Moralia in Job 33

Argument. — 1. St Gregory takes thought for the restoration of the basilicas of the Holy Apostles. His munificence toward those basilicas. — 2. The war, renewed, turns out unhappily for the emperor. — 3. The conversion of heretics and schismatics. What those returning from schism would pledge. — 4. St Gregory protects Firminus, a bishop who had returned, and was for this reason harassed by other schismatics. — 5. He provides for the pacification of the Church of Doclea. Judgment concerning Paul, a flagitious bishop and robber. — 6. He takes care of African affairs. The case of bishop Paulinus. And of another named Victor. — 7. Proofs of the authority of the Roman pontiff in Africa. — 8. Gregory's greater humility and modesty in his supreme power. — 9.

Concerning his homilies on various books of sacred Scripture, taken down by Claudius. Inquiry is made concerning Claudius. — 10. St Gregory's solicitude in choosing worthy abbots and in safeguarding monastic discipline. — 11. Whether he thought the monastic state to be in the place of the subdiaconate. — 12. He does not permit a deacon who has become a monk to be torn away from the monastery. (Years 601 and 602.) 1. When St Gregory foreknew that death was imminent for him, he judged that the plan already conceived of repairing the basilicas of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul was no longer to be deferred.

Therefore he commanded Sabinus the subdeacon, who was administering the goods of the Church in Lucania and Bruttium, to prepare in those provinces the beams necessary for this work, and to have them conveyed to the sea, whence, placed on ships, they might be transported to Rome (Book 12, letter 20). For this cause he wrote to Arogis, whom the king of the Lombards had appointed duke of Benevento on the death of Zotto, and asked him to bring help to Sabinus the subdeacon in the carrying of this material; promising the duke a worthy gift (ibid., letter 21). The same is the argument of the letters which he wrote to Gregory the ex-prefect and to bishop Stephen (ibid., letters 22 and 23). Two years later, a little before his death, he assigned many estates to the basilica of St

Paul's basilica for its lights, lest the herald of the faith, who filled the whole world with the light of his preaching, should be seen to have fewer lights there than St Peter. Concerning the olive-groves and other estates granted by St Gregory for nourishing and increasing the lights of the basilica of St Peter, the table of donation which we have judged should be appended to the Life of St Gregory is to be read. It is read elsewhere that he made over the blessed apostle Peter, upon the altar, a ciborium with four columns of pure silver. Concerning the pinnacles fashioned of purest silver in the basilicas of the holy apostles Peter and Paul, John the Deacon is to be read (Book 4, chapter 68). 2. From the letter written to Arogis it is given to conjecture that there was then peace or a truce between the Romans and the Lombards.

Yet in this year war blazed up again in Italy, where affairs were conducted unhappily for the emperor. Nor did they turn out more happily in the East; as though now all things were tending toward the casting down of Maurice from the throne and his slaughter. The Lombards, with the aid of the Slavs sent by the king of the Avars, first girt Cremona with a siege and occupied it, which Agilulf ordered to be levelled to the ground. Then he stormed Mantua on the Ides of September, which scarcely experienced a more merciful victor. He burned and abandoned Brixellum, the garrison of the Romans. With hostile arms pressing hard, the exarch obtained peace, on this condition, that he should give back Duke Godiscalc and his wife, the daughter of Agilulf, and their children captured in the storming of Parma.

Although for so many years St Gregory had been accustomed to live amid hostile swords, yet over this war he groaned vehemently, and expostulated with his friends, and as a suppliant begged that the help of their prayers be present to him, especially those of St Eulogius (Book 12, letter 50). (Cf. Paul the Deacon, Book 4, chapters 29 and 21.) 3. In the letter addressed to this patriarch, which is the last of all written this year, the Pope makes mention of the Monophysites, or heretics confessing a single nature in Christ, who had lately abjured this error. When these had come into Sicily, invited by the fame of the most holy doctor, they proceeded to Rome, where, confirmed in the faith, they sought testimonial letters from the supreme pontiff.

The most holy father commends them to his friend Eulogius, and asks that the monastery occupied by the heretics be restored to them, unless perchance its invaders should prefer to return to the bosom of the Church. At the same time Firminus, bishop of the city of Trieste, in Istria, previously obstinate in the schism formed on account of the three condemned chapters, spewed out the venom, and, having abandoned the parts of the schismatics, betook himself to the unity of the Church. Rejoicing over his return, Gregory judged that a congratulatory letter should be written, in which he exhorts the man recalled and coming to his senses to oppose the shield of constancy to the darts of Satan, and to labour at recalling others along with himself. Moreover he promises the supports of life:

It will be, he says, altogether our care to take thought for the quiet of thy fraternity, as is fitting; for since thou art, now by God's protection, one with us, we regard thy interests no otherwise than our own (Book 12, letter 33). There exists a promise of a certain bishop returning to the unity of the Church, which the learned not without reason think was given by Firminus (formerly Book 10, letter 31, now in the appendix).

It ought not to be passed over without observation that this bishop, in deserting the schism, is altogether silent about the fifth council and about the condemnation of the three chapters, but only pledges and swears that he, returning by a ready and spontaneous will to the unity of the apostolic see, will never return to the schism, but will always remain in the unity of the holy Catholic Church and in the communion of the Roman pontiff. Which surely is a proof, as has been said by us more than once, that the Istrian schism was not placed in this, that the three chapters were not condemned, but that those who condemned them were repelled from communion, and thus there came about a secession from the Catholic Church. 4.

What the most holy man had foretold to Firminus — namely, that his steadfastness would be assailed by the enemy with terrors and enticements, so that he might be compelled to turn back — came to pass a little later. For Severus, bishop of Grado, the head of the schism that Firminus had abjured, when he heard of Firminus's return, began to try, if he could, to call him back from his good resolve by various inducements of reward. And when, by God's authority, he was quite unable to accomplish this, he did not shrink from stirring up against him a sedition of his own townsfolk (Book XIII, Letter 33). Gregory resolved to stretch out his hand and come to the aid of the endangered bishop.

Wherefore he besought the exarch Smaragdus that without any delay he should take care to protect bishop Firminus from the troubles inflicted upon him, and by every means procure that man's peace, which would profit many as an example to imitate. 'Greeting your Excellency,' he says, 'with fatherly affection, we ask that the fervour of your zeal, once displayed in this cause, may now blaze more vehemently; and that the enemies of God may find you as much the more their avengers and defenders, as before God the salvation of the soul is more precious than the defence of the body. Let that very uprightness of faith which flourishes in you arm you against those who go astray; let there be restored in your times the body of the Church that in those regions has been rent asunder.'

You have in this cause a Rewarder of your work, the Author of righteousness and integrity. 5. Since the solicitude of the most holy Pope was no less evident than his authority and power, he judged that this year provision must be made for the most disturbed affairs of the Church of Doclea. Paul, bishop of that city, having among other evils fallen into a bodily crime, had been accused by his own clergy and convicted; so much so that he himself presented a document in which he confessed that the things of which he was accused were true (Book XII, Letter 31).

On this account he was deposed by episcopal sentence, and in his place Nemesion was ordained, with the consent of John, bishop of Prima Justiniana, to whom as primate Doclea then belonged, although it was subject to the Church of Scodra by metropolitan right. But Paul, afterwards ill repenting of the deed, relying on the help of secular judges, entered the episcopal residence after the manner of a robber, and having violently carried off the goods of the Church, cast out the newly ordained bishop with the utmost injury and great peril to his life. Nemesion, coming to Rome, complained of the violence inflicted upon him before the supreme pontiff, who wrote both to Constantine, bishop of Scodra — whom Gregory's words sufficiently indicate to have been metropolitan —

as Gregory's words show, and also to John, primate of Prima Justiniana and moreover vicar of the holy See, that if matters had so stood, they should compel Paul to restore at once all whatsoever he had carried off. And if he should prove that these were not the Church's but his own, yet enough of them should be retained to repair the damages inflicted upon the ecclesiastical goods; for he was reported to have squandered them. But if he should attempt to delay, until he restore everything he squandered or took from the substance of the Church, he must be sent into a monastery, so that at least under compulsion he may give back what he did not fear wickedly to carry off, says St Gregory.

And if perchance — which we do not believe — after his deposition, with shameless and perverse mind he should presume to say anything about the episcopate, and again by any presumption aspire to it, let the whole vigour of your Fraternity be kindled against his wickedness, and, having deprived him of the communion of the Lord's Body and Blood, take care that he be thrust into a monastery until the day of his death to perform penance: so that he may learn to cleanse with worthy tears the stains of the crime he has committed, which rather he wickedly desires to increase to the destruction of his soul. Concerning Nemesion, however, he decreed that his place and episcopate should be restored to him. 6.

At the same time Gregory had to think about the affairs of the African Church, where certain persons among the bishops and other ecclesiastical men were to be recalled to their duty. There were especially many complaints about Paulinus, bishop of the city of Tegesta in Numidia, whom the clergy — even those constituted in sacred orders — asserted had bodily offended against them (Book XII, Letter 28). This case, to be judged between the bishop and his clergy, St Gregory referred to Victor, primate of Numidia, and to bishop Columbus, whom he charged in his mandate to take from among their fellow-bishops whomever they wished, to pronounce sentence upon the accused or upon the accusers.

The same Paulinus was said to confer ecclesiastical orders in a simoniacal manner — or rather to sell them — which the most holy Pontiff says must be investigated with all diligence, so that both the giver and the receiver of the reward may each be struck by the sentence of canonical punishment. But lest the deadly root of simony should take hold and destroy many, he desires that it be forbidden by the common definition of the whole council, that no one ever receive or give anything for any order whatsoever, nor that anyone be promoted out of favour, but out of merit. A little before, he had sent to the same Columbus a petitionary document offered by the deacon Donadeus, in which he complained that he had been unjustly deposed by his bishop Victor (Book XII, Letter 8), that together with the primate of the council and the other fellow-bishops he might judge this complaint.

The bishop contended that Donadeus had been cast down from his order on account of a bodily sin. And if this could be proved, Gregory wishes the deacon to be thrust into penance, that by tears he may be able to loose the bond of the disgraceful deed he committed. But if, on the contrary, it be established that the bishop raged against an innocent man, he decrees that the severity of canonical rigour be exercised upon him. Concerning Crementius, primate of the province of Byzacena, gravely accused — whom this most vigilant Pontiff judged this year should be tried by the council of the whole province (ibid., Letter 32) — it has already been spoken of a little above; wherefore nothing seems needful to be added in this place. 7.

In these matters the authority of the Roman pontiff shines forth the more, in that all obeyed him as he decreed various things — the councils themselves, the primates, even the bishop of Carthage, in whose hands lay the supreme power over the whole African Church. Certainly Dominicus, who held the see of Carthage while Gregory sat at Rome, never complained that the Roman prelate had put his sickle into another's harvest, never contended with him for the safeguarding of his own authority, but always cultivated his friendship. For the African Fathers knew that Gregory used only his own right and trod in the footsteps of his predecessors.

Not yet had the memory of Leo the Great been effaced, who had sent Potentius into Africa with the delegated authority of the apostolic See itself, to repair the ecclesiastical discipline shattered by the Vandal wars, and to depose certain bishops ordained contrary to the canons. In the time of Augustine too, although a question had arisen with Zosimus concerning appeals to the holy See, how great was the reverence of the Africans toward the Roman pontiff is proved by the acts of the councils, the letters written to him, and other monuments. Cyprian himself sought the judgment of the apostolic chair concerning the restoration of the lapsed;

and the African Fathers at various times followed him in consulting the supreme pontiffs about diverse heads of ecclesiastical discipline. And although the great Cyprian held a different opinion concerning the baptism of heretics from Pope Stephen, and drew other African bishops to his side, yet the opinion of Stephen prevailed, even in Africa, the decrees of the councils held under Cyprian being rescinded. These things we have observed a little beyond our bounds, against certain persons who dare to call the African Church either acephalous, or autocephalous — as though it were governed by the authority of its own primate alone, that is, of Carthage:

as though indeed it were not necessary for every Church — that is, those who are faithful everywhere — to agree with the Roman Church on account of its more powerful pre-eminence, as Irenaeus says (Book III, Against the Valentinians, ch. 3). 8. This supreme power committed to Gregory in no way stood in the way of his modesty and humility; and a truly very great proof of these virtues is the letter written this year to John the subdeacon, staying at Ravenna. For in it, almost indignant, he complains of Marinianus, archbishop of Ravenna, because he caused the Commentaries on blessed Job to be read publicly at the vigils, since, he says, that work is not popular, and to untrained hearers generates hindrance rather than progress. He adds:

'For I do not wish, while I am in this flesh, that if I have happened to say anything, it should easily become known to men. For because the deacon Anatolius of most beloved memory, at the request and command of the lord emperor who sought it, gave him the book of the Pastoral Rule, I took it ill: which my most holy brother and fellow-bishop Anastasius of Antioch translated into the Greek tongue. And, as it is written to me, it greatly pleased him, but greatly displeased me, that those who have better things should be occupied in the least' (Book XII, Letter 24). 9. In the same letter St Gregory makes mention of his homilies on the Proverbs, on the Song of Songs, on the Prophets, on the Books of Kings also, and on the Heptateuch, which Claudius the abbot had taken down.

When he had died, the Pope orders that all the papers surviving about these matters be sought out and sent to him — perhaps, as one may suspect from his humility, to be destroyed by fire. Concerning these, however, one ought to read the prefaces or prefatory admonitions to the Commentary on the first book of Kings, to the Exposition on the Canticle, and to the other Exposition of the seven penitential psalms. But because perhaps we have there spoken too sparingly of Claudius the abbot, now let us gather whatever is found scattered about him in the Gregorian Letters. That he was a monk in Gregory's monastery at Rome, and indeed under his discipline, is proved by the title of 'son' given him by Gregory. He had already been taken to govern the monastery of Saints

John and Stephen at Classe, in the second year of the holy man's pontificate; for he mentions him as abbot at this time, writing to John of Ravenna: 'It seems to me that you ought to send abbot Claudius thither with a certain sum of money' (Book II, Letter 46). He came to Rome, both to protect the rights of his monastery against Marinianus of Ravenna and his clergy — for which he obtained a privilege — and to be a helper and sharer in the studies of St Gregory (Book VII, Letter 45; Book VIII, Letter 15). He made a long stay in the City, St Gregory retaining him, because he was a great solace to him in the word of God (Book VIII, Letter 16). But because he was hastening to return to and revisit his monastery,

and because it was not hidden from the most vigilant Shepherd that the presence of the holy abbot was most highly necessary to the congregation of the brethren, he permitted him to return, and commended him to Marinianus; whom he asked to bestow upon him and upon his monastery a fatherly charity, as was fitting. We suspect that he had died a little before the letter written to John the subdeacon (Book XII, Letter 24), of which we have already made mention — that is, toward the end of the year 601. 10. After his death, the monks of his monastery, coming to Rome, sought that the monk Constantius be appointed abbot over them. But the most holy father by no means approved him, because he was said to be devoted to private property, and to have gone into the province of Picenum without any of his brethren.

He therefore being rejected, the Pope consented that Maurus the cellarer be ordained abbot, provided that the things which those who had chosen him testified concerning his life and industry should be proved to be true. Concerning these matters he wrote to John the subdeacon, and moreover charged him to admonish bishop Marinianus to cut off the pursuit of private property from four or five monks of the monastery. 11. These indeed are proofs of the singular solicitude and care which he bore for the monastic state. But how highly he esteemed it he showed especially this year in two letters. From the former, written to Passivus, bishop of Fermo (Book XII, Letter 12), Thomassin (Part II, Book I, ch. 34) gathers that the monastic state then held the place of the subdiaconate.

For since the fortress of Aprutium in the territory of Fermo lacked a shepherd, St Gregory pointed out a certain Opportunus, praised by many for the innocence of his morals, his zeal for psalmody, and his love of prayer, whom he says ought to be exhorted either to become a monk or a subdeacon; and after a little while he advises that he be promoted to pastoral care. Why should mention be made here of the monastic state as of the subdiaconate, when it is a matter of promoting Opportunus to the priesthood, unless it equally disposed him toward sacred orders? And therefore perhaps St Benedict, who speaks of monks to be taken up to the presbyterate and diaconate, is altogether silent about conferring the subdiaconate upon them. But on this matter our Mabillon should be read, especially the Benedictine Annals, Book

X, year 602, number 20, column 277. 12. In the other letter, written to Desiderius, bishop of Vienne, on behalf of the deacon Pancratius, who had become a monk, the most holy father exhorts Desiderius not to be in any way a hindrance to the deacon's so ready devotion, which he was striving to keep in his holy resolve. 'Rather,' he says, 'kindle him with whatever exhortations you are able, by pastoral admonition, that the fervour of this longing may not grow lukewarm in him: so that he who, separating himself from the turbulent tumult of secular cares, sought the harbour of the monastery out of desire for quiet, may not again be entangled in the disturbances of ecclesiastical cares.'