No More Learning

Nor was Gregory at the time the person to
bring the foes together, for in August 593 he had written to the
Emperor Maurice in terms of criticism strangely bold and direct. When
Maurice was "not yet lord of all" he had been Gregory's own lord, and
still the Pope would call himself the unworthy servant of the pious
Emperor. But a new edict which forbade a civil servant of the Empire,
or a soldier, to become priest or monk, seemed to him a monstrous
infringement of individual and religious liberty. By it, he said, the way
to heaven would be closed to many, for while there were those who could
lead a religious life in a secular dress, yet more there were who unless
they forsook all things could in no way attain salvation. What
answer would he, who from notary had been made by God first captain,
then Caesar, then Emperor, then father of Emperor yet to be, and to
whose care the priests of God had been entrusted, make to the divine
inquest of the Last Day if not one single soldier was allowed to be
converted to the Lord? And Gregory drew a lurid picture of the "end
of the ages" which seemed to be at hand, the heavens and the earth
aflame and the elements melting with fervent heat, and the Divine Judge
ready to appear with the six orders of angels in His train. Yet it is an
illustration of the fidelity with which Gregory performed all his secular
obligations that he had caused the law against which he so vehemently
protested to be published in the usual way.
This was not the only divergence in opinion between the Pope and
the imperial Court. Gregory, with all his respect for authority, was at
least able to hold his own, and there was for a while at least no breach
in the friendly relations with Constantinople. Maurice sent relief to the
sufferers from the Lombard invasion, and Gregory lost no opportunity
of advising that the separate peace which he had made with Agilulf
should be enlarged at least into a general truce. Gregory, inter gladios
Langobardorum, could appreciate the needs of Italy in a way that was
impossible for the distant Augustus. In 595 however the divergence
came to a head. The Emperor reviewed the Pope's peace policy in terms
of contemptuous condemnation and Gregory answered in one of the most
vigorous of all his letters, dated June 595. He resented the imputation
VIII. (b)


## p. 246 (#278) ############################################


246
Pope and Patriarch
\
^
that because he thought that a firm peace could be made, as indeed it
had been made, with Ariulf of Spoleto, he was a fool. Fool indeed was
he to suffer what he suffered in Rome among the swords of the
Lombards; but still he was a servant of the truth, and grave injustice
was it to the priesthood that he should be deemed a liar. On behalf
of all priests he made dignified protest, recalling the action and
words of the great Constantine as a rebuke to his successor in the
Empire. "Where all is uncertain I betake myself to tears and prayers
that Almighty God will rule with His own hand our most pious lord,
and in the terrible judgment will find him free from all offences, and so
cause me to please men that I may not offend against His grace. "
How the Emperor received this letter we do not know; but already
there were other causes of dispute between Rome and Constantinople.
His experience had not made the Pope very cordial towards Church
or State in the New Rome. Useful at Constantinople Gregory must
undoubtedly have been, but the fact that he never learned Greek shews
at least that there were limits to his usefulness. The information he
received would often be inadequate, the means of communication with
the people among whom he dwelt incomplete. Official interpreters do
not always represent meanings faithfully. Gregory had to deal most
with the imperial Court, where his ignorance of Greek may not have been
so great a barrier; but, in his relations with the Patriarch, it would
at least serve to prevent any strengthening of the friendship between
Churches which were already beginning to drift apart.
That the Church was under the rule of five patriarchs was a
familiar view, and at least from the time of Vigilius (537-555) it
had been accepted in official language at Rome. Thus Gregory had
announced his own election to the patriarchs of Constantinople,
Alexandria, Jerusalem and Antioch. His letters shew traces of another
theory, that of the three patriarchates, Rome, Antioch and Alexandria,
sharing, as it were, the throne of St Peter. But Constantinople had
long asserted a pre-eminence. Justinian had recognised its precedence
as second of the great sees, superior to all others save Rome, and had
declared the Church of Constantinople to be "the head of all the
churches. '" In doing this no doubt the Empire had claimed no supreme
or exclusive dignity for the New Rome, nor asserted any indivisible
or unalterable jurisdiction. But what the law recognised had en-
couraged further expansion of claim. At first the relation between
Constantinople and the elder see was regarded as parallel to that
between the two capitals: they represented not diversity but unity:
as there was one Empire, so there was one Church. When John
the Patriarch accepted the formula of faith drawn up by Pope
Hormisdas he prefixed to it an assertion of the mutual relation: "I
hold the most holy Churches of the old and the new Rome to be one.
I define the see of the Apostle Peter and this of the imperial city to be


## p. 247 (#279) ############################################

688-595] Controversy with John the Faster 247
one see. " From this it was an inevitable step to use titles which Rome
used. The pontiff of Constantinople claimed to be oecumenical (oIkov-
fAeviKos or universalis) patriarch.
In 588 Pelagius declared the acts of a synod at Constantinople to be
invalid because the patriarch had used the phrase. Very likely Gregory
himself had been the adviser of this course. Now in 595 he pursued the
protest. John the Faster had written to him and had employed the
offensive title " in almost every line. " Gregory wrote, as he describes it,
"sweetly and humbly admonishing him to amend this appetite for vain
glory. 11 He forbade his envoy to communicate with the patriarch till he
had abandoned the title. At the same time he repudiated any wish to
assume it for himself. "The Council of Chalcedon,11 he said, "offered
the title of universalis to the Roman pontiff but he refused to accept it,
lest he should seem thereby to derogate from the honour of his brother
bishops. " He saw indeed that political interests were complicating the
ecclesiastical claim. His envoy had been commanded by the Emperor
to adjure him to live in peace with the patriarch, who seemed to him to
be as hypocritical as he was proud. Then either he must obey the
Emperor and encourage the proud man in his vanity, or he must
alienate the Emperor, his lord and the natural defender of Rome. He
did not hesitate. He wrote to the Emperor, tracing the misfortunes of
the Empire to the pride of the clergy. When Europe was given over to
the barbarians, with cities ruined, villages thrown down and provinces
without inhabitants; when the husbandman no longer tilled the soil,
and the worshippers of idols daily murdered the faithful, the priests
who should have abased themselves in sackcloth and ashes sought for
themselves empty names and titles novel and profane. Peter was never
called Universal Apostle, yet John strove to be Universal Bishop.
"I confidently affirm that whosoever calls himself sacerdos universalis,
or desires to be so called by others, is in his pride a forerunner of
Antichrist. 11 What he said to the Emperor he reinforced to the
Empress. There should be no peace with the patriarch so long as he
claimed this outrageous designation. On the other side the argument
became no attitude of aggression, hardly a claim for equality. The
patriarchs did not assert that they were above the popes, and they
constantly declared that they had no wish to lessen the authority of the
other patriarchs. But whatever the Greeks might say, the Latins saw
that words represented ideas; and universality could not be predicated
of Constantinople in any sense which was not offensive to the venerable
see and city of Rome. The bitterness of the strife abated when John
the Faster died on 2 September 595, it may be before Gregory's severe
judgment had reached him. Cyriacus, his successor, was a personal
friend of the Pope, and a man of no personal pride. Gregory welcomed
his accession and thanked the Emperor for his choice. But in spite of
friendly letters the claim was not abandoned. The patriarchs continued
CH. VIII. (b)


## p. 248 (#280) ############################################

248 Church and State
to use the title of oecumenical bishop, and before a century had passed
the popes followed their example.
Gregory saw that the patriarchs of Constantinople were in danger of
sinking into mere officials of the State, for with all their lofty position
they were in the power of the imperial Court. But the tone in which he
addressed them was always distinct from that which he employed
towards the lay officials of the Empire. From the beginning of his
pontificate he had carefully cultivated relations with the exarchs of
Ravenna and of Africa, the praetor of Sicily, the dukes of Naples and
Sardinia, the praefect of Illyria, the proconsul of Dalmatia, and with
lesser officials rural and urban. His constant letters shew how closely
he mingled in their concerns, watched their conduct, approved their
industry, advised on their political action, intervened on their behalf or
against them at Constantinople. Many of the officials were his close
friends; and the Emperor, in spite of the divergence between them, did
not cease to give heed to the counsels of one whom he knew to be a wise
and honest man.
The maintenance of the imperial power in Italy indeed depended not
a little on the great Pope, who yet by his incessant and widespread
activity was preparing the way of the ecclesiastical power which should
succeed it in the rule of the peninsula. The subdeacon who was his
agent at Ravenna, and those who administered the property of the
Church in the Campagna or in Sicily, the bishops themselves all over the
Empire, reported to Rome and their words were not without effect, and
in all the advice which issued from this information Gregory pressed
without faltering the authority of the Church: the pope was above the
exarch, the Church above the State: if the civil law was invoked to
protect the weak, to guide the rulers, to secure the rights of all Christian
men, there was behind it the supreme sanction of the law of the Church.
It was natural indeed that they should not be distinguished: a wrong
against man was a wrong against God. It did not matter whether it
was the oppression of a peasant or the pillage of a monastery: iniquitv.
it was the perpetual cry of the great pontiff, should not go unpunished.
And, in a corresponding view to his attitude towards civil justice,
Gregory insisted on the privileges of clergy in the law courts; and in
the civil courts he is found placing representatives of his own beside tbt
lay judges. Outside the law there was still a wide sphere in which tht
aid of the State was demanded on behalf of the Church. Governor
would bring back schismatics, were congratulated on their victories over
heathen, were urged to act against heretics, and to protect and support
those who had returned to the faith.
On the other hand he no doubt set plain limits, in his owu-dnind, to
his sphere of action and that of the bishops. He constantly tolhl th<
Italian bishops to observe the rights of the lay courts, not to interfer1
in the things of the world save when the interests of the poor demanded
i
i


## p. 249 (#281) ############################################

596-599] Dealings with the Lombards 249
help. But his own keen sense of justice, his political training, his
knowledge of affairs, forbade him to hold his tongue. The Empire, like
the Church, was to him a splendid power of holy and heroic tradition:
there was ever, he said to an imperial official, this difference between the
Roman emperors and the barbarian kings that while the latter governed
slaves the former were rulers of free men. To keep this always in the mind
of the governing class must have been his aim, and his consolation, when,
as he said, the cares of the world pressed so heavily upon him that he
was often doubtful whether he was discharging the duties of an earthly
official or those of a shepherd of men's souls.
In both capacities his work was continuous and engrossing. Invasion,
rapine, insecurity of life and property, made clerk as well as lay lax
livers, negligent stewards, cruel and faithless, luxurious and slothful.
Against all such Gregory was the perpetual witness.
When Romanus the exarch died, probably in 596, his successor at
Ravenna, Callinicus, received a warm welcome from the Pope. For a
time there was a lull in the tempest, but still Gregory preached
vigilance, to bishop and governor alike, for Italy had not shaken off the
terror even if Rome was for the moment outside the area of the storm.
Writing in 598 to a lady in Constantinople the Pope was able to assure
her that so great was the protection given by St Peter to the city that,
without the aid of soldiers, he had " by God's help been preserved for
these many years among the swords of the enemy. " A truce was made
with Agilulf, it seems, in 598: in 599 this became a general peace in
which the Empire through the exarch, and with the active support,
though not the signature, of the Pope, came to agreement with Agilulf
the Lombard king and with the dukes of Spoleto and Benevento. His
letters shew how much this was due to the tact, the wisdom, the
patient persistence of Gregory; and it is certain also that Theodelinda,
the Catholic wife of Agilulf, had played no unimportant part in the
work of pacification. At Monza remain the relics of this wise queen;
fitly beside the iron crown of the Lombards is the image of the protection
that was given by the peace of Church and State, a hen that gathers her
chickens under her wings.
The year 599 which dates this peace between the "Christian
Republic " and the Lombards marks a definite epoch in the history of
Italy. Paul the Deacon in his History of the Lombards shews that it
was a time of crisis, conquest, and resettlement for Agilulf the king.
The letters of Gregory shew that it was for him a period of incessant
activity and reassertion of papal authority, while at Rome the city
was " so reduced by the languor of various diseases that there are scarce
left men enough to guard the walls " and the Pope himself was in the
clutch of increasing sickness, often unable to leave his bed for days
together. Italy was still swept by pestilence; and exhaustion as well as
political peace gave quiet for some two years.
CH. VIII. (b)


## p. 250 (#282) ############################################

250 Gregory and Phocas [601-603
In 601 the flames of war were rekindled by a rash move on the part
of the exarch Callinicus. Agilulf again took up arms, seized Pavia and
levelled it to the ground—a fate which the medieval chroniclers century
by century record to have befallen the unhappy city. He made alliance
with the heathen Avars, and with them ravaged Istria. He passed over
northern Italy in a career of conquest: he carried the Lombard frontier
forwards to include the valley of the Po. At Ravenna the imperial
authority lingered on, and the exarch Callinicus was succeeded by
Smaragdus, holding office for a second time. But the reality of power
was passing, if it had not already passed, under the incessant energy of
Gregory, into the hands of the Pope, who had become the practical
ruler of central Italy. It was in the year 603, when the Empire and
the Lombards were at war, that Gregory shewed his aloofness from a
strife which seems to have left the power of the Church undisturbed, by
his rejoicing at the Catholic baptism of Adaloald, the firstborn son of
Agilulf the Arian and Theodelinda the Catholic queen. Paul the
Deacon indeed says, though he is unsupported by other witness, that
Agilulf the father had already accepted the Catholic faith. As his
sickness grew the great Pope saw the future less dark than it had been
during his life of anxiety. Rome, if impoverished and enfeebled, was
securely in the possession of its bishop; and the conflicts which raged
over northern and central Italy could hardly end, now that Catholicism
was conquering the Lombards, otherwise than in favour of the papal power.
It may well be that this feeling coloured his attitude when news
came to him of the revolution at Constantinople in 602. Maurice had
long seemed to Gregory, as indeed he had seemed to his people, to be
unworthy of the imperial throne. He was timid when he should have
been bold, rash when prudence was essential to the safety of the State.
His health had broken down, and fits of cowardice alternated with out-
bursts of frenzied rage. All the tales of him that reached Rome would
increase Gregory's dislike and distrust. Already he had rebuked the
Caesar to his face, and well he may have thought, when he heard of his
deposition and murder by the centurion Phocas, that the warning he
had given had been disregarded, and the judgment he had prophesied
had come. With Maurice perished his whole family, with whom
Gregory had been on terms of affectionate regard. Maurice had been
an unwise, perhaps a tyrannical ruler, and certainly he had seemed to
the Pope an oppressor of the poor. And he had supported the patriarch
in his overweening pretension to be "universal bishop. " When Phocas
therefore announced his accession, silent no doubt as to the butcheries
which accompanied it, and dwelling rather on his orthodoxy and attach-
ment to the Apostolic See, Gregory replied in language of surprising
cordiality. The revolution was to him something that came from "the
incomprehensible providence of God"; and he trusted that soon he
should be comforted by the abundance of rejoicing that the sufferings



## p. 251 (#283) ############################################

602] Gregorys Historical Position 251
of the poor had been redressed—" We will rejoice that your benignity
and piety are come to the imperial throne. 11 Later letters to Phocas and
his wife Leontia breathe the same spirit: of congratulations on the
political change: of hope that it will mean relief and liberty for the
Empire: of solicitude that the aid which Maurice had long denied
might now be given to Italy, trodden down by the barbarian and
the heretic. We are shocked as we read Gregory's cordial letters to
the brutal murderer of Maurice; but we must remember that the
Pope had no representative at Constantinople to tell him what had
really happened: all that he may have known was that popular in-
dignation had swept a tyrant from the throne and avenged its injuries
on him and his innocent family, and that a soldier had been set up,
with all due forms of law, as ruler in his stead. From a bed of suffering
he indited these letters to those from whom he might have new hopes of
the salvation of Italy. But he wrote as an official of the Church to an
official of the State, and he mingled with his formal words of congratula-
tion and the Church's Gloria in excelsis no words of personal adulation.
Whatever may be the true judgment on Gregory's attitude at this
moment, it is obvious that in the change of dynasty he hoped for a better
prospect for Italy and knew that more power would come to Rome itself
and the Roman bishop.
It is as a Roman and a Roman bishop that Gregory fills the great
place he holds in the history of the Middle Age. He was a Roman
of the Romans, nurtured on traditions of Rome's imperial greatness,
cherishing the memories of pacification and justice, of control and
protection. And these, which belonged to " the Republic," he was eager
to transfer to the Church. Vague were the claims which the Roman
bishops had already put forth in regard to the universal Church. But
what all bishops held as inherent in their office, the right of giving
advice and administration, was held by the Roman pontiffs to belong
especially to the see which was founded in the imperial city. There was a
prerogative of the Roman bishop as of the Roman Emperor, and already
the one was believed to run parallel to the other. The Pope directly
superintended a large part of the Christian world: everywhere he could
reprove and exhort with authority, though the authority was often
contested. And Gregory's exercise of this power was one of the great
moments in the world's history. To the practical assertions of his pre-
decessors he gave a new moral weight, and it was that which carried
the claims to victory. Well has it been said by Dean Church that "he
so administered the vast undefined powers supposed to be inherent in
his see, that they appeared to be indispensable to the order, the good
government and the hopes, not of the Church only, but of society. "
And this success was due not so much to the extent of her claims or the
weakness of his competitors, but to the moral force which flowed from
his life of intellectual, moral and spiritual power.
CH. VIII. (b)


## p. 252 (#284) ############################################

252 The Church in Africa [591-596
We can trace, in different but conspicuous ways, the effect of this
force in Africa, in Britain, in Spain and in Gaul, in Istria and Dalmatia,
as well as nearer home. In Africa there was a period of revival since
the imperial reconquest from the Vandals. For more than half a
century the Church, diminished in power no doubt and weakened in its
organisation, had been re-established, and Arianism had been successfully
extirpated, if we may judge from the silence of the Pope's letters. The
imperial officials were ready to accept his advice, or even authority.
Side by side with the bishops of Numidia and Carthage, we find
Gennadius the exarch extending the influence of the papal see; and
appeals to Rome seem to have been recognised and encouraged. On the
other hand Gregory was careful to make no practical encroachment on
the power of the bishops and even to encourage their independence,
while he asserted the supremacy of Rome in uncompromising terms:
"I know of no bishop who is not subject to the Apostolic See, when
a fault has been committed. " His intervention was chiefly invoked
in regard to the still surviving Donatism of Numidia. Against the
Donatists he endeavoured to encourage the action of both the secular
and the ecclesiastical power. "God,11 he said to the praetorian praefect
Pantaleo, "will require at your hand the souls that are lost. 11 In one
city even the bishop had allowed a Donatist rival to establish himself;
and Church and State alike were willing to let the heretics live un-
disturbed on the payment of a ransom-rent. To Gregory it seemed that
the organisation of the Church was defective and her ministers were
slothful.
The primacy in northern Africa, except the proconsular province,
where the bishop of Carthage was primate, belonged to the senior bishop,
apart from the dignity of his see or the merits of his personal life; and
it was claimed that the rule went back to the time of St Peter the
Apostle and had been continued ever since. Gregory accepted the
historic account of the origin of the African episcopate, as is shewn by
a letter to Dominicus, bishop of Carthage. On it he based an impres-
sive demand for stedfast obedience, and he appointed a bishop named
Columbus to act as his representative, though he was not formally entitled
Vicar Apostolic. A council in 593 received his instructions; but they
do not seem to have been carried out. A long correspondence shews the
urgency of the need for action against the Donatists, and the difficulty
of getting anything done. By the toleration of the imperial government
they had been enabled to keep their churches and bishops; they
conducted an active propaganda, they secured the rebaptism of many
converts. For six years, from 591 to 596, Gregory^ letters shew the
vehemence of the contest in which he was engaged. In 594 a council
at Carthage received an imperial decree stirring Church and State to
action; but the State did not abandon its tolerant attitude: still there
was great slackness, and Gregory wrote urgently to the Emperor on the


## p. 253 (#285) ############################################

591-596] The Church in Africa 253
subject. It would seem that some measures were taken, and that the
law was in some districts enforced; but Donatism if it died down did
not become extinct. It was largely through his constant interventions
in the matter of heresy that Gregory was able to establish on so firm a
basis the papal authority in the exarchate of Africa. He concerned
himself no less with the surviving pagans, urging Gennadius to wage
war against them " not for the pleasure of shedding blood but with the
aim of extending the limits of Christendom, that by the preaching of the
faith, the Name of Christ should be honoured among the subject tribes. '1
Constant in urging the secular officials to action, Gregory was still more
urgent with the bishops. A continual correspondence was maintained
with the African episcopate: everyone who had a grievance applied to
him: no important decision was arrived at without his consent. He
claimed to defend with unchanged determination "the rights and
privileges of Saint Peter. " Paul of Numidia applied to him for justice
against the Donatists, and the patrician Gennadius, who persecuted him,
bishop though he was. With stedfast persistence the Pope insisted on
securing the trial of the case himself, and sent the bishop back to Africa
assured of the imperial protection. Almost insensibly his persistence
and the moral grandeur of his character told on the independence of the
imperial officials. They began to listen to his advice, and then to admit
his authority; and it was soon hard to distinguish their respect for the
man from their obedience to the See. And at the same time, amid the
chaos of administrative disorder, the people put their trust in the Church:
they took the bishops for their defenders, and most of all the Bishop of
Rome. Gregory exercised the authority then bestowed upon him partly
through Hilarus, whom he sent to be overseer of the patrimony of the
Church, and partly through the Numidian bishop Columbus, if protest
was made—as it seems to have been made by a Numidian primate
Adeodatus and by Dominicus of Carthage—it was overruled: Rome, said
Gregory, was the mother church of Africa, and her authority must be
respected. Such a pope was one to make it respected, whether he
advised and exhorted in regard to the decay of spiritual life in monas-
teries, or reproved administrators and judges for unjust exaction of
tribute. No better illustration of the way in which the papal claims
attained acceptance could be found than is afforded by the history of
Africa in the time of Gregory the Great.
While Donatism died hard in Africa, nearer home the controversy of
the Three Chapters was not yet concluded. In Istria the Church was in
schism, for it had not submitted to the decision of East and West.
Gregory invoked (with but small success) the secular arm against Severus,
patriarch of Aquileia, and summoned him to Rome. The bishops of the
province protested and adjured the Emperor to protect them, professing
no obedience to Rome and threatening to acknowledge the ecclesiastical
authority of Gaul. Maurice commanded Gregory to stay his hand, which
CH. VIII. (b)



## p. 254 (#286) ############################################

254 Istria: Gaul [595-696
he did very reluctantly. He had long before intervened in the matter
as the secretary of Pelagius II: he distrusted the Istrian bishops as
schismatics and as assertors of independence, and when he became pope
had again addressed them in lucid theological arguments. He received
individual submissions, and he used every kind of pressure to heal the
schism; but when he died his efforts had not been entirely successful.
With Milan too he had similar difficulties. Defective theology was
combined with provincial independence in resistance to papal power.
In Dalmatia and Illyria other difficulties needed other treatment.
An archbishop whose manner of life did not befit his office was rebuked,
ironically exhorted, pardoned: when he died a strong attempt was made
to fill his place by a man of austere life whom the Pope had long
honoured. The attempt was a failure, and a very long and bitter
struggle ensued in which Maximus, the imperial candidate, was refused
recognition, summoned to trial at Rome and only at last admitted to
his see as lawful prelate when he had lain prone in penance at Ravenna,
crying "I have sinned against God and the most blessed Pope Gregory. '''
Over Illyria generally, in spite of the creation of Justiniana Prima as a
patriarchate by the Emperor who had given it his name, he exercised
the power of a patriarch. He forbade the bishops to attend a synod at
Constantinople without his leave. He made it plain that Illyria belonged
to the West and not to the East.
And in the West he was ever eager to enlarge the boundaries of the
Church. Already as a young man he had set his heart on the conversion
of the English. As pope he had the means to undertake it. It may
be that he planned it, as Bede says, as soon as he came to discharge
the office of pontiff, and also, as one of his letters suggests, that he
prepared for it by ordering the purchase of English slave boys to be
trained in Gaulish monasteries. It was probably in 595 that he first
sent forth the monk Augustine and his companions to journey through
Gaul to Britain for the conversion of the English.
When, daunted by
anticipated dangers, the monks sent Augustine back, Gregory ordered him
to return as their abbot, and furnished him with letters to the bishops
of Gaul, and notably to Vergilius of Aries, the bishop of Aix and the
abbot of Lerins, as well as to Theodebert of Austrasia and Theodoric of
Burgundy, children of nine and ten, under the guardianship of Brunhild
their grandmother. To Brunhild herself, "queen of the Franks," who
went with him, he was sure, "in heart and soul," the Pope said that the
English nation, by the favour of God, wished to become Christian, and
he was sending Augustine and other monks to take thought—in which
he bade her help—for their conversion. He considered that the bishops
of Gaul had been remiss, in doing nothing for the conversion of those
English tribes whom he regarded as their neighbours: but when in 596
he set the new mission in motion, he was able, as his letters shew, to
rely upon personal kindness from the queen towards the missionaries



## p. 255 (#287) ############################################

596-601] Mission to the English 255
and upon the aid of Gaulish priests as interpreters of the barbarous
English tongue. The mission was, vaguely, to "the nation of the
English," for Gregory knew no difference between the men of Deira
and the men of Kent; and Augustine would learn at Paris, if not
before, that the wife of Aethelberht of Kent was daughter of a Frankish
king.
The tale of the landing, the preaching, and the success will be told
elsewhere. Here it belongs only to note that Gregory continued to
take the keenest interest in the venture he had planned. He instructed
Vergilius of Aries to consecrate Augustine as bishop, and spread over
Christendom the news of the great work that was accomplished. To
Eulogius, patriarch of Alexandria, he told of the conversion, due, as he
said, to their prayers, and he warmly thanked Syagrius, bishop of Autun,
and Brunhild for their aid. To Augustine in 601 he sent the pallium,
a mark of favour conferred by pope or emperor, not, it would seem, as
conferring metropolitan authority, which Augustine had already exercised,
but as recognising his position as a special representative of the Roman
see. To the queen Berhta, whose somewhat tardy support of the
Christian faith in her husband's land he was able now to eulogise and to
report even to the Emperor at Constantinople, he wrote words of exhorta-
tion to support Augustine, and to Aethelberht her husband admonition
and praise with his favourite eschatological reference. To the end
Gregory remained the trusted adviser of the Apostle of the English.
He sent special reinforcements, with all manner of things, says Bede,
needed for public worship and the service of the Church, commending
the new missionaries again to the Gaulish bishops and instructing them
especially as to the conversion of heathen temples into Christian churches.
And he gave a very careful reply, written with characteristic breadth
and tact, to the questions which Augustine addressed to him when the
difficulties of his work had begun to be felt. The authenticity of these
answers, it is true, has been doubted, but the evidence, external as well
as internal, appears to be sufficient1. The questions related to the
support of the mission clergy, the liturgical use of the national Church
now formed in England, the co-operation necessary in the consecration of
bishops, and to matters touching the moral law about which among a
recently heathen nation a special sensitiveness was desirable. Gregory's
answers were those of a monk, even of a precisian, but they were also
eminently those of a man of affairs and a statesman. "Things," he said,
"are not to be loved for the sake of places, but places for the sake of
good things," and the claim of Rome herself depended on such an
assertion. As a monk he dealt firmly with morals: as a statesman he
sketched out the future organisation of the English Church. London
1 See Mason, Mission of St Augustine, pp viii, ix. Ewald does not decide against
them.
ch. vni. (b)


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256 Gregory and Gaul
was to be one metropolitan see, York the other, each with the pallium
and with twelve suffragan sees. Neither bishop was to be primate of all
England by right, but the senior in consecration was to be the superior,
according, it seems, to the custom of the Church in Africa of which he had
experience, but restricted as his wisdom shewed to be desirable. It may
be that Gregory had already heard of the position of the British Church:
if so, he provided for its subjection to a metropolitan. Certainly he
judged acutely according to the knowledge he possessed.
The beginnings of the English mission had brought the Pope into
closer observation than before with the kings and bishops of peoples but
recently converted to the faith. In Austrasia, Neustria and Burgundy
reigned a race of kings whose wickedness was but slightly tempered by
the Christianity they had accepted. In Spain there was more wisdom
and more reality of faith.
From Britain we pass naturally to the country through which
Gregory's envoys passed on their way to new spiritual conversion: from
Gaul we may pass to Spain. So far did Gregory's interests extend: of
his power it may not be possible to speak with so much certainty. In
truth the Church in Europe was not yet a centralised body, and local
independence was especially prominent among the Franks. Even in
doctrine there are traces of divergence, though these were kept in check
by a number of local councils which discussed and accepted the theological
decisions which came to them from East and West. But the real power
resided in the bishops, as administrators, rulers, shepherds of men's
souls. Christianity at this period, and notably Frankish Christianity,
has been described as a federation of city churches of which each one
was a little monarchy in itself. If no one doubted the papal primacy, it
was much further away than the arbitrary authority of the kings, and in
nothing were the Merovingians more determined than in their control of
the Church in their dominions. If in the south the bishop of Aries, as
vicar of the Gauls, maintained close relations with the Roman see, the
episcopate as a whole/held aloof, respectful certainly but not obedient.
The Church in Gaul nad been engulfed in a barbarian conquest, cut off
from Italy, severed from its ancient spiritual ties. The conversion of
Clovis gave a new aspect to this separation. The kings assumed a
powerful influence over the bishops, and asserted their supremacy in
ecclesiastical matters. Whatever may have been the theory, in practice
the interference of Rome in Gaul had become difficult, and was
consequently infrequent: it had come to be considered unnecessary:
the Church of the Franks had outgrown its leading-strings. But in
practice? The special privileges of the see of Aries are evidence of a
certain submission to the Papacy on the part of the Merovingian kings,
though the monarchs were autocrats in matters of religion as well as in
affairs of state, and did not encourage resort to the Holy See. It fell to
Gregory, here as elsewhere, to inaugurate an era of defined authority.


## p. 257 (#289) ############################################

595] Gregory and Gaul 267
When he became pope the royal power of the Merovingians was at
its height: in a few years it would totter to its fall, but now the clergy
were submissive and the bishops for the most part the creatures of the
court. When he died the claims of Rome to supremacy were established,
even if they were not fully admitted. With Gaul throughout his ponti-
ficate he maintained close relations. Gregory of Tours tells with what
joy his namesake's election was received by the Franks, and from the first
sets himself to tell his doings and sayings with an unusual minuteness.
Within a year of his accession the new Pope was called upon to judge
the bishops of Aries and Marseilles, whom Jewish merchants accused to
him of endeavouring forcibly to convert them: Gregory reproved and
urged the bishops rather to preach and persuade than to coerce. Again,
he reproved Vergilius of Aries and the bishop of Autun for allowing the
marriage of a nun, commanding them to bring the woman to penitence,
and exhorting them with all authority. He intervened in the affairs of
monasteries, granting privileges and exemptions in a manner which
shews the nature of the authority he claimed. By his advice the
difficult questions raised by the insanity of a bishop in the province of
Lyons were settled. He claimed to judge a Frankish bishop and restore
him to his see, though here he felt it necessary to explain and justify
his conduct to the masterful Brunhild. He is found reproving the icono-
clastic tendencies of Serenus of Marseilles, and ordering him to replace
the images which he has thrown down. He gave directions as to the
holding of church councils, he advised bishops as to the administration of
their dioceses and the enforcement of ecclesiastical discipline. His corre-
spondence with bishops and monks was constant, the requests to him to
intervene in the affairs of the Gallican Church were frequent. Thus
he prepared himself to inaugurate in Gaul a decisive and necessary
reform.
Here he came into direct relations with the kings. In 595
Childebert of Austrasia applied to him for a recognition of the powers,
as papal representative, of the bishop of Aries—evidence of the survival
of the traditional idea of dependence on the Roman Church. In granting
the request Gregory took occasion to develop his scheme of ecclesiastical
discipline. Simony, interference with the election of bishops, the nomina-
tion of laymen to the episcopate, were crying evils: and the kings were
responsible for them. He believed that the Frankish monarchy, the
purity of whose faith shone by comparison with the dark treachery of
other peoples, would rejoice to carry out his wishes; and in the notorious
Brunhild he strangely found a deep religious sense and good dispositions
which should bear fruit in the salvation of men: to her he repeated the
desires which he had expressed to Childebert and urged her to see that
they were carried out. He applied to her to put down crime, idolatry,
paganism, to prevent the possession by Jews of Christian slaves—with
what success we do not know. Unsuccessful certainly he was when he
C. SIM). H. VOL. II. CH. VIII. (b) 17



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258 Gregory and the Franks [595-599
urged Theodoric and Theodobert to restore to the bishop of Turin
the parishes which he had lost during the barbarian invasion and which
the Frankish kings were by no means willing should be under the control
of a foreign bishop. But with Brunhild he seems always to have held
the most cordial relations: she asked his advice and assistance in
matters of religion and politics, in regard to a question of marriage law
and to the relation of the Franks with the Empire in the East. And
throughout his pontificate the attitude of the kings was one of deep
respect, that of the Pope that of father by counsel which easily wore
the cloak of authority.
It was thus that early in his pontificate Gregory warned Childebert
and Brunhild, as he warned Vergilius and the bishops of Childebert's
realm, of the need of instant action against the gross simony which was
eating away the spiritual life of the Church. Young men, evil livers,
laymen snatched from the business or pleasures of the world, were
hurriedly ordained or hurriedly promoted and thrust into the high
places of the Church. In 599 he addressed the bishops of Aries, Autun,
Lyons and Vienne in vigorous protest, laying to their charge at least
the acquiescence which made gross abuses possible. Ready though
he was to submit to lawful exercise of the royal power in nomination,
he utterly forbade the ordination of laymen in high office, as inexcusable
and indefensible. The Church was to be strengthened against the world
by total prohibition of marriage to the clergy and by the summoning of
yearly councils for the confirmation of faith and morals. In the councils
everything was to be condemned which was contrary to the canons; and
two prelates should represent him and inform him of what was done.
The abbot Cyriacus was sent on a special mission, with letters to bishops,
to kings, and to the queen Brunhild, to bring discipline to the Gallican
Church. But the murderous uncertainty of dynastic intrigues set every
obstacle in the way of a reform which might make the bishops less the
creatures of the kings. To Theodoric at one moment thanks were given
for his submission to papal commands, and he was directed to summon
a council. At another a special envoy was sent to indicate and insist
on reform. At another letter after letter in vehement exhortation was
addressed to Brunhild, apparently the real ruler of the distracted realm.
Bishops were again and again reproved, exhorted, reproached. But it is
difficult, perhaps through the scanty nature of the historical materials of
the period, to discover cases of definite submission to the papal authority.
It was asserted with all the moral fervour and all the sagacious prudence
which belonged to the great man who sat in the papal chair. It was not
repudiated by Frankish kings and bishops: rather the assertion was
received with judicious politeness and respect.
But beyond this the evidence does not carry us. That the policy of
the Frankish State was affected, or that the character of the kings, the
ministers of the Crown, or even the bishops, was moulded by the influence


## p. 259 (#291) ############################################

585-586] Gregory and the Visigoths 259
of the Papacy it would be impossible to say. Tyrannous and fratricidal,
the Merovingian kings lived their evil lives unchecked by more than
a nominal regard for the teaching of Christian moralists. But Gregory's
continual interest in the Frankish Church was not in vain. He had
established a personal relation with the barbarous kings: he had created
a papal vicar in the kingdom of the South: in granting the pallium to
the bishop of Autun he had at least suggested a very special authority
over the lands of the Gauls: he had claimed that the Roman Church was
their mother to whom they applied in time of need. If the practical
result was small; if the Frankish Church maintained a real independence
of Rome, and Aries never became a papal vicariate; yet Frankish monks,
priests, poets, as well as bishops and kings, began to look to Rome as
patron and guide. Venantius Fortunatus, Columbanus, Gregory of Tours,
in their different ways, shew how close was the relation of Gregory the
Great to the religion of the Franks.
Brighter was the prospect when Gregory turned from the moral
chaos of Gaul to the growing unity of Spain. The Visigothic race had
produced a great warrior in Leovigild, whose power, as king of all the
Goths, extended from Seville to Nimes. He obtained for his son
Hermenegild, Ingundis the daughter of Brunhild (herself the child of
Athanagild, Leovigild's predecessor as Visigothic king) and the Frankish
king Sigebert. From Gregory's letters we learn a story of martyrdom
as to which there is no reason to believe that he was deceived. Ingundis,
beset by Arian teachers who had obtained influence over Leovigildf not
naturally a persecutor, a tyrant or a fanatic, remained firm in her faith,
and when her husband was given rule at Seville she succeeded with the
aid of his kinsman Leunder, bishop of Seville and friend of Gregory, in
converting him to the Catholic belief. * War was the result. Leovigild
attacked his son, says John of Biclar, for rebellion and tyranny.
Hermenegild sought the aid of the Catholic Sueves and "the Greeks "—
the imperial garrisons which had remained since the partial reconquest
of Spain by Justinian. But Leovigild proved the victor: the Suevic
kingdom was extinguished, and Hermenegild was thrown into prison.
Ingundis escaped with the Greeks and died at Carthage on her way to
Constantinople. "Hermenegild was killed at Tarragona by Sigisbert"
is the simple statement of John of Biclar, Catholic bishop of Gerona.
Gregory in his Dialogues tells the tale more fully. On Easter Eve 585
he was offered communion by an Arian bishop, and when he refused to
receive it at his hands he was murdered by the order of his father. He
was regarded as a martyr and 18 April was observed throughout all
Spain- His blood proved the seed of the faith.
A year later his brother Recared became king and accepted Catholicism.
*<~So wonder," says Gregory, "that he became a preacher of the true faith,
for his brother was a martyr, by whose merits he is aided in bringing back
many souls to the bosom of God. " Nor could this have happened had
CE, VIII. (b) 17—2


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260 Conversion of the Visigoths [589-603
not Hermenegild the king laid down his life for the truth. So one
Visigoth died that many might live. In a great synod at Toledo
Recared abjured Arianism, and in May 589 was summoned the council
which was to confirm the Catholicism of Spain. Leander preached the
sermon which concluded the assembly, and reported to the Pope the
orthodox speech of Recared, the acceptance of the creeds and decisions
of the four general councils and the enactment of canons to regulate the
lives and professions of the now Catholic people. Leander's letter was a
veritable song of triumph for a victory to civilisation as well as religion,
and as such Gregory accepted it with delight. In later years the
Pope corresponded with Recared himself, wisely refraining from mixing
himself up in the Visigothic relations with Constantinople, where
Athanagild, son of the martyred Hermenegild, was being brought up,
but praising him warmly for his devotion, and pointing him, as was his
wont, for warning and encouragement, to the day of doom which was
always in his own thoughts. To Leander he wrote frequently to the
end of his life. He had sent him a pallium, through King Recared, as
a recognition of ancient custom and of the merits of both king and
prelate. He advised him, as he advised Augustine, in important matters
of doctrine and practice. He gave him his Pastoral Care and his
Moralia: and he remained his friend to the end of his life. At the
exercise of authority over the Spanish Church Gregory made no
attempt. He was content to recognise the great miracle, as he called it
to Recared, of the conversion of a people, and to leave to their kings
and bishops the direction of their Church. But outside the Gothic
dominions his letters dealt with a case, in which he believed that
injustice had been done to a bishop of Malaga, with great explicitness
and claimed an authority which was judicial and political as well as
ecclesiastical. If the documents are genuine, as is probable, they shew
that Gregory was prepared not only to use to the full the powers of the
Empire, when it was in agreement with him, for the redress of injustice
in Church as well as State, but to extend by their means the jurisdiction
and authority of the papal see. But equally clear is it that when he
did so it was justice he sought to establish, not personal power: Spain
for a long while remained to a considerable extent apart from the
general current of life in the Western Church.
In June 603 the long agony with which the great Pope had so bravely
struggled came to an end. The Romans to whom he had devoted his life
paid no immediate honour to his memory: but a legend in later days,
based perhaps on a statement of his archdeacon Peter, attributed to him
a special inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and gave rise to his represen-
tations in art with a dove hovering over his head. His enormous
energy had bequeathed to the Church a mass of writings which placed him
among her four great doctors and exercised a powerful influence on the
theology of the following centuries. For long Gregory was regarded as


## p. 261 (#293) ############################################

Character and Influence of Gregory 261
the great Christian philosopher and moralist, the interpreter of Holy
Scripture, the teacher of the rulers of the Church. His sermons, his
music, his dogmatic theology and his method of interpretation were for
long the models which the Western Church followed unquestioningly.
But the historical importance of his life would be as great as it is
had he never written a single theological treatise. The influence ol
his career came from his personal character, the intense power of
the active Christianity which radiated from his sick bed as from his
throne.
Gregory emerges from the darkness of his age as a figure whom men
can plainly see. His letters reveal him as few other heroes of the
Middle Age are revealed: hardly any great ecclesiastics save Bernard
and Becket are so intimately known. We recognise him as a stern
Roman, hating the barbarians as unclean, despising the Greeks as un-
worthy of their share in the Empire which had sheltered them with its
name. He was a passionate advocate of justice between man and man, a
guardian of men's rights, a governor set to repress wrong and to preserve
the stability of the ancient State. He was eminently practical, as a
builder, an administrator, a philanthropist and a patriot. No doubt his
fame is due partly to the weakness of his predecessors in the Papacy and
partly to the insignificance and wickedness that followed. But his
fame is due still more to the real achievement of his life. He gave
to the Papacy a policy and a position which were never abandoned
or lost.
The primacy of the see of Rome was by him translated into a
practical system as well as a theory and a creed. His personal character,
and that passion of his for a justice more righteous even than that of
the old Roman law, made his claim to hear appeals, to be judge as well
as arbiter, seem more than tolerable, even natural and inevitable. In the
decay of old civilisation, when the Empire, East and West, could scarce
hold its own, there remained in Rome, preserved through all dangers, a
centre of Christian authority which could exercise, in the person of
Gregory, wisely, loyally, tactfully, the authority which it claimed.
Gregory was indeed, as John the Deacon calls him, Argus luminosissimus.
He could admonish princes, and rebuke tax-gatherers: nothing seemed
too small or too great for the exactness of his survey. And, after the
example of all great rulers, he founded a tradition of public service
which could be passed on even by weak hands and incompetent brains.
He made Christian Rome a centre of justice. He gave to the Papacy a
policy of attracting to itself the best in the new nations which were
struggling for the sovereignty of Italy. If it was impossible for the
Empire to fight the barbarians, peace must be made with them, and if
peace, a lasting peace. In any case the Church should be their home,
and tyranny should be turned into love. This was his ideal for Italian
and Lombard alike. And his principles, of even-handed justice, of
in. Till, (b)


## p. 262 (#294) ############################################

262 The Work of Gregory
patriotism, of charity, were the bases on which he endeavoured to erect
a fabric of papal supremacy. From his letters, as from a storehouse of
political wisdom, there came in time rules in the Canon Law, and powers
were claimed far beyond what he had dreamed of. Where he was
disinterested lesser men were greedy and encroaching: where he strove
to do justice others tried to make despotic laws. All over the Christian
world Gregory had taught men to look to the Pope as one who could
make peace and ensue it. On this foundation the medieval Papacy was
founded. Not long was it contented^) to rest.


## p. 263 (#295) ############################################

263
CHAPTER IX.
THE SUCCESSORS OF JUSTINIAN.
With the death of Justinian we enter on a period of transition.
The magnificent dream of extending the Roman Empire to its ancient
limits seemed all but realised, for by the campaigns of Belisarius and
Narses, Africa, Spain and Italy had been recovered. But the triumph
had crippled the conqueror: already ruinous overdrafts had anticipated
the resources which might have safeguarded the fruits of victory. Rome
relaxed her grasp exhausted. Time was ringing out the old and ringing
in the new. The next century was to fix in broad outlines the bounds
within which for the future the empire was to be contained. Now, if we
will, the Roman world becomes Byzantine. The secular struggle with
Persia ends in the exaltation of the Cross over the worship of the sacred
fire, the Sassanids fall before the Arab enthusiasts, and in the East
Constantinople must meet changed conditions and an unexpected foe.
In the West, while Spain is lost and but a harassed fraction of Italy
remains, the outstanding fact is the settlement of the Slav tribes in the
lands south of the Danube and their recognition of the overlordship of
the Empire. A new Europe and a new Asia are forming: the period
marks at once a climax and a beginning.
During his lifetime Justinian had clothed no colleague with the
purple, but he had constantly relied upon Justin's counsel1, and his
intended succession was indicated by his appointment to the post
of curopalates. Even on his lonely death-bed the Emperor made no
sign, but the senators were agreed. It was their secret that Justinian's
days were numbered, and they kept it well, prepared to forestall every
rival. Through the long winter night Justin and his consort Sophia,
seated at their window, looked over the sea and waited. Before the dawn
the message came: the Emperor was dead and the Roman world expected
a new monarch. The court poet paints Justin's tears as he refused the
throne which the senators offered him—Ibo paternas tristis in exsequias,
1 Nil ille peregit Te (=Justino) sine. Corippus, In Laudem Juttini, I. 140.


## p. 264 (#296) ############################################

264 Accession of Justin II [ses
regalia signa recuso; the formalities satisfied, he was easily overpersuaded,
and walked through the silent city to the palace which was closely guarded
by the household troops under the future emperor Tiberius (14 Nov. 565).
Later, with the purple over his shoulders and wearing the gems which
Belisarius had won from the Goths, Justin was raised aloft on the shield
as the elect of the army; then the Church gave its approval: crowned
wifh the diadem and blessed by the patriarch, he turned to the senate—
during the old age of his uncle much had been neglected, the treasury
exhausted and debts unpaid: all Justinian's thought and care had been
set upon the world to come: the Empire shall rejoice to find the old
wrongs righted under Justin's sway. In the company of Baduarius his
son-in-law, newly appointed curopalates, and escorted by the senate,
the Emperor then entered the circus where gifts were distributed,
while the populace acclaimed their chosen ruler. The proceedings
appear to have been carefully planned: Justin met the debts of those
who had lent money to his uncle, and set free all prisoners. At midday
he returned to the palace. The last honours to the dead had yet to be
paid; in solemn procession, with candles burning and the choir of
virgins answering to the chanting of the priests, the embalmed body of
Justinian was bome through mourning crowds to its golden sepulchre in
the church of the Twelve Apostles. Forthwith the city gave itself to
rejoicing in honour of the Emperor's accession; amidst greenery and
decorations, with dance and gaiety, the cloud of Justinian's gloomy
closing years was dispelled, while Corippus sang, "The world renews its
youth. "
The In Latidem Justini of this poet laureate is indeed a document
of great interest, for it paints the character and policy of Justin as he
himself wished them to be portrayed. His conception of his imperial
duty was the ideal of the unbending Roman whom nothing could
affright. This spirit of exalted self-possession had been shewn at its
height when the senate was leader of the State, and it was not without a
definite purpose that the role of the senate is given marked prominence
in the poem of Corippus.