GREGORIO I, PAPA, DETTO MAGNO

GREGORY I, POPE, called THE GREAT, saint, Doctor of the Church. – Born in Rome around 540, he ascended the pontificate on 3 September 590, died on 12 March 604.

OUTLINE:

I. Before the Pontificate

II. As Pope

III. As Writer

IV. Conclusion

V. St. Gregory in Art. – VI. St. Gregory in Folklore.

I. BEFORE THE PONTIFICATE

1. The Family

There is no doubt that Gregory belonged to a patrician family, sometimes identified with the Anicii, but in one of his letters Gregory speaks of the hospice of the Anicii without further comment (Reg., IX, 8). If Gregory was an Anician, it was through the Petronii to whom his ancestors belonged, since in the 6th century there were numerous family ties between the two houses (cf. G. B. De Rossi, *Inscriptiones christianae urbis Romae septimo saeculo antiquiores*, I, Rome 1867, pp. 371–72). Felix III, pope from 483 to 492, was his great-great-grandfather. Two sisters of his father Gordian, Tarsilla and Emiliana, consecrated themselves to God on the same day (Homil. in Evang., XXXVIII, 15) and were honored as saints, no less than Gregory’s mother, Silvia. The images of Gordian, Silvia, and Gregory as they appeared in the painted decoration of the monastery “ad Clivum Scauri” were minutely described by John the Deacon (9th century) in *Vita S. Gregorii Magni* (IV, 83–84), thus allowing an approximate portrait of the Pope and his parents to be imagined (cf. H. Leclercq, s.V. in *DACL*, VI, cols. 1764–68). Gregory’s family owned a large palace on the Caelian Hill, where the church of S. Gregorio now stands.

2. Intellectual Formation

The contemporary St. Gregory of Tours (*Hist. Francorum*, X, 1) assures us that Gregory, at the time of his papal election, was “so well instructed in letters, grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric that in the Eternal City there was no one second to him.” To a writer like Gregory of Tours, who struggled even with the simplest rules of Latin grammar and confessed ignorance of noun cases and verb tenses, the literary culture of his namesake must certainly have seemed remarkable, though it was of a relative excellence. It suffices to recall that Gregory himself, even if hyperbolically, declares that he did not know Greek and admits in Latin that he was unable to avoid barbarisms or always to give nouns the case required by each preposition. His Latin was that of the good Roman society of the time, the Latin of conversation, not literary Latin.

His biblical culture and knowledge of the Fathers, vast and truly profound, date from the period of Gregory’s monastic life, whereas previously he had had to study jurisprudence and the laws governing the administration of Rome, absolutely necessary for the career of a high official to which he had been destined.

3. Prefect of Rome

Gregory recalls in a letter (Reg., IV, 2) the time when, as prefect (perhaps praetor) of Rome, he signed a solemn act, namely the declaration of the bishop of Milan, Laurence, accepting before witnesses the condemnation of the Three Chapters. Such an office brought no small trouble, and at the end of his term the holder had to render account in Ravenna. Gregory himself recalls that few of his successors escaped unscathed. Consequently, he held this burdensome magistracy only out of duty, all the more so since he felt strongly drawn to the monastic life. Indeed, he told Leander of Seville (Reg., V, 53a) that he had been held back for some time from following this vocation not only by the difficulty he experienced in changing his habits, but also because he felt he still had to “serve” in the world, despite his repugnance.

Yet from these years of administration he retained a vivid sense of discipline and the necessity of order, and as pope he would gladly remind magistrates and ecclesiastical dignitaries of their respect for the rule of their profession and the regular dispatch of business, traditional among the high officials of Rome, which remained for all the best guarantee of law and the common good.

4. Monastic Profession

At a certain point the call to the religious state prevailed. He renounced honors, settled his accounts, changed his dress and habits. Whereas previously, says Gregory of Tours (*Hist. Franc.*, X, 1), he was seen in the streets of Rome dressed in a purple toga adorned with gems, now he was seen wearing the humble monastic habit.

His monastery was the family home on the Clivus Scauri, dedicated to the Apostle Andrew. He then founded six more in his estates in Sicily. Gregory did not wish to be abbot of the monastery he had founded; he preferred to practice obedience under the guidance of Abbot Valentinus (Dial., IV, 21). The Rule adopted was that of St. Benedict, to whom Gregory devoted the second book of his *Dialogues*.

The difficulty he encountered in practicing fasting was ruinous for his health, which suffered from it all his life (Reg., V, 53a; Hom. in Evang., II, 22).

5. Apocrisiary at Constantinople

Gregory could not long enjoy the peace of the monastic life. The post of a regional deacon was vacant, and the Pope chose Gregory, whose merit and aptitude in affairs were known. It is not certain whether Gregory’s ordination took place under Benedict I (574–78) or at the beginning of the pontificate of Pelagius II (579–90). There is no doubt, however, that Pelagius II sent him as apocrisiary—today one would say nuncio—to Constantinople to Emperor Tiberius II in 579.

In the Byzantine capital, Gregory remained until 585, continuing, as far as possible, to live in community with some monks who had followed him from Rome. Though he did not speak Greek fluently, he was in touch with eminent personages in Constantinople, and, elected pope, he retained these friendships. His acquaintance with Emperor Maurice, who succeeded Tiberius in 582—whom Gregory found enigmatic—and his experiences of the Byzantine environment were of great use to him in governing the Church. His diplomatic activity at Constantinople did not prevent him from beginning the celebrated exposition of the Book of Job, known as the *Moralia*, which he had been asked to write by his friend St. Leander of Seville.

Returning to Rome in 585, he resumed the monastic life at the Clivus Scauri, meditating and commenting on Holy Scripture. But Pelagius II, who knew the man’s worth, did not fail to employ him in the difficulties of his manifold affairs, and not a few of the Pope’s letters, Paul the Deacon reports (*Hist. Langobardorum*, III, 30), are the work of Gregory, who served as his secretary.

II. AS POPE

6. Election

In October 589, many disasters befell Rome which culminated, in January 590, in the terrible inundation plague (Gregory of Tours, *Hist. Franc.*, X, 1; Gregory, *Dial.*, III, 19; Paul the Deacon, *Hist. Lang.*, III, 23; id., *Vita Greg.*, 10; John the Deacon, *Vita Greg.*, 34–35). Among the first victims was Pope Pelagius II, who died around 15 January, but the dead were thereafter beyond counting. Paul the Deacon (*Vita Greg.*, 10) states that entire districts of the city were depopulated.

GREGORIO I, POPE, SAINT — S. G. with the book of the Moralia open on a lectern, behind him an angel, before him the deacon Peter. Miniature from the Moralia contained in cod. 53 DD. executed by order of Abbot Teobaldo (1022-35) at Montecassino.

Faced with grave dangers, the need was seen to provide immediately for the election of a new pontiff. The people acclaimed G., who tried to avoid II. Even the attempt to beg the Emperor not to confirm the election came to nothing, since the prefect kept G.’s letter and sent the Roman people’s plea that Maurice hasten to confirm the designation of his friend. After a vain attempt to flee, G. was forced to let himself be led to St Peter’s to be consecrated pope. The ceremony took place on 3 October 590 (Lib. Pont., I, p. 312).

7. Pastoral action: a) in Rome and Italy

While still awaiting imperial confirmation, G. left the monastery and immediately set to work organizing relief. He addressed the people with a speech that was at once a cry of anguish and an invitation to hope (John the Deacon, Vita Greg., I, 41), and announced for the following day a penitential procession that was to set out from the various churches of Rome toward the Liberian Basilica: the so-called litania septiformis, which was repeated for three days in a row.

When the plague ceased, Rome was subjected to other calamities: famine, which G. sought to alleviate by urging Justin, praetor of Sicily, to send shipments of grain beyond the usual amounts (Reg., I, 2); the danger of Lombard occupation, which remained ever threatening; the mutinous garrison because it was not paid (Reg., I, 3); and there were added storms that uprooted trees and brought down houses and churches (Homil. in Evang., I, 1, 5). With his letters and homilies G. encouraged everyone and urged officials to perform their duties exactly.

As head of the universal Church and patriarch of the West, he exercised a particular authority, that of metropolitan, over the Churches of Italy that formed his “suburbicarian” jurisdiction, stretching from Tuscany in the north to Sicily in the south. G. maintained constant control both over episcopal elections and over the fulfillment of bishops’ duties: the rectors whom the Holy See had in every province were charged with administering its property, served as the Pope’s official intermediaries for conducting inquiries and making known his decisions. Their appointment was notified to the bishops, who in turn were to regard themselves as representatives of the Pope. Whenever a particular case required it, the Pope designated a visitor who would conduct an inquiry on the spot, make his report, and, if necessary, promulgate the decisions taken.

The history of the Church of Naples under G. provides a significant example of such interventions (cf. Reg., III, 15, 58, 60; X, 19; XI, 12, 53; XII, 29). No less resolute were G.’s interventions with the bishops of Amalfi and Taranto. Yet just as G. was resolute in exacting from bishops their duties, so too was he in defending their rights: as soon as a “defensor,” charged with the property of Sicily, usurped the rights of the bishop, to whom alone it belongs to judge his own clergy (Reg., XI, 24), or took advantage of the see’s vacancy to compromise the rights of the successor to a monastery in the diocese (Reg., XI, 54), the Pope intervened to prevent abuses that endangered the authority of the see.

Outside the metropolis of Rome and its territory, Italy was divided into three metropolitan sees: Milan, Aquileia, and Ravenna. For the most part G., respectful as he was of others’ rights, did not correspond directly with the bishops of these circumscriptions but only with the metropolitans, who were responsible for their suffragans just as he was for his own. Yet when a case required action with individual bishops for the common good of the Church, he did not fail to do so. Thus, for example, the schism of Aquileia was ended when the metropolitan Severus refused to heed the just appeal of the Pope (cf. Reg., XII, 13; XIII, 36).

In the province of Milan, G.’s prudence succeeded in overcoming the last resistance to the condemnation of the Three Chapters, due above all to the pressure of Theodelinda, queen of the Lombards, who, though Catholic, clung to them at the instigation of her spiritual director, the monk Secondus (cf. Reg., XIV, 12).

The metropolitans of Ravenna, given the special situation of the city, seat of the Byzantine exarch, sometimes seemed truly to lose control, so that the Pope’s relations with them required special attention, which G. did not fail to give. Compelled by his office to make his severity felt, he still allowed glimpses of the tenderness of his heart, always maintaining the prestige of the See of Rome (cf. Reg., V, 11, 15; XI, 21; XIII, 30).

b) In Spain. — Among the provinces dependent on the patriarchate of the West, one of the calmest during G.’s pontificate was Spain. In 587 the conversion of the Visigothic king Reccared had taken place, and in 589 the Third Council of Toledo received the official news of the conversion of all the Visigoths. Leander of Seville, who had worked so hard for this conversion, informed the new Pope, who was also his friend. G. expressed his joy in a letter of April 591 (Reg., I, 41). Reccared himself then sent three abbots to G. to present his respects and gifts, but the sea was so rough that they could not go beyond Marseilles. On his part, G. had sent the priest Probino to Málaga, and the king invited him to court, though Probino could not go for reasons of health. There was, however, an exchange of gifts between Reccared and G. With his good offices and the discretion required, G. helped the king so that the Byzantines would remain on the south-eastern coast along the shore. In this territory too G. exercised his office as supreme judge in ecclesiastical matters: he intervened against the governor Comitiolus, who had arbitrarily deposed two bishops, sending the “defensor” John to restore order.

c) In Africa. — After Belisarius’ victory over the Vandals, North Africa had passed to the Byzantines, and consequently the Church had gradually regained its vigor. A sudden revival of Donatism engaged G.’s pastoral action, and he opposed it with all his strength to eliminate the scandals that arose from II. After making an appeal in vain to civil authority, he turned to the sole forces of the episcopate and, aided by able co-workers, obtained what he desired. After 596 no further letters of G. speak of the Donatists.

d) In France. — Gaul had recently been unified under the Catholic kingdom of the Franks, but the civil wars that agitated and upheaved the Merovingian kingdom, and the unheard-of cruelties of sovereigns and princes, had a painful reflection even on the moral and disciplinary conditions of the Church. The condition of the Frankish Church when G. was elected pope was truly disastrous (cf. Gregory of Tours, Hist. Franc., IV, 12, 43; VII, 20; VIII, 20, 29). Urged by Childebert, king of Austrasia, G. sent the pallium to Virgilius of Arles and appointed him pontifical vicar of the provinces of Austrasia, Burgundy, and Aquitaine, with authority to resolve lesser questions using his own authority, and graver ones with the help of twelve bishops. Only in extreme cases was he to have recourse to Rome. G. repeatedly and successfully intervened with Queen Brunichild to put an end to the scandal of simony, the consecration of laymen to the episcopate, and pagan practices still in use, especially in the countryside.

e) In England. — When G. ascended the papal throne in 590, nothing suggested that England was on the verge of becoming a Christian nation. The invading Angles and Saxons had restored paganism there. The need to convert the Anglo-Saxons came to G.’s mind as soon as the political conditions of the Frankish kingdom gave him assurance that missionaries could be sent. In 595 G. ordered the priest Candidus to purchase young Anglo-Saxon slaves so that they might be educated in one of Rome’s monasteries, and in 596 he launched the enterprise by sending a group of missionary monks from his own monastery “ad Clivum Scauri.” In 597 the conversion of King Æthelberht and ten thousand Anglo-Saxons showed that G.’s plan had fully succeeded (v. AUGUSTINE, bishop of CANTERBURY, saint). G. also outlined the general structure of the Catholic hierarchy in England (Reg., XI, 39), based on the Roman division of the Empire, though St Augustine of Canterbury, taking account of the current political situation, thought it wise to modify II. In G.’s epitaph mention is made of the conversion of England through his efforts (cf. the text in A. Silvagni, Inscriptiones Christianae urbis Romae saeculo septimo antiquiores, II, Rome 1935, n. 4156).

f) In the East. — Relations between the Church of Rome and those of the East during G.’s pontificate largely revolved around the dispute with the Church of Constantinople, which the Pope’s prudence and constancy failed to resolve. At the Council of Constantinople in 587, the presiding patriarch, John the Faster, signed the acts with the title “ecumenical patriarch.” Pelagius II refused to recognize the legality of this council, summoned without his authorization, and protested against the title “ecumenical patriarch” assumed by the Faster (cf. Reg., V, 44), seeing in it, rightly, a threat to papal authority in the East.

G. waited five years after his election before asking John to renounce the title he did not possess. The occasion arose when two priests from Asia Minor appealed to the Holy See (Reg., V, 45). In letters to the Emperor, the Empress, and the Patriarch (Reg., V, 37, 39, 44) in June 595, he insisted especially on the prideful nature of the aforesaid title, “humbling the pride of the Faster with very clear words” (Reg., V, 37). In letters sent at the same time to the patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch, G. recounted the history of the conflict from the time of Pelagius II onward: he reminded them that the Council of Chalcedon had not granted Roman pontiffs such a title and urged them not to assume it or accord it to him in their letters (Reg., V, 41). Emperor Maurice did nothing to make Patriarch John renounce the title; indeed, in 597 he made a determined attempt to overcome G.’s intransigence toward the patriarch Cyriacus, who had succeeded John in September 595 (Reg., VII, 30). Cyriacus, who had previously been on good terms with G., retained the hated title. G.’s efforts to resolve the issue came to nothing, but the danger he feared was averted when the term “ecumenical” took on a special meaning, becoming synonymous with autocephalous.

8. Political action: a) with the Lombards

On 5 September 590 Autari, the first of the Lombard kings, died. He had been elected by the dukes to deal with the danger of their anarchic situation (Paulus Diaconus, Hist. Lang., III, 35). Autari had forbidden the Lombards to be baptized according to the Catholic rite. He was succeeded by Agilulf, duke of Turin, who, by marrying the widow, raised great hopes, since Theodelinda, coming from Bavaria, professed not Arianism but Catholicism and was beloved by her people. The present reality, however, offered nothing reassuring, and G. saw in it the precursors of the end of the world. In vain he sought to draw the attention of the Exarch of Ravenna and even the Emperor to the grave danger. The only action attempted by the Exarch was an ill-advised maneuver that induced Agilulf to march on Rome.

Frustrated by the Exarch’s inaction, G. took it upon himself to negotiate with the Lombard king and, by paying a tribute of 500 pounds of gold, induced Agilulf to withdraw. Paulus Diaconus has dramatized the story of G.’s meeting with Agilulf, making it resemble that of Leo the Great with Attila (Vita Greg., 26); likewise, the anonymous continuator of the Chronicle of Prosper, around 640, went so far as to claim that G. would not have left Rome to beg Agilulf but would have met him on the steps of

St Peter’s. The legend of G.’s supplication before Agilulf, though historically unfounded, became widespread and was depicted in art.