Moralia in Job 4 part 8/9

so that, just as in the books of his expositions he had taught by what virtues one must sweat and toil, so also, by the miracles of the saints thus described, he might display, clearer than light, what had been the brightness of those same virtues. These books Zacharias, bishop of the holy Roman Church, most learned in the Greek and Latin tongue, in the times of the emperor Constantine, after nearly one hundred and seventy-five years, translating into the Greek language, spread abroad to the Eastern churches — although the cunning perversity of the Greeks, in the commemoration of the Holy Spirit as proceeding from the Father, craftily scraped away and removed the name of the Son. 76. He also treated the first and last parts of the prophet Ezekiel, which

seemed more obscure, at the request of the Romans, and, distinguishing them by twenty-two homilies, he demonstrated how much light they hold within; and in treating of these, as was shown above, he made an end. 77. Although these books are truly declared by the doctors of a later time to have been published with the most correct opinions and composed in the most brilliant style of rhetorical eloquence, blessed Gregory, out of the sweetness of his humility, professes them to be uncultivated, writing to bishop Leander among other things:

"I ask that, running through the words of this work (doubtless the Moralia), you do not seek in them leaves of words; because through the sacred utterances the frivolousness of unfruitful loquacity is diligently restrained by their treaters, since in the temple of God it is forbidden that a grove be planted. And all of us doubtless know that, as often as the stalks thrive in the leaves of a too-luxuriant crop, the grains swell with less fullness of ears. Wherefore I have disdained to observe even that very art of speaking which the disciplines of exterior schooling instill. For, as the tenor of this very epistle also declares, I do not flee the collision of metacism, I do not avoid the confusion of barbarism, I disdain to preserve the hiatuses and inflections of motion, and even the cases governed by prepositions:

because I deem it exceedingly unworthy that I should confine the words of the heavenly oracle under the rules of Donatus; for indeed these have not been observed by any interpreters in the authority of Holy Scripture. And since our exposition without doubt arises from this source, it is surely fitting that, as offspring brought forth, it should imitate the appearance of its own mother." (Preface to the book of the Moralia.) In which words Gregory is recognized to have made no study of a pompous manner of speaking, but rather to have fallen into it from the former habit of secular training. The harmony of his eloquence Isidore, bishop of the city of Seville, admiring in his exposition of Genesis:

"These things," he says, "are taken from the authors Origen, Victorinus, Ambrose, Jerome, Cassian, Augustine, Fulgentius, and, in our own times, the distinctly eloquent Gregory." But Bede the presbyter also, in his book On Figures, showing that orators make a homoeoteleuton, set forth an example, saying: "Blessed Job, known to God alone and to himself, being brought to our knowledge in his temptation, was touched with a wound so that he might scatter the fragrance of his powers so much the more widely as, after the manner of aromatics, he gave forth a better scent from the intention of the trial." With which figure he who said this, blessed Pope Gregory, is known to have used most frequently;

and I think these are the kinds of discourses which Jerome calls the polished declamations of rhetoricians." 78. But Gregory, admonished by the caution of his own humility, not only despised the fragrance of his own eloquence, but even, in comparison with another's treatise, calling his own composition bran, most vehemently forbade that his books be read as long as he lived, writing to Innocent, prefect of Africa, among other things: "That you wished a codex to be transmitted to you concerning the exposition of holy Job — we entirely rejoice at your zeal, since we behold your Eminence to study that matter which neither permits you to go wholly forth outside, and again gathers back to the heart those who have been scattered among secular cares.

But if you desire to be fattened with delicious fare, read the little works of blessed Augustine, your own compatriot, and do not seek our bran by comparison with that fine wheat-flour of his." (Register, book x, letter 37.) Likewise to John, bishop of Syracuse: "Moreover, I hear that your Fraternity causes some of those things which I remember to have written to be read at your table before strangers. This seems to me not fitting to be done, because this which you do out of charity, certain persons, as far as concerns me, can impute to vainglory. Therefore before strangers read the sayings of the ancients, by whose authority those who hear may be able to be reformed." (Book viii, letter 9.) Likewise to John, subdeacon of Ravenna, after many things:

"That," he says, "which has been brought to me by the report of certain persons — namely, that my most reverend fellow-bishop Marinianus has the commentaries on blessed Job read publicly at the vigils — I have not received graciously, because that work is not for the people, and to untrained hearers it produces hindrance rather than progress. But tell him to have the commentaries on the Psalms read at the vigils, which especially form the minds of the worldly to good morals. For I do not wish, while I am in this flesh, that anything I may have chanced to say should easily become known to men." (Book xii, letter 24.) 79.

With how great consideration Gregory — who has been sufficiently shown, as I think, to have come humbly to the summit of governance, and, arriving at this work, to have lived well, and, living well, to have taught rightly — recognized his own weakness, he makes manifest in the last book of the Moralia, when he says: "This work being therefore completed, I see that I must return to myself. For our mind is much scattered outside itself, even when it endeavors to speak rightly. For the integrity of the soul, while words are being considered as to how they should be uttered, they diminish, because they draw it outward.

Therefore from the public of speech one must return to the court of the heart, that, as in a certain council of deliberation, I may summon the thoughts of the mind for the discerning of myself, so that there I may see whether I have said anything either incautiously evil or not well good. For then good is spoken well, when he who speaks aims, by that which he says, to please Him alone from whom he received it. And indeed, though I do not find that I have said any evil things, yet, because I have not by any means left them entirely unsaid, I do not defend myself. But if I have said any good things, receiving them from God, I confess that by my own fault I have said them less well.

For, returning inward to myself, having set aside the leaves of words, having set aside the branches of sentences, while I subtly inspect the very root of my intention, I recognize that by it I willed above all to please God; but into that same intention, by which I strive to please God, the intention of human praise stealthily, I know not how, insinuates itself. And when at length and tardily I discern this, I find that I am doing otherwise than I know myself to have begun. For thus often our intention, while it is rightly begun before the eyes of God, being secretly subjoined, and, as it were, catching it upon the road, the intention of human praise overtakes it:

just as food is indeed taken out of necessity, but in the very eating, while gluttony stealthily creeps in, the delight of eating is mingled in; whence it very often happens that the refreshment of the body, which we began for the sake of health, we complete for the sake of pleasure. It must therefore be admitted that our right intention, which seeks to please God alone, is sometimes accompanied insidiously by a less right intention, which seeks to please men out of the gifts of God. But if we examine ourselves strictly concerning these things by divine light, what place of salvation remains amid such things, when both our evils are pure evils, and the goods which we believe ourselves to have can by no means be pure goods?

But this I believe to be worth my while, that I unhesitatingly disclose to fraternal ears everything which I secretly reprehend in myself. For because in expounding I did not conceal what I felt, in confessing I do not hide what I suffer. Through exposition I have laid open the gifts, through confession I uncover the wounds. And because in this so great human race there are neither lacking small ones who ought to be instructed by my sayings, nor lacking great ones who ought to have pity on my acknowledged weakness, through these two things I bestow care upon some brethren as much as I can, and I hope for it from others. To those I have said, by expounding, what they should do; to these I lay open, by confessing, what they should spare. To the former I do not withhold the medicaments of words; to the latter I do not conceal the laceration of my wounds.

Therefore I ask that whosoever shall read this may, before the strict Judge, bestow upon me the solace of his prayer, and may wash away with his weeping everything sordid that he detects in me. But the virtue of prayer and of exposition being compared, my reader surpasses me in recompense if, when he receives words through me, he renders tears for me." 80. The venerable body of this most blessed Gregory, translated by Gregory the Fourth, prelate of the Apostolic See, after about fifty years, is placed before the new sacristy, with apses constructed, as is now seen, beneath the altar of his name:

where his anniversary solemnity is celebrated with most pleasing veneration, all vying to keep vigil through the night, at which his pallium, and his phylacteries, and also his girdle are customarily kissed. These things, considered one by one, present with clear signs both the antiquity of the man, and the modesty of his attire, and the character of his regular way of life. For in that his pallium, woven of gleaming-white fine linen, is seen to have been perforated by no needles, it is recognized that it was thus wrapped about the shoulders, but not fastened, just as is shown in the most ancient mosaics or paintings.

But that the phylacteries of relics are seen to have been fabricated of thin silver, and, with a cheap little cloth, suspended from the neck, is demonstrated by the modesty of his attire. Furthermore, in the slenderness of the girdle, which never exceeds the measure of a single inch, it is made clearer than light that he preserved the character of the regular way of life once established by holy Benedict — whose life, in describing it, he had also praised the Rule in the Dialogue — especially since the same venerable doctor Gregory did not know the Greek tongue, and sent the monks of his own monastery, bound assuredly by the rules of Benedict, into Saxony. 81. Indeed, that he did not know the Greek tongue, he himself testifies, writing in a letter to Eusebius, bishop of Thessalonica:

"The bearer of the present letter, Theodore, a lector of the Church, coming to the thresholds of the holy Apostles, while as a man (being, as it were, a newcomer) he was held to be unknown, innocently deposited with Andrew the monk, who had been enclosed at Saint Paul's, the goods and papers which he had brought, as with one indeed long known, believing that his mind (as we too had previously supposed) accorded with his habit. But that man was found of such great depravity that, if a little more had still been permitted to his folly under the appearance of enclosure, he would deceive the souls of many by the falsehood of his malice, and would generate whatever scandals, no light ones, he could.

For among other things which the same Andrew most wickedly thought and did, he also falsified that very letter which you sent to us, while it was deposited with him by the aforesaid lector, so that whoever should read it would clearly convict you of holding views neither catholic nor right. From which matter it happened that, while we were diligently seeking the truth, the iniquity which lay hidden in him was made public: and such things were found in him as would not be believed even of any wicked layman whatsoever. And because among his various evils he also wrote certain discourses, and titled them under our name, and we are suspicious lest he has transmitted them somewhere, let your Fraternity take pains;

and if it find any such thing, let it cause them to be excised and by all means abolished, so that what an untrained man, ignorant of letters and of divine Scripture, prefaced under our name, as we have said, may not be able to infect the minds of certain persons. For we neither know Greek, nor have we ever composed any work in Greek." (Register, book xi, letter 69.) 82. But that the monks who were sent by Gregory into Saxony were bound to the rule of holy Benedict, this too, among other things, shows: that from his disciples scarcely can any monk be found in those parts by whom the Rule of Benedict is not observed, both in profession and in habit.

Wherefore, just as it is established that the Gregorian monastery was converted from Latinity into Greekness by necessity rather than by will, so faithfully it awaits that, with the Lord favoring, it will again be turned back into the cultivation of Latinity. 83. In the atrium of this venerable monastery, by Gregory's command, beside the nymphaeum two very ancient images, painted with artistry, are seen even to this day. In one of them blessed Peter the Apostle is beheld sitting, having likewise received by his right hand the right hand of Gordianus, the regionary — that is, the father of Gregory — standing. Of this Gordianus the chasuble is of a chestnut color, beneath the chasuble a dalmatic, having leggings on his feet;

of tall stature, a drawn-out face, green eyes, a modest beard, thick hair, a grave countenance. In the other, however, the mother of Gregory, Silvia, is depicted sitting, covered with a white veil so rolled back from the right shoulder toward the left that beneath it she draws her hand as though from a chasuble; and about the breast, below the throat, an inner tunic of a whitish color appears, which flows down over the feet with a great fold; distinguished by two bands, after the likeness of dalmatics, but altogether broader; of full stature, a face round indeed and white, but already wrinkled with age, which very old age itself signifies to have been most beautiful;

with gray-blue and large eyes, modest eyebrows, comely little lips, a cheerful countenance, bearing on her head a matronly mitre, embroidered with a rarity of gleaming-white fine linen; with two fingers of her right hand making as though she would fortify herself with the sign of the cross, but in her left holding an open psalter, in which this is written: My soul lives, and it will praise thee; and thy judgments will help me (Psalm cxviii, penultimate verse). But from the right elbow all the way to the left, rising about the shoulders, an inscription bends back, which reads thus: Gregory made this for Silvia his mother.

But also, in a little apse behind the brethren's storeroom, Gregory is shown painted, by the mastery of the same artist, on a plaster roundel: of just and well-formed stature, with a face so moderately tempered between the length of his father's face and the roundness of his mother's, that with a certain roundness it seems most becomingly to be drawn out; a beard, after his father's manner, somewhat tawny and modest; so bald that in the middle of his forehead he has twin, rather thin, curls, bent back toward the right; a round and spacious tonsure, with dark-ish hair, becomingly curled, hanging down to the middle of the ear; a comely forehead, with raised and long, but slender, eyebrows; eyes dark in the pupil, not indeed large but wide-open; full lower eyelids;

a nose, from the root of the descending eyebrows subtly straight, broader about the middle, then a little curved back, and at the extremity prominent with open nostrils; a red mouth; thick and somewhat divided lips, composed cheeks; a chin becomingly prominent from the boundary of the jaws; of an aquiline and lively color, not yet, as afterward befell him, cardiac; of a mild countenance; beautiful hands; with rounded fingers, apt for writing. Moreover, a chasuble over the dalmatic, chestnut-colored; the Gospel in his left hand, the manner of a cross in his right;

with a moderate pallium drawn, namely, from the right shoulder below the breast over the stomach in a circular fashion, then deposited upward over the left shoulder behind the back, of which the other part, coming over the same shoulder, hangs by its own straightness, not through the middle of the body, but from the side; but about the crown of the head it displays the likeness of a square tablet, which is the token of a living person, not a nimbus. From which it is most manifestly declared that Gregory, while he was still alive, wholesomely willed his own likeness to be painted, in which he might be gazed upon rather frequently by his own monks, not for the glory of pride, but for the caution of acknowledged strictness. There he himself dictated a distich of this kind:

O Christ, mighty Lord, bestower of our honor, govern with your accustomed mercy the office granted to me. 85. It was also in the time of Peter the archdeacon, and by order of John the hegumen, that the monk Saturninus painted, to the right and left of the blessed Gregory, the images of the holy apostles, just as they are now to be seen. In that very place a candle is sometimes lit by divine agency, and in an image of the same likeness the blessed Gregory is often shown to be present on behalf of the governance of his monastery. 86.

For to touch on but a few things out of many: in the time of the pontiff Leo the Fourth, when Megistus, bishop of Ostia and librarian of the Apostolic See, presided over that same monastery, John the priest, its provost, living shamefully with a certain woman, was seized with a most violent pain of the gout. Cauterized by the hand of physicians, he began to discharge pus through the wound of the burning. Unable by any arts to check it, he was brought to such despair that he ceased from every visit to that woman, and she joined another man to herself under the same crime.

But after a year the priest, returning to his former health, although he had resolved to touch her no more, nevertheless sent a messenger to that same woman and declared that he would return on the coming Lord's Day. When this message was received, and he rejoiced that the little woman's wish agreed with his own desire, he went off to the baths. Returning thence, he so gave himself up to draughts of wine and to songs in his mirth that, sleep creeping over him, he was never able to be present at the night offices with the brethren. That same night the blessed Gregory, appearing in a dream to a certain priest and monk, said: Rise, and tell the provost that, doing penance, he should scatter the private hoard which he was not ashamed to amass, for the sin of his conscience:

for on the third day he shall be utterly cut off from life. When the provost heard this, he was greatly terrified. And because he could not be unbelieving toward Gregory's command, he began his penance, and while he in health was distributing all his goods, he was seized with so great a burning of fever that, from the dawn of the day until the third hour, casting out his tongue from his mouth with a mighty roaring as though from fire, he drew his last breath. The priests, seeing him laboring so grievously, appointed monks there who should commend his departure with psalmody, while they themselves strove to offer solemn sacrifices to almighty God on his behalf.

But the monks, deserting the psalmody, did not fear to disparage the dying brother among themselves; when behold, the priests, returning from the solemnities of the Masses about the seventh hour, marveled to find John the priest — whom they had left struggling unbelievably with death — feeling somewhat better; and when they began to call him by name, at once he, blinking his eyes and smiling, said: May the Lord spare you, brethren: why did you wish to trouble me? For from the very beginning of this day until now I have stood before Christ, who presides with many thousands of angels, at judgment with the devil, and, with the holy Andrew and Gregory assisting me, I answered all his accusations well.

Know, moreover, that I carried to Christ, who most searchingly required it, even down to the footstool of his feet, an account of the monastery's sextarius, modius, and pound, the custom of the alms and of the lights, and every measure. But of one accusation, I confess, being convicted, I was greatly afraid, and, as you saw, was harassed with much travail, and I have not yet been able to free myself from it. And when the brethren inquired about it, he said: I dare not tell it; for when you called me, and I was commanded by the holy Gregory to return, so that I might render you an account of the measures and customs of the monastery, the devil complained, thinking that the Father had sent me back to penance. Wherefore I gave the blessed Gregory as surety that I would not reveal to anyone the calumny that was raised.

As they pressed him the more, and promised that they would entreat the Lord on his behalf, that he might reveal the matter to the brethren, he began to declare the houses of certain dead and the merits of the living, saying: This one is worthy, that one is unworthy. Being questioned again, he turned to the monks who a little before had remained with him, saying: All the things wherein you disparaged me there, brethren, I heard, although I could not answer, and you caused me no small hindrance, because, being accused at one and the same time both by you and by the devil, I did not know to which calumny I should first reply. But whenever you see anyone departing this life, have compassion on the common lot, and do not judge him who goes to the judgment of so strict a Judge along with his own accuser.

When these things were finished, he bade all withdraw, keeping with him only the priest who had foretold his death. He, fearing to remain alone, kept another with him, urging him not to fear at least to disclose to him the cause for which he had contended. That other groaned deeply, and, turning his head to the wall, cried out, saying: O Andrew, Andrew, may you perish this year, you who by wicked counsel drove me into danger! Immediately Zacharias the physician, who the year before had apostatized and returned to his own people, namely the Saracens, was present, and, touching his temples, began to swear that the priest would by no means die of that same sickness. When the sick man heard him, he repelled him with great indignation, saying:

Brethren, now my whole body is dead; in my utmost throat I keep the breath that is yet allowed me, being about to die at once; only chant psalms, that I may again behold the angels whom I was seeing, and by a sign show them to you. As they prayed, he began to tremble all over, to grow pale, to gaze upward with longing; when suddenly, perceiving the spirit approaching, rolling his eyes terribly, he gave a sign to the monks and departed; and he left them stricken with such terror that for many nights they were afraid to lie alone. 87. On the same day, as was afterward ascertained, and at the same moment when the dying priest had imprecated danger upon Andrew, that same Andrew, tenant of the Barbilian estate, situated namely on the Ostian Way, fell into his bed;

in which, seized for a long time by continuous wasting, he became so wholly withered that his entire body seemed to be dissolving piece by piece. And when he could be consumed by his flesh flowing away, yet could not die, his wife, who could no longer bear the stench of the wounds and her husband's torments, understood that he had by no means incurred the afflictions of so great a sickness without a sentence of divine vengeance. Weeping, she took care to inquire, that — since he could not be summoned in vain by the dying provost — he should reveal to the monks what he had committed with him, if perchance the Lord, receiving his confession, might free him from such torments.

But he, knowing that the evil he had done could not remain hidden, asked that the monks of the monastery be summoned, and confessed to them that together with that same provost he had stolen certain charters of the monastery, and, having received the price, had handed them over to outsiders; and that he was certain he could not die for this crime until he revealed it before all. That this was indeed true, the outcome of the affair plainly showed. For as soon as so great a crime became known to all, he who a while before, wishing to die, could not, breathed his last amid the words of his confession.

Him therefore almighty God willed to be tormented long, but permitted him not to be able to die until he confessed his guilt, so that by the example of his torment He might show what those who consume the goods of Gregory ought certainly to expect for themselves. 88. In the time of the same pontiff, Athanasius presided over the monastery of that same Father, a man indeed conspicuous for charity and a most careful executor of his monastery's affairs. When he perceived the time of raging famine coming, lest necessity should perhaps fall upon the monks, he withdrew the refreshment of the forty poor whom the blessed Gregory had decreed to be fed once a year.

Perceiving that he had done this with impunity, he also entirely forbade the dinner of the twelve poor and the twelve pence which, on the day of the blessed Gregory's burial, in commemoration of the twelve once invited by him — of whom the thirteenth professed himself to be an angel — were customarily fed; when in that same time of Lent the blessed Gregory appeared in a dream to the same priest and monk mentioned above, saying: Go and tell the hegumen: Because he has diminished the custom which I established, the Lord will also diminish his days. When the hegumen heard this, at first indeed he trembled, but afterward believed the less, the longer he knew his life to be extended.

And behold, during those very Paschal white days, while standing with the brethren at the vesper offices in the oratory of Saint Severinus, he saw the wall burning, and commanded the brethren to extinguish it. When they believed him to be drunk with wine, he at last threw down the rod he was holding, and, passing his hands over the wall, tried to put out from without the flames which, it was evident, were devouring its inmost part. Then, returning to his lodging, he was kindled with so great a burning of fever that he could by no means reach the seventh day. Because, therefore, while he thought he had taken counsel for the monks, he did not fear to harm the poor, and thereby altogether offended him by whom he believed he could appease Gregory: