(Gregory I.)
The morals of this pontiff concerning the chastity of ecclesiastics were very rigid. In the business of choosing a bishop, he principally recommended it to the electors to inform themselves, whether the person proposed were guilty of adultery, or mere fornication. “Nay, he would have them to ask him in private whether he had been guilty of that sin, admonishing him that, if he were guilty of it, though nobody knew it, and there was no proof to convict him, yet he could not in conscience receive orders; that, nevertheless, they should be given him, if he protested that he was free from that vice; but, if he confessed it, it should be gently represented to him, that he ought rather to think of a cloister to do penance, than of the priesthood, of which his crime, though secret, made him unworthy.” This chaste pontiff understanding107 “That some ecclesiastics of Sardinia had committed that sin, after they had received orders, ordered not only that they should be deposed, without any hopes of being ever restored to the functions of their ministry, but also that, to prevent so great an evil, none should be admitted to sacred orders, and especially to episcopacy, without assurance that they had always lived chastely, and even preserved their continency many years after they were separated from their wives, in
order to be admitted to the priesthood.” The suffrages being divided at Naples in the election of a bishop, this pope, without more ado, declared plainly that he could not approve John the deacon,108 “because he had been well informed he had a very little daughter. What presumption, added he, is this in him, to aspire to episcopacy, when he is manifestly convicted by this little child, of the small space of time he has preserved his continence?” He caused it to be inviolably observed, according to the canons, “that every ecclesiastic and beneficed man, whether sub-deacon, deacon, priest, abbot, or bishop, who should be guilty of impurity, if there were proofs of his crime, should be deposed, and put to penance in a monastery, and incapacitated to be ever restored to his order and dignity. Hearing that the abbot Secundinus, who was a very wicked man, bad committed horrible crimes, he said, that without seeking proofs for a judicial conviction, it sufficed that he himself, perhaps boasting of what this sort of debauchees call good fortune, had confessed that he had sported with women, which had not hindered him from being an abbot; whereupon he caused him to be depased.” He treated in the same manner the Bishop of Docleatina, a city of Illyricum, at present called Cataro; and he gave order to his metropolitan, “that, if this wicked man, who had been justly deposed for having stained his character by this infamous vice, durst ever pretend, or even intimate by a single word, that he had still some thoughts of being a bishop, he should be confined to a monastery to do penance all his lifetime, and be deprived of the communion till his death. What is very observable herein is, that the bishop of Tarentum not being accused, but only suspected, of keeping a concubine since he was a bishop, he advises him very seriously that, if he is conscious of this crime, though it were in secret, and he denied it, and there were no convincing proof against him, yet he is obliged in conscience to depose himself, and to forbear all sacerdotal functions. This will seem the more strange, because this bishop having committed another crime, which in the eyes of the world seems to be much greater, he inflicted a much less punishment on him. The same angry prelate having been disobliged by one of the poor old women, that were kept at the expense of the church, caused her to be beaten at such a rate that she remained half dead. It is certain that if she had died a few days after she had been so cruelly beaten, he had been most severely punished, according to the rigour of the canons, as guilty of murder: however, because she died not till eight months after, St Gregory did not think that her death was to be ascribed to the blows she had received, and contented himself with suspending him for two months. But for the sin of incontinence, which, by the laws of human justice, should be punished less rigorously than that other action so unworthy of a bishop, he declared to him, that if he had committed it, though it could not be proved, it was absolutely necessary, for the satisfaction of his conscience, that he should leave his bishopric.”109Maimbourg does not leave this subject without saying, “that the rigour of the canons upon this point is not at present in use, and that a man is not obliged to follow St Gregory’s opinion upon this case of conscience.”
Gregory was also very severe with respect to calumny. All that Maimbourg says upon this subject seems so good to me, that finding nothing useless in it,I shall not abridge it. He observes first, “that there is a very subtle oppression, and the more dangerous, because it is most difficult to be discovered, viz. calumny, which the wisest of men, and even those
who glory in suffering joyfully the first, find so barbarous and intolerable, that they cannot hinder their constancy from being shaken, be their minds ever so strong.” After which he goes on thus:— “I know that the civil and canon laws appoint punishments for this crime, so much complained of in the world; but they are not always well observed with respect to ecclesiastics, as St Gregory testifies, and especially in the communities, where calumny hardly meets with any rebuke, under pretence that the punishing of a false accusation would take away the liberty of bringing true ones, and discovering punishable faults to the superiors. Now this is what St Gregory could in no wise bear with, as appears by many of his letters. Hilary, sub-deacon of the church of Naples, having brought a false accusation against John, deacon of the same church, which could not be maintained against many witnesses, who attested the deacon’s innocence, the holy pontiff was very much offended that Paschasius, their bishop, had not as yet punished the slanderer. Whereupon he gave order to the defender, Anthemius, to tell him from him, that he would have him first deprived of his office of subdeacon, of which he was unworthy: secondly, that he should be publicly whipped; for this sort of correction was in use at that time to chastise clerks, as may be seen in St Augustin, though this custom has been since abolished; and lastly, that having been thus chastised, he be sent into exile, that is, either into a monastery to do penance, or by the order of the magistrate, to whom alone it belonged to punish a criminal with banishment by the law of the state. As he manifested his abhorrence of calumny by punishing it so severely, so he kept strictly upon his guard, that he might not be overreached; and never believed any informer till, having examined the least circumstances of the accusation and exactly heard both sides, he could not in the least doubt of the truth of it. He was moreover so much afraid of being deceived by the artifices of calumniators, that, when he could, he forbore giving his judgment about an accusation, referring himself to some other person, on whose sufficiency and probity he entirely depended.”“Gregory cannot be excused for prostituting his praises, to insinuate himself into the favour of a usurper. The emperor Maurice’s army, having revolted against him at the instigation of Phocas, marched towards Constantinople, and took it without any difficulty. The emperor was delivered to Phocas, who by an unheard of cruelty, caused five little princes, Maurice’s children, to be murdered in his presence, before their father’s eyes, whom that unfortunate father could not save. The nurse of the youngest had cunningly withdrawn him from the massacre, and substituted her own in his place; but Maurice, who perceived it, caused his own child to be returned to the executioners. After this, the tyrant, more cruel than the wildest beasts, being no ways moved with so brave and generous an action, which melted all the assistants into tears, commanded this poor little innocent to be killed, and the bloody sacrifice to be perfected, by laying Maurice upon the bodies of his five children, as upon an altar, where he was inhumanly butchered. The eldest son of Maurice had been, a little before, sent to the king of Persia; but he was taken at Nicæa, and beheaded. The cruel Phocas put also to death almost all the relations and friends of the emperor Maurice, and even the empress Constantina and her three daughters, contrary to the promise he had made to the patriarch Cyriacus, that he would suffer them to live quietly in a monastery where they were. In fine, there never was so much innocent blood shed, nor so many miseries and misfortunes, as in his reign. And, indeed, there
never was a more infamous tyrant than this wretched man; without virtue, birth, honour, and merit,
horribly ill-shaped, abominably ugly, of a frightful aspect, appearing always in a fury when he spoke, drunken, lascivious, brutish, sanguinary, without any sense of humanity, being wholly a wild beast in his look and humour, and having nothing of a man, but a very deformed shape; in a word, having all the ill qualities, which may be set in opposition to those, which the historians have extremely praised in Maurice.”I have used Maimbourg’s words, that nobody may say I have aggravated Phocas’s crimes to cast a greater blot upon St Gregory; and I will still use the same author’s expressions, as to this pope’s flatteries, that I may not be accused of representing things to his disadvantage. “I confess,” says that historian, “that what I have been saying may offend those, who after this shall read the three epistles which this holy pope wrote to Phocas, and to Leontia his wife, when they knew at Rome what had been done at Constantinople, when he was crowned emperor there. He seems in those three letters to rejoice, and to thank God for his coming to the crown, as for the greatest advantage that could happen to the empire, and to speak of him in the most advantageous terms, as of an admirable prince, who would make it flourish again, by delivering it from all miseries wherewith it had hitherto been afflicted. And he thanks God that the world, being delivered from so hard and uneasy a yoke, began to enjoy the sweets of liberty under his reign.”
Maimbourg gives the best colour he can to this strange flattery; he alleges several reasons for it; but he says nothing of the true one; which is, that Maurice had declared for the patriarch of Constantinople against pope Gregory, in very nice disputes, such as are always the differences about authority or superiority. The pope, overjoyed to be delivered from an emperor, who favoured the patriarch of Constantinople, loaded this new prince with praises, in
order to obtain from him what he desired against his rival. There are hardly any examples of a virtue that has been proof against the jealousy of authority, or the interest of a party. Though a prince be endowed with the noblest qualities, if he be withal contrary to a certain church, and be banished or killed, she looks upon this as a heavenly favour, and respectfully kisses the human hand that procures it, especially when this hand acts contrary to the other prince. In such a juncture, two contradictory propositions are found in the mouths of the clergy; the party that loses its patron considers this loss as a horrid conspiracy of infernal powers; it cites both divine and human laws against the revolution; but the other side speaks of nothing but the wonderful ways of providence, the paternal care of heaven, and runs into political doctrines. But I question whether this prepossession was ever carried to such infamies as those of St Gregory. What a fall! what blindness! what base condescension! a pope, who is so severe to a poor fornicating clergyman, and so terrible in his sentences thereupon, writes to Phocas, without so much as expressing his wish that Maurice and his children had not suffered death. There are no men that make greater outcries against the Sceptics than the clergy, and yet no men are more used to turn the rules of morality like a nose of wax, according to the reciprocal interest of their cause; which, at the bottom, is a most dangerous Scepticism.Gregory was equally complaisant to a most wicked queen of France, queen Brunehault. In all the letters this pope wrote to her, he bestowed upon her all the praises that can be given to one of the most perfect princesses in the world, so far as to make no difficulty to say, in a very affirmative manner, that the French nation was the most happy in the world, since they deserved such a queen, endowed with all sorts of virtues and good qualities. The following passage on
this subject is to be found in the Nouvelles de la République des Lettres. “We ought to make more account of this pope’s good intentions, than of his excessive complaisance for queen Brunehault, the most wicked woman in the world, as almost all historians say, but at the same time the most artful at gaining the clergy, because in the midst of her heinous crimes, she showed an extraordinary munificence towards churchmen, and in her foundation of churches and convents, not forgetting to make a devout request for relics to the holy father.” Maimbourg proves the exemptions, which are said to have been granted by this pope to the pious queen Brunehault, to be fictitious; for it is this virtue St Gregory praises in her, and the like will ever be done to any one that is liberal to the church, the dupe of those people, who sometimes are dupes in their turn. This puts me in mind of the answer that was given by a Carthusian to Philip de Comines, “The body pf John Galeazzo, a great and wicked tyrant. ...is in the Carthusian monastery at Pavia, near the park, higher than the great altar, and the Carthusians showed it me, at least his bones, which smell as nature requires: a native of Bourges called him saint, and I asked him in his ear why he called him saint, when he might see painted about him the arms of many towns he had usurped, to which he had no right? He answered me softly, in this country, we call all those saints that are our benefactors.”110 The rule of these good monks is of all times and countries.It is not certain that Gregory caused the noble monuments of the Romans to be destroyed, although certain that he has been accused of it, as it appears from these words of Platina, who rejects this accusation.111 “Nor ought we, in this matter,to let Gregory be censured by the ignorant and illiterate, for
ordering the buildings of the ancients to he demolished, lest travellers and strangers (as they pretend) coining to Rome on a religious account, should neglect places of devotion, and view with admiration the triumphal arches and monuments of the ancients. Be this reproach far from so great a pope, who, certainly next to God, valued his country dearer than his life.” The same historian observes, that Sabinian, who succeeded Gregory, expressed a violent resentment against his predecessor, so far as almost to burn bis books. Some inhabitants of Rome excited the new pope to this, because, said they, St Gregory had mangled, or thrown down, the statues of the ancient Romans. Platina rejects also this accusation.It is farther asserted that Gregory caused a vast number of heathen books to be burnt, and that the Palatine library, founded by Augustus, was reduced by him to ashes. I have read this no where but in Joannes Sarisburiensis, and therefore I give no great credit to it. What is certain, is, that this pope had conceived a great aversion for heathen books, as it appears from this passage of his history. Desiderius, archbishop of Vienna, “was a man of an extraordinary merit, of admirable learning, and a shining virtue, to whom St Gregory wrote more than once with great commendation; and yet he found fault with his conduct, and sharply reproved him, as being guilty of a great crime, for spending his time in teaching some of his friends grammar and literature, and explaining the poets to them. He assures him that this unlucky piece of news had given him so much trouble, that all the joy he had conceived, upon hearing the success of his studies, and his great capacity, was changed into sorrow: “because” says he, “that the praises of Jupiter and of Christ cannot be in the same mouth: consider what an unworthy and abominable thing it is for a bishop to
sing such verses, as a devout and religious layman could not repeat with decency, and without doing injury to his profession.' He adds, that though he has been informed from other hands, that it was not so, yet he cannot but lay it much to heart, and that he will make a more exact inquiry into the truth of it, because it is a horrid, and even execrable thing, to hear such a report of a priest and a bishop. ‘ But if” says he, at last, to comfort him, ' I can be fully satisfied that this report against you is false, and that you do not amuse yourself with these fooleries of human learning, and worldly sciences, I shall give thanks to God for'not suffering your heart to be defiled with the praises full of blasphemies, which those profane authors bestow on the most wicked men.'” It is said, that Livy in particular was thus treated, because he insists too much on the superstitious rites of the heathens. “At mirificus zelus fuit S Gregorii, qui ut S Antoninus, et ex eo Jo Hesselius, ex utroque Raderus ad Martialem tradit, Livium propterea combussit, quod in superstitionibus et sacris Romanorum perpetuo versetur.”112I had almost forgotten this pope’s zeal for the psalmody of the church. “He especially applied himself to regulate the office, and the singing of the church,” says Maimbourgh: “to which end he composed his Antiphonary. Nothing can be more admirable than what he did on this occasion. Though he had upon his hands all the affairs of the universal church, and was still more burthened with distempers, than with that multitude of business, which he was necessarily to take care of, in all parts of the world; yet he took time to examine with what tunes the psalms, hymns, oraisons, verses, responses, canticles, lessons, epistles, the gospel, the prefaces, and the Lord’s prayer, were to be sung; what were the tones, measures,
notes, moods, most suitable to the majesty of the church, and most proper to inspire devotion: and he formed that ecclesiastical music so grave and edifying, which at present is called the Gregorian music. He moreover instituted an academy of singers, for all the clerks to the deaconship exclusively, because the deacons were only to be employed in preaching the gospel, and distributing the alms of the church to the poor; and he would have the singers to perfect themselves in the art of true singing, according to the notes of his music, and to bring their voices to sing sweetly and devoutly, which, according to St Isidore, is not to be obtained but by fasting and abstinence. For, says he, the ancients fasted the day before they were to sing, and lived, for their ordinary diet, upon pulse, to make their voices clearer and finer; whence it is that the heathens called those singers, bean-eaters. I question whether, at present, the singers would willingly submit to that method, to which they are not used. However, St Gregory took care to instruct them himself, as much a pope as he was, and to teach them to sing well. Joannes Diaconus says, that, in his time, this pope’s bed was preserved with great veneration in the palace of St John of Lateran, in which he sang, though sick, to teach the singers; as also the whip, wherewith he threatened the young clerks and the singing boys, when they were out, and failed in the notes.”Many fabulous miracles are related by this pope in his dialogues. “Some learned men, who do not approve the recital of so many miracles, doubt whether St Gregory be the author of those dialogues, because they do not appear to them worthy of so great a doctor. Denys de Sainte Marthe, who speaks thus, solves the doubts of those learned men with very solid reasons, and shews that those dialogues are the works of St Gregory. Mr Du Pin is of the same opinion; but he owns at the same time,
that they do not seem to be worthy of the gravity and judgment of that holy pope, being full of extraordinary miracles, and almost incredible stories. It is true, he relates them upon the credit of others; but he should not have been so credulous as to believe them, and afterwards to publish them as matters of fact. The stories mentioned in those dialogues, are frequently grounded upon a bare relation of some ignorant old men, or upon common reports. The miracles, are so frequent, so extraordinary, and often wrought for so inconsiderable reasons, that it is a difficult thing to believe them all. He tells some stories which can hardly be reconciled with the lives of those he speaks of; as the voluntary imprisonment of St Paulinus in Africa, under the king of the Vandals. Visions, apparitions, and dreams, are more frequently to be met with in the dialogues of that pope, than in any other author. Hence it is, that he owns about the latter end of his work, that more discoveries had been made in his time about the other world, than in all the foregoing ages. But I do not think that any body will warrant the truth of all those relations.” Father Denys de Sainte Marthe acknowledges, “that he would not warrant all the miracles and visions contained in those dialogues.” Nevertheless he does not blame that pope. “That holy man,” says he, “might relate some upon the testimony of persons a little too credulous. He thought they were not to be slighted by reason of the edifying things he observed in them. The prudent reader ought to examine what degree of certainty he allows them, and who are his authors.” This monk plainly sets up for an apologist, who thinks, that St Gregory is not in the least to be blamed. But the worst is, that the reasons he alleges to prove it are not solid; for if one may be allowed to publish a relation, because it contains some things that are edifying, how many fables may not one give out as true and pious histories? though a writer does not say in express words, this is matter of fact, nobody ought to doubt of it;—yet if he do not quote cotemporary and grave authors, but only an ancient tradition, he cannot be justified, and afford not a sufficient preservative. The apologist moreover enlarges to shew, that the extraordinary things, related in those dialogues, were very frequent at that time. One of his reasons for it is, that there were many heretics to be converted, and many Catholics, who did not believe the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the dead.” It is an undeniable matter of fact, that in St Gregory’s time, many Christians wavered in the belief of two fundamental doctrines of our religion. He is so humble as to confess, that he himself had formerly doubted of the resurrection; and therefore he makes it his business, in many of his homilies, to inculcate those truths into them. As there have been, at all times, many libertines, even within the pale of the Catholic church, there have always been many people whose interest it was, that there should be no future life, no resurrection and judgment, and therefore they easily believed it; for a corrupt heart will soon be attended with an erroneous mind. However it be, it is certain, that Italy, and particularly Rome, was full of such unbelievers in St Gregory’s time. It were needless to prove it, after what has been said upon this subject by the last translator of the dialogues, in his excellent preface. Gregory of Tours mentions a dispute he had with one of the priests of his church, who maintained, that there was no resurrection to be expected. He also speaks of a deacon of the church of Paris, who pretended to be a man of great parts, and who fell into that error, disputing about it with great eagerness: whence it may be inferred, that many others in France were engaged in that dangerous heresy. If any one read the dialogues, he will find, that Peter, the deacon, knew many christians, who doubted of the immortality of the soul. Was it not therefore becoming the mercy of God, that he should work miracles at that time, to help the weakness of those poor infidels? and is St Gregory to blame because he collected them?”I shall make only two short observations upon this: one is, that, if those unbelieving Catholics questioned only whether the soul was immortal, and whether the bodies should be raised out of their graves, they argued very pitifully; for the truth of the gospel being once admitted, it is a ridiculous thing to raise any doubts about those two points. The other is, that perhaps there never were so many unbelievers, as in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; I mean such unbelievers, as are not contented to reject the building, without destroying the foundation, but who reject both the foundation and the building. Besides, there were in those two centuries a great many heretics, who required conversion. Miracles should therefore at least have been as frequent in these ages, as in that of St Gregory. Whence we may conclude, that the argument of Father Denys de Sainte Marthe by proving too much proves nothing. If it be true that part of this pope’s books were burnt after his death, and that they would all have been destroyed, had it not been for an accident much the same with that, which, in former times, prevented the Romans putting to death the senators, as having murdered Romulus, some persons would infer from it, that the glory of that pope, and of some other ancient fathers, is like rivers, which, being very small at their spring, grow very large at a great distance from it. Something might be said against this comparison; but it is certain, generally speaking, that the objects of memory are of a very different nature from the objects of sight.
The latter lessens in proportion to their distance, whereas the former commonly increase, according as we are remote from the time and place of their existence.—Art. Gregory I.