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Dromo's Den
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[Up] [Dromo's Den] Gregory I Biography Gregory I, the Great (Pope, 590–604). He was born in Rome about 540 of an illustrious family and was a lawyer by profession. As early as 571 he was made prætor of Rome by the Emperor Justin II. By the death of his father he inherited much wealth, which he used for religious purposes. He founded six monasteries in Sicily and one in Rome, with the title of St. Andrew's, and, resigning his office, withdrew from the world and retired to the latter. Previously he had bestowed on the poor his costly robes, his gold, jewels, and furniture, and, refusing the abbacy of the convent, he began with the lowest monastic duties and devoted himself altogether to God. This was probably about 575. In this period of his life is laid the story of the Venerable Bede, that he met the Anglo-Saxon youths in the slave market and, being struck by their beauty and learning that they came from a pagan land, resolved to devote himself to the conversion of that land to Christianity. The story may be only a legend to account for Gregory's interest in England. He is said to have set forth on his journey; but the clamor of the Romans at his loss led the Pope, Benedict I, to compel his return and eventually to enroll him in the secular ministry by ordaining him one of the seven regionary deacons of Rome. Benedict's successor, Pelagius II, sent Gregory as nuncio to Constantinople to implore the Emperor's aid against the Lombards. He resided in Constantinople from 578 to 585, during which time he commenced and perhaps completed his great work, the Exposition of Job. On his return to Rome he reëntered his monastery and became abbot and on the death of Pelagius was unanimously called by the clergy, the Senate, and the people to succeed him. He used every means to evade the dignity, but was forced to yield, and was consecrated Sept. 3, 590. Few pontiffs have equaled, hardly one has surpassed, Gregory as the administrator of the concerns of the vast charge assigned to him. To him the Roman church is indebted for the complete and consistent organization of her public services and the details of her ritual, for the regulation and systematization of her sacred chants. The mission to England, which he was not permitted to undertake in person, was intrusted by him (597) with all the zeal of a personal obligation to Augustine (see Augustine), and under his auspices Britain was brought within the pale of Christian Europe. Under him the Gothic Kingdom of Spain, long Arian, was united to the Church. Nor was his zeal for the reformation of the clergy and the purification of the morality of the Church inferior to his ardor for its extension. On occasion of the threatened invasion of Rome by the Lombards, Gregory performed the part of a true king in protecting the state, and in his general administration he was, in fact, if not yet in avowed authority, a temporal sovereign. Though not a great philosopher, he was a great leader of men. To his administrative skill is due the organization of the mediæval papacy. In his writings, too, the details of the whole dogmatic system of the modern Church are very fully developed. His posthumous fame is of the highest, and he is one of the four greatest doctors of the Western (Latin) church. His works are in Migne, Patrologia Latina, Ixxv–lxxvi. The best edition of his Letters is by Ewald and Hartmann (Berlin, 1891–93). In English have appeared: The Book of Pastoral Rule, and many epistles in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2d series, vols. xii and xiii with prolegomena; his book of Dialogues (London, 1874), from which there are extracts in Little Flowers of Saint Benet, Gathered from the Dialogues (London, 1901); his Morals in the Book of Job, in "A Library of the Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church," vols. xviii, xxi, xxiii, xxxi. Consult: Pfahler (Frankfort, 1852), of which the first volume only was published; Barmby (London, 1879); Snow (ib., 1892); Kellett, Pope Gregory the Great and his Relations with Gaul (ib., 1889); Dudden, Gregory the Great (2 vols., ib., 1905); Howorth, Saint Gregory the Great (ib., 1912); Mann, Lives of the Popes of the Middle Ages (ib., 1902-14). The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. X (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 353-354. |