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The Diabolical Power of Lettuce, or Garden Miracles in Gregory the Great’s Dialogues

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Barbara Müller
Barbara Müller*
Affiliation:
Universitât Bern
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Extract

Gregory the Great wrote his Dialogues between July 593 and October 594. Like most scholars of Gregory the Great, I am convinced that the Dialogues are a genuine Gregorian work and do not share Francis Clark’s opinion that the Dialogues are the rather clumsy product of a later forger. The Dialogues are an extremely complex work on holiness, a skilful pastoral pedagogy, and a programme of mission as well. They contain Gregory’s ideal of the Church which he developed during a time of crisis. Some elements may even seem to be Utopian.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 41: Signs, Wonders, Miracles Representations of Divine Power in the Life of the Church , 2005 , pp. 46 - 55
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2005

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References

1 Dialogorum libri quatuor seu De miraculis patrum italicorum: Grégoire le Grand, Dialogues, ed. with French transl. Adalbert de Vogüé, 3 vols, SC 251, 260 and 265 (Paris, 1978–80) [hereafter: Greg.M., dial. (SC)] and Saint Gregory the Great, Dialogues, English transl. Odo J. Zimmermann (Washington, DC, 1959), from which quotations will be extracted for this article.

2 Clark, Francis, The Pseudo-Gregorian Dialogues, 2 vols (Leiden, 1987); idem, The ‘Gregorian’ Dialogues and the Origins of Benedictine Monasticism (Leiden and Boston, MA, 2003)Google Scholar.

3 According to Clark, Pseudo-Gregorian Dialogues, 1: 304 and 2: 450–1, the lettuce story [Greg.M., dial. I,4,7 (SC 260: 42–4)] is not of Gregorian origin as Equitius’s ‘marvellous activity’ contradicts the ‘inserted Gregorian passage’ 5 [I,4,9 (SC 260: 46)] with its focus on grace. Clark misses the point of the story, which is God’s power and not the supernatural power of an individual. In discussing a typical story of Gregory’s Dialogues and showing it to be representative of Gregory’s central concerns, my paper will also contribute to confirming the authenticity of the Dialogues.

4 Cf. Grégoire le Grand, Règle Pastorale, ed. with French transl. B. Judic, SC 381 and 382, 2 vols (Paris, 1992) [hereafter Greg.M., past. (SC)], III,25 (SC 382: 432).

5 On the topography of the Dialogues, cf. Georg Jenal, Italia ascetica atque monastica: Das Asketen- und Mönchtum in italien von den Anfängen bis zur Zeit der Langobarden (ca. 150/250–604), 2 vols (Stuttgart, 1995), 1: 192–214.

6 Greg.M., dial. I,4,7 (SC 260: 42–4); cf. Palladius (monachus), Historia Lausiaca 38, 12: Palladio, La storia Lausiaca, ed. with Italian transl. G. J. M. Bartelink, Vite dei Santi 2 (4th edn, Milan, 1990), 202 and the Historia monachorum in Aegypto 20,17: L’Histoire des moines en Egypte, ed. A. Festugière, Subsidia Hagiographica 53 (Brussels, 1961), 123.

7 On the history of the monastic garden, see Paul Meyvaert, ‘The Medieval Monastic Garden’, in Elisabeth Blair MacDougall, ed., Medieval Gardens, 9th Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium on the History of Landscape Architecture, 1983 (Washington, DC, 1986), 23–53.

8 Greg.M., dial. I, prol. 3 (SC 260: 12).

9 For example abbot Probus, abbot Claudius, Peter the Deacon (the interlocutor of the Dialogues), bishop Maximian of Syracuse, bishop Marinian of Ravenna.

10 The garden as paradise: Schneider, C., ‘Garten’, Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum 8 (1972), 1058–9 Google Scholar; Prest, John, The Garden of Eden: the Botanic Garden and the Re-Creation of Paradise (New Haven, CT, and London, 1981), 118–26.Google Scholar

11 Cf. Meyvaert, , ‘Garden’, 50–1.Google Scholar

12 Greg.M., dial. I,3 (SC 260: 34–6); cf. Gregory of Tours, Liber vitae patrum, ed. B. Krusch, MGH, Scriptorum rerum Merovingicarum [hereafter: MGH.SRM] I,2 (Hannover, 1885), 14,2: 719; Ps. Venantius Fortunatus, Vita sancti Amantii 6, in Venantii Fortunati opera pedestria, ed. B. Krusch, MGH, Auctores Antiquissimorum [hereafter: MGH.AA] IV,2 (Berlin, 1885), 59–60 and idem, Vita sancti Medardi 4, ibid., 69.

13 Gen. 2, 8 and 3, 1. Cf E. Bertaud, ‘Hortus’, DSp VII.1 (1969), 766–7.

14 Greg.M., dial. III,15,13 (SC 260: 322). Angelic examples of the Egyptian tradition: Arsenios 42 (PG 65, 105D-108B); Silvanos 12 (PG 65, 412C). Cf. K. Suso Frank, ANGELIKOS BIOS. Begriffsanalytische und begriffsgeschichtliche Untersuchung zum ‘engelgleichen Leben’ im frühen Mönchtum (Münster, 1964).

15 Greg.M., past. II,6 (SC 381: 202–4).

16 On the different addressees of the Dialogues-. S. Boesch Gajano, ‘Dislivelli culturali e mediazioni ecclesiastiche nei Dialogi di Gregorio Magno’, Quaderni storici 41 (1979), 398–415.

17 Markus, Robert, Gregory the Great and His World (Cambridge, 1997), 67 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On Equitius: Marinangeli, G., ‘Equizio Amiternino e il suo movimento monastico’, Bullettino della deputazione abruzzese di storia patria 64 (1974), 281–343 Google Scholar; idem, ‘Influssi “Equiziani” nel monastero Gregoriano “ad Clivum Scauri”?’, ibid. 71 (1981), 57–84; Rivera, C., ‘Per la storia dei precursori di san Benedetto nella Provincia Valeria’, Bullettino dell’Istituto storico italiano e archivio muratoriano 47 (1932), 25–49.Google Scholar

18 Greg.M., dial. I,4 (SC 260: 38–58).

19 Neither the Regula magistri nor the Regula Benedicti mention a special office of a gardener. An early mention of a hortulanus can be found in Isidore’s rule: Isidore of Sevilla, Regula monachorum 21, in Santos Padres Españoles, 2: San Leandro, San Isidoro, San Fructuoso, Reglas monásticas de la España visigoda. Los tres libros de las ‘Sentencias’, ed. with Spanish transl. J. Campos Ruiz and I. Roca Melia (Madrid, 1971), 121. However, Meyvaert, ‘Garden’, 29, suggests that ‘We can assume that throughout the Middle Ages each monastery had its own hortulanus, who was also a monk of the community’.

20 Greg.M., dial. III,14,6–7 (SC 260: 306–8).

21 Greg.M., dial. I,3 (SC 260: 34–6); II,6,1 (SC 260: 154–6); 11,8,4 (SC 260: 162); II,8,11 (SC 260: 168); II,32,1–2 (SC 260: 226–8).

22 Bishop Bonifatius of Ferentis: Greg.M., dial. I,9 (SC 260: 88); Paulinus of Nola: III.1 (SC 260: 256–66). Gregory’s story on Paulinus is set in Italy during the invasion of the Vandals, that is after 455. At this time the famous Paulinus of Nola (†431) had been dead for more than 20 years; cf. de Vogüé’s note on Greg.M., dial. I,1 (SC 260: 256). Paulinus was very interested in gardening: in his letters he calls God caelestis agricola, diligens hortulanus and he perceives the soul as the hortum animae nostrae [Paulinus of Nola, Epistulae, ed. G. de Hartel and M. Kamptner, CSEL 29.1 (2nd edn, Vienna, 1999), ep. 39,6: 338 and ep. 44,6: 377 respectively].

23 Augustine of Hippo, De ciuitate dei libri uiginti duo, ed. B. Dombart and A. Kalb, CChr.SL 47 and 48, 2 vols (Turnhout, 1955) [hereafter: Aug., ciu. (CChr.SL)], 22,8 (CChr.SL 48: 821–2).

24 Gregory of Tours, Liber in gloria martyrum, ed. B. Krusch, MGH.SRM I,2 (Hannover, 1885), 70: 535; idem, Liber de passione et virtutibus sancti Iuliani martyris, ibid., 582–3.

25 For example, Greg.M., dial. II,16,1 (SC 260: 184–6). On Gregory’s ideal of the man of God: Cracco, G., ‘Uomini di Dio e uomini di chiesa nell’alto medioevo’, Ricerche di storia sociale e religiosa, ns, 12 (1977), 163–202 Google Scholar; idem, ‘Ascesi e ruolo dei “Viri Dei” nell’Italia di Gregorio Magno’, in Hagiographie, cultures et sociétés, IVe-XIIe siècles. Actes du Colloque organisé à Nanterre et à Paris, 2–5 mai 1979 (Paris, 1981), 283–97; McCready, William D., Signs of Sanctity: Miracles in the Thought of Gregory the Great (Toronto, 1989), 89–90 Google Scholar. For a comparison with the Gesta martyrum and Gregory of Tours: Petersen, Joan M., The Dialogues of Gregory the Great in their Late Antique Cultural Background (Toronto, 1984), 56–89 and 122–41.Google Scholar

26 Greg.M., dial. I,7,2 (SC 260: 66–8).

27 Greg.M., dial. II,6,1–2 (SC 260: 154–6); cf. 11,8,8 (SC 260: 164–6).

28 Greg.M., dial. II,8,4 (SC 260: 162). On the pagan background of this story, cf. Laporte, J., ‘Saint Benoît et les survivances du paganisme’, in Louis, René, ed., Etudes ligériennes d’histoire et d’archéologie médiévales. Mémoires et exposés présentés à la Semaine d’études médiévales de Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire du 3 au 10 juillet 1969 (Auxerre, 1975), 233–46, 238–40.Google Scholar

29 Greg.M, dial. III, i (SC 260: 256–66).

30 Greg.M., dial. I,9,2–4 (SC 260: 76–80).

31 Greg.M., dial. I,4,13 (SC 260: 50), he was the servant of a Roman defensor of the unnamed pope who challenged Equitius’s authority as a preacher; cf. Adalbert de Vogüé, ‘Le Pape qui persécuta saint Equitius. Essai d’identification’, AnBoll 100 (1982), 319–25.

32 Greg.M., dial. I,4,7 (SC 260: 44); 1,7,2 (SC 260: 66). Celebrating nocturnal laudes: dial. III,14,6 (SC 260: 306).

33 The miracles show God’s power: Greg.M., dial. III,22,4 (SC 260: 358).

34 Greg.M., dial. III.1–3 (SC 260: 256–60). Paulinus behaved like Christ in sacrificing himself: III,1,8 (SC 260: 264), cf. Phil. 2, 7. Christ as a gardener has its biblical origin in John 20, 15, cf. Gregory the Great, Homiliae in Euangelia, ed. R. Étaix, CChr.SL 141 (Turnhout, 1999) [hereafter: Greg.M., euang. (CChr.SL 141)], 11,25,4: 209–10; Sancti Augustini in Iohannis evangelium tractatus CXXIV, ed. D. R. Willems, CChr.SL 36 (Turnhout, 1954), 121,3: 666; idem, Sermones ad populum,PL 38, 996–1484: sermo 246,3, col. 1154.

35 Greg.M., dial. III,14,6–7 (SC 260: 306–8); 1,3 (SC 260: 34–6).

36 Greg.M., dial. I,12,4 (SC 260: 116).

37 Greg.M., euang. II,26,12 (CChr.SL 141: 227–8). As in Augustine’s City of God the reflections on miracles start with the resurrection, Aug., ciu. 22,8 (CCh.SL 48: 815); on Augustine’s understanding of miracles, see Petersen, Dialogues, 91–4; McCready, Signs of Sanctity, 8–15.

38 Greg.M., dial. I,12,5 (SC 260:116).

39 Ibid.

40 Greg.M., dial. III,17,7 (SC 260: 340).

41 Greg.M, dial. I,3,2–4 (SC 260:34–6); III,1,4 (SC 260: 260).

42 Greg.M., dial. I,4,12–3 (SC 260: 50); cf. Gregory the Great, Registrum epistulamm, ed. D. Norberg, CChr.SL 140 and 140A, 2 vols (Turnhout, 1982) [hereafter: Greg.M., ep. (CChr.SL)], ep. 10,16 (CChr.SL 140A 844–5).

43 Greg.M, dial. II,31,1 (SC 260: 226); I,9,2 (SC 260: 76).

44 Greg.M., dial. I,7,2 (SC 260: 66–8); II,6,1 (SC 260: 154–6); III,14,6–7 (SC 260:306–8).

45 Greg.M., dial. I,9,2 (SC 260: 76); ep. 13,12 (CChr.SL 140A: 1011); cf. euang. I,17,14 (CChr.SL 141: 128–9) and idem, Expositio in canticum canticorum, ed. P. Verbraken, CChr.SL 144 (Turnhout, 1963), 40: 39–40. The issue of the custodian (custos) is close to the very important Gregorian theme of the speculator (Ez. 3, 17–21; 33, 1–20), cf. Gregory’s first sermon as a pope, preserved in Gregory of Tours, Historiarum libri decern, ed. B. Krusch and W. Levinson, MGH.SRM I,1 (2nd edn, Hannover, 1951), 10,1: 479–81, and later his Homilies on Ezekiel, esp. 1,11,4–11: Homiliae in Hieziechelem prophetam, ed. M. Adriaen, CChr.SL 142 (Turnhout, 1971), 1704. On Gregory and Ezekiel, see also Conrad Leyser, ‘“Let Me Speak, Let Me Speak”: Vulnerability and Authority in Gregory’s Homilies on Ezekiel’, Studia Ephemeridis Augustinianum 34 (1991), 169–82. Considering the wider tradition: Christine Mohrmann, ‘Episkopos – speculator’, in eadem, Etudes sur le latin des chrétiens, 4 vols (Rome, 1958–77), 4:231–52.

46 Miracles happen mainly for those who do not yet believe: Greg.M., euang. I,4,3 (CChr.SL 141, 30); idem, Moralia in Iob, ed. M. Adriaen, CChr.SL 143, 143 A and 143B, 3 vols (Turnhout, 1979–1985), 27,36 (CChr.SL 143B: 1358).

47 Greg.M., dial. II,8,10 (SC 260: 168); cf. Laporte, ‘Saint Benoît’, 241–3.

48 Greg.M., dial. II,8,10 (SC 260: 168).

49 According to the Regula Benedicti 66,6, a garden belongs to ‘all the necessary things’ of the monastery: La Règle de Saint Benoît, ed. with French transl. A. de Vogüé and J. Neuville, SC 181 and 182, 2 vols (Paris, 1972) [hereafter: RB], 182: 660; further mentions of gardens: RB 7,63 (SC 181: 488); 46,1 (SC 182: 594).

50 Greg.M., dial. III,1 (SC 260: 256–66). For the dating cf. above, n. 22; on the Roman background: A R. Littlewood, ‘Ancient Literary Evidence for the Pleasure Gardens of Roman Country Villas’, in Elisabeth Blair MacDougall, ed., Ancient Roman Villa Gardens, 1 oth Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium on the History of Landscape Architecture, 1984 (Washington, DC, 1987), 7–30; and, more generally, M. Conan, ‘Nature into Art: Gardens and Landscapes in the Everyday Life of Ancient Rome’, Journal of Garden History 6 (1986), 348–56.

51 Hence, the secretum locum of the prologue, where Gregory mourns, is less an equivalent to the classical locus amoenus than a place where a cultural and personal loss is felt more strongly. In this sense, the locus amoenus itself is a lost place: Greg.M., dial. I, prol. 1 (SC 260: 10). On the history of otium, see André, Jean-Marie, L’Otium dans la vie morale et intellectuelle romaine, des origines à l’époque augustéenne (Paris, 1966)Google Scholar; on locus amoenus: Curtius, Ernst Robert, Europäische Literatur und lateinisches Mittelalter (2nd edn, Bern, 1954), 202–6.Google Scholar

52 Greg.M., dial. III,1,4 (SC 260: 260).

53 Cf. Litdewood, ‘Evidence’, 11–13.

54 For example, Augustine of Hippo, Confessionum libri tredecim, ed. L. Verheijen, CChr.SL 27 (Turnhout, 1981), 8,12: 130; cf. especially the setting of his early Dialogues: Contra academicos libri tres, I,4, in Sancti Aurelii Augustini Contra academicos, De beata vita, De ordine, De magistro, De libero arbitrio, ed. W. M. Green and Kl. D. Daur, CChr.SL 29 (Turnhout, 1970), 5 and 9 (two passages); De ordine libri duo, I,8, ibid., 101; some brief farming is mentioned in Contra academicos II,4: 23. Cf. S. MacCormack, The Virtue of Work: an Augustinian Transformation’, Antiquité Tardive 9 (2001), 219–37. More generally, see Caner, Daniel, Wandering, Begging Monks: Spiritual Authority and the Promotion of Monasticism in Late Antiquity (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA, 2002)Google Scholar.

55 Cassiodorus, Institutiones diuinarum litterarum, ed. R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford, 1937), I,29,1: 73; also 1,28,6–7: 71–2; cf. Littlewood, ‘Evidence’, 29–30.

56 The Egyptian monks fled from the fertile places into the desert: John Cassian, Conlationes: Jean Cassien, Conférences, ed. with French transl. E. Pichery, SC 42, 54 and 64, 3 vols (Paris, 1955–9), 24,1–2 (SC 64: 171–4); cf. Apophthegmata Patrum: Silvanos 4 (PG 65, 409AB) and Johannes Kolobos 1 (PG 65, 204C).

57 The saints are one spirit with God (1 Cor. 6, 17): Greg.M., dial. II,16,3–7 (SC 260: 186–90).