Moralia in Job 3 part 1/6

In which it is set forth how the life of Saint Gregory corresponded to his doctrine. Argument. 1. With what pursuits Gregory governed the Church entrusted to him. — 2. With what great authorities he fought against the simoniacal and Neophyte heresies. — 3. He commanded a synod to be held on their account. — 4. He foretold that those who did not fight against these same with all their strength would share the lot of Simon Magus. — 5. How wisely he forbade the 'pastellaticum' to be given or received for the use of the Pallium or for the consecration of a bishop. — 6. He noted three kinds of simoniacal giving. — 7. In ordaining bishoprics he spared neither the cardinals of his own Church nor monks. — 8. He advanced absolutely no one by force. — 9.

He restored those who had been promoted by force to their former rank. — 10. He reinstated in their orders those who had been cast down by others through slander. — 11. Cardinals promoted to outlying parishes he recalled to their cardinal seat. — 12. From wherever he could choose better men, he would consecrate bishops; and with what strictness he would examine those to be consecrated. — 13. He would even invite bishops of another diocese to govern the Churches of his own diocese. — 14. In what manner he united bishoprics. — 15. He incardinated vacant bishops into vacant Churches. — 16. He joined ousted prelates to enthroned bishops. — 17. He changed the sites of sees. — 18. On no occasion did he either transfer a pontiff from one Church to another, or permit him to be transferred. — 19.

He consecrated a parishioner of another's Church as his own cardinal. — 20. In what manner he permitted clerics of another Church to be incardinated into others. — 21. He never preferred those ordained later to the earlier clerics. — 22. In what manner he committed the Churches of deceased bishops to neighbouring visitators. — 23. For making an inventory, he decreed that nothing was to be accepted. — 24. He rejected the customary payments or gifts (xenia). — 25. He decreed that bishops should come to the City of Rome only once in a five-year period. — 26. He even refused to accept the price of goods. — 27. He granted to his suffragan bishops what was necessary. — 28. How carefully he sought from them holiness, wisdom, and generosity. — 29. He censured Bishop Marinianus for avarice. — 30.

He rebuked Bishop Serenus for having broken images. — 31. He deterred Bishop Januarius, who was avenging his own wrongs. — 32. He chided the same for ploughing up a harvest. — 33. He reproved Bishop Desiderius for the reading of pagan books. — 34. He reprehended Bishop Natalis for negligence and likewise for banquets. — 35. How wittily he bound the same by his own assertions. — 36. He forbade bishops to be absent from their Church. — 37. He judged that bishops should not wander through various places. — 38. He did not hesitate to commit to memory the fall of his own aunt. — 39. He rebuked Bishop Vitalianus on account of a woman who had changed her religious habit. — 40. He reprehended the defensor Sergius for negligence. — 41.

He restrained Bishop Paschasius over the building of a ship and his own advantage. — 42. He rebukes the negligences of the bishops of Campania and of Victor of Palermo. — 43. How moderately he judges Bishop Andrew concerning a concubine. — 44. He judged that one must abstain from wicked counsellors. — 45. He drove away from the intimacy of bishops those who had lapsed or were criminal. — 46. He decreed that the wrath of prelates should be restrained, and that the fault of one should not be harmful to another. — 47. He forbade free men to be beaten or imprisoned. — 48. How he made public, censuring, the base deeds of judges. — 49. At the devil's instigation, judges raged against him. — 50. He manfully contradicts the Emperor Maurice, who was enacting a most wicked law. — 51.

Concerning the hypocrisy of John, bishop of Constantinople, who claimed himself to be universal. — 52. He refuted the imperial letters that pleaded on his behalf. — 53. He disparages the times and morals of Maurice. — 54. He wisely enfeebles the pride of the hypocrite. — 55. Demonstrating his own constancy, he asserts that he would in no way lose his faith for the emperor. — 56. Why he did not give to the empress the relics she had requested. — 57. Up to those times the Roman pontiff would confer a 'brandeum' (a consecrated cloth) in place of relics. — 58. With how many miracles the garments of Saint John shone forth. — 59. What ought to be thought concerning his garments. — 60. Gregory repelled the plague of the universal title from the whole body of the Church. 1.

With such pursuits the venerable Pope Gregory effectively governed the Church divinely entrusted to him. Already he had recalled to the unity of the holy Church the Ligurians, the Venetians, the Istrians, and others, compelling them, who had confessed their schism under a written declaration, to venerate the Council of Chalcedon. Already he had drawn away from the vanity of practising paganism the Barbaricini, the Sardinians, and the peasants of Campania, corrected both by preachings and by scourgings. Already the heresy of the Donatists in Africa, that of the Manichaeans in Sicily, that of the Arians in Spain, and that of the Agnoetae in Alexandria, had — by the most powerful authorities of his writings and his most insistent embassies, with the Lord's aid — been cut off from the body of the whole holy mother Church. 2.

In Gaul alone the heresy of the Neophytes, sprouting from as many simoniacal bribes as though from so many roots, had grown up utterly far and wide, and was spreading abroad. Against it the venerable Father fought valiantly before Queen Brunhild, and also before Theodoric and Theodebert, kings of the Franks, until, a general synod having been assembled, he obtained that it should be condemned outright under anathema. Nor did he give the pallium to Syagrius, bishop of Autun, though the queen and the kings begged it with many prayers, until, in the presence of Cyriacus his abbot, they fulfilled what they had been admonished concerning the driving out of the heresies. For, on their behalf, he writes to Queen Brunhild among other things, saying:

'The priestly office has been led there, as we have learned, into so great an ambition that priests are suddenly ordained — which is exceedingly grave — from among laymen. But what will these men do, what will they bestow upon the people, who desire to become bishops not for usefulness but for honour? These men, then, who have not yet learned what they ought to teach, what else do they accomplish but that the unlawful advancement of a few becomes the ruin of many, and the observance of ecclesiastical discipline is brought into confusion, seeing that no regular order is kept? For he who approaches its government improvidently or precipitately, by what admonition shall he build up his subjects, whose example has taught not reason but error?'

'It is shameful indeed, shameful, to command others in that which one does not himself know how to keep. Nor do we pass over even this, which must be scraped away by a like correction; rather we detest it as altogether execrable and most grievous — namely, that there sacred orders are conferred through the simoniacal heresy, which, having arisen first against the Church, was condemned by a strict malediction. Hence therefore it comes about that the dignity of the priesthood is held in contempt, and holy honour lies in disgrace. Reverence utterly perishes, discipline is taken away, because he who ought to have corrected faults commits them, and by wicked ambition the censure of the honourable priesthood is led into depravity. For who henceforth will venerate what is sold? Or who will not deem worthless what is bought?'

'Wherefore I am greatly grieved, and I share the sorrow of that land, because, while they disdain to have the Holy Spirit — whom Almighty God deigns to bestow upon men through the imposition of hands — as a divine gift, but rather acquire Him by payments, I do not think the priesthood there can long subsist. For where the gifts of heavenly grace are judged to be for sale, it is not a life that is sought for the service of God, but rather money is worshipped against God.' (Book IX, indiction 2, letter 109.) The same to the same kings of the Franks, Theodoric and Theodebert, after some other matters:

'It is reported that the simoniacal heresy — which first crept in against the Church of God by a diabolical planting, and at its very rise was struck and condemned by the dart of apostolic vengeance — holds sway within the bounds of your kingdom; since in priests faith together with life must be chosen, and if life is lacking, faith has no merit, as blessed James attests, who says: Faith without works is dead (James 2:26). For what works can there be of a priest who is convicted of obtaining the honour of so great a sacrament by a bribe? From which it comes about that these very men who seek sacred orders strive not to correct their life, not to compose their morals, but busy themselves to amass the riches by which sacred honour is bought.'

'Hence it also comes about that the innocent and the poor, forbidden and despised, shrink back from sacred orders; and while the innocence of a poor man displeases, there is no doubt that there it is the bribe that commends offences, because where gold pleases, so also does vice. Hence therefore a deadly wound is inflicted not only on the soul of the ordainer and the ordained, but even the kingdom of your excellence is burdened by the fault of your bishops, by whose intercessions rather it ought to have been helped. For if he is believed worthy of the priesthood for whom not the merits of action, but the abundance of bribes, gives support, it remains that neither gravity nor diligence defends anything for one in ecclesiastical honours, but the profane love of gold obtains everything;'

'and while vices are rewarded with honour, he who perhaps ought to have been punished is brought into the place of a punisher, and hence priests are shown not to profit but rather to perish. For when the shepherd is wounded, who will apply medicine to heal the sheep? Or how shall he protect the people with the shield of prayer, who exposes himself to be struck by the enemy's darts? Or what fruit will he bring forth from himself, whose root is infected by a grievous rot? Greater therefore is the calamity to be feared for those places, where such intercessors are brought to the place of governance, who rather provoke God's anger upon themselves than, of themselves, ought to have appeased the peoples.'

'Nor does our solicitude suffer to omit negligently this evil also, that certain men, chosen by the prompting of vainglory, suddenly from a lay habit snatch at the honour of the priesthood, and — which it is shameful to say and grievous to keep silent — those who ought to be ruled, are rulers, and those who ought to be taught, are teachers, and they neither blush to be seen so, nor are they afraid. They shamelessly assume the leadership of souls, to whom every way of a guide is unknown, and they are ignorant even of where they themselves should step. How wicked and how rash this is, is shown even by secular order and discipline. For while the leader of an army is chosen only when proved by toil and solicitude, what kind of leaders of souls should they be who desire, with unripe haste, to ascend the summit of the episcopate?'

'Let them at least consider by comparison of this matter, and let them fear to undertake suddenly labours for which they are untried, lest blind ambition for honour be both a punishment to themselves and cast pestilent seeds of error upon others — seeing that they have not learned what they themselves are to teach. Therefore, greeting you with fatherly affection, we ask, most excellent Sons, that you strive to prohibit from the bounds of your kingdom this so detestable an evil, and that no excuse before you, no suggestion against your soul, find place; for without doubt he bears the fault of the doer, who neglects to amend what he is able to correct.' (Book IX, indiction 3, letter 100.) Likewise, on account of the same heresies, to Syagrius, bishop of Autun, and to other bishops:

'A messenger having some time ago passed among us, it was made known that in the regions of Gaul sacred orders are conferred through the simoniacal heresy. And we are afflicted with a vehement weariness of grief, when in ecclesiastical offices money has any place, and that becomes secular which is sacred. Whosoever, therefore, is eager to obtain this by the giving of a price, vainly desires not to be a priest, but only to be called one. What indeed, what else is brought about by this, but that there be no proof of conduct, no solicitude about morals, no examination of life, but that he alone be reckoned worthy who has been able to give the price?'

'From which matter, if it be weighed by the examination of right reasoning, while he wickedly hastens to snatch a place of usefulness for empty glory, by that very fact he is the more unworthy, in that he seeks the honour. But just as he who, being invited, refuses, and, being sought, flees, is to be brought to the sacred altars; so he who of his own accord canvasses for it, or importunately thrusts himself forward, is without doubt to be repelled. For he who thus strives to ascend to higher things, what else does he do but that, by growing, he shrinks, and, ascending outwardly, descends inwardly to the depths?'

'Therefore, most dear brother, in ordaining priests let sincerity flourish; let consent be simple, without venality; let a pure election be preferred, so that one may be believed to have been advanced to the summit of the priesthood not by the votes of sellers, but by the judgement of God. For that it is an altogether grievous crime to acquire the gift of God by a price, or to sell it, the evangelical authority is witness. For our Lord and Redeemer, having entered the Temple, overturned the seats of those selling doves (Matthew 21). What else is it to sell doves, than to receive a price for the imposition of hands, and to sell the Holy Spirit, whom Almighty God bestows upon men?'

'That their priesthood falls before the eyes of God, was plainly signified by the very overturning of the seats; and yet the depravity of wickedness still exerts its powers. For it compels to sell those whom it has deceived into buying. And while heed is not paid to what is enjoined by the divine voice: Freely you have received, freely give (Matthew 10:8), it comes about that the contagion of guilt grows and is doubled in one and the same person — namely, of the buyer and of the seller. And since it is clear that this heresy crept in before all others with a pestilent root, and in its very origin was condemned by apostolic detestation, why is it not guarded against, why is it not pondered that blessing is turned into cursing for him who is promoted to this end, that he become a heretic?'

'Very often, therefore, the adversary of souls, when he cannot filch away what is depraved in things that are open to view, cunningly striving under a semblance as it were of piety, endeavours to supplant; and he persuades, perchance, that one ought to receive from those who have, so that there be something which can be dispensed to those who have not — provided that even thus he may pour in his deadly poisons under the concealed shadow of almsgiving. For neither would the hunter deceive the wild beast, nor the fowler the bird, nor the fisherman catch the fish, if the one were to set his snare in the open, or the other did not have his hook hidden by the bait. Altogether, therefore, the cunning of the enemy is to be feared and guarded against, lest those whom he cannot overthrow by open temptation, he may the more savagely be able to slaughter with a hidden dart.'

'For it is not to be reckoned as almsgiving, if that which is received from unlawful things be dispensed to the poor, because he who wickedly receives with this intention — that he may, as it were, dispense well — is rather burdened than helped. That almsgiving is pleasing to the eyes of our Redeemer which is gathered together not from unlawful things and iniquity, but which is bestowed from things permitted and rightly acquired.'

'Whence also this is certain, that even if monasteries, or hospices, or anything else, be built from the money which is given for sacred orders, it profits nothing toward reward; because, while a perverse man and a buyer of honour is put into a place, and establishes others in his own likeness by the giving of an advantage, he destroys more by ordaining ill than he can build up who received the money of ordination from him. Lest, therefore, under the pretext of almsgiving, we strive to accept anything with sin, Sacred Scripture openly forbids us, saying: The sacrifices of the wicked are abominable to the Lord, which are offered from crime (Proverbs 21:27). For whatever is offered from crime in God's sacrifice does not appease the wrath of Almighty God, but provokes it.'

'Hence again it is written: Honour the Lord from your just labours (Proverbs 3:9). He, therefore, who wrongfully takes away that he may, as it were, well bestow, it is certain beyond doubt that he does not honour the Lord. Hence too it is said through Solomon: He who offers a sacrifice from the substance of the poor is as one who sacrifices a son in the sight of his father (Ecclesiasticus 3:4, 24 [Sirach 34]). But let us weigh how great is the grief of a father, if in his sight his son be sacrificed; and from this we easily recognize how great a grief is aroused before God when a sacrifice from robbery is offered to Him. Exceedingly, therefore, most beloved brother, must we shun, under the pretext of almsgiving, to perpetrate the sins of the simoniacal heresy.'

'For it is one thing to give alms on account of sins, another to commit sins on account of alms.' This also, which has come to us, we embrace with a not dissimilar detestation as worthy of it: that certain men, puffed up with the desire of honour, upon the death of bishops are tonsured and suddenly become priests from laymen, and shamelessly seize the leadership of the religious profession, who have not yet learned even to be soldiers. What, do we suppose, will these men bestow upon their subjects, who, before they touch the threshold of discipleship, do not dread to hold the place of mastership? Wherefore it is necessary that, however blameless anyone's merit may be, he first be exercised in ecclesiastical offices through the distinct orders.

'Let him see what he is to imitate, let him learn what he is to teach, let him be shaped in what he is to hold, so that afterwards he who is chosen to show the way to one who errs may not himself go astray. Let him therefore long be polished by religious meditation, so that he may please, and so that the lamp set upon the lampstand may so shine that the adverse force of the winds rushing upon it may not extinguish the kindled flame of erudition, but increase it. For since it is written, Let one first be tested, and so let him minister (1 Timothy 3:10), much more must he be tested beforehand who is taken up as intercessor of the people, lest evil priests become the cause of ruin to the peoples.'

'There can therefore be no excuse against this, no defence, because it is clearly known to all what solicitude of a holy and excellent teacher there is in the diligence of this matter, who forbids a neophyte to approach sacred orders. Now just as he was then called a neophyte who was at the beginning planted in the instruction of the holy faith, so now he is to be held a neophyte who, suddenly planted in the habit of religion, has crept in to canvass for sacred honours. In an orderly manner, therefore, must one ascend to the orders. For he courts a fall who, the steps being set aside, seeks an ascent to the highest heights of the office by precipices.'

'And since the same Apostle teaches, among other institutions of sacred order for a disciple, that hands are not to be too quickly imposed upon anyone, what is swifter than this, what more precipitate, than that the beginning should arise from the summit, and that before he begins to be a disciple, he be a master? Whosoever, therefore, desires to attain the priesthood not for the pomp of exaltation but for usefulness, let him first measure his own strength against the burden which he is about to undergo, so that both the unequal may abstain, and even he who reckons himself sufficient may approach it with fear.' We do not act beside the point if, toward a reasonable argument, we gather the practice of irrational things.

'For timber fit for buildings is cut down from the forests, yet the weight of a building is not laid upon it while it is still green, unless a delay of many days has dried up its greenness and rendered it fit for the necessary use. And if perchance this observance be neglected, being placed underneath too soon they are the sooner broken by the mass laid upon them, and the thing provided for help begets ruin. For hence too physicians, who have the care of bodies, do not offer to the one in need certain remedies formed of a still recent preparation, but leave them to be matured over time. For if anyone administer them prematurely, there is no doubt that the means of health becomes the cause of peril.'

'Let priests therefore learn, let them learn to keep in their own office — priests to whom the care of souls has been entrusted — that which men of the various arts observe, reason teaching them, and let them restrain themselves from precipitate ambition, and if not by fear, at least by shame. But lest perchance anyone should wish still to defend himself by the pretext of a depraved custom, let your fraternity's discretion coerce them with the bridle of reason, and not permit them to slip into unlawful things: because whatever is worthy of punishment ought to be brought forward not for imitation, but rather as an example of correction.' And after a few words: 3. 'Concerning those things, therefore, which have been said above, we wish, God being the author, that your fraternity assemble a synod:'

'and in it, through the mediation of our most reverend brother Aregius the bishop and of our most beloved son Cyriacus the abbot, let all those things which, as we have said before, are contrary to the sacred canons, be strictly condemned under the imposition of anathema: that is, that no one presume to give any advantage for the obtaining of ecclesiastical orders, or to receive anything for what has been given; nor let anyone dare suddenly from a lay habit to arrive at a place of sacred governance; nor let women dwell with priests except those who are permitted by the sacred canons.' 4.

Seeing these pestilent heresies, the most prudent teacher Gregory, perceiving that through the connivance or silence of priests they, by bribes ever more widely spread, could like a pestilent cancer not only corrode the weak parts, but even corrupt the strong members with the blade of the fairest things, being moved with divine zeal, pronounced a general sentence to Bishop Victor, saying: 'Whosoever, out of consideration for his office, shall not have vehemently burned to amend this crime (namely, of simony and the heresy of the neophytes), let him not doubt that he has a share with him from whom this expiatory outrage first took its beginning.' (Register, book XIII, letter 29.) 5.

But when he came to know that certain men, in order to avoid the crimes of the simoniacal heresy, cunningly called the bribes of pestilent trafficking 'pastellaticum,' wishing by a changed name of this sort to cover the avarice of their cupidity, the most prudent teacher Gregory once again put forth the sentence which at the outset of his pontificate he had promulgated before a synod, saying: 'Following the ancient rule of the Fathers, I ordain that nothing whatsoever is ever to be received for ordinations: neither from the giving of the Pallium, nor from the delivery of documents, nor from that appellation of 'pastellum' which a new dissimulation through ambition has invented.'

'For since in ordaining a bishop the pontiff imposes his hand, and the minister reads the lesson of the Gospel, and the notary writes the letter of his confirmation: just as it does not befit the pontiff to sell the hand which he imposes, so neither ought the minister or the notary to sell his voice or his pen at the ordination. For the ordination, therefore, or the use of the pallium, or the documents, and the 'pastelli,' I altogether forbid that the same one who is to be ordained, or is being ordained, give anything. If anyone presume from the aforesaid things to exact or perchance to demand any advantage under this title, he shall lie under guilt in the strict examination of Almighty God.' (Roman Synod, chapter 5, at the end of the Letters.) 6.

Likewise to John, bishop of the Corinthians, after many things: 'Your fraternity knows,' he says, 'that formerly the pallium was not given unless an advantage were given. And since this was unfitting, a council having been held before the body of blessed Peter, prince of the apostles, we forbade under strict interdiction to receive anything, both concerning this and concerning ordinations. It behoves you, therefore, neither through advantage, nor through favour, nor through the supplication of certain persons, to consent or permit any to be brought to sacred orders.' (Register, book V, letter 57.) But the cunning iniquity of a most base cupidity, not enduring to be straitened out of such great advantages, however base — nay, most perilous — devised a sufficiently artful contrivance:

namely, whereby to exalt to the priesthood those who ought to have been the more subject to him after their consecration, in proportion as they themselves would without doubt reckon that they had been promoted not by divine, but rather by human judgement. Wherefore Gregory, the herald of Almighty God, disputes in his Treatises on the Gospels — namely, so that it might the more frequently be read or heard — saying: 'There are some who indeed do not receive rewards of money from ordination, and yet bestow sacred orders for the sake of human favour: and from that same largess they seek only the recompense of praise. These men, without doubt, do not freely bestow what they freely received: because for the office of holiness expended, they seek out the coin of favour.'

Hence the prophet, when he well described the just man, says: 'He who shakes his hands free from every bribe' (Isaiah 33:15). For he did not say, 'He who shakes his hands free from a bribe,' but he added, 'from every': because a bribe of service is one thing, a bribe of the hand another, a bribe of the tongue another. For a bribe of service is compliance rendered where it is not owed; a bribe of the hand is money; a bribe of the tongue is favor. He therefore who confers sacred orders shakes his hands free from every bribe when, in divine matters, he seeks not only no money, but not even human favor (Homily on the Gospels).

(Homily 4 on the Gospels.) These are the pronouncements of Gregory, the most learned pope, concerning simoniacs and unlawful ordinations, which he himself is shown to have observed with the utmost devotion, in that, from the very beginning of his consecration, throughout his whole diocese he most zealously ordained as bishops the better men whom he could find from any quarter. And whenever the necessity of ordaining a priest arose, he by no means excused either the cardinals of his own Church or the monks of his own monastery from committing to them the government of a Church, if they were the ones who could the better edify it by example and word alike.