But among these things it must be known that he rightly asks pardon for his own offense who first remits that which is committed against himself. For a gift is not accepted unless discord be tightly repelled from the soul, as Truth says: 'If you offer your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go first to be reconciled to your brother, and then coming you shall offer your gift' (Matthew 5:23). In which matter it must be weighed that, since every fault is loosed by a gift, how grave is the fault of discord, for which not even a gift is accepted. We ought therefore to go in mind to our neighbor, however near he be placed or far removed, and to subject our spirit to him,
to appease him with humility and benevolence, so that indeed our Creator, when He beholds such a peaceable disposition of our mind, may loose us from sin, He who accepts a gift for a fault (Matthew 18:27). Now, with Truth's own voice attesting, we have learned that the servant who owed ten thousand talents, when he did penance, received from his Lord the absolution of his debt; but because he did not forgive his fellow-servant who owed him a hundred denarii, he was ordered to pay that very thing which had already been forgiven him. From which words it is clear that if we do not from the heart forgive that which is committed against us, that too is again exacted from us which we rejoiced had already been forgiven us through penance.
Therefore, while it is permitted through the space of granted time, while the Judge forbears, while He who examines faults awaits our conversion, let us melt in tears the hardness of our transgression, let us form in our neighbors the grace of kindness. And I say confidently that we shall not need the saving victim after death, if before death we have ourselves been a victim to God. [Glossary of terms and page references:] Advocatus (advocate), 410; accumbere (to recline), 279; arca (chest), 171; arcula (small chest), 187; denarium (denarius), 430; or defensor (defender), 170, 247; Deusdedit, 419; illustris (illustrious), 318; cubiculum (bedchamber), 282; Caliga (military boot), 158; campus (field), 287; kandelai, candelae (candles), 174; carabus (small boat), 470; castrum (fort), 367; and cella (cell), 166, and often elsewhere; condimenta (seasonings), 279; comes (count), 158; commonitorium (memorandum), 295; Cumquodeus, 410; curialis (courtier), 422; lacus (lake), 222.
[Glossary continued:] mansionarius (sacristan), 331; manubrium (handle), 223; matrona (matron), 194; melote (sheepskin garment), 226; millia or milliaria (miles), 230; notarius (notary), 295; numerus (number), 427; Optio (adjutant), 421; ordo (order), 363; uncia (ounce), 327; obsequium (service), 399, 250; Patricius (patrician), 411; pigmentarius (perfumer), 431; porta (gate), 462; praedari (to plunder), 366; regio (region), 323; rex (king), 323, and throughout; sabanum (linen cloth), 309; sagum (soldier's cloak), 234; sindon (fine linen), 194; scamnum (bench), 162; scrinium (archive-chest), 182; tribunus (tribune), 323; familia (household), 230, 419; flagellum (scourge), 282; flasco (flask), 246. Others perhaps will occur to the diligent reader in the course of his reading. Being now about to offer you an entirely new Edition of the Gregorian letters, pious and studious reader, we are compelled to preface it, that we may submit to you as most equitable judge an account of our plan to be approved. I.
Concerning the excellence and dignity of the work, which are sufficiently known, there is no need that we labor to speak beforehand. Indeed, all the learned know that the letters of the holy Fathers are to be set before their other writings, because in them the author's genius, the endowments of his mind, and his character shine forth more. And this is most evident of holy Gregory's letters, in which his singular prudence, pastoral solicitude, liberality poured out upon the poor, both strength and lowliness of mind, and his other virtues are outlined, whence the perfect likeness of that most holy pope is expressed. In commending the Gregorian letters on this account, Peter Gussanville is copious, a section of whose preface bearing on this matter we have judged should be appended below. II.
In another little preface of the same learned man, which he prefixed to the letters published by him, he sets forth in these words what he had accomplished:
'Since we saw that, above the other works of so great a man, this offspring especially was celebrated by the approbation of theologians, worn smooth by the use of canonists, suitable for establishing the dogmas of the faith, most fit for illustrating and preserving ecclesiastical discipline, and eminently useful for the ordering of the morals of prelates and private persons alike, we judged that it must be labored over by us with a certain special zeal, so that it might be published as correctly as possible, and in that form which could please the learned and aid the more unlearned. And so, first, we restored the text, which in all the earlier Editions had by I know not what fate been miserably corrupted, having collated at least thirty-five manuscript copies, some of which we ourselves examined with our own eyes and sifted with our own hands, others we explored by the trust of learned men in the excerpts which were courteously transmitted to us by them.
With these aids added, we removed the corruptions, and the various readings which seemed to be of some importance we either transferred to the margin, or, for the sake of a fuller explanation, inserted into our own text.' III. Indeed we freely concede that some blemishes of the prior Editions were removed by Gussanville, but (what we say unwillingly) few, as will at once be evident to one reading our notes. Having summoned with new labor and study from wherever they were, and having accurately read through, the manuscript Codices—nearly the same ones which Gussanville mentions, in which nevertheless we often read otherwise than he does. Let there be as an example what has just now occurred to us in letter 6 of book 5, formerly book 4, where the Editions have: 'After the almost general collapse of his cell.'
On this passage the learned man notes that in the Tellier, Lyre, and Préaux manuscripts the word 'cell' is lacking. Concerning the Tellier ones we here keep silence, which we once indeed consulted, but which we are now by no means permitted to peruse again. But concerning the two others, which now placed before our eyes we diligently inspect, we constantly affirm that the word 'cell' is by no means wanting in them. And so, not wholly trusting to others' eyes, we undertook a new collation of the letters of holy Gregory against various manuscript Codices to be mentioned below, so that the most accurate Edition which we were meditating might come forth, and had long since been striving after. But with what fruit this labor was undertaken by us will at once be apparent to one consulting our notes.
For there is almost no letter in which we have not either restored a corrupt passage, or at least assigned some new reading by no means to be despised. As a specimen of the passages healed and restored by us, let it suffice to select these very few from the first book alone, for to run through the rest would be a labor almost immense. IV. In letter 6 of this book it was formerly read: 'As with the voices of a destitute widow I speak with the prophet,' instead of 'as with the voices of destroyed Judea.' A little later in the printed editions: 'You therefore who had not yet slain those same beasts, why did you already refuse to eat through obedience?' That the reading should be 'were willing' all the manuscripts have taught; and the integrity of the sense demanded this reading.
For, having adduced the testimony of holy Scripture, 'kill and eat,' holy Gregory admonishes that one must first slay before it is lawful to eat. Whence he thus presses his friend: 'You therefore,' he says, 'who had not yet slain those same beasts, why were you already willing to eat through obedience?' But by writing 'were unwilling,' the sense is worsely overturned. In the same place it is read in the earlier Vulgates: 'Or do you not know that the sword of your mouth refused to slay those same beasts of which you wrote?' But indeed against the manuscripts, in which this reading is one and the same: 'Or do you not know that the beast of which you wrote refused to be slain by the sword of your mouth?' In letter 20, formerly the tenth, it was formerly read:
'But if discord has so armed its parts among us, that in fear of scandal your will has armed its parts.' Where the manuscripts exhibit: 'that in the swelling of scandal'; nor can it be read otherwise without detriment to the sense and grave inconvenience; for the matter here treated is the swelling of pride, whence scandals and contentions were being generated in the Church of Salona. In letter 25, formerly 24, holy Gregory, according to the earlier editions, writes: 'And yet, suspended in that contemplation of invisible things, Paul recalls the edge of his mind to the couch of carnal ones'; whereas in the old hand-written books it is most constantly read: 'And yet, that contemplation of invisible things being suspended, Paul [recalls the edge of his mind] to the couch,' etc.
In the series of the same letter, other Editions exhibit as the reading: 'In these, as in a squared stone, the structure of holy faith rises up, and the norm of every life and action consists. Whoever of them,' etc. This is certainly not according to the mind of the holy Doctor, who in this place sets forth the ecumenical councils as a sure rule of faith, but touches nothing about the life, morals, and acts. Yet in this reading gratuitously fabricated by the Editors, the same councils are called 'the norm of every life and action.' But read as in the manuscripts: 'Because in these... the structure of holy faith rises up; and let there exist of every life and action, whoever of them does not hold their solidity, even though he is discerned to be a stone, nevertheless lies outside the building.' Letter
34, otherwise 33: in the printed copies these things occur: 'But if perchance in the cause of God I am believed too little.' But if the editors had seriously and attentively consulted the manuscript books, they would have read: 'But if perchance in the cause of God I am believed to be too excessive, and am suspected on account of the ardor of my zeal.' Which last words wonderfully confirm the reading of the manuscripts. We neglected to observe that in the superscription of the first letter it should be read, by the unanimous consent of the manuscripts, 'Gregory, servant of the servants of God,' which nevertheless is omitted in the Vulgates. Let these things now suffice, that the studious reader may understand that the labor was not vain which for several years we assiduously expended in revising anew the letters of holy Gregory.
Where scruple forbade us to depart from the received reading, because it rested on the authority of most of the manuscripts, it seemed sufficient to us to note the divergent readings that occurred, even if they might have been held for the best and most genuine. Thus in letter 72, formerly 70, since what is read is obscure: 'Because so scanty was the birth here, that unless by God's help the grain be gathered from Sicily, a violent famine threatens'—and we by far judged that reading more excellent which the manuscript Codex of the Life of holy Gregory, by John the Deacon, preserved in the Bigot Library at Rouen, supplies, namely book 2, chapter 59: 'Because so scanty here is the sowing,' and where above it is written superscript, or 'the crop';
we nevertheless retained 'scanty was the birth,' in which reading both the printed and the manuscript Codices agree, and we inserted the singular reading of the Bigot exemplar into the notes. V. The text of the letters being healed and restored, it was now to be thought about concerning the order both of the books and of the letters themselves. As regards the books, their order and number ought to be sought from the indictions or years of the pontificate of holy Gregory. For in the Register no letters are contained except those which were written by Gregory after he had already been assumed to govern the Church. And so, since for thirteen years and six months, with a few days added, the most holy man discharged the office of pontiff, individual books of letters were to be assigned for the individual years.
By this reckoning also John the Deacon numbered them, in book 4 of the Life, chapter 71. For after he had said in chapter 68 that Gregory held and illuminated the see of the Catholic and Apostolic holy Roman Church for thirteen years, six months, and ten days, he adds in chapter 71 that he left in the archive as many books of them (namely, of the letters) as he had lived years (in the pontificate). Whence he left the fourteenth book of letters, of the seventh indiction, unfinished. Yet it must not be dissembled that in the printed editions, nay in most of the manuscript Codices, is read: 'Whence the thirteenth,' etc. But it is a grave error, which is easily emended from the context of the narrative. For if there are as many books of Gregory's letters as his years in the pontificate according to John
the Deacon's account—since from the same writer and from elsewhere it is established by undoubted testimonies that Gregory lived thirteen and a half years in the pontificate—the last book of letters, being unfinished, cannot be the thirteenth, but the fourteenth. Furthermore, this unfinished book cannot fit the [seventh] indiction according to John, but book 13 can by no means be suited to this indiction, as is evident. Moreover, we have at length detected the true reading in the Uticensis Codex, that is, of the monastery of Saint Ebrulf, of the best quality and six hundred years old. But lest anyone suppose that these things slipped from John while he was thinking of other matters and paying little attention, let his testimony in the preface to Pope John be added:
'If, however, to anyone,' he says, 'as is wont, it shall have seemed otherwise, let him, recurring to the fullness of your archive, unroll as many paper books of the letters of the same Father as he is proved to have lived years.' Thus without doubt had Sigebert of Gembloux, the monk who flourished in the eleventh century, read it in John the Deacon; for he says these things in his book On Ecclesiastical Writers: 'Holy Gregory left to posterity as many books of letters as he lived years in the pontificate, that is, thirteen and a half.' There can be opposed the testimony of Ildefonsus, bishop of Toledo, in his book On Illustrious Men, chapter 1, where, concerning the Gregorian letters, he says: 'These, compressing into one volume, he distinguished into twelve books, and decreed that it should be called the Register.'
Hence perhaps was given to the Editors occasion for distributing the said letters into twelve books, at least in appearance, whereas in reality all the printed Codices exhibit fourteen books. For the second book is numbered twice, namely in the tenth indiction and the eleventh indiction. Likewise the seventh book is reckoned twice, namely in the first and second indictions. But to the testimony of Saint Ildefonsus we reply that he was utterly a stranger in the reading of the works of holy Gregory; whence, after mentioning the letters, he adds: 'It is reported that he published also other excellent little works, but they have not yet come into our hands.' It seems to us almost certain that not even the letters came to his notice. Hence more credence is to be given to John the Deacon, Sigebert, and nearly all the manuscripts
which comprise the Gregorian letters in fourteen books. For although there are some manuscript Codices in which the said letters are represented without any distinction of books, yet none have occurred to us which, in dividing them into books, partition them into fewer than fourteen parts. In favor of the number of twelve books of letters this note of our J. Mabillon on the preface of John the Deacon seems to fight: 'Pope Adrian the First is said to have redacted the more select letters into twelve books of decretals, below, book 4, chapter 71.' But it is a slip of the pen, straying from the mind of the most learned writer, or this fault is to be cast back upon the typographers; for in the passage of the Gregorian Life assigned, the said John
the Deacon mentions not twelve, but only two books of decretals collected by Pope Adrian. Furthermore, it is not here inquired concerning select decretal letters of Gregory, but concerning the entire complex and collection of any of his letters whatsoever; nor do we care into how many books Pope Adrian partitioned the aforesaid letters, but the controversy is only about the division instituted by Gregory himself. VI. In restoring the order of the letters more labor was to be undertaken. For from their reading so many times repeated it was easily ascertained by us that many had been moved from their place and transposed elsewhere. That the evil is old is proved by very many ancient Codices,
written about seven hundred years ago, at the end of which, especially in the Norman ones, many letters are gathered, with this superscription: 'Letters which have been omitted from the earlier indictions.' In most manuscripts there stand thirty-one. More are exhibited by the collection of Paul the Deacon sent to Saint Adalard, abbot of Corbie, which we consider to be a supplement of the Gregorian Register; for out of the fifty-four letters contained in it, we have observed that very many are wanting in most of the manuscripts. Nor indeed can any reason be devised why that most learned and wise man should have taken care to transcribe, above the rest, those few letters which for the most part teach us nothing worthy of note.
Since therefore the copyists, and the typographers who succeeded them, had found many letters wandering and scattered outside the order of the Register, they began to force them together within various books, but with scarcely any criterion previously applied. Hence the taint of the evil, and the preposterous disposition of the letters, which will easily be detected from the series of the matters commemorated in the letters and even a moderate acquaintance with the history of that time. This fault did not escape Peter Gussanville, whose words are these, in the preface to the letters: 'Moreover, far be it that I should establish or defend the order of any letter. Nay, I freely acknowledge very many to be placed in a foreign location. The notes will teach it here and there.'
'Yet it did not please me to disturb the received series, lest—as has been rashly done in certain other books—we should pour darkness upon readers; for whom the citations of the letters of holy Gregory, scattered through every kind of books, would be useless, or at least laborious.' A very good reason indeed, by which this otherwise most diligent man tried to deprecate so great a labor from himself. Shall it then never be lawful to heal an evil once recognized? But far be it that we should suspect darkness to be poured out from the restored legitimate order of the letters. Nay, rather darkness is to be feared where there is no order. But from an ordered disposition of things the greatest light shines forth.
To come to the matter itself: with how great doubt must the reader needs be troubled when, having understood from the earlier books of letters the death of some known bishop, and the ordination of another in the place of the deceased, he afterward reads in the series of the later books a letter to that same bishop whom he now knows to have been taken from the living, as though written to a man come back to life. It would not be arduous to bring forward into the midst very many examples of no dissimilar confusion; which we shall be about to do when we shall demonstrate by certain arguments the order of the letters restored by us. But to the inconvenience which Gussanville alleges on account of the citations of the letters according to the ancient order, interspersed through so many books and writings, we shall meet by exhibiting a double index of letters:
first, according to the restored order, compared with the previously received one; second, according to the ancient order and custom, conversely collated with the former—not otherwise than what has been observed in editing the Augustinian letters, with no learned man disapproving. Thus with no labor the cited letters will be found; for by consulting the index according to the ancient series of letters, it will at once teach which number they now are and in what place they are held. To the two aforesaid indexes we shall add a third in alphabetical order, which will be woven together from the names of those to whom the holy Doctor writes; and a fourth, geographical.
VII. From the census of the letters we have expunged very many previously wrongly inserted, such as those which are read at the beginning of book 2, in the tenth indiction, concerning the deposition of the archdeacon Laurence, and concerning the greater litany in the basilica of holy Mary; in book 11, indiction 6, the history of the coronation of Phocas and the killing of Maurice and his sons, which is prefixed to all the letters of this indiction, together with a sermon of blessed Gregory in the time of the mortality: 'It behooves us, dearest brethren,' etc.; the acts of certain synods held at Rome; finally, various privileges granted by holy Gregory; all of which we have judged should be relegated to the end, together with the Creed which John the Deacon mentions, book 2, chapter 2, and which is read at the head of nearly all the manuscripts of the letters.
On the contrary, certain letters seemed to us to be recalled to the Register of the letters, whether written by Gregory or to Gregory, which either were in exile among the works of others, or not so long ago have been dug out from the shadows. But to whose diligence they are owed, it will be our care to commemorate in its proper place. VIII. The corruptions of the text or the letter being removed by the help of the manuscripts, and the true reading restored in a thousand places, then the order both of the books and also of the letters being arranged, we had to think about their arguments and summaries. In these, whatever the individual letters comprise ought to be delineated summarily, and compendiously represented.
But the summaries which we have thus far prefixed to the letters are, for the most part (as will be plain to anyone who examines them carefully), read merely thus: 'That once a year they should assemble together (the bishops of Sicily) for a provincial council.' Yet who could fail to see how mutilated this summary is, since in it nothing at all is said about Peter the subdeacon, to whom in the same letter Saint Gregory entrusts his own office within Sicily, on account of his proven virtue and experience; and nothing is said about the manner of celebrating the synods. The summary of the following letter, namely the second, is still less to be approved, since it deals wholly with grain not sent over intact, which is nevertheless the smallest part of the letter.
For in that letter the most holy Pope is chiefly concerned to compel Justinus, the praetor of Sicily—first softened with friendly and honourable words—to concord with the ecclesiastical men from whom he was at variance, and to discharge the office of judge with the utmost equity. Like things are to be understood of the rest, which it would be superfluous and tiresome to pursue further. Therefore effort had to be given to forging new summaries which, prefixed to the letters, might carry before the reader as it were a torch for their understanding. And with no less diligence we have taken care to explain and illustrate in notes the difficult passages, which are indeed very many. That we might accomplish this more surely, we toiled above all in establishing and drawing out, so far as was permitted, the true reading from the manuscripts.
151:32
Quippedumdevocibusambigitur, variisconjecturisliberiusindulgetur, etsæpeinaniconatudigladianturetaeremverberantviridicti. GæterumuberrimamnotarumetobservationuminGregoriiepistolassegetemnobisobtuleruntpræsertimcruditissimiviriAntoniusDadinusAlteserra, Tolosanusantecessor, etPetrusGussanvillæus. Illeinstudiosorumjuriscanonicigratiam, notationesinplerasquesanctiGregorii, quæreconditamjurisutriusqueperitiaminauctorearguunt, scripsit, etClementiIXpontificimax. nuncupavi. Exquibuspaucaspaucasmutuatisumus, et, adjectoadcalcemnomne, honorisetgratitudinisergo, anostrisdistiuximus. DenotisquasP.
For while there is dispute about the words, freer rein is given to various conjectures, and often, with vain effort, learned men fight it out and beat the air. Moreover, a most abundant harvest of notes and observations on Gregory's letters has been offered us especially by two most erudite men, Antonius Dadinus Alteserra, formerly a magistrate of Toulouse, and Petrus Gussanvillaeus. The former, for the benefit of students of canon law, wrote annotations on most of the letters of Saint Gregory—annotations which display in their author a recondite skill in both laws—and dedicated them to Pope Clement IX, the supreme pontiff. From these we have borrowed a few, and, adding his name at the end, for the sake of honour and gratitude, we have distinguished them from our own. Concerning the notes which P.
Gussanvillaeus inserted into his own Edition, it is worth while to hear him himself thus prefacing: IX. 'Concerning the notes added—or, if you prefer, interwoven—something must be remarked, so that we may forestall the offence of the fastidious. In this work one may find many rather obscure and abstruse words, less obvious, phrases not in common use, names of cities and regions, and very many other things of ancient custom: decrees of civil laws, canons of ecclesiastical polity, axioms of faith and morals. But it is not granted to all to be grammarians, philologists, antiquarians, geographers, historians, jurists, canonists, theologians, as the Greek adage says.'
'On this account Iolaüses and Patrocluses had to be summoned here and there, who, lending help in the harder matters, light in the more obscure, and industry in the intricate, might aid and advance the studies of readers. Namely, from the various storerooms of ancient and more recent authors we have drawn much; and very many things too were shared with us by several learned men who desire that the republic of letters and good morals be well served.' From these words it is clear that the notes which Gussanvillaeus attached to the Gregorian letters were only adopted by him, but had other parents. Hence in their approbation the doctors testify that they had read notes gathered upon the dialogues of Saint Gregory by M. P. Gussanvillaeus the presbyter.
But whom did this prudent man summon as his Patrocluses and helpers? If credit be given to public report, the chief part in composing and elaborating these notes is owed to the most distinguished man N. Julien, whose emblem—namely a lily with this inscription, 'Behold the lily'—is said to appear after the dedicatory letter. Yet there are those who ascribe these same notes and observations chiefly to the most distinguished man D. Auget, doctor and fellow of the Sorbonne, and to whose opinion we are compelled to go over foot and all. For by the kindness of that most distinguished man D.
Auget—counsellor to the king and treasurer of France at Paris, brother of the same—we obtained a supplement of notes on the letters of Saint Gregory, composed by the same doctor and written in his own hand, in which we detected the very same style as of the other notes, the same manner of speaking and of explaining matters. Whence we were persuaded—as his praised brother, a man of tried integrity, had also earlier assured us—that the rest of the notes, at least in the greatest part, are to be claimed for this most wise doctor. To pass judgment upon these notes is not for us. Certainly whichever ones we were permitted to retain, we have taken care to have reprinted in this Edition, with the name Gussanvill. attached.
Others, from which the laws of a stricter criticism, or other reasons—certainly weighty ones—compelled us to abstain, those who delight in varied and manifold erudition will be able to read in the Gussanvillaean Edition. For in these all kinds of sciences and all the arts are tasted, with almost innumerable testimonies heaped together, both from sacred and from profane writers, from Greeks and Latins—whether to the point or beside the point, let others judge. But the notes which we have taken from the Augetian supplement, though very few, will be marked with his name added at the end. X. As to the notes which we have elaborated, in these we judged that we must strive above all for brevity, mindful of that most celebrated saying: 'The overflowing river quickly gathers mud.'