Moralia in Job 21

Argument.—1. Saint Gregory attacks simony and the ordinations of neophytes in Gaul.—2. He commits his own office to the bishop of Arles. The Gallican Church is a daughter of the Roman.—3. Concerning the primacy of Arles.—4. Saint Gregory's oracle concerning the kings of France.—5. Concerning the praises given by Saint Gregory to Brunhilde.—6. How greatly he abhorred flattery.—7. Gregory of Tours visits the pope. At what time.—8. How he was received by him.—9. Certain things established for the monks.—10. And for the nuns.—11. How Saint Gregory conducted himself toward the heterodox. (Years 594 and 595.) 1.

A little after simony had been routed in the synod held at Rome this year, when the most vigilant pastor had heard by report that in the parts of Gaul or Germany very many bishops were guilty of the same, and that no one in those provinces came to sacred orders without the giving of a bribe, wishing to remedy so great a disease of the Gallican Church, he wrote to Virgilius, bishop of Arles, and to all the prelates in the kingdom of Childebert, as well as to King Childebert himself (Book V, Letters 53, 54, 55), and asked that they be solicitous to eliminate this corruption as soon as possible. In these letters also he condemns the precipitate and premature ordinations of laymen and neophytes, as being utterly at variance with right order. For what?

'He who has not been a disciple is, by inconsiderate ambition, made a master,' says Saint Gregory; 'and since he has not learned what he might be able to teach, he bears the priesthood only in name. But how shall he intercede for the sins of others, who has not first bewailed his own?' What we heard above concerning Gregory complaining of simony rampant in Gaul, another Gregory confirms, namely of Tours, speaking of a matter known to himself in the Lives of the Fathers, Chapter 6: 'Already then,' he says, 'that wicked seed had begun to bear fruit, so that the priesthood was either sold by kings or bought by clerics.' Nor was it enough for the holy pontiff, in order to avert so great an evil, to write once or twice.

Rather, by very many letters sent thereafter, whether to Queen Brunhilde, or to the kings and to the bishops, he barely so far succeeded as to cleanse the Gallican Church somewhat from so great a stain. For such corruptions, sprung from cupidity, are of such a kind that they are treated with continual remedies, but never healed. 2. To Virgilius, most adorned with upright morals and virtues, Gregory granted his own office, according to the ancient custom, within the boundaries of Childebert's kingdom, and the use of the pallium, being asked by the king himself and by the archbishop. But with what authority he might prevail over the subject bishops as vicar of the holy see is explained in the letter already praised.

To him all cases were to be referred for ending and judging, unless perchance they were greater ones or concerned the faith, which by reason of their magnitude required the judgment of the Apostolic See. He convened councils and presided over those convened; no bishop could set out to more distant places without his authority. Not to be passed over is what Gregory teaches in the letter to Virgilius (Book V, Letter 53), that the Gallican Church is an offspring of the Roman;

and indeed, according to the mind of Innocent I writing to Decentius of Gubbio, that in all Italy, the Gauls, the Spains, Africa, and Sicily, and the islands lying between, no one had established Churches except those whom the venerable apostle Peter or his successors appointed as priests (Ibid., Letter 54). But the Church of Arles especially glories in this illustrious origin. Saint Gregory indeed makes mention of its ancient nobility, when he says that he followed the ancient custom, when he committed his office to Virgilius. 3.

Those who have written about it relate that the city of Arles was called the mother of the Gauls by Valentinian and Honorius, and that the seat of the praetorian prefect was established in it, in which the assembly of the seven provinces of Gaul was celebrated every year. From that political dignity the ecclesiastical primacy and exarchate seem to have taken their beginning. For it pleased Zosimus and thereafter other Roman pontiffs to distinguish the bishops of that most noble city with the vicarious power of the holy see: whose authority was so great that they presided over the synod of the seven provinces, gave letters of recommendation to traveling clerics, and granted to the bishops themselves license to depart;

but if any controversies concerning faith or morals should arise in the Gauls and in Spain, they were to be referred to them, as to primates and vicars of the Roman pontiff, to be settled. But when Saint Leo had learned that the rights of the metropolitans had been usurped by Hilary, bishop of Arles, and the ordinations which were owed to them seized, he divided the most ample primacy between the same bishop and the bishop of Vienne. The vicarious power of the Apostolic See conferred or confirmed upon Virgilius, Gregory the Great afterward diminished, when, as will be said below, he entrusted his office within the kingdom of Childebert to Syagrius, bishop of Autun.

Thus the Roman pontiffs, as an argument of the supreme, not precarious, power in which they prevail, conferred or took away such honors at their nod, as seemed more to the interest of the Christian cause. 4. It is not permitted to proceed to further things, unless first this most celebrated encomium of the kings of France be observed, which Gregory, like an oracle, sang in the letter to King Childebert: 'By as much as royal dignity goes before other men, by so much the kingdom of your realm assuredly surpasses the height of the kingdoms of other peoples. To be a king is no wonder, since there are others also; but to be a catholic, which others do not merit, this is enough. Whatever else the kings pride themselves on having, you have,' and so forth (Book VI, Letter 6).

To very many other praises, which I pass over in silence, the wise father subjoined a most excellent exhortation concerning the pursuing of justice and the cultivating of the other virtues: 'That therefore, as in faith, so also in action, the other kings may be surpassed, let your Excellency always show himself benign to his subjects. And if there are any things which may be able to offend his mind, let him not punish them unexamined. For then indeed will it more please the King of kings, that is, the omnipotent Lord, if, restraining his power, he shall believe less to be lawful to himself than what he can do' (Ibid.). 5. The praises poured out by the same pious pontiff upon Queen Brunhilde some bear a little too unfairly.

Namely, he deems her worthy of praise not only for this, that with provident solicitude she preserved unimpaired for her son Childebert the glory of temporal affairs; but also because she provided for him by pious instruction the rewards of eternal life. Everywhere he honorably commemorates her piety and her supreme zeal toward divine things. 'Among other good things,' he says, writing to her, 'this holds the primacy with you above the rest, that in the midst of the billows of this world, which are wont to confound the minds of rulers with turbulent vexation, you so bring back your heart to the love of divine worship and to the disposing of the quiet of venerable places, as if no other care solicited you.'

'Whence, since the action of such rulers is wont to be a great protection of their subjects, we assert the nation of the Franks to be happy above other nations, which has merited to have a queen thus endowed with all good things' (Book IV, Letter 5). 'Could these things,' say Brunhilde's accusers, 'could these things have been said without flattery of a most flagitious queen, the fan of so many wars and discords, the murderess of so many kings, the contriver of so many crimes?'

If we sift through Gregory's letters to Brunhilda and weigh the praises heaped upon her, we shall be compelled to acknowledge that she was commended — and by Gregory, not undeservedly, as will plainly be established — on account of a kingdom governed with the utmost prudence and secured for her sons, and moreover on account of the Christian and Catholic faith both preserved among the Franks and propagated among foreign nations, and on account of certain notable works of piety in the building of hospices and monasteries and other sacred places.

Indeed, when her husband Sigibert had died, Brunhilda snatched her five-year-old son Childebert from the hands of Fredegund and saw to it that he was proclaimed king at Metz by the nobles of Austrasia — which was a proof of the highest prudence and industry — and that he was afterward made heir by his uncle Guntram, king of the Burgundians, Chlothar the son of Chilperic being set aside. After Childebert's death she undertook the administration of both kingdoms, namely Austrasia and Burgundy, and the guardianship, while they were still of tender age, of her grandsons Theudebert and Theuderic, a charge she discharged most excellently. While she held supreme power, she cherished the monks sent by Saint Gregory for the conversion of the English, and, furnishing all things necessary, wonderfully advanced this holy work.

In the building, adorning, and enriching of sacred places she displayed a munificence plainly royal. Who would begrudge the praises due to so many and so great works of prudence, religion, and liberality? As for the crimes charged against this queen, either they were committed after the letters written to her by Gregory, or they were plainly nonexistent — fabricated, that is, by her adversaries, as not without reason think, among more recent writers, Charles Le Cointe in his Frankish Annals, and Cordemoy in his History of the Kings of the Franks, which he wrote in French.

For indeed, when at length Brunhilda had been handed over by the nobles of Austrasia and Burgundy to Chlothar, the son of Chilperic — than whom she had no more hostile foe — so that she might be believed to have justly deserved the most cruel death to which she was condemned, she was assailed with crimes gathered from every quarter: so that there were even laid to her charge the murders which either Chlothar had commanded, or those who followed his faction had perpetrated. And to show how far Saint Gregory was from flattery in the letters written to Brunhilda, it will suffice to point out the letters in which he admonishes her concerning certain matters to be amended in her kingdom;

namely concerning the taint of simony, the premature ordinations of laymen, the idolatry still surviving in Gaul, and priests living scandalously. To be read above all are these reproachful words by which he unmistakably threatens the judgments of God upon Brunhilda and her grandsons: 'Since it is written: Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin makes peoples wretched (Prov. 14:34); then is a kingdom believed to be stable, when the fault that is recognized is more speedily amended. It has therefore come to us by the report of many — which we cannot utter without too great affliction of heart — that certain priests in those parts conduct themselves so shamefully and wickedly that it is both a reproach for us to hear and lamentable to relate.'

He adds, in a free and almost prophetic voice: 'For the things we say are not to be dissembled: because he who is able to amend and neglects to do so, undoubtedly makes himself a partaker of the offense. Provide therefore for your soul, provide for the grandsons whom you desire to reign happily, provide for the provinces; and before our Creator stretches out His hand to strike, think most earnestly about the correction of this wickedness, lest He strike afterward the more sharply, the longer and the more mercifully He now waits' (Book 11, ch. 69). These things indeed abundantly demonstrate that Gregory could say with the Apostle: 'So we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who tests our hearts;

for at no time were we found in words of flattery' (1 Thess. 2:5). 7. Departing from Gaul and about to make again for Italy, let us accompany Gregory of Tours as he goes to Rome to visit the thresholds of the holy apostles and to see our Gregory: for this sacred pilgrimage, which Saint Odo mentions in his Life, could scarcely be either related earlier or delayed later. Gregory of Tours could indeed not have set out for Rome too late; for, on the testimony of Saint Odo, he died in the twenty-first year of his ordination, which Odo himself attests coincided with the fifth year of the pontificate of Saint Gregory, at the end of the tenth book of the History. And many considerations persuade us that the Gallic Gregory did not arrive at Rome too soon.

He was indeed not at Rome in the year 590, the first of the Roman Gregory's pontificate: since he had learned and reported what had then happened at Rome from the testimony of his deacon; which is clearly evident from Book 10 of the History, ch. 1. In the following year, the sixteenth of King Childebert, he was in Gaul, and at Tours received a certain Armenian bishop named Simon, from the same Book of the History, ch. 24. In that very year he made his way to the court of King Childebert, and passed through the district of Reims, from Book 4 of the Miracles of Saint Martin, ch. 26. In the year 592, his archdeacon Plato, whom he mentions in the same book, ch. 32, was called to the bishopric of Poitiers, and Gregory was present as this man ascended to that see, as Fortunatus attests, who was afterward Plato's successor.

In the year five hundred and ninety-three, in the month of January, he visited Saint Leobard, an enclosed recluse in the greater monastery near Tours; who a little after, that is on the 18th day of the same month, a Sunday, breathed forth his soul. In the year assigned, the 18th of January was a Sunday, which persuades us that the death of Saint Leobard happened in that very year, and not five or six years earlier. Indeed, since Gregory treated of Saint Leobard in the last place in his book On the Life of the Fathers, one may conjecture that he committed to writing the deeds of this most holy monk not many years before his own death. In that same year 595, in which King Childebert went to the city of Orléans and obtained the kingdom of the deceased Guntram, Gregory was at his court, from Book

4 of the Miracles of Saint Martin, ch. 37; and at Tours he celebrated the annual solemnity of Saint Martin in the month of November, from ch. 38 of the same book. Since therefore Saint Gregory of Tours departed from among the living at Tours, as seems more probable, in the month of November of the year 595, to his arrival in the City and his return there ought to be assigned the year five hundred and ninety-four, or the beginning of the following year. Of this journey the historian Gregory is entirely silent, which is an argument that he, seized by death as soon as he saw Tours again, wrote nothing new nor added anything to what he had already written. For if he had afterward lived longer unharmed in Gaul, he could not have kept silent for long about so many sacred relics of the saints seen at Rome and their miracles heard. 8.

Whatever may be the case concerning the time at which Gregory of Tours visited the thresholds of the holy apostles, Saint Odo relates that he was received by the most holy pope with great reverence. 'Leading him,' he says, 'to the confession of blessed Peter [another reading: to the altar], the pope stood aside, waiting until he should rise. Meanwhile, being of a most profound genius, marveling at the secret dispensation, he was considering how upon such a man (for he was short of stature) so great a grace had flowed down from heaven. Perceiving this at once by divine inspiration, and rising from prayer, and looking upon the pope with a calm countenance as was his manner, he said: The Lord made us, and not we ourselves; the same in small things who is also in great.'

And when the holy pope recognized that this had been said in answer to his own thought, rejoicing at his very being found out, he thenceforth began to hold in great veneration the grace which he had hitherto admired in Gregory; and he so ennobled the see of Tours that he bestowed on it a golden chair, which was to be preserved at the aforesaid see [another reading: city] in time to come. A little after his return the holy bishop departed from among the living on the 15th of November. There is extant a letter of Saint Gregory written to his successor Pelagius in the 14th indiction, which corresponds to the years 595 and 596 (Book 6, letter 52). But since it is read among the last written during this current indiction, it ought to belong to the end of this indiction, and consequently to the year 596. 9.

Although we have already observed not a few things established this year by Saint Gregory for the benefit of monasteries, some yet remain worthy of note, which it will not be irksome to recount briefly here. Of the monks who were taken up to the priesthood, or rather to the presbyterate, some were set over churches to be governed, others were ordained for monasteries, to which they remained attached and bound. And those indeed could not, except with the abbot's consent, be taken from the monastery by the bishop, as is clearly proved by what is read in the letter written to Bishop Candidus concerning Orvieto (Book 6, letter 28). And this is confirmed by what he wrote two years later to Marinianus, bishop of Ravenna:

'Likewise, however, it must be guarded that, against the will of the abbot of the same monastery, monks should not thence be taken away to set in order other monasteries, or for sacred orders, or the office of the clergy' (Book 8, letter 15). They ought not to be ordained to the sacred ministry unless a serious examination of their life and morals had first been made (Book 6, letters 28 and 42). And these indeed, as if emancipated, thereafter neither dwelt in the monastery nor had the power or license of dwelling there: 'Lest the monasteries, under the veil of this occasion, be compelled to bear those burdens which we forbid,' says Saint Gregory in Book 7, letter 43.

But those who were appointed presbyters for the monasteries, were still under the jurisdiction of the abbots, nor could they shake off the yoke of obedience; which is also provided for in ch. 62 of the Rule of Saint Benedict; and the bishop ordained only those whom the abbot and his congregation had chosen for this office. Yet to the supreme priesthood, without awaiting the consent of the abbots or congregations, they could be carried off by the will and demand of the clergy and people alone. For then men were taken up indiscriminately both from the clergy and from the monks, to discharge the episcopal charge (Book 1, letter 18).

Although it had not yet been established by law that abbots should be presbyters, nevertheless those who were set over the governing of monasteries were then not seldom distinguished with presbyteral dignity, as we have ascertained from very many of Saint Gregory's letters, and from various other monuments of the Church. Abbot-presbyters who on account of a lapse had been ordered to cease from the sacred ministry, although they could never rise again to the priestly office, were nevertheless permitted, by the indulgence of the most holy pontiff, to return to the prefectures of monasteries (See Book 1, letter 9; Book 5, letters 3, 4, 7, 38). 10. If I wished to recount here all that was established this year by Saint Gregory in favor of monasteries, I should scarcely be able to number them.

No less a care to the pious father were the nuns than the monks, whom, as being of the weaker sex, he judged should be fortified by stricter laws. Wherefore, when he had learned through Anastasius the physician that many evils had happened in a certain convent of virgins, he judged that the doors of this monastery, and of the others which the sacred virgins inhabited, ought to be closed, being solicitous for the salvation of the soul rather than of the body (Book 5, letter 6).

The Roman exarch, who was lending aid and patronage to nuns that had returned to the world and joined themselves in marriage, he deterred from this sin, signifying to him frankly that he could in no way be his friend who for even a little while favored so great a disgrace — one which he would never suffer to remain unpunished (Ibid., letter 24). 11. The humble Gregory did not fear to change what he himself had established and to unfix what was fixed, whenever he had ascertained by experience that these things no longer profited the Christian commonwealth. Thus, although in very many letters (Book 1, letters

35 and 47) had taught that with heterodox men and even with the Jews themselves one ought to act more mildly, and that the Christian religion ought to be persuaded not by threats and terrors but by kindness and the sweetness of preaching: nevertheless afterward, his counsel being changed, he frequently wrote that the Manichaeans and Jews who were on the possessions of the Roman Church (since they could not be enticed with gentleness) should be most vigorously prosecuted and burdened with tributes; but that those converted to the faith should be strengthened by remitting part of the burden of their rents. 'And if,' he says, 'they themselves come less faithfully (to the Church), yet those who shall be born of them are already more faithfully baptized. Either therefore we gain them, or their children' (Book 5, letter 8). How much Saint Gregory panted after the winning of souls

Gregory showed above all by sending preachers to the English, still given over to the worship of idols; concerning which sacred expedition we must now treat.