 Ibid. 15.

44 See Bartelink, ‘Knowledge of Greek’, 119; Straw, Perfection, 15.

45 See Evans, G. R., The Thought of Gregory the Great (Cambridge, 1986), 19–25 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Straw, Perfection, 16, notes other influences.

46 Straw, Perfection, 76.

47 Ibid. 50.

48 ‘Pastoralis curae me pondera fugere delitescendo uoluisse, benigna, frater carissime, atque humillima intentione reprehendis; quae ne quibusdam leuia esse uideantur, praesentis libri stilo exprimo de eorum grauedine omne quod penso, ut et haec qui uacat, incaute non expetat; et qui incaute expetiit, adeptum se esse pertimescat’: Gregory, Règle pastorale, Praefatio.

49 See Bernard McGinn, ‘Contemplation in Gregory the Great’, in Cadavini, ed., Symposium, 146–67.

50 ‘Ibi itaque cum adflictus ualde et diu tacitus sederem, dilectissimus filius meus Petrus diaconus adfuit, … Qui graui excoqui cordis languore me intuens, ait: numquidnam noui aliquid accidit, quod plus te solito moeror tenet? Cui inquam: moerorem, Petre, quem cotidie patior et semper mihi per usum uetus est et semper per augmentum nouus. Infelix quippe animus meus occupationis suae pulsatus uulnere meminit qualis aliquando in monasterio fuit, quomodo ei labentia cuncta subter errant’: Gregory, Dialogues 12.

51 ‘Ad illorum quippe consortium uelut ad tutissimi portus sinum terreni actus uolumina fluctusque fugiebam, et licet illud me ministerium ex monasterio abstractum, a pristinae quietis uita mucrone suae occupationis exstinxerat, inter eos tamen per studiosae lectionis alloquium, cotidianae me aspiratio cumpunctionis animabat’: Gregory, Moralia, Ad Leandrum 1.

52 See Jeffreys, Consul, 174–7.

53 ‘Dic ergo ut cum loco mutet mentem. Non sibi credat solam lectionem et orationem sufficere, ut remotus studeat sedere et de manu minime fructificare. … Quaedam uero eum per epistulam meam de anima sua admonui, sed nil mihi omnino respondit; unde credo quia ea neque legere dignatus est. Pro qua re iam necessarium non fuit debuissem, sed tantum illa scripsi quae in causis terrenis consiliarius dictare potuit. Nam ego ad hominem non legentem fatigari in dictatu non debui’: Gregory, Epist. 6.33 (Martyn, transl., Letters, 2: 427–8); see also ibid. 6.24, 28, 33; 7.39, 40; cf. Richards, Consul, 175.

54 Richards, Consul, 210.

55 Ibid. 259.

56 See Bremmer, Rolf H. Jr, Dekker, Kees and Johnson, David F., eds, Rome and the North: The Early Reception of Gregory the Great in Germanic Europe (Leuven, 2001)Google Scholar.

57 The story is told in Bede, Ecclesiastical History 2.1.

58 ‘Omnipotens enim Dominus coruscantibus nubibus cardines maris operuit … Ecce lingua Britanniae, quae nihil aliud nouerat, quam barbarum frendere, iam dudum in diuinis laudibus Hebraeum coepit Alleluia resonare’: Gregory, Moralia 27.11.21; cf. Bede, Ecclesiastical History 2.1; Colgrave, ed., Earliest Life, 90, 94 (ch. 9).

59 Meyvaert, Paul, Bede and Gregory the Great (Jarrow, 1964), 115 Google Scholar. See also Kate Rambridge, ‘Doctor Noster Sanctus: The Northumbrians and Pope Gregory’, in Bremmer et al., eds, Rome and the North, 1–26.

60 Cited in Meyvaert, Bede and Gregory, 115.

61 Bede, Ecclesiastical History 2.1 (Meyvaert, Bede and Gregory, 1). Cf. Bede, In Cantica Canticorum, Book 6 (CChr.SL 119B, 359, lines 5–6): ‘Gregory, that man beloved of God and men, who is also our father’; Meyvaert, Bede and Gregory, 115.

62 Bede, Ecclesiastical History 1.29; Markus, Gregory, 179–80.

63 Bede’s homilies often borrow directly from Gregory’s; see Opera homiletica, ed. D. Hurst (CChr.SL 122), vii.

64 Bede, Ecclesiastical History 1.27; see Markus, Gregory, 184.

65 Cited in Meyvaert, Bede and Gregory, 111.

66 Bede, Ecclesiastical History 2.17 (ed. Colgrave and Mynors, 94); see Richards, Consul, 73.

67 ‘Verba Dei legantur in sacerdotall convivio. Ibi decet lectorem audiri, non citharistam; sermones patrum, non carmina gentilium. Quid Hinieldus cum Christo? Angusta est domus: utrosque tenere non poterit’: MGH Epp. 4, 183; see North, Richard, The Origins of Beowulf: From Virgil to Wiglaf (Oxford, 2006), 132–56 Google Scholar. Ingeld is a hero of Germanic legend, referred to in the Old English epic Beowulf, see Klaeber’s Beowulf, ed. Fulk, R. D., Bjork, Robert E. and Niles, John D. (Toronto, ON, 2008), 68–9 Google Scholar, lines 2020–5. Anglo-Saxon aristocratic taste for heroic legend is demonstrated by Beowulf itself.

68 It would be surprising if Alcuin did not know the Registrum; see Registrum, ed. Norberg, v–xii, esp. vii.

69 Bede, Ecclesiastical History, Preface, 2.

70 ‘Vt autem in his quae scripsi uel tibi uel ceteris auditoribus siue lectoribus huius historiae occasionem dubitandi subtraham, quibus haec maxime auctoribus didicerim, breuiter intimare curabo’: ibid. 2–3 (ed. Colgrave and Mynors, 2).

71 ‘Ea quae mini sunt uirorum uenerabilium narratione conperta incunctanter narro sacrae auctoritatis exemplo, cum mihi luce clarius constet quia Marcus et Lucas euangelium quod scripserunt, non uisu sed auditu didicerunt. Sed ut dubitationis occasionem legentibus subtraham, per singula quae describo, quibus mihi haec auctoribus sint conperta manifesto’: Gregory, Dialogues 16–17.

72 Markus, Gregory, 62.

73 Bede, Ecclesiastical History 2.1 (ed. Colgrave and Mynors, 124).

74 See Peter Hunter Blair, Northumbria in the Days of Bede (London, 1977), 59; D. P. Kirby, ‘Northumbria in the Time of Wilfrid’, in idem, ed., Saint Wilfrid at Hexham (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1974), 1–34, at 20–1; John Blair, The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society (Oxford, 2005), 109, 111.

75 See Blair, Northumbria in the Days of Bede, 36–61.

76 Meyvaert, Bede and Gregory, 109–10, has argued that the unique decorated initial in the mid eighth-century manuscript known as the Leningrad Bede begins the section which is the life of Gregory, and probably contains his portrait. This may well have been based on observation of this portrait of Gregory; it still survived in the mid 870s, when John the Deacon described it in his Life of Gregory.

77 See Abels, Richard, Alfred the Great: War, Kingship and Culture in Anglo-Saxon England (Edinburgh, 1998), 136–68 Google Scholar.

78 See Yorke, Barbara, Wessex in the Early Middle Ages (London, 1995), 192–239 Google Scholar.

79 Lapidge, Michael and Keynes, Simon, transl., Alfred the Great: Asser’s Life of King Alfred and other Contemporary Sources (Harmondsworth, 1983), 124–5 Google Scholar; King Alfred’s West-Saxon Version of Gregory’s Pastoral Care, ed. Sweet, Henry, 2 vols (Oxford, 1871)Google Scholar. See Morrish, Jennifer, ‘King Alfred’s Letter as a Source on Learning in England’, in Szarmach, Paul E., ed., Studies in Earlier Old English Prose (New York, 1986), 87–108 Google Scholar.

80 Lapidge and Keynes, transl., Alfred the Great, 124–5.

81 Ibid. 126.

82 See Richard W. Clement, ‘The Production of the Pastoral Care: King Alfred and his Helpers’, in Szarmach, ed., Earlier Old English Prose, 129–52; Malcolm Godden, ‘Did King Alfred Write Anything?’, Medium JEvurn 76 (2007), 1–23.

83 Frantzen, Allen, King Alfred (Boston, MA, 1986)Google Scholar, 25; see McKitterick, Rosamond, The Frankish Church and the Carolingian Reforms, 789–895 (London, 1977), 88–90 Google Scholar.

84 Oxford, Bodl., MS Hatton 20; see Ker, N. R., Catalogue of Manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford, 1957), 384–6 Google Scholar (no. 324).

85 See, e.g., Kees Dekker, ‘King Alfred’s Translation of Gregory’s Dialogi: Tales for the Unlearned?’, in Bremmer et al., eds, Rome and the North, 27–50; Nicole Guenther Discenza, ‘The Influence of Gregory the Great on the Alfredian Social Imaginary’, in ibid. 67–82.

86 Asset’s Life of King Alfred, ed. W. H. Stevenson (repr. Oxford, 1959), 62.

87 Lapidge and Keynes, transl., Alfred the Great, 96 (italics mine); Bischof Wœrferths von Worcester Übersetzung der Dialoge Gregors des Grossen, ed. Hans Hecht (Leipzig, 1907), 1.

88 Malcolm Godden and Susan Irvine, eds, The Old English Boethius: An Edition of the Old English Versions of Boethius’s De consolatione philosophiae (Oxford, 2009)Google Scholar; The Old English Orosius, ed. Bately, Janet (London, 1980)Google Scholar; Kõnig Alfreds des Grossen Bearbeitung der Soliloquien des Augustinus, ed. Endter, W. (Hamburg, 1922)Google Scholar; The Old English Version of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. Miller, Thomas (London, 1890)Google Scholar.

89 See Dorothy M. Horgan, ‘The Old English Pastoral Care: The Scribal Contribution’, in Szarmach, ed., Earlier Old English Prose, 109–28; David Yerkes, ‘The Translation of Gregory’s Dialogues and its Revision: Textual History, Provenance, Authorship’, in ibid. 335–44.

90 Jeffreys, Consul, 260. John was archdeacon of Rome by 853, and may well even have met King Æthelwulf (and Alfred) during their Roman stay. Three surviving pieces of correspondence from John VIII to England each refer to Gregory and the Gregorian mission: to Burgred, king of Mercia (874); to the archbishops of York and Canterbury (873 × 875), which mentions Englishmen keeping St Gregory’s Vigil in Rome; and to Ethelred, archbishop of Canterbury (877 × 78); see Whitelock, D., transl., English Historical Documents, c.500–1042 (London, 1968), 810–13 Google Scholar.

91 See Pratt, David, ‘The Illnesses of Alfred the Great’, Anglo-Saxon England 30 (2002), 39–90 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

92 Lapidge and Keynes, transl., Alfred the Great, 121.