Moralia in Job 28

Setting forth whatever remains of the history and life of St. Gregory. Argument.—1. Peace is made between the Romans and the Lombards, through the effort of St. Gregory.—2. He foretells that it will not be lasting.—3. War is renewed by the exarch.—4. The schismatics return to the Church. What St. Gregory did to confirm them in the unity of the Church.—5. The depraved morals of the schismatic bishops.—6. St. Gregory's charity toward the schismatics.—7. Concerning Secundinus, a most renowned monk. He writes against the Three Chapters, though by no means a schismatic.—8. The humble confession of Secundinus. St. Gregory consoles him.—9. St.

The Doctor's opinion concerning the use and veneration of sacred images is weighed; it does not depart from the doctrine now received by the Church.—10. Objections are met. St. Gregory in his letters to Serenus forbids only that the worship of latria be given to images.—11. He praises the use of images, as received from antiquity; but not adoration properly so called.—12. His veneration toward the relics of the saints. (Years 598 and 599.) 1. For a long time already St. Gregory had been meditating on the making and confirming of peace between the Romans and the Lombards; and in order to obtain it he treated both with the emperor and with King Agilulf and his wife Theodelinda, sending not only letters but also legates.

The Roman exarch had always opposed a counsel so useful and necessary to the commonwealth; although he was unequal in strength and, moreover, not sufficiently skilled in war and military affairs to free Italy from the Lombards. Recently the king of the Huns had obtained peace from Agilulf, who was residing at Milan. And so, matters being settled with that most warlike nation, the Lombards pressed more fiercely upon the cities still untouched. Not long before, they had stormed Crotone in the farthest part of Italy, carrying off the citizens into captivity. Most recently they had invaded Sardinia in devastating raids—which Gregory had foretold would come to pass; and he had warned both Gennadius, prefect of Africa (Book VII, Letter 3), and Januarius, bishop of Cagliari (Book IX, Letter

4 and 43), that they should provide for the defence of the island. Who then would have dared to promise himself peace? But God, in whose hand are the hearts of kings, bent Agilulf to lay down his arms and to accept the conditions of peace offered by the pope. He had made use of the ministry of the abbot Probus, whom long before he had sent to the king and queen to treat of peace—yet always with fruitless effort so long as the Roman exarch lived, that most bitter enemy of peace. And so, when he had died, and Callinicus, better disposed toward the good of the commonwealth, had taken supreme charge of affairs in Italy, the hope of restoring peace shone forth anew.

And at length it was accomplished, chiefly through the effort of Theodore, curator of Ravenna, whom Probus, the legate sent to negotiate peace, found a helper in all things (Ibid., Letter 98). King Agilulf with the utmost good faith confirmed the covenants and conditions of peace by an oath, for which reason Gregory rendered thanks both to him and to Queen Theodelinda, whom he had learned from the abbot Probus had laboured very zealously for concord. In his letter to Agilulf he asks him to command his dukes stationed in various places, and especially those established in the Roman regions, to keep the peace as had been promised. For he feared lest they should seek an occasion for renewing the war. And the fear was not vain;

for Ariulf, duke of Benevento, refused to swear that he would keep the peace, unless with the addition of certain conditions in which, secretly and craftily, he sought an opportunity of oppressing the Romans, unwary because of the pledge given. His suspicion was increased by the fact that Warnilfrida, by whose judgment and counsel Ariulf did everything, had utterly scorned to swear. (Cf. Paul the Deacon, Book IV of the History, ch. 13.) 2. On the other side, Agilulf and the Lombards urged Gregory to subscribe to the pact, which he refused, because he was a mediator and go-between standing between the king and the exarch. And so, when matters were in the balance, and war under the appearance of peace seemed to threaten more perilously:

lest the fire hidden under deceitful ashes should break out while the Romans thought of no such thing, Gregory advised that even in the midst of peace the counsels of war should be pursued; and he wrote especially to Januarius of Cagliari, first concerning the reconciling of the minds of the citizens to one another through fear of the enemy—because, he says, at this time above all, when there is dread of the enemy, you ought not to have a divided people. Then indeed concerning the fortifying of the city of Cagliari and other places of the island. Whence it is necessary, he says, that your Fraternity, while it is permitted, provide for your city or other places to be more strongly fortified, and take urgent care that provisions be abundantly stored up in them: so that, when the enemy shall come thither—God being angered against him—he may find nothing to harm, but may depart confounded.

But we too are thinking about you as much as we can, and we press upon those whom it concerns, that they ought—God being the author—to prepare themselves for resistance: for, just as you regard our tribulations as your own, so we likewise reckon your afflictions as ours (Book IX, Letter 6). 3. The fear of a war shortly to come did not deceive the pope; for a little afterward it grew fierce again, and raged more savagely. Recently Agilulf had established a perpetual peace and a treaty with Theoderic, king of the Franks. Three dukes, among them the duke of Verona and the duke of Bergamo—whom he had already twice spared—having rebelled, he had ordered them to be put to death when overcome, that by this severity he might keep the rest to their duty.

Of the peace made a little before with the king of the Huns we have spoken above. Weighing these things, Callinicus—perhaps grown fierce on account of the victories he had won over the Slavs, and fearing lest Agilulf, free from all wars, should with united forces rush unexpectedly upon the Romans—resolved to forestall him. And so, having gathered an army and drawn certain Lombard dukes over to the side of the empire, he encircled with a siege and stormed the most strongly fortified city of Parma. Duke Godescalc, captured in this assault, together with his wife, the king's daughter, the exarch led away to Ravenna.

But Agilulf, desiring to avenge the injury inflicted upon him and to repay in kind, having feigned that he wished to attempt Cremona, Mantua, and Monselice in the Paduan territory, set upon Padua itself, which, having taken, he levelled with the ground; yet the garrison withdrew to Ravenna, while the greatest part of the people fled to the marshy places of the Venetians. That the exarch might not be able to bring aid to the besieged, the king commanded Ariulf and the Lombards holding Etruria to harass Rome and Ravenna itself with continual incursions. Meanwhile the Avars, joined with forces of the Lombards and Slavs, laid waste Istria with sword and fire.

Padua having been taken, Monselice is stormed, and two Lombard dukes, the duke of Trent and the duke of Cividale, who had revolted from the king, seek pardon for their broken faith and are received into favour. Thus, the sanctity of the oath being disturbed—that peace which a little before had been ratified and consecrated—Callinicus paid the penalty. (Cf. Paul the Deacon, History of the Lombards, Book IV, ch. 21, 24, and 25.) 4. How grievously St. Gregory took this—he who had laboured so much for peace—and how bitterly this angel of peace bewailed its loss, is easier to imagine than to set forth in words. His grief was for a while soothed by the return to the Church of the island of Caprea, which for the sake of the Three Chapters had long adhered to the schism that had been kindled.

Since the pope had heard that the people of Caprea had been impelled by Callinicus to abjure the schism, he gave him thanks and praised his counsel concerning the recalling to the bosom of the Church of the dissenting and tumultuous peoples subject to him. Yet, lest he should not persevere in this purpose, there seemed to stand in the way the order of Maurice Augustus, transmitted to him in defence of the schismatics; but Gregory interprets it thus: But as to the copy of the order which was transmitted to you in defence of the schismatics, and which you wished to be shown to me, your excellency, most sweet to me, ought to have weighed carefully:

for although that order itself was obtained by stealth, yet in it you are not commanded to repel those coming to the unity of the Church, but only not to compel, in this uncertain time, those wishing to come. Whence it is necessary that you hasten to suggest these very things to our most pious emperors: that they may know that in their times the schismatics, with the solace of Almighty God and by your labour, are hastening of their own accord to return (Book IX, Letter 9). In the same letter to the exarch St. Gregory complains, both of the chief of his household and of Justinus whose counsel he was using; who indeed were not obscurely favouring heretics and schismatics.

Because the bishop of this island, after he had by a petition presented to Callinicus requested that it might be permitted him with all his people to return to the unity of the Church, had afterward changed his mind and betaken himself again to the schismatics, it pleased the pope that Marinianus, bishop of Ravenna, should ordain a bishop for the Church of Caprea, one who should pertain to his own metropolis, until the bishops of Istria should have returned to the Catholic faith—to whose province, namely, the island of Caprea was assigned (Book IX, Letter 10). Nevertheless, before the ordination of the new bishop, it seemed good to the most wise Pontiff that first someone should be sent to the schismatic bishop, to admonish him concerning his return to the unity of the Catholic Church and to his own people.

Gregory also wrote to the inhabitants of this island, praising the love of unity with which they burned, and making them more certain concerning what he had written to Marinianus. A few things from this letter we have thought fit to excerpt, as it were certain little flowers, and to append; for they will delight both by their fragrance and their appearance: Our Redeemer, he says,… so joins the highest things to the lowest, that He Himself, remaining in eternity, so disposes temporal things by hidden prompting with pious moderation: that from His hand the ancient enemy may in no way snatch away those whom, before the ages, He foreknew were to be gathered together within the bosom of Mother Church.

For, even if any one of those among whom he bodily dwells, moved by the blasts, should for a time totter like a branch, yet the root of right faith, which springs from what is hidden, remains flourishing green by the divine judgement; which, when the time is come, may show forth from itself the fruit that lay concealed. That this has now been done in you, by your own desire, we recognize by the illumination of the heavenly regard, in that you, refuting the obstinacy of the schismatics among whom you dwell, show, with most ready mind and by the very working of the deed, that you are gathered into the Lord's fold. For those to whom the schism is displeasing bear witness that they wish to be sound; and, reproving error, you show that you love what is right and shun what is crooked (Ibid., Letter 97).

Concerning the other peoples of Istria who had deserted the schism, treatment is given in very many other letters of this year (Ibid., Letters 63, 94, 95, 99). In recalling them to the Church, the zeal of Gulfaris, the master of soldiers, had shone forth above all, on whom the most pious pastor congratulates himself and to whom he gives thanks; and he exhorts him to perseverance, and to bestowing protection upon those returning from the schism. 5. Those of the schismatics who had returned to the fold related many things about the depravity of the bishops of Istria: which, that they might make known to the emperor Maurice, and might beg a remedy, they betook themselves to Constantinople, and asked to be commended to Anatolius, the legate of the Apostolic See.

Since the most holy Pontiff could not deny them this, he wrote to Anatolius that he should afford them help, saving what was right. For he did not doubt that to heretics and schismatics, no otherwise than to the rest, an equitable justice ought to be rendered (Book IX, Letter 66). 6. This indeed he proved by his own example toward the clergy of the Church of Como, who had seceded from the Roman Church in order to follow the schism of the Istrians. Constantius, archbishop of Milan, with priestly zeal had admonished them to return to the unity of the Church.

But they answered that they had suffered injury from many, and especially from the Roman Church, which had usurped a certain estate belonging to their Church, and that by this altogether iniquitous manner of acting they were rather being driven away from the fellowship of the Romans than being enticed by charity. When Gregory received these things from Constantius, he answered that he would by no means allow the possession which the men of Como complained had been taken from them to be held any longer against the order of reason, if it belonged to them by right—even though they should defer returning to communion—but that, the truth being known, he would order it to be restored. Moreover, if they should convert to the unity of the Church, he would gladly grant the estate over which there was controversy, even though it did not belong to them. 7.

That the monk Secundinus, who nevertheless had not consented to the condemnation of the Three Chapters, ought not to be reckoned among the schismatics—as we have already said—is sufficiently understood even from the letter written to him in this year (Book IX, Letter 52). Great was the fame of Secundinus, especially in the court of the king of the Lombards, and with Theodelinda he had the highest authority, on account of his own erudition and holiness. Whence the queen willed that he should receive her son Adaloald from the sacred font, as Paul, the writer of Lombard affairs, testifies (History of the Lombards, Book IV, ch. 26), by whom he is called Secundus, servant of Christ, of Trent. In the superscription of the letter he is called a recluse;

and from the tenor of the letter, where he is called a solitary combatant (monomachus) on account of the solitary life he cultivated, it is clear that he was not a cenobite, but a hermit and an anchorite. Yet the strictness of his reclusion was not so great that it was not permitted him to go forth from his cell, or even to treat of very weighty affairs. Mabillon adduces the example of Sigobert, a recluse at Saint-Denis in the territory of Paris, who together with Grimo, abbot of Corbie, was sent by Charles, prince of the Franks, to Pope Gregory, the fourth of that name (Annales Benedictini, p. 252).

Since the pious queen still hesitated, and could not be brought by Gregory's exhortations or entreaties to embrace the condemnation of the Three Chapters, Secundinus, who held the same opinion as she, wrote a treatise in which he defended his view, and Theodelinda asked Gregory that he would reply to the several arguments of the treatise sent to her by Secundinus. Gregory begged off from this labour on account of the pains of gout, which forced him to lie abed and to take rest from all study. But if, God Almighty so disposing, I shall have recovered, he says, I will reply subtly to all the things which he (Secundinus) has written to me (Book XIV, Letter 12). Yet to accomplish this was never permitted to the most holy Doctor, on account of his continual infirmities. 8.

Long before this treatise, in which that pious monk disputed concerning the faith and ecclesiastical matters, he had written to St. Gregory, asking to be instructed by him, and to be fortified by his admonitions against the snares of the enemy. In which letter he had disclosed with a humble confession that, although more than fifty years of age, he was still held and subject to youthful desires. Him, taking this most grievously and almost despairing in spirit, the most skilled master of the heavenly life raises up, replying to him that it is no wonder if he suffers greater snares of the crafty enemy, who has prepared greater wars against him: For, he says, the crafty one seeks out the more ardently his devices of deception, the more fervently he knows you to pant after the heavenly fatherland…

And we indeed, who live among men, are often tempted by the crafty enemy through men. But you who lead the way of the present life outside the throng of men, must needs suffer combats so much the greater, in that the master of temptations himself comes to you. The rest I pass over—things truly excellent, and especially to be read continually by monks, that from them they may learn to cast away excessive security about their own state, and to shake off the sloth that is wont to be born of it, and to keep watch with greater vigilance against the hidden snares of the enemy. 9. But at the end of the aforesaid letter there occurs a passage concerning images, on the occasion of which we judge it worthy to inquire into and weigh what St. Gregory thought concerning the use and veneration of sacred images.

The pious monk had requested holy images from the pontiff, who, complying with his wish, sent two little chests containing an image of God the Saviour, and of the holy Mother of God Mary, and of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul. He had forewarned the disciple concerning the use of images with these words: Your request pleased us greatly: for you seek Him with your whole heart, your whole intention, whose image you desire to have before your eyes, so that the daily bodily sight may render you practised: so that, while you see His picture, you may be inflamed in soul toward Him whose image you desire to see. And below:

I know indeed that you do not seek the image of our Saviour in order to worship it as though it were God, but that, for the remembrance of the Son of God, you may grow warm again in His love, whose image you desire to see. And we too indeed do not prostrate ourselves before it as though before the Godhead, but we adore Him whom through the image we remember as born, or as suffering, or even as sitting upon the throne. And while the picture itself, as though it were a writing, brings back the Son of God to our memory, it either gladdens our soul concerning the resurrection, or soothes it concerning the passion. Here we have the whole doctrine of the Catholic Church concerning the use and veneration of images; and the very prostration before them.

Nor need there be any further disputation concerning this part of the aforesaid letter, since we have vindicated it for Gregory in our notes. Moreover, the most holy Father teaches the same thing in other undoubted places. In the letter to Januarius he had written a little before, that from the synagogue of the Jews a cross and an image of the Mother of God should be removed with that veneration of which it is worthy (Book IX, Letter 6). 10. Nor indeed do the things which he wrote a little after to Serenus, bishop of Marseilles—that images ought not to be broken, or cast out of the churches, but rather kept in the temples, so that those who know not letters may at least, by seeing on the walls, read what they cannot read in books; yet by no means to be adored—

these things, I say, do not take away or impugn the veneration due to images, but they condemn the iconoclasts—that is, those who worship an image as though it were God, as we read above in the letter to Secundinus. This is clear from the very words of Gregory writing to Serenus: Your Fraternity, seeing certain worshippers of images, broke and cast out those same images in the churches. And indeed we have praised your zeal, that nothing made by hand might be adored; but we declare that you ought not to have broken those images. He adds what we have already in part related, that images are the writing of those who know not letters, in which they may read and learn what they cannot learn from books.

When Serenus had made light of the supreme pastor's admonition, the latter wrote another letter, in which he more sharply rebuked his rash deed: It had been reported to us, he says, that, inflamed with inconsiderate zeal, you had broken the images of the saints under this pretext, as it were, that they ought not to be adored. And indeed, because you had forbidden them to be adored, we have altogether praised you; but that you broke them, we reprehend. Tell me, brother, what priest was ever heard to have done what you did? If nothing else, at least this ought to have called you back—that, despising the other brethren, you should believe yourself alone to be holy and wise. For it is one thing to adore a picture, another to learn, through the story of a picture, what is to be adored.

Below he teaches that antiquity had not without reason admitted images. Whence he says that the deed of Serenus had generated a most grievous scandal in the Church, so that the greatest part of his sons had suspended themselves from his communion. Therefore we exhort, he says, that even now you strive to be solicitous, and restrain yourself from this presumption, and hasten with fatherly sweetness, with every effort and every zeal, to recall to yourself the minds of those whom you know to be disjoined from your unity. For the dispersed sons of the Church are to be called together, and it is to be shown them by the testimonies of Sacred Scripture that it is not lawful to adore anything made by hand; since it is written: Thou shalt adore the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve (Luke iv. 8).

And it must then be added that the painted pictures of images, which had been made for the edification of the unlearned people—so that those who did not know letters might, by gazing upon the very history, learn what had been done—these, because you had seen them pass over into adoration, on that account you were moved to command that those images be broken (Book xi, ep. 13). From these things it is established: 11. First, that St. Gregory praised the use of images, as a practice received in the Church from ancient times. Yet we do not suppose that this use began from the very cradle of the Christian religion, since images might have been an offense both to Jews recently converted and might have recalled to idolatry Gentiles newly made Christians.

But where they could be received without danger, they were at once seen in the churches, chiefly for adornment and for the instruction of the unlettered, as St. Paulinus, bishop of Nola, teaches (In Natali 9, on St. Felix), who flourished in the fourth century. Secondly, that the holy doctor, by the 'adoration' which he forbids to be shown to images, understands that supreme worship due to God alone. Whence he adduces this testimony of Scripture: 'Thou shalt adore the Lord thy God,' etc. And further below, seeking some excuse for Serenus's deed, he says that the images were broken by him and cast down with no other purpose than that they might not be adored—a thing which he had observed to be already practiced by some. Certainly Serenus dwelt among the Gentiles, as St. Gregory says (Book xi, ep. 13).

We have already observed that in Gaul at this age many relics of idolatry still survived. Hence the bishop of Marseilles, seeing certain persons prostrate before images, rashly judged that they were worshipping the images as God; and with still greater rashness—which compelled very many to forsake communion with him—he broke and cast down those same images. 12. St. Gregory's mind concerning the veneration of holy images can also be recognized from the singular reverence which he everywhere teaches is to be shown to sacred relics; even to the linen cloths and fabrics that had been placed upon the tombs of the holy apostles or martyrs, or to things of that kind.

Those who had been trained under his discipline, Augustine and his companions, when they entered Canterbury, as we related above, resolved to carry before them, as a sacred standard, the cross and the image of the Savior; that they might publicly testify how great a worship, how great a reverence, they rendered to these. But what we here read as done by the disciples is proof of the master's teaching.