Moralia in Job 16

Argument. 1. St. Gregory chastises two metropolitans on account of the bishop of Thebes. 2. He excommunicates a bishop who was a striker. 3. Concerning the monks of Isauria ill-treated by John of Constantinople. St. Gregory's letters to John written on this account. 4. He absolves the monks after they had offered a confession of faith. Concerning John the priest, likewise absolved from heresy. 5. John of Constantinople, in objecting heresy, falls unawares into error. 6. St. Gregory curbs the arrogance of John of Ravenna. 7. Concerning Domitian, bishop of Melitene. Who preaches to the Persians with fruitless effort. The holy pontiff consoles him. (Years 592 and 593.) 1.

With as great a charity as Gregory embraced the best bishops, with as great a severity he coerced those who used their power not for edification but, in contempt of ecclesiastical rules, for destruction; which he demonstrated at the very outset of the third year of his pontificate against John of the First Justiniana, and against another John, archbishop of Larissa. Hadrian, bishop of Thebes, when he had degraded two deacons — one because he was guilty of violated chastity, the other on account of fraud committed in the administration of ecclesiastical property — had been appealed against by both before the Emperor Maurice, in cases both pecuniary and criminal.

The emperor, observing the order of the canons, decreed that the pecuniary controversy should be settled by John, archbishop of Larissa, metropolitan of Thebes; but that concerning the crimes charged, whatever should be ascertained and established after inquiry had been made should be referred to himself. We read that these things were charged against Hadrian: that he had not removed from his place Stephen, a deacon of most base life, and that he had forbidden infants to be baptized who afterward died without baptism (see Book III, Letters 6 and 7). The archbishop of Larissa, moreover, disregarding the imperial command, pronounced judgment on both heads of the controversy, and condemned Hadrian, and, when he appealed to the emperor, nonetheless thrust him into the strictest custody.

Having received his appeal, Maurice willed that what had been done should be examined by Honoratus the deacon, apocrisiarius of the Holy See, and by Sebastian the antigraphus; and when these had been heard, he absolved him. But afterward, by I know not what machinations, it was obtained that John, bishop of the First Justiniana, vicar of the Apostolic See, should take cognizance of and judge this business: who, in contempt of both divine and human law, pronounced a hasty sentence in the condemnation of Hadrian. Gregory, when these things had been reported to him, restored Hadrian, unjustly deposed, to his former dignity, and willed that he and his Church be exempted from the jurisdiction of the bishop of Larissa (which had already been established by Pelagius II).

Nevertheless, to John, bishop of the same city, he remitted the penalty due to his prevarication and presumption of excommunication; on this condition, that unless he should thenceforth abstain from exercising any jurisdiction over the Church of Thebes, he should by that very fact be deprived of sacred communion, and should never receive it — except at the point of death — unless he were first absolved by the judgment of the Roman pontiff. With John of the First Justiniana he dealt more severely; for, having rescinded the decrees of his sentence, he himself was ordered to do penance, being deprived of sacred communion for the space of thirty days. That Hadrian's accusers returned to grace with him is shown by Letter 39 of Book III, to the bishops of Corinth:

for it is scarcely permissible to doubt whether it is the same bishop Hadrian of whom this letter treats. Thus St. Gregory avenged the injury done to the bishop, and at the same time to the whole episcopal order; and he who deemed all bishops (not even the Roman pontiff himself excepted) to be equal according to the principle of humility (Book IX, Letter 59), when no fault compelled him to animadvert upon them, was solicitous to exercise the supreme power which he held over offenders, to however high a grade in the episcopate one had been advanced, and in whatever place of the Christian world he sat. 2. His magnanimity also blazed forth this year against Andrew, bishop of Tarentum.

It had been ascertained that he had had a concubine, and after receiving the sacred order a suspicion had arisen in some that he still retained her. Moreover, unmindful of pastoral gentleness, he had ordered a certain woman to be cruelly beaten with cudgels, who departed this life after eight months; on account of which savagery Gregory decreed that he ought to keep holiday, suspended from the celebration of masses, for two months to be spent in penance (Book III, Letter 45). But because it was not so certain that he had defiled himself with carnal wickedness, since in doubtful matters it is not lawful to bring an absolute judgment, he judged that the man was to be dismissed to his own conscience, that he might be judged by it;

and at the same time he admonished him that, if he were conscious to himself of so great a wickedness, he should, having abdicated the honor of the priesthood, never presume to approach the sacred work. That an occasion for suspicions of this kind, by which even the reputation of the best bishops can suffer, might be removed, it had formerly been prescribed, as Ennodius testifies (Opusc. 7), that all bishops should have cellarers — perhaps on the occasion of the calumnies with which Pope Symmachus had lately been harassed, as we have already said in the notes to the decrees of St. Gregory, col. 1289, note g. 3. In coercing also the savagery and cruelty of John, patriarch of Constantinople, Gregory's fatherly piety labored at nearly the same time;

which sufficiently proves that there is no bishop, as he teaches elsewhere, who is not subject to the power and correction of the Apostolic See, if fault requires it (Book IX, Letter 59). One of the monks of Isauria, distinguished by the dignity of the priesthood, had been beaten with cudgels in the church of Constantinople. A certain young man, an intimate of John, was reported to be guilty of so great a crime, sufficiently notorious for the infamy of many crimes; who, as Gregory says, had as yet learned nothing of God, who knew nothing of the bowels of charity (Book III, Letter 53); who was said daily to plot against the deaths of various persons through hidden testaments, neither fearing God nor blushing before men. This violence and ignominy inflicted upon Athanasius (this is believed to have been the name of this priest and monk;

when Gregory had learned of it, he wrote once and again to John, that he might investigate the truth of the crime committed. But he, dissembling, replied that he was utterly ignorant of the matter about which he was questioned; and thus, wishing to deprecate the odium of religion violated in a monk and priest, he was increasing the fault: for either he was heaping it up with a lie, or he was convicting himself of drowsiness and slothfulness. For, as Gregory objects, what can be worse than that such things should be done against the servants of God, and that he himself who is at hand should not know it? And what excuse can there be for a shepherd, if the wolf devours the sheep, and the shepherd does not know it?

Having premised these things, the Pope recalls John to sounder counsels, and exhorts him to observe the canons, which will bishops to be shepherds, not strikers. For this is a new and unheard-of preaching, which exacts faith by blows, he says: but if you do not keep the canons, and wish to tear up the statutes of the forefathers, I do not recognize who you are. Finally he urges that, the young man being amended — the artificer of all the evil — and his counsels being rejected, John should receive the monks ill-treated by himself back into their orders, and grant them peace. To Sabinian also, his legate at the court of Maurice, he gave command that he should admonish the patriarch of his duty concerning the same business. That the latter did not immediately comply is sufficiently indicated by another letter, to the patrician Narses:

Concerning the cause, he says, of the priests, which is being conducted with my brother and fellow bishop, the most reverend man John the patriarch, I think we suffer as our adversary the very man whom you assert to wish to keep the canons. But to your Charity I briefly confess that with all strength and all weight I am prepared, with almighty God aiding, to press the same cause. In which, if I shall see the canons not observed for the Apostolic See, almighty God will grant what I may do against its despisers (Book IV, Letter 32). That Athanasius and his companions were defamed of the heresy of the Manichaeans is taught by Letter 14 of Book VI. 4.

What was afterward done, learn from the same letter and from the 66th of the same book, which we here exhibit entire, that we may show what Gregory's prudence was in treating businesses of this kind: Gregory to Athanasius, priest of Isauria. Just as we are afflicted and grieve over those whom the error of heretical depravity has cut off from the unity of the Church, so we rejoice together with those whom the profession of the catholic faith holds within its bosom; and as it behooves us with pastoral solicitude to oppose the impieties of the former, so it befits us to bestow favor upon the pious professions of the latter, and to declare sincere the things which they hold.

And therefore, when against you, Athanasius the priest of the monastery of Saint Miles, which is called Tamnacum, situated in the province of Lycaonia, a suspicion contrary to the integrity of the faith had arisen, you chose — in order that the integrity of your profession might be able to appear — to have recourse to the Apostolic See over which we preside, asserting also that, having been bodily beaten, you had done certain things unjustly and by violence. And although the censure of the canons by no means admits those things which are done by the force of compulsion, and they are by right held invalid — because he himself dissolves them who compels the unjust thing to be confessed and done — yet that confession is rather to be received and embraced which is shown to proceed from spontaneous will, as you are recognized to have done in our presence.

Yet, lest anything doubtful could remain to us, we determined that we should write concerning you to the most holy John, formerly our brother and fellow bishop, prelate of the city of Constantinople (Indiction 11, Letter 52), that he might inform us by his letters what had been done. And he, being often admonished by us, in writing back (Indiction 13, Letter 18) made known that a codex had been found in your possession in which very many heretical things were contained; and that on this account he had been moved against your Dilection. And because he was zealous to transmit it to us for satisfaction, we ran through its earlier parts with careful reading. And since we found in it the manifest poisons of heretical depravity, we forbade that it should be read again.

But because you testified that you had read this simply, and, to cut off all matter of ambiguous suspicion, you handed to us a document written out by your own hand, in which, setting forth your faith, you most openly condemned all heresies generally, or whatever is against the integrity of the catholic faith or of the profession; and you professed that all things which the four holy universal synods receive, you had always received and do receive, and that what they condemn you had condemned and do condemn;

you promised also both to receive and to keep that synod which was held in the times of the Emperor Justinian concerning the Three Chapters, and, being forbidden by us to read that very codex in which the venom of pestilential fraud is interwoven, you most willingly consented; reproving also and condemning all those things which are said, or latently inserted, in it against the integrity of the catholic faith, and you promised not to read it again.

Moved by this reasoning, after your faith also became clearly manifest to us as catholic — God preserving it — from the page of the document approved by you, we decree that, according to your profession, you are free from every stain of heretical perversity and are catholic, and we pronounce that you have shone forth, by the grace of Christ Jesus the Savior, as a professor and follower of the sincere faith in all things; we also grant you free leave to return likewise to your monastery, to your own place and order. Concerning this also we wish to transmit our writings to our most beloved brother, prelate of the city of Constantinople, who has been ordained in the place of the aforesaid holy John.

But because it is not the custom that we should write before his synodical letter is brought to us, we have therefore deferred it. But after it has been delivered to us, we will make these things known to him, when it shall be opportune. Akin to this business is the cause of John, priest of Chalcedon, whom at the same time, accused by the ignorant of the heresy of the Marcianists, or rather the Marcionites, judges deputed by the same John of Constantinople unjustly condemned. But the Pope, having held a council, absolved him, chiefly because the document offered by him accorded in all things with the sincerity of the faith. Concerning this sentence pronouncing the priest John free from the crime of heresy, Gregory wrote to the Emperor Maurice and to Theoctista (Book VI, Letters

16 and 17). Of this synodal judgment also he informed John himself, patriarch of Constantinople (ibid., Letter 15). In the letter which he wrote to him, the holy Doctor openly condemns those who, carried away by a false zeal, force heresies even upon the unwilling and upon those who profess the orthodox faith. These words above the rest are to be marked: Just as the depravity of heretics is to be repressed by zeal for the right faith, so is the integrity of true confession to be embraced. For if belief is disdained to one confessing faithfully, the faith of all is brought into doubt, and deadly errors are generated from incautious strictness.

and hence not only are the straying sheep by no means recalled to the Lord's folds, but even those placed within are cruelly exposed to be torn by the teeth of beasts. This therefore, most dear brother, let us subtly weigh, and let us not allow anyone truly professing the catholic faith to be afflicted under the pretext of heresy, lest — which God forbid — we permit heresy to be made under the very appearance of correction. 5. But that which is wont to befall those detractors, that in objecting heresy they are carried into the opposite error, St. Gregory testifies to have befallen John of Constantinople in these words:

Three years ago, the cause of the monks of Isauria — who were accused of being heretics — compelling it, my once brother and fellow priest the lord John, in giving me satisfaction, sent letters by which he endeavored to show that they had contradicted the definitions of the Synod of Ephesus, and, as though from that same synod, he sent me certain chapters by which they might be withstood. Among other things there was contained a certain writing there, concerning the soul of Adam, that it had not died in sin, on the ground that the devil does not enter into the heart of man; and that if anyone should have said this, he should be anathema. When these things had been read over to me, I was greatly saddened (Book VII, Letter 34).

That this error of John was a shoot of the Pelagian heresy, and forged by the Pelagians in that pseudo-Ephesine synod, the most learned Pope reports, both in the letter praised above and in Book IX, Letter 49, where he asserts that the chapters transmitted to him from the royal city under the name of the Synod of Ephesus are the very depraved dogmas of Pelagius and Celestius. Concerning the monks of Isauria, the Monastic History of the East, Book IV, ch. 17, p. 753, is to be consulted, where it is said that they rather lived in Lycaonia than in Isauria. Certainly in Book IV of the Dialogues, ch. 38, Gregory makes mention of a certain Athanasius, a priest, and, as one may conjecture, a monk of Lycaonia, if credit be given to very many manuscripts noted at this place in the note. But Isauria and Lycaonia were neighboring provinces;

Hence it is no wonder that one was mistakenly put for the other. There exists in Book V, letter 57, addressed to Helias, a presbyter and abbot in Isauria, whose disciple named Epiphanius St. Gregory ordained a deacon of the Roman Church. Helias had asked for 50 solidi for the necessities of his monastery; but the most beneficent father sent 72. Whether those monks accused of the crime of heresy were dwelling in that monastery is altogether uncertain. From what has been recounted one may understand that John of Constantinople had not sufficiently guarded himself against the Pelagian heresy (a thing which is likewise established concerning very many of the Greeks), and that he was but little practised in ecclesiastical history and learning, seeing that he ignorantly praised spurious and heretical writings as though they were the genuine acts of the Council of Ephesus.

More than once did Gregory have to contend with this patriarch of the royal city, in order that he might be kept in his proper place. 6. Since we have begun to speak of bishops who were unmindful of their office and were rebuked and corrected by Gregory, it is worth while to add a few words concerning John, bishop of Ravenna, who in this very year also was reproved for his pride and his insolent use of the pallium (Book III, letter 56). Relying upon the authority of the exarchs residing at Ravenna, he thought fit to usurp for himself certain things beyond the common custom of metropolitans.

For whereas the others did not use the pallium outside the time of the Mass, he went about newly clad in the pallium during the solemn litanies and public supplications, which were instituted by way of penitential discipline, whereas at such times he ought rather to have professed humility in ashes and in sackcloth. This Gregory disapproved, that pre-eminent champion of priestly modesty, whose is that plainly golden saying, that nothing shines more splendidly upon a bishop's neck than humility. Following the example of their archbishop, the clergy of the Church of Ravenna, growing proud, presumed to use the mappulae (which the Roman clergy alone claimed for itself). Concerning these matters Gregory took care to write to John as speedily as possible, through Castorius, notary of the Holy Roman Church.

John answered that these privileges had been granted to himself and to his Church by the supreme pontiffs, and demanded that they be confirmed by Gregory; a thing which was likewise urgently requested by the Roman exarch, the prefect, and other nobles of the city of Ravenna. The pontiff, therefore, yielding to them, granted that the archbishop of Ravenna, until something more certain should be established concerning the privileges granted to him, might use the pallium in the litanies of four solemn days only; namely, on the feasts of St. John the Baptist, of St. Peter the Apostle, of St. Apollinaris the patron of this Church, and on the anniversary commemoration of his own ordination (Book V, letter 11). This judgment did not please John, as one may gather from a letter written afterward to the same, in which he complains of St.

— Gregory complains of John's mocking and biting words (ibid., letter 15). But that he might remove every occasion for complaint, he wrote to the archbishop that he would inquire, through his apocrisiarius acting at Constantinople, whether any of the greater metropolitans, who had thirty or forty bishops under them, were accustomed to walk in the litanies with the pallium; and that, if any such should be found, he would gladly grant to the bishop of Ravenna the privilege of wearing the pallium in the litanies. Thus did the humble pontiff endeavour to appease one so exasperated. Yet he judged that John's base conduct was by no means to be dissembled, but diligently admonished him concerning it; especially because he flattered friends when present, but disparaged them when absent;

because he raged against his servants and belched forth foul words; because there was no discipline for guarding the life of his clergy, but he showed himself to his clergy merely as a lord. 7. As hostile as Gregory showed himself toward such bishops, so kindly and obliging did he show himself toward the best of pastors; which he proved above all toward Domitian, bishop and metropolitan of Melitene in Armenia. He was a kinsman of the Emperor Maurice, a man prudent, industrious, most powerful in word and deed, and, as Evagrius says, most effective for carrying out the greatest affairs. Hence the Emperor was wont to employ him as a helper in very many and most weighty matters.

Nay, he had even entrusted to his guardianship his own children, still of tender age, while in the fifteenth year of his reign he was dangerously ill, as Simocatta relates, who launches most extensively into the praises of Domitian. When Chosroes, king of the Persians, a fugitive, had by the aid of Maurice recovered his kingdom, and a little afterward had sent to Gregory, patriarch of Antioch, a golden cross gleaming with gems, to be offered in the church of St. Sergius, and had adorned the basilica of that same martyr with very many gifts (because he believed himself restored to his kingdom by his aid, and that he had regained his most beloved wife and his offspring and his health), great hope had been conceived of the Christian faith being disseminated and propagated among the Persians.

For this reason Domitian had journeyed to the king, whom he had already bound to himself by many benefits; for Maurice had sent this bishop to meet the fleeing and exiled king by way of honour, that he might conduct him wherever he wished. That Chosroes was then made a Christian is related by John of Biclaro in his chronicle, and by Paul the Deacon, Book IV, chapter 17. But that these writers were deceived by a vain show of religion, on account of the king's munificence toward the temples of the Christians, and that he did not withdraw from the worship of the heathen, is manifest both from the Greek writers who have followed up the deeds of Maurice, and especially from Gregory's letter of consolation written to Domitian in this year:

'I grieve indeed,' he says, 'that the emperor of the Persians has not in truth been converted; yet I rejoice in every way that you have preached the Christian faith to him: for although he has not merited to come to the light, nevertheless your holiness shall have the reward of its preaching. For even the Ethiopian enters the bath black, and comes forth black, and yet the bath-keeper receives his coins' (Book III, letter 67). Thus did Gregory, in gentle and ingenious fashion, console the labours—rendered fruitless—of a most holy bishop most closely bound to him in friendship, replying to that bishop's letter, in which Domitian, grieving, had made known that his journey to the Persians had lacked the welcome fruit of his preaching. (Cf. Evagrius, Life of Maurice, Book IV, ch. 14; Book VI, ch. 13 ff.; Book VIII, ch. 11.)