Argument.— 1. The title 'Ecumenical' assumed by the Patriarch of Constantinople. — 2. Which councils are called ecumenical. — 3. The Pope rejects this title when offered to him. — 4. The meaning of this word. — 5. Saint Gregory's zeal in repudiating this title is defended. — 6. By what degrees the ambition of the Patriarchs of Constantinople ascended. — 7. How great it was in John. — 8. Whether he was made patriarch from a monk. — 9. The letters of Saint Gregory concerning that controversy are examined: on the first written to Maurice, and to the Empress. — 10. He writes to the patriarchs. — 11. What Eulogius of Alexandria answered. — 12. And Anastasius of Antioch. — 13. On the interpolated letters of Saint Ignatius. — 14. The substance of the letter written to John of Constantinople. — 15. Vain were the efforts of Saint...
...the Pope's efforts upon John and upon his successor. — 16. The end of this controversy. — 17. Heretics who cast Saint Gregory's modesty in the face of his successors are refuted. (Years 594 and 595.) 1. We take the beginning of this book from the controversy that flared up between Gregory and John, Patriarch of Constantinople, over the proud title of ecumenical patriarch assumed by John, and—Maurice favouring this unjust usurpation, and the other patriarchs dissembling the injury done to them by this odious appellation—asserted and preserved.
Although the insolence of this word had, long before Gregory's pontificate, stirred up disturbances and most grave offence, nevertheless the most prudent Pontiff, who was accustomed to undertake nothing except with mature counsel, did not seriously think of removing it out of the way before this year. 2. As regards the very title of 'ecumenical,' it is agreed that the general councils long before attributed it to themselves. Yet P. Gussanvillaeus relates (in his notes on ep. 32, Book IV) that before the Synod of Chalcedon no other council was endowed with this title, and that the legates of Saint Leo the Pope were the authors of this name. But whoever attentively reads the Council of Ephesus will admit that this escaped him while he was incautious and occupied with other things: for indeed, in part II, in the third session, there occurs:
'A copy of the Letter,' etc., 'the holy and great and ecumenical synod.' In the fourth session, in the letter of Cyril and Memnon to the synod: 'Against the presidents of this ecumenical synod.' In the report of the synod: 'To the most pious and most Christian Theodosius,' etc., 'the sacred ecumenical synod.' In the report concerning the subscription: 'To the most pious,' etc., 'the holy and ecumenical synod.' Ludovicus Maimbourg, in his History of the Pontificate of Saint Gregory the Great, Book II, nonetheless followed Gussanvillaeus, who thus gravely erred. 3. Saint Gregory testifies that the ecumenical title was offered to the Roman Pontiff, namely Saint Leo the Great, for the honour of blessed Peter, prince of the apostles, through the venerable Synod of Chalcedon;
'but none of them,' he says, 'ever assumed this name of singularity, nor consented to use it' (Book V, ep. 20). Indeed, in the Council of Chalcedon several petitions offered to the Pope were read, in which he is honoured with this honorific term. And in the sixth session Paschasinus, a bishop who was one of Saint Leo's legates, in a speech delivered before the holy synod, called the supreme pontiff 'ecumenical'; and since the Fathers of the synod did not object to this, they seemed to approve and ratify it, especially since these acts were recorded in the registers of the synod. 4. As regards the meaning of this word, 'ecumenical' is the same as 'universal';
and a council is called ecumenical which is convoked and gathered from all the inhabitable parts of the world to which we believe the Christian religion has reached. And although the bishops or their legates from all the Christian world may perhaps not have come together for these synods, sometimes a synod which was not universal in its convocation and assembly became general and ecumenical, namely by the subsequent consent of all the orthodox. If from this meaning we should determine what an ecumenical bishop or patriarch is, it will at once become manifest what a monster in the Christian religion a bishop of this kind would be.
For no one can properly become a universal bishop unless all the other bishops are excluded; for indeed, if some one man were bishop of the whole Christian world, what place would be left for any other? But this is expressly opposed to Sacred Scripture, which teaches us not obscurely that the Holy Spirit has set not one, but many bishops to rule the Church of God (Acts 20). There is indeed one flock of Christ, but there are many shepherds of this flock, who each undertook one portion of this flock to be fed and ruled. 5. I do not deny that in some sense not deviating from the rule of faith, the Roman Pontiffs could be called ecumenical, on account of the singular jurisdiction which they hold in the whole Church;
to which even individual bishops are subject. But since they had chosen modestly to abstain from that title, with what face did the bishops of Constantinople not fear to claim the same for themselves? As if indeed they could exercise any episcopal authority beyond the bounds of their own patriarchate, or as if the patriarchate of Constantinople could, without absurdity, be understood and taken as embracing the whole Christian world! I therefore cannot sufficiently marvel that certain writers, though professing the orthodox faith, have carped at, or even openly condemned, Gregory the Great's zeal in opposing this proud title, as though he had contended more sharply than was fitting over a mere name and not over a matter of grave importance.
To them indeed I will readily grant that some harmless senses could have been attached and accommodated to this word and appellation. But since it is liable to far more that are harmful and alien to the faith, and these obvious, while on the contrary those that are sound seem fetched from elsewhere, who but rashly would dare to disapprove so great a Pontiff for being anxious to root out a novel and insolent word, wholly foreign to episcopal modesty? Our Aristarchuses say that 'ecumenical' has the same meaning as 'general,' whose title is bestowed on so many commanders, whether military, or civil and political, or even ecclesiastical and monastic. But the meaning of 'ecumenical' extends far more widely.
Now those ministers or prefects adduced as examples are called 'general' so as to be distinguished from the 'particular' ones, whose authority is lesser. But in this sense the Patriarchs of Constantinople could by no means be called general. For I ask, who were those particular patriarchs from whom they ought to have been distinguished by this word? Moreover, since it was doubtful in what sense they boasted themselves to be ecumenical, it was to be feared that their ambition, well enough known, would assume the one that extended more widely, that is, the worst and heretical sense;
who now in his senses would blame the holy man, because, while he himself so cultivated humility in the most excellent and supreme dignity of the Church, he strove to provoke and recall the proud bishops to that virtue which Christ chiefly willed us to learn from Himself? 6. Here it is worth while to observe by what degrees the bishop of Constantinople had arrived at the summit of so great a dignity, so as to be held inferior to none other than the Roman Pontiff. First, then, being subject to the bishop of Heraclea, he afterwards exercised metropolitan and exarchic right over the bishop of Heraclea and very many others. Then he was numbered among the ancient patriarchs;
and not long after, supported by the power of the emperors, and with the bishops and even the patriarchs themselves compelled to consent—for they needed his help and favour with the Augusti in various affairs of their churches—he obtained this in the second general Council of Constantinople, and in that of Chalcedon: that he should sit in the second place after the Roman Pontiff; though Saint Leo resisted, who rejected the canon promulgated on this matter at Chalcedon as supposititious and added by fraud when the council was already concluded. Nor could the ambition of this prelate stand still and rest at this degree, flattering and exalting itself beyond measure over its throne established in the royal city which was called New Rome:
for they either of their own accord assumed the title of ecumenical, or received it offered by flatterers with both hands and retained it—John III, Epiphanius, Mennas (who was often called ecumenical patriarch by the synod held at Constantinople under him), and thereafter the other bishops of the same city—being about, perhaps, to claim for themselves universal prefecture over the whole Christian world and over the Roman Church itself, had not the Roman Pontiffs withstood their pride, which was ever ascending. 7.
But of all the bishops of Constantinople, none seemed to hunt after the appellation of ecumenical with so great a greed as John surnamed the Faster, who for this reason—though another was pretended—held a synod of the whole East at Constantinople, as not a few writers teach us, and especially Saint Gregory. 'As soon as my predecessor' (Pelagius), he says, 'recognized this, he annulled the acts of that synod by letters directed by the authority of Saint Peter the apostle. Copies of these letters, namely, I have taken care to send to your Holiness.'
'But the deacon who, according to custom, attended the footsteps of the most pious lords for the sake of making the responses of the Church, he forbade to celebrate the solemnities of Mass together with our aforesaid fellow-priest' (Book V, ep. 43). Thus Gregory, who, having been given as successor together with Pelagius, asked John through his legate Sabinian to abstain from this title. But having gained nothing by these entreaties, he attempted other remedies. 8. Before we speak of the letters written by the holy Pontiff on this matter, we must inquire who this John the Faster was. The common opinion is that he was a monk, and it rests both on the testimony of John the Deacon (Book III, ch...
...51), and on the inscription of a certain sermon on penance which is attributed to him, and which in its title bears the name of John, monk, patriarch of Constantinople, surnamed the Faster. It is added that he arranged in a better order the Liturgy which is believed to be that of Chrysostom, and that in it he designated himself by the name of 'sacred monk' or 'priest-monk.' But that discourse in which this word is read is absent from the Liturgy of Saint Chrysostom which the most learned Jacobus Goar presents. Nor is it established that this Liturgy was arranged by the work of John the Faster. Moreover, there were very many bishops of Constantinople who, having first embraced the monastic life, could be called 'sacred monks.'
According to the Greek Menaea, John the Faster was born at Constantinople, where he first practised the statuary (or better, the sculptor's) art. But on account of his outstanding virtues he was co-opted into the clergy by the patriarch of this city and made a deacon. At length, upon the death of Eutychius, he is compelled against his will to take up the patriarchal dignity, which he adorned with wondrous abstinence, generous almsgiving, and other pious works. Whether the sanctity of his life was sincere, as the Greeks contend, or feigned, as most Latins hold—since humility, the foundation of all virtues, seems to have been lacking in him—
this sanctity, I say, or appearance of sanctity, contributed not a little to conciliating to him the Emperor Maurice, whom Saint Gregory found most hostile in that whole controversy over the ecumenical title. 9. In the first letter which he wrote on this subject, he complained to Maurice Augustus of John's pride, by which the peace among the bishops had been disturbed and shaken, and by which, he says, the swords of the barbarians were being whetted against the commonwealth. He depicts him wondrously in these words: 'Our bones are worn away with fastings, and we swell in mind. Our body is covered with despised garments, and in the elation of our heart we surpass the purple. We lie in ashes, and we look down upon lofty things.'
'Teachers of the humble, leaders of pride, with a sheep's face we hide wolves' teeth.' And speaking much more plainly of the same man below: 'He therefore,' he says, 'is rather to be bent by the command of the most pious lords, who scorns to render obedience to the canonical precepts. He is to be restrained who does injury to the holy universal Church, who swells in heart, who desires to rejoice in a name of singularity, who by a private title sets himself even above the honour of your empire' (Book V, ep. 20). He sets against John's arrogance the modesty of the prince of the apostles, who, although he had received from Christ the care of the whole Church, nevertheless never willed to be called the universal apostle;
to whose example the Roman Pontiffs, heirs of that dignity, adhered. Afterwards he exclaims: 'O the times! O the manners! Behold, all things in the parts of Europe are handed over to the right of the barbarians; the cities are destroyed, the fortresses overthrown, the provinces depopulated; no cultivator inhabits the land; worshippers of idols rage and lord it daily unto the slaughter of the faithful; and yet priests, who ought to lie weeping on the pavement and in ashes, seek for themselves names of vanity, and glory in new and profane titles.' At last he batters this title with many weighty reasons, drawn especially from the depraved sense underlying it. The chief arguments with which he presses John, both in this letter and in others, are these:
the new name of ecumenical is repugnant to Christian humility, which ought to shine more in bishops; it disturbs charity, rends unity, despoils the other bishops of their dignity, so as to make one only a bishop, upon whose fall the whole Church falls. And since we read that very many bishops of Constantinople have lapsed into heresy, it would follow that the Church would more often have fallen away from the true faith. Finally, the Roman Pontiff rejected this title offered to him of its own accord. The emperor had exhorted the Pope to deal peaceably with John; to which he replied: 'Let the author of the scandal return to a right life, and all the quarrels of the priests will cease. For I am the servant of all the priests, in so far as they live in a priestly manner:'
'for as to him who against the almighty Lord, through the swelling of vain glory, and against the statutes of the Fathers, raises up his neck, I trust in the almighty Lord that he will not bend mine to himself even with swords.' Almost the same is the argument of the letter written to Constantina Augusta (ibid., ep. 21). Yet he rises up more vehemently against John, whose immense pride, he says, announces the near times of Antichrist; for he indeed imitates that one who, spurning the legions of angels in their common joy, tried to break forth to the summit of singularity, saying: 'Above the stars of heaven will I exalt my throne' (Isaiah 14:13). 10.
Since the honour of all the bishops, but especially of the patriarchs, was being assailed by this usurpation, Saint Gregory wrote a common letter to Eulogius of Alexandria and to Anastasius, Patriarch of Antioch (ibid., ep. 43), to which he attached all the documents of this dispute, and copies of the letters written to John both by Pelagius II and by himself; that they might understand that in this controversy the highest interest of the episcopate, and indeed of the whole Church, was at stake. Then he exhorts them never in their letters to name anyone universal bishop, lest they detract from what is due to themselves when they offer to another an honour that is not due.
But because the love of peace and unity might intervene to keep them from resisting John, he teaches by what principle peace is to be fostered, from the Apostle who says: 'If it be possible, as much as in you lies, having peace with all men' (Romans 12:18). 'For he saw,' he says, 'that the good cannot have peace with the wicked; and therefore, as you know, he prefaced it, if it be possible.... That peace indeed we truly hold when we pursue the faults of the proud with charity and justice together pressing on, when we love them and hold their vices in hatred.' With this mind he says that war must be declared against John's pride, and that for the defence of the honour of their churches, cast down by this pride, they must contend:
'Stand,' he says, 'strong; stand secure. Presume never either to give or to receive writings with the falsity of the universal name.... But if any adversities should follow, persevering with one mind, we ought, even by dying, to show that in condemning the name of generality, we love nothing of our own in particular.' 11. Gregory long awaited Eulogius' reply, and expostulated amicably with him about so great a delay in another letter, where he recalls that the blessed evangelist Mark was sent to Alexandria by Saint Peter the apostle, his master (Book VI, ep. 60), whence he infers that the Church of Alexandria is more closely bound to the Roman. Yet afterwards Eulogius replied to the Pope:
that, as he had been ordered, in writing to John he had abstained from the proud terms which had sprung from the root of vanity, and that he would no longer usurp them. But these words wounded Gregory's supreme modesty: 'as you commanded.' 'That word of command,' he says, 'I beg you to remove from my hearing; for I know who I am, and who you are. In place you are my brothers, in character my fathers' (Book VIII, ep. 30). He took it still more amiss that he had been called universal Pope by him in the inscription of the letter. 'Let the words depart,' he says, 'which inflate vanity and wound charity' (ibid.). 12. As regards Anastasius, the pious man did not approve so great a controversy stirred up over the ecumenical title, as is clear from another letter written to him.
But Gregory's wondrous modesty and humility shone forth in receiving this free admonition of a friend—I might almost say, this rebuke; for he begins with these words breathing charity the letter in which he answers Anastasius' admonition: 'I received the desired letter of your most sweet Holiness, brought by our common son the deacon Sabinian, in which flowed forth the words not of the tongue, but of the soul. And it is no wonder if he speaks well who lives perfectly' (Book VII, ep. 27). And although he never ceased from assailing the word 'ecumenical,' because he thought it profane and injurious to all bishops, nevertheless he did not withdraw from communion with the Patriarch of Constantinople:
and when John died, he received the synodical letter of Cyriacus his successor, in which he had styled himself ecumenical patriarch, lest he should rend the unity of the Church. For what reason Anastasius judged that this word should be patiently borne, it is not difficult to guess. For recently, upon the death of Gregory, Patriarch of Antioch, Anastasius had been recalled from exile and restored to his former see; concerning which our Gregory had congratulated him (Book V, ep. 39). Since therefore, after long wars, he was at length enjoying peace, and had recovered his see by the emperor's benefit—perhaps also with John of Constantinople exerting himself on his behalf,
the patriarch whom the emperor was accustomed to consult on ecclesiastical affairs—fearing to face dangers again, he judged it more to his advantage to interpret the ecumenical title benignly, than to make a tumult and contend over its usurpation. 13. In this letter it seems worthy of observation that these words, 'Amen, grace,' are praised as those of the holy martyr Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, and had been used earlier also by Anastasius as inserted by Ignatius into his letters: yet they are by no means found in the genuine and sincere letters of that same martyr, but only in the corrupted ones; whence it is clear that these had already then been falsified. 14.
In discussing the other letters written by Gregory on this account we do not linger; but that one by which he tried to recall John himself to a saner mind must not be passed over in silence. In it he at once complains of the peace of the Church disturbed by him, and marvels that, although he had come to the episcopate unwillingly, yet in it, after he had obtained it, he seems to conduct himself as if he had prepared his way to that sacred dignity by ambition. He recalls to mind all that had been done against him in the time of Pelagius II, and how he himself had tried first to apply gentle remedies to the growing evil through his legates, before he was compelled to proceed to strict and canonical ones.
'And because,' he says, 'wounds that must be cut away must first be handled with a gentle hand, I ask, I beseech, and with all the sweetness I can I entreat, that your Fraternity contradict all who flatter you and confer on you the name of error, and consent not to be called by the foolish and proud title' (Book V, ep. 18). I pass over the reasons by which he assails this word; for they are the same as those we have already touched upon. 15. So many efforts were in vain; for John retained the assumed title until death, which happened a little after he received this letter. For it was given on the Kalends of January of the 13th indiction, that is, of the year 595, in which year those who have written of him teach that John departed from life.
The most wise Pope did indeed receive the synodical letter of Cyriacus, given as his successor; yet he admonished him (Book VII, ep. 4) to lay aside the profane name, that seed-plot of so many scandals. In the letter written to Maurice (ibid., ep. 6), in which he gives thanks for the election of Cyriacus, he calls John a bishop of holy memory, which sufficiently proves that he was never rejected from the communion of the Apostolic See. The emperor had long deliberated about John's successor; whence it is no wonder that Cyriacus was ordained rather late, a whole year even having elapsed. 16.
A little after Saint Gregory's passing to the heavenly regions, Boniface III, who had been sent by him as apocrisiarius to the Emperor Phocas and had won his favour, obtained from him a sanction by which it was provided that in future neither Cyriacus, to whom Phocas was hostile, nor any other patriarchs of Constantinople thereafter, should profess themselves ecumenical beyond their own bounds. Yet this law did not long remain in force; for in the general synods, the sixth and the seventh, they are honoured with this title, no otherwise than the Roman Pontiffs, and the bishop of Constantinople rejoices in it even still.
With that word it happened as with many others which, on account of their novelty, at once seemed dangerous and therefore to be rejected, but gradually, once it was ascertained that they were free of poison and could be bent to a legitimate sense, men began to grow accustomed to them. Nor yet ought that zeal of Gregory to be blamed, by which he withstood a word that was doubtful, new, foreign, redolent of arrogance, and liable to many depraved senses and significations.
Surely those peevish censors, who charge him with having fought so long over a mere little word, with what great praises would they extol some bishop who should have withstood with all his might a Roman Pontiff aspiring to and pursuing this or a similar equally insolent title, and who, to defend the episcopal dignity, would gladly have exposed himself to all dangers? 17. But the heterodox, the most bitter enemies of the Apostolic See, wrongly draw to their own side the fact that Saint Gregory teaches that the name of ecumenical cannot be conceded even to the Roman Pontiff—whose primacy and most ample jurisdiction over the whole Church they contend are struck at by this opinion.
Thus from those flowers fragrant with the holy man's modesty and humility they make not honey, as bees do, but poison, as spiders do. But they do not attend to the word 'ecumenical' in the sense in which Saint Gregory interprets this term, namely, that it signifies a single bishop in the whole Church; which we freely confess does not suit the pope, and least of all accords with his supreme dignity and power. Yet they are blind who do not see that Gregory himself, though he judged so modestly concerning himself and his own authority, nevertheless exercised jurisdiction throughout the whole Church—in Africa, Egypt, and Asia, even within the very boundaries of the patriarchate of Constantinople, as is clear from the case of the monks of Isauria. In Book III, Letter 30, he says:
'The Apostolic See, by God's authorship, is established as set over all the Churches.' Book V, Letter 13: 'It has been my care,' he says, 'that which is bestowed by us upon all the Churches.' Book VII, Letter 19: 'Since the care of the solicitude enjoined upon us for all the Churches constrains us,' and so forth. Book IX, Letter 59, on the occasion of the primate of Byzacena in Africa, who professed himself subject to the Apostolic See, he writes thus to John of Syracuse: 'If any fault is found in bishops, I know not what bishop is not subject to it.' He exercised this right over bishops when he committed the case of Peter, an African bishop, to be judged by Columbus, a bishop in Numidia (Book VI, Letter 37); and the case of Ursicinus, bishop of the city of Turin, to Syagrius, bishop of Autun (Book IX, Letter 115);
and the case of Januarius, bishop of Malaga, and of another bishop named Stephen, to John the Defensor (Book XIII, Letter 45). When Paul, a bishop in Africa, had been accused by the patrician Gennadius, and had himself come to Rome to present himself for the pope's judgment, and no suitable accusers had appeared, he sent him back (Book VII, Letter 2). At the request of the bishops of the province, he by his own authority confirmed the ordination of John, bishop and primate of the First Justiniana in Illyricum, and bestowed the pallium upon him (Book II, Letters 22 and 23). Very many other examples of this jurisdiction we have already set forth, and more will occur below. Argument.—1. Gregory's solicitude for making peace.—2. He is not heard by the emperor. False accusations against him.—3. He mourns Saint
Maximian, who has departed this life. He gives him as successor John, a most holy man.—4. John of Ravenna dies.—5. Saint Gregory's care for the monasteries.—6. Marinianus becomes bishop of Ravenna.—7. The decrees of the Roman synod.—8. Complaints concerning Marinianus.—9. Especially that he suffered the monasteries to be harassed.—10. A privilege granted to the monks. (Years 594 and 595.) 1. For making and cementing peace between the Romans and the Lombards, Gregory labored hard this year. King Agilulf was not averse to it; but he demanded that what had been taken from him by treachery in a time of peace should be restored, and promised in turn to give satisfaction in every way, if anything should be found to have been committed by his side (Book V, Letter 36).
The holy pontiff judged this to be consonant with equity, and lest it should be rejected by the exarch, he wrote to Severus, the latter's scholasticus, that he might persuade him not to spurn those offered conditions of peace. Indeed, at Rome and in the Roman territory it was ready at hand to procure peace privately, for Agilulf was inclined to grant it there; but Gregory, as the common father, was solicitous for the making of a general peace, because unless the war with the Lombards were settled, various islands and other places would without doubt perish. 2. But the exarch was by no means thinking of peace, for he foresaw that a war ruinous to the whole commonwealth would be most useful to himself; for he did not scruple to seize gains from the losses of others.
Deceived, therefore, by the persuasions and counsels of this man and of other like administrators of public affairs, Maurice not only refused to put an end to the war, but even charged Gregory—who was exhorting him to lay aside enmities and to enter into a treaty—with excessive simplicity, chiefly because he had written concerning Ariulf, duke of Spoleto, that he was prepared to come with his whole heart to the commonwealth (Ibid., Letter 40), that is, that he was inclined to make peace and alliance with the Romans. And so, while the pope's saner counsels were not believed, the forces of the enemy grew monstrously, and Italy was daily led captive under the Lombard yoke. These things the pious pastor deplores, and he enumerates the disasters inflicted then upon Italy, and especially upon Rome.
And since he nonetheless did not cease from urging and seeking peace, employing the service of the notary Castorius, whom he kept as his representative at Ravenna before the exarch: 'A certain man, filled with the counsel of the malignant spirit, in the nighttime silence set up against this man in a public place of the city a protestation speaking of his crime, and craftily contradicting Gregory also as to the making of peace' (Book VI, Letter 31). Against the author of this defamatory libel the pope pronounced a sentence of excommunication, unless he should come forth and prove those things which were charged in the protestation; or, repenting of the deed, should acknowledge his own fault by public confession, and beg off the due penalty.
With the same excommunication he punished those who had lent their consent to the counsel of so great an iniquity. 3. Gregory's grief conceived over the public calamities was increased by mourning over the death of a friend, namely Saint Maximian, who from being a monk and abbot of Saint Andrew's had been made bishop of Syracuse. To so great a man, who had deserved so well of him, the most holy father paid the due rites and rendered these words at his funeral, writing to the deacon Cyprian: 'Your Charity's most bitter letters concerning the death of the lord Maximian I received in the month of November. And indeed he has attained to the rewards he desired; but the unhappy people of the city of Syracuse are to be mourned, who did not deserve to have such a shepherd for long.'
'Therefore let your Charity take care that in the same Church one such should be chosen for ordination as, after the lord Maximian, may seem not undeservedly to take up the place of the same governance' (Book V, Letter 17). From this letter we understand that Maximian closed his last day about the month of November in the year 594. The noble men of Syracuse, wisely declining the burdens of the election (Ibid., Letter 22), had committed it to Gregory's judgment; and giving thanks to them, he wrote that he did not have anyone like Maximian to give them as pastor. Nevertheless he indicated to the deacon Cyprian that John, archdeacon of the Church of Catania, was more suitable;
and he willed that, if this John were chosen, a release, or as we now say, letters dimissory, should be given him by Leo, bishop of Catania, before he was ordained. Then, when he had been elected and ordained, he sent the pallium. John shone in his episcopate with all virtues, especially with liberality poured out upon the poor, so that, even if he had countless poor with him, yet in order to fulfill the largess of his mercy, he sought out even other and far-distant places, says Saint Gregory, giving him thanks for the alms sent to himself (Book VI, Letter 18). Perhaps he showed himself so beneficent toward the needy because he conformed himself to the precepts of the most holy doctor, and took care to imbibe them by assiduous reading of his writings.
This reading he employed even at his table, in the presence of strangers, whereby he in some manner seasoned the food. The man of highest humility and modesty took this entirely amiss, and was the cause that John should refrain from this reading at least in the presence of foreigners, and should command the sayings of the more ancient Fathers to be read, by whose authority they might be able to be instructed (Book VII, Letter 9). 4. In the same year in which Maximian died, John, archbishop of the people of Ravenna, also departed this life, the controversy concerning the use of the pallium not yet laid to rest, as is evident from certain letters of Gregory written to him a little before (Book V, Letters 25, 48, 56). The most holy Father seems to have foretold his impending death in these words, Letter 15:
'All these things, therefore, which I have said above, most dear brother, reconsider. Attend to the day of your calling; consider what accounts you are to render for the burden of the episcopate. Amend those habits of a notary. See what befits a bishop in tongue and in deed. Be wholly pure toward your brethren. Do not speak one thing and hold another in your heart. Nor desire to seem beyond what you are, that you may be able to be beyond what you seem' (Ibid., Letters 11 and 15). Earlier he had rebuked him because he used mocking words; because, when he raged, he laid base charges upon his servants; because he showed himself lord only to the clergy, whom no discipline restrained. 5.
To the same negligence, perhaps, ought to be attributed the fact that clerics had encroached upon many monasteries. For pretending, forsooth, to live religiously, they sought to be set over the monasteries; but through their manner of life the monasteries were being destroyed, says Saint Gregory: for he who serves in the clerical office cannot himself keep the strict discipline of a monastery. By what compact, therefore, could he who does not fulfill the monastic rule compel others to observe it more strictly? Accordingly, not without reason did the provident Father take care to remedy so great an evil as soon as possible, by no means suffering sacred places to be destroyed through the ambition of clerics (Book V, Letter 1).
Some have used this letter to prove that the state of the monastic life is utterly alien to the clerical office. But how much this is abhorrent to the mind of the holy Doctor, he himself manifestly shows, since he took up very many monks—both from his own and from other monasteries—to the sacred orders, indeed to the episcopate, and even set them over apostolic duties. What of the fact that he sometimes assigns the monastic state as both a step and a preliminary disposition toward the episcopate? 'Opportunus is to be exhorted,' he says, 'that he become either a monk or a subdeacon under you; so that after some little time, if it please God, he himself may be advanced to the pastoral care' (Book XII, Letter 12).
But the most learned Mabillon is to be consulted, both in the first volume of the fourth Benedictine century in the Preface, and in the Annals. The mind, therefore, of the holy Doctor was—as far as we can gather from the praised first letter of the fifth book and from others—that the presiding over monasteries ought by no means to be entrusted to clerics; because, since they are enslaved to a laxer discipline, and have not been nurtured in the stricter morals of monks, they are less careful about the observance of the monastic rule.
Besides, inasmuch as either ambition, or avarice, or some other depraved affection had paved the way to the abbatial dignity for those clerics whom Gregory attacks, they followed a secular manner of living, in banquets, in furnishings, in garments; and in order that they might be able to be equals in procuring these things for themselves, they plundered the monasteries. 6. When John had died, the holy pontiff bore solicitude concerning the electing of a successor. The exarch demanded the archdeacon Donatus; for we believe him to be designated by these words: 'We have willed that the desire of the most excellent man, the lord patrician, in the person of the archdeacon Donatus, be fulfilled' (Book V, Letter 48). Truly it was dangerous not to comply with the request of this supreme prefect;
who, since he had his seat at Ravenna, claimed very much for himself in the election of the bishop of that city. But since not a few things had become known in the life and morals of Donatus which counseled that he ought to be repelled from the episcopate, Gregory judged that consent ought not to be given to his ordination. He also did not suffer the presbyter John to be promoted to the episcopal dignity, because he was ignorant of the Psalms and less than vigorous in the priestly office. At length, by unanimous consent, Marinianus was elected, unwilling and reluctant. He had long lived in the monastery with Gregory, who commended him to Andrew the scholasticus, an intimate of his own. To testify his grateful mind toward his archbishop, Andrew afterward with Saint
Gregory pleaded with prayers for the restoring of the use of the pallium according to the ancient custom in the Church of Ravenna (Book VI, Letter 61). But before he assented that Marinianus should use the pallium on certain days of litanies and on solemn days, the wise pontiff ordered that concerning that matter the testimonies of the archdeacon and of the elders of the city be examined, an oath having first been furnished by each. 7. Marinianus began to govern the Church of Ravenna before a certain day of July of this very year, in which he took part in a synod celebrated at Rome by Gregory. The acts and decrees of this synod, which were formerly contained in the series of Letters, may now be read in the appendix to the Letters.
The chief matters are: concerning the office of deacons; concerning the removing of lay boys from the service of the pontifical chamber; concerning the restraining of the depredations by the rectors of the ecclesiastical patrimony; concerning sacred orders and the pallium being conferred freely and without any price; and so forth. In this synod, twenty-three bishops and very many presbyters who presided over the chief titular churches of the City corroborated the enactments by unanimous consent and fortified them with their subscriptions—but not the deacons and the rest of the clergy. In the subscriptions, in the second place, is read the name of Marinianus, namely, after Gregory. Of this assembly the holy pope is believed to speak where, in very many letters (Book VI, Letters
14, 15, 16, 17), he attests that John, a presbyter of the Church of Chalcedon, concerning whom mention was already made (Above, Book II, Chapter 9, Number 5), was in the synod, by the judgment of the bishops, freed from the charge of heresy. 8. However, not long after, Marinianus repented of the episcopate he had undertaken and of the monastic tranquillity he had lost, since schismatics were slandering him as venerating the Council of Chalcedon less than was fitting. Concerning this matter Saint Gregory wrote to the clergy and people of Ravenna, asserting that Marinianus, nourished from his cradle in the bosom of the holy universal Church, had held the right preaching of the faith (Book VI, Letter 2), and thought no otherwise concerning the Council of Chalcedon than was proper.
'Therefore,' he says, 'receiving fullest satisfaction, with entire charity and pure heart, love your pastor, that the intercession of the same pastor, more purely poured forth before God, may avail to profit you' (Ibid.). These things Gregory says on behalf of Marinianus. Afterward, when he had heard that Marinianus was too sparing toward the poor, he both rebuked his tenacity by his letters, and through Secundus [Al. Secundinus], a most holy monk, took care that these admonitions be conveyed to him in secret: Let him not believe that reading and prayer alone suffice for him, so that he should study to sit apart and by no means to bear fruit with his hand; but let him have a generous hand, let him run to those in need, let him count another's want as his own:
for if he does not have these things, he holds the empty name of a bishop. 9. There were afterward other occasions for complaining about Marinianus, chiefly because he, though himself a monk, showed himself more unjust toward the monks; whence Saint Gregory wrote to him: 'We wonder why in so short a time your Fraternity's discretion has been so changed, that you do not perceive what it demands: whereof we grieve, because you give a manifest sign that the words of those who ill counsel have prevailed more with you than the study of divine reading has profited. And whereas it behooves you to defend the monasteries and to gather the religious there most earnestly, that you may be able to make gain from the gathering of souls, you desire on the contrary to exercise yourself in their burdens, as your letters testify;'
'and, what is worse, you strive that we ought to be made partakers of your fault, namely, while with our consent you desire to weigh down, under the name of managing affairs and causes, the monastery which your predecessor founded. For you ought to recall that, in your presence, with various presbyters and deacons and your clerics also present, we granted, contrary to his testament, what they requested, as was commanded. Yet there the disposition of the same your predecessor, which he had made concerning that monastery, was confirmed; and you now, dissembling these things, demand that we ought to command things contrary' (Book VI, Letter 29). Whose monastery's defense Gregory undertook in this letter, is not clearly established.
Nevertheless we conjecture that this best father of monks speaks on behalf of the Classe monastery of Saint Apollinaris, built by Marinianus's predecessor. Nor did other monasteries situated in the diocese of Ravenna experience the archbishop as more beneficent, as is clear from the end of the praised letter. 'Moreover,' he says, 'it has come to us that the monasteries which are established under your Fraternity are weighed down by the importunities of clerics and by their various molestations; that this may not be done henceforth, restrain it with a strict interdiction: so that to the monks living there it may be permitted freely to exult in the praises of our God.'
And when the pious Father had heard that, his admonition being moreover disregarded, the monks were still being harassed by the clerics of Ravenna—the archbishop dissembling—no differently than before, he thought he ought to write again, and to insist more vehemently. He closes his letter with these words: 'Let your Holiness, therefore, now admonished a second time, not defer to amend all these things with vigilant care; lest, if after this we should perceive you to be negligent—which we do not believe—we be compelled to provide otherwise for the quiet of the monasteries. For be it known to you that we do not suffer the congregation of God's servants to lie subject any longer to so great a necessity' (Book VII, Letter 43). 10. While Saint
Gregory was writing these things, he was perhaps already meditating to provide for the tranquillity of the monasteries by that famous privilege which he promulgated in the third Roman council. He had already granted a similar one to the monastery of Saints John and Stephen in the city of Classe, of which Claudius, a disciple of Saint Gregory, was abbot. The lawsuit stirred up between the archbishops of Ravenna and this abbot the most holy pontiff had willed to be judged at Rome. And when some from the clergy and from the people had cried out against this, that it was contrary to the laws and canons, the pope wrote back: 'This perhaps could be objected, if he did not have recourse to a greater, and seek before him that the merit of his cause be determined.'
'Do you not yourself know that the case which arose from John the presbyter against John of Constantinople, our brother and fellow-bishop, according to the canons had recourse to the Apostolic See, and our sentence was pronounced upon it? If, therefore, from that city where the prince is, a case was brought to our cognizance, how much more ought a matter which is among you to be terminated here, the truth being known?' (Book VI, Letter 24.) Therefore, in order to cut off this controversy by the roots and every occasion of litigating, the wise pontiff fortified this monastery with an ample privilege, which thus begins: 'How necessary it is to provide for the quiet of monasteries,' and so forth. With similar privileges he also fortified the convents of nuns.
But what the aim of the holy Pope was in granting these immunities, he not obscurely discloses in writing to the abbot Luminosus: 'These things, however, being thus accomplished, be solicitous in the work of God, and give your labor assiduously to prayer, lest there seem to have been sought for you rather a security of mind in prayer, but—which God forbid—the episcopal strictness evaded by those living wickedly' (Book II, Letter 42).