Saint Gregory the Great

He founded six monasteries in Sicily, and another in Rome, in his own palace, under the name o f Saint And Saint-André Monastery founded by Gregory in his own palace in Rome. rew (it bears today the name of its saintly founder, and belongs to the Camaldolese; it is from there, says M. de Montalembert, that there emerged, after thirteen centuries, another Gregory, pope and monk, Gregory XVI), in troduced the Rule of règle de saint Benoît Religious order occupying the monastery of Honnecourt. Saint Benedict there, and took the habit himself in 575, under Abbot Valentinus, at the age of thirty-five, after having distributed to the poor what remained of his patrimony. Thus, says his historian, and after him the Count de Montalembert, Rome, which had seen this opulent patrician cross its streets in silk garments, sparkling with precious stones, saw him with much greater admiration, covered in a coarse garment, serving the beggars—a beggar himself—in his palace, which had become a monastery and hospital.

He had kept only one remnant of his former splendor: it was a silver bowl, in which his mother sent him poor vegetables every day for his nourishment. This luxury did not last long. A poor merchant who had, he told our Saint, suffered shipwreck and lost everything, begged him for help. Gregory gave orders to count out six coins for him; but the poor man replying that it was a very small thing, Gregory had as many more given to him. However, the same beggar presented himself again two days later to the Saint, and begged him to have pity on his extreme misery. The man of God, moved by the pressing needs of the poor man, commanded his steward to give him six more coins; but the latter not having counted them, the Saint, whose heart was filled with charity and incapable of refusing anything, gave the beggar the last remnant of his silverware, the bowl of which we have spoken. Following this action, he performed such a great number of miracles that he suspected the shipwrecked man to be some inhabitant of heaven. Indeed, long after, he had a vision of which we shall speak later.

Our Saint devoted himself with such ardor to the reading of the holy books; his vigils and his mortifications were such that his health succumbed, and his very life was compromised. He was forced to take more frequent and substantial nourishment, which distressed him greatly. He was especially inconsolable at not being able to fast even on Holy Saturday, on this day when even little children fast, says Paul the Deacon. Having communicated his sorrow to the pious monk Eleutherius, they both joined their prayers to obtain from God deliverance from such a great misfortune, and they were answered beyond their requests.

Saint Gregory had such an ardent zeal for the salvation of souls that it extended to the whole world. One day he passed through a market where he saw young children of ravishing beauty being offered for sale. Learning that they were English, and that the inhabitants of that country had not yet received the faith of Jesus Christ, he felt such great compassion that he wept, adding these words: "What, must Satan possess the souls of these bodily angels!" He immediately went to find Pope Benedict I and begged him earnestly to give him his apostolic blessing to go and preach the Gospel to these islanders. The Pope granted his request, and the Saint, with some other servants of God, immediately set out on the road for this mission; but when his departure became known in the city, the people murmured so loudly that the Pope, going to the church of Saint Peter, found himself surrounded by a multitude of people who cried: "Holy Father, you have greatly offended Saint Peter; you have lost Rome by allowing Gregory to leave it." So that Benedict was obliged to recall him and have him return to his monastery. The Saint felt extreme regret, and always kept in his soul a great zeal for the conversion of the English. Some time later, he was forced to appear in public and leave his retreat; first, Pope Benedict I, in 577, created him cardinal-deacon or regionary. Those who were invested with this dignity, seven in number, presided over the seven principal regions of Rome. "He yielded only very much against his will to the authority of the Pontiff. When a ship," he said, "is not well moored in the port, the storm carries it away from the very safest shore: here I am plunged back into the Ocean of the world, under an ecclesiastical pretext. I am learning, by losing it, to appreciate the peace of the monastery, which I did not know how to defend enough when I possessed it." It was much worse when Pope Pelagius II sent him as apocrisiarius, or nuncio, to the Emperor Tiberius, to treat of some affairs of great importance, the negotiation of which required a man as holy and as prudent. Seeing himself obliged to leave his monastery, he took with him some of his religious, to continue, in their company, the holy exercises he was accustomed to practice in the cloister. He was received by the Emperor with all the respect imaginable, and obtained the help of his arms for the defense of Italy oppressed by the Lombards: which was the principal motive of his legation. It was on this journey that he contracted a close friendship with Saint Leander, Archbishop of Seville.

He refuted the errors o f Eutyches, P saint Léandre Archbishop of Seville and close friend of Gregory. atriarch of Constantinople, and received his retraction. During these six years, he edified the court of Constantinople by his simplicity and modesty. God delivered him in this city from a dangerous illness and from a shipwreck during his return. He was bringing back a general against the Lombards, Smaragdus, and precious relics for Italy, especially for his monastery, among others the arm of Saint Andrew and the head of Saint Luke, apostles. He was therefore received like an angel from heaven, bringing back peace and happiness to his country. Shortly after (584), the religious of Saint Andrew elected him abbot. He tasted once again for some time in this house the delights of solitude.

"Tenderly cherished by his brothers, he associated himself paternally with their trials, with their interior crosses, provided for their temporal and spiritual necessities, and admired above all the holy death of several of them. He recounted the details of it in his Dialogues, and seems to breathe there in Dialogues Spiritual writings in the form of dialogues. advance the perfume of heaven. But the affectionate kindness that always inspired him did not prevent him from maintaining with scrupulous severity the requirements of the rule. He had the body of a monk who was also a skilled physician thrown into the refuse heap, in whom were found three gold coins, in contempt of the article of the rule which forbade all individual property. The three gold coins were thrown onto the corpse, in the presence of all the religious, who had to repeat aloud the text of the verse: *Pecunia tua tecum sit in perditiamem*: May your money perish with you. Once this justice was accomplished, mercy regained the upper hand in the heart of the abbot, who had Mass celebrated for thirty days in a row, to deliver this poor soul from purgatory."

Saint Gregory tells us that after the Mass of the thirtieth day, the deceased appeared to one of his brothers, and informed him that he had just been delivered from the pains he had been enduring since his death.

Gregory's solicitude soon had to extend beyond the walls of his monastery. Rome was devastated by terrible floods, followed by a greater scourge, the plague, which spread mourning and solitude in almost every home, and deprived the Church of its head. Pope Pelagius died in 590. The clergy, the senate, and the people all asked with one voice that the deacon Gregory succeed him. He was the only one to oppose his election, but in vain. He wrote to the Emperor Maurice to oppose it; Germanu l'empereur Maurice Byzantine emperor reigning at the end of Simeon's life. s, prefect of Rome and brother of our Saint, intercepted the courier, kept the letters, and wrote others in the name of the clergy, the senate, and the people, begging the prince to confirm a choice so just and canonical. Meanwhile, the plague increased and caused such great damage in the city that it seemed God had poured out all His wrath upon the Romans. Saint Gregory exhorted them to do penance and to recognize that this punishment came from heaven because of their sins. He ordered a general procession for three days, where for the first time all the abbots of the monasteries of Rome appeared with their monks, and all the abbesses with their nuns. The image of the Blessed Virgin, painted by Saint Luke, was carried in this solemnity, and it is said that wherever this august figure passed, the corrupted air parted and gave way, and that Saint Gregory saw on the summit of the mausoleum of Emperor Hadrian an angel sheathing his sword. (The image of this angel, standing on this superb monument, caused it to be given the name of Castel Sant'Angelo, and still perpetuates today the vision of Saint Gregory.) O château Saint-Ange Roman fortress renamed after the apparition of the Archangel. ur Saint knew by this that the wrath of the living God was appeased, and that mercy was about to take the place of justice. Indeed, the plague ceased.

Seeing no other way to escape the sovereign pontificate, Gregory fled in disguise. But the sacred Spouse of the Church, who had named him in heaven, had him discovered by means of a column of light, which appeared above him and accompanied him wherever he went. He was taken from a cave where he had hidden, brought to Rome despite all his resistance, and finally crowned in the church of Saint Peter on September 3, in the year of Our Lord 590.

When the news of his exaltation spread throughout Christendom, a great number of letters were written to him to congratulate him. He replied with tears and groans: "I have lost," he wrote to Theoctista, sister of the Emperor, "all the charms of rest. I appear to rise outwardly, I have fallen inwardly... Although I fear nothing for myself, I fear much for those of whom I am in charge... The Emperor (Maurice), in approving my election, did not give me the merit and virtues necessary." To the patrician Narses: "I am so overwhelmed with grief that I can barely speak." He adds that he is always sad, because he sees from what tranquil region he has fallen, and into what abyss of embarrassment. To Andrew, of the rank of the illustrious: "Upon learning of my promotion to the episcopate, weep if you love me, for there are so many temporal occupations here that I find myself by this dignity almost separated from the love of God."

Long after, one day when, more overwhelmed than ever by the weight of secular affairs, he had retired to a secret place to give himself over in a long silence to his sadness, he was joined by the deacon Peter, his pupil, his childhood friend, and the companion of his dear studies. "Has some new sorrow come to you, then," the young man said to him, "that you are thus sadder than usual?" "My sorrow," the Pontiff replied, "is that of all my days, always old by habit and always new by its daily growth. My poor soul remembers what it was formerly in our monastery, when it soared above all that passes, above all that changes; when it thought only of heaven; when it crossed by contemplation the cloister of this body that encloses it; when it loved death in advance as the entrance to life. And now it must, because of my pastoral charge, endure the thousand affairs of the men of the century and soil itself in this dust. And when, after having thus spread itself outwardly, it wants to find its inner retreat again, it returns to it only diminished. I meditate on all that I have lost. Here I am beaten by the ocean and all broken by the storm. When I think of my life in the past, it seems to me that I am looking back toward the shore. And what is saddest is that, thus tossed by the storm, I can barely glimpse the port I have left."

These complaints did not stem solely from his humility; this vast mind saw the full extent of the evil that God had called him to heal. The Church was in the most deplorable state, suffering in Africa from Donatism, in Spain from Arian heresy, in England from idolatry, in Gaul from simony and the crimes of Fredegund and the errors of Brunhild; in Italy from the Lombards, an Arian people and rivals of Byzantine power; in the East, from the arrogance of the patriarchs of Constantinople and the ill will of the emperors, who, no longer able to defend or govern Italy, were jealous to see the Popes fulfill this role. He knew how to steer his ship, thus agitated, with the most rare energy and skill. Romanus, the Exarch of Ravenna, that is to say, the governor of Italy in the name of the Emperor of Constantinople, broke in bad faith a treaty he had made with the Lombards. Immediately, the latter, commanded by their dukes Arnulf and Arigis, invaded central and southern Italy. The Exarch did not protect Rome or Naples, and yet he forbade the Pope to treat with the Lombards, who besieged Rome and spread all around that desolation and sterility that has never been repaired since. Then Gregory multiplied himself: captain, king, pontiff, father of the Romans, he rebuked the Exarch for his bad faith, which drew upon him the anger of the Greek emperor, assembled the troops, paid their wages, provided the barbarians with the contributions they demanded, and fed and consoled his people. Finally, after nine years of effort, he succeeded in concluding a peace between the Lombards and the Greeks, which was soon broken. He then negotiated in his own name and obtained from the King of the Lombards a truce for Rome and its territory. He did more. Theodelinda, wife of Agilulf, who owed him the crown, was a Christian and a faithful friend of the holy Pope: they united their efforts and brought the entire nation of the Lombards back from Arianism to the Catholic faith. Saint Gregory then delivered the Roman territory from all the petty tyrants born of anarchy; and such is the origin of the temporal power of the Popes: "Sole guardians of Rome, they became its masters!". But a yoke much more unbearable than that of the barbarians weighed upon Italy: it was the Greek domination, the Eastern Empire. Gregory worked skillfully and courageously to lighten and soften it; he denounced in a letter to the Empress the frauds and rapine of the imperial officials: in Sardinia, they sold for money to the pagans the right to sacrifice to idols, and continued to levy this tax on those who were baptized; in Corsica, they overwhelmed the poor with such taxes that they were reduced to selling their children to pay, and to seeking refuge with the Lombards. Italy was thus bled under the pretext of defending it. So Gregory dared to say to the Empress: "One could suggest to the Emperor that it would be better to suppress some expenses in Italy, in order to suppress the tears of the oppressed in Sicily". He was no less firm when it came to teaching a lesson of humility to John the Faster, Patriarch of Constantinople, who took in his acts the title of ecume Jean le Jeûneur Patriarch of Constantinople who assumed the title of Ecumenical. nical or universal, a word until then reserved for general councils or representing the whole Church. To call himself thus was to attribute the episcopate to himself alone, and to regard other bishops only as his inferiors, his vicars. John undoubtedly did not give this name such an extensive meaning, but he was wrong to take such a new and ostentatious title, he, the bishop of a see not founded by the Apostles, and which had no other merit than being in the capital of the empire, that is to say, very exposed to becoming too dependent on the imperial court, to falling into domesticity, according to the term of M. de Montalembert. The humility of Saint Gregory provided him with invincible weapons to combat this pretension. He instructed his nuncio in Constantinople to make remonstrances to the patriarch; he wrote to him, he wrote to the emperor: "Understand," he said to John, "what presumption it is to want to be called by a name that no true saint has ever dared to attribute to himself. Do you not know that the Council of Chalcedon offered this honor to the bishops of Rome, by naming them universal? But not one would accept it, for fear that it might seem to attribute the episcopate to himself alone and take it away from all his brothers". In a letter to his nuncio Fabian, he uncovers the artifice of John, who had the emperor write to the Pope for him. "He hopes," he says, "to authorize his vain pretension if I listen to the emperor, or to irritate him against me if I do not listen to him. But I walk the straight path, fearing in this matter only God. Fear nothing either; despise for the sake of truth all that appears great in this world, and, trusting in the grace of God and the help of Saint Peter, act with sovereign authority. Since they cannot defend Italy from the swords of the barbarians, since the Church has been obliged to sacrifice its goods to defend the State, it is too great a shame that they ask us to sacrifice our faith as well".

One will admire this language if one remembers that Gregory was a subject of the Emperor of Constantinople, and that no one would have dared to speak with such noble independence at that time. Writing to the emperor himself: "What," he exclaims, "Saint Peter who received the keys of heaven, the power to bind and to loose, the charge and the primacy of the whole Church, was not called universal apostle, and here is my pious brother John who would like to be named universal bishop? I must indeed write: O times! O customs! All of Europe is at the discretion of the Barbarians. The cities are overturned, the castles in ruins, the provinces depopulated; the earth no longer has arms to cultivate it; the idolaters rage against the faithful unto death, and priests who should be prostrate in the forecourt in tears and ashes seek to make titles of vanity for themselves!". He reminds the emperor that the see of Constantinople was occupied by Nestorius and Macedonius, heretics and heresiarchs. "If therefore," he says, "the one who occupies this see were universal bishop, the whole church would fall with him. As for me, I am the servant of all bishops, as long as they live as bishops; but if anyone raises his head against God and against the law of our Fathers, I hope that he will not make mine bow, even with the sword". He opposed to this dangerous vanity of the bishop of Constantinople something even stronger than his reprimands: it was his own humility. "He had imprinted the seal of this very humility by taking, the first among the Popes, in the heading of his official acts, this beautiful name of servant of the servants of God, which has become the distinctive title of his successors". He rebuked Rusticiana because in the letters she wrote to him, she called herself his servant, and begged her to change her style, because he did not want to be the lord of anyone, but the servant of everyone. It is reported in the Spiritual Meadow that John, Abbot of Persia, a holy man of very great merit, having come to Rome to visit the tombs of the glorious apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul, met Saint Gregory in the street one day, and came to throw himself at his feet: but the holy Pope forestalled him, prostrated himself at the feet of the abbot, and would not consent to rise without the abbot rising as well. To return to John, Patriarch of Constantinople, it is believed that he yielded to the admonitions of the holy Pope, for it is certain that he continued to recognize the authority of the Holy See, and to send back to the Pope the definitive judgment of ecclesiastical causes. In one of these cases, Gregory discovered and demonstrated to John's envoys that the Council of Chalcedon and that of Ephesus were falsified in the church of Constantinople; he therefore recommended that they look for older copies of these councils, and he told them in passing that the truth is preserved much better among the Latins than among the Greeks, for the Latins, who do not have so much wit, use fewer impostures; a solid critique of both history and customs. In another case, he sent back absolved, after having judged him in a council, John, a priest of Chalcedon, against whom an unjust sentence had been pronounced in the name of the Patriarch of Constantinople: previously a monk falsely accused of Manichaeism, and beaten with rods by order of the same patriarch, having appealed to the Pope, the latter had judged him again, quashed the patriarch's sentence, and given the latter a severe reprimand, exhorting him to dismiss a favorite who was abusing his trust, and to ask God for forgiveness; if you refuse, he told him, to keep the canons of the Church, I do not know who you are.

We cannot tire of considering this great Saint, who, at every moment and on all points of the globe, watches, scrutinizes all things, and if he perceives that the freedom of souls, that the honor of God, that the interests of religion and civilization are suffering, he immediately comes to their aid. The emperor and his thousand officials were constantly encroaching on things that our Saint was obliged to defend. In 592, Emperor Maurice forbade, by edict, soldiers from embracing the monastic life. Saint Gregory received this edict like all the patriarchs to notify the bishops of his district. He wrote to the emperor to represent to him that he was waiting for the laws of God and the rights of conscience; he skillfully reminds him of the origin of this power he is abusing, and invites him to think of the last judgment, where Christ will say to him: "I made you from a secretary, count of the guards; from a count, Caesar; from a Caesar, emperor; that is not enough, I made you the father of an emperor. I submitted my priests to your power, and you withdraw your soldiers from my service. Tell me, lord," he continues, "tell your servant what you will be able to answer to Him who, on the day of judgment, will speak to you thus!". The subject remained ever faithful in this great Pope. He gave his remonstrance the name of *supplication*, and he accompanied it with all the obsequious terms then in use: moreover, he dispatched the law, against which he was protesting, to the various provinces. "By this," he said to Maurice, "I have fulfilled my double duty; obeyed the emperor by publishing his edict, and fulfilled my ministry by representing that this edict did not accord at all with the interests of the glory of God". If this reclamation displeased the emperor at first, it nevertheless enlightened him; he moderated the rigor of his law by allowing soldiers to be received into the monastic profession after a novitiate of three years. Saint Gregory announced this and expressed his joy in a letter to the bishops of the empire.

Maurice was, moreover, one of the Greek emperors who had the most respect for the canons; our holy Pope praises his piety and his zeal for the Church. But he was cruelly punished for his avarice. Twelve thousand Greek prisoners, whom he refused to ransom from the Avars, were massacred. He repented of this crime without correcting the vice that was its principle. In 602, he reduced his army to living by pillage in the enemy country during the winter. The troops revolted and placed on the throne an officer named Phocas, who had the emperor s laught Phocas Byzantine emperor who granted the Pantheon to the Pope. ered with his six sons, then his brother, the empress, and his three daughters. This monster, as M. de Montalembert calls him, sent, after this massacre, his image and that of his wife to Rome, where the senate and the people, according to their shameful habit, received them with acclamation. Our Saint is reproached for having associated himself with these acclamations, and for having written to Phocas a letter of congratulation, in which he blames the conduct of Maurice. It is admitted that this is the only stain found on this glorious life; it is recognized, moreover, that the intentions of Saint Gregory were pure, that the terms he uses were in some way the official style of that time for every change of reign. It is admitted that what he blames in Maurice was blameworthy; that, by this blame, he was advising Phocas not to fall into the same faults; that he had to, in the interest of Italy, not irritate the new emperor; that after the customary congratulations, he exhorted him to make justice, peace, and liberty reign among his subjects. With these reservations, we are of the opinion that one should not hold today, and that Saint Gregory would certainly not hold, if he were alive, the same conduct.

While he upheld the integrity of the faith and the freedom of the Church against the Eastern Empire, our Saint did not forget the barbarian peoples who had just invaded almost all of the West and the south of Europe. He made himself their friend, their educator, and their master, in order to civilize them and bring them into the bosom of the Church. We can only sketch these noble enterprises. Virgilius, Bishop of Arles, having written to him—and having had the King of Austrasia, Childebert, write to him—to request the pallium, the Pope granted his request (595), named him his vicar in those regions (without prejudice to the rights of the metropolitans), and begged him to come to an agreement with the king and all the bishops to extirpate two vices that were gnawing at the Gallo-Frankish priesthood: simony and the election of laymen to the episcopate. He wrote several letters to the bishops and the king regarding the former. He said to the young Childebert, to make him understand his role as a Catholic king surrounded by Arians and pagans, and commanding subjects who were still half-barbarous: "As much as royal dignity is above other men, so much does your kingdom surpass the other kingdoms of the nations. It is little to be a king when others are, but it is much to be a Catholic when others have no part in the same honor. As a great lamp shines with all the brilliance of its light in the darkness of a deep night, so does the splendor of your faith radiate in the midst of the voluntary darkness of foreign peoples. Therefore, in order to surpass other men by works as well as by faith, may your Excellence not cease to show mercy toward your subjects. If there are things that offend you, do not punish them without discussion. You will begin to please the King of kings more when, by restraining your authority, you believe you have less right than power." Does this language not appear to be of superhuman light, gentleness, and wisdom, if one considers that we are in the era of Fredegund and Brunhilda, a dark and bloody era where our kings were monsters rather than men? The Popes knew how to see into this chaos and draw from it the most Christian kingdom.

The relations of this father of the Christian family were no less cordial with the Spanish nation. Spain, evangelized from the first centuries, had become Arian with the Visigoths, who had invaded it at the beginning of the 5th century; but the Catholic faith eventually triumphed and even sat upon the throne with Reccared in 587. Saint Leander, Bishop of Seville, was the principal author of this conversion of the Visigoths. Being the intimate friend of our Saint, he and several bishops—and later the king himself—wrote to him to announce this happy news to the Pope; then they asked for his works, especially the Pastoral Rule and the Moralia on Job; they consulted him on embarrassing cases, and they asked for his advice as one would of a director of conscience. "I beseech you, by the grace of God which abounds in you," wrote Licinianus, Bishop of Cartagena, to him, "not to reject my prayer, but to be willing to teach me what I confess I do not know: for what you teach, we are under the necessity of doing." Then, after having exposed the cases for which he desired a solution, he added: "Deign to send us both the work on Job and your other books, of which you speak in your Pastoral, for we are yours, and we love to read what comes from you." King Reccared sent Saint Gregory a gold chalice, adorned with precious stones, begging him in his letter to be willing to offer it to the Prince of the Apostles. "We also pray your Highness," added this prince, "to honor us with your holy letters when you have the opportunity."

"You are not unaware, I think, with what sincerity I love you: those whom distance separates, the grace of Christ unites as if they saw one another. Those who do not contemplate you from up close know by reputation how good you are." The holy Pope, in his response, tenderly thanked the king for his sentiments and congratulated him on having converted the nation of the Goths: he accused himself, through an excess of humility, of being lazy and useless, and trembled at the thought of appearing at the Last Judgment with empty hands, while the king would appear followed by a multitude of new faithful whom he had just drawn to grace. He exhorted him to preserve, in the midst of such a beautiful success, humility of heart and purity of body, for it is written: "Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled"; when, to puff up our spirit, he said, the evil spirit reminds us of the good we have done, let us remember our faults. As for the purity of the body, the Apostle said: "The temple of God is holy, and your body is that temple; a Christian must abstain from fornication and possess his body as a sacred vessel, in holiness and honor, and not in lust. It is also necessary that with regard to your subjects," he continued, "your government be tempered by great moderation, for fear that power might blind the spirit, for a kingdom is well governed when the glory of governing does not dominate the soul. One must also be on guard against anger and not do everything that is permitted too quickly: for anger, even when it punishes the faults of the guilty, must not precede reason, its mistress, but follow it like a servant, and not present itself before it until it receives the order. Indeed, when anger has once taken hold of the soul, one regards as permitted everything one does in cruelty. Thus it is written: let every man be quick to hear, but slow to speak, and slow to anger. I do not doubt that, by the grace of God, you observe all this; but, finding the opportunity to present you with some advice, I furtively associate myself with your good actions, so that henceforth you may no longer be alone in doing them." Such was the influence of this holy Pope; we are certainly not the enemy of any control that moderates the power of kings in its excesses without hindering it in its legitimate exercise: but would they not gain, they and their subjects, to receive even today, like children, heavenly lessons that do not aim to repress acts, but to purify them at their source, in the heart?

This paternal solicitude of our Saint extended even to Africa, where he wrote forty letters, restoring troubled jurisdiction, administering justice, dealing the final blow to the Donatist heresy, and having captives ransomed in the market of Barca, for that was the principal use the Roman Church made of the income from the rich patrimonies it possessed in Africa, Gaul, and Italy. The Church was, as soon as it could be, a proprietor, because there is no better way to have, here below, the independence necessary for a religion that must not be subject to earthly powers. Two things make the properties of the Church the most sacred of all: their origin, which was ordinarily a donation, and their use, which is to succor the poor and help in the propagation of the faith. Always through his instructions, as solid as they were paternal, but also through his charity and his invariable equity, he brought back to Catholic unity almost all the schismatics of Istria. Here are some examples of his admirable conduct. Having learned that two bishops of Istria, Peter and Providentius, desired to come to see him to ask for explanations, if they were promised that no harm would be done to them, he wrote to them in the month of August 595 a letter full of charity: he urged them to come to him with full confidence, they and all who wished, promised to satisfy them fully, and, whether God gave them the grace to reunite with him or they had the misfortune to continue in their dissension, he would send them back home without any harm being done to them. The inhabitants of Como, pressed by Constantius, Bishop of Milan and friend of Saint Gregory, to reunite with the Church, replied that the way they were being treated did not attract them, that several Catholics were unjustly retaining their property, among others the Roman Church, which had usurped a certain land from them. The holy Pope, having been informed of these complaints by Constantius, replied to him: If this land belongs to them, we want it to be returned to them, even if they do not reunite with the Church. Bishop Natalis, to whom Saint Gregory reproached, among other things, his overly sumptuous feasts, tried to justify himself with passages from Scripture such as this: "Let not him who does not eat judge him who eats." Gregory replied: "This passage does not fit at all, for it is not true that I do not eat, and Saint Paul speaks thus only for those who judge others for whom they are not responsible. You suffer with difficulty that I have reproved you for your great meals; and I, who am above you by my position, though not by my morals, am ready to receive correction from everyone, and I count as friends only those whose words make me erase the stains of my soul before the coming of the terrible Judge."

But one of the things where the zeal of Saint Gregory appeared with the most brilliance was the conversion of the English. He chose a religious named Augustine, prior of the monastery of Saint Andrew in Rome, whom he sent to England accompanied by several others. It is believed they were forty; but the demon foresaw the loss he was about to suffer: he put into their minds difficulties that seemed invincible to them; they therefore stopped on the way and sent Saint Augustine to the Sovereign Pont iff to r Augustin Leader of the evangelical mission to England and first Archbishop of Canterbury. epresent to him the motives they had for not going further. The Saint, far from condescending to their weakness and listening to the reasons that pusillanimity had suggested to them, wrote to them in the year 596 the following letter:

"Gregory, bishop, servant of the servants of God, and servant of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

"As it would have been more expedient not to undertake the good than to abandon it after having undertaken it, you must, my dearest brothers, strive to finish, with the grace of God, the good work that you have begun. Do not be frightened by the length of the road or the snares of the wicked; pursue generously and with fervor the design that you have undertaken by the order of God, because assuredly the greatest labors will be rewarded with greater glory in heaven. Obey in all things with humility your superior Augustine, who is returning to you, and whom I have designated to be your abbot, being persuaded that everything you do by his counsel will be profitable to your soul. May God Almighty preserve you and assist you with His grace, and may He give it to me to enjoy in heaven the fruit of your labors, and to participate in the reward that you will receive for them: for, although I cannot go with you, I nevertheless have the will to work as well as you."

Having received this letter, the religious took courage, resolved to go further, and finally arrived happily in England, thanks to the prayers and merits of the one who sent them. They were very well received there, and made Jesus Christ known to Ethelbert, King of Canterbury, and to a great part of his subjects: God blessed their zeal so much that they asked Gregory for new workers, in order to make a more abundant harvest. The Saint received a very great joy from this and sent them other religious to preach the Gospel there. Mellitus, Justus, Paulinus, and Rufinianus were of this number, and carried with them everything necessary for the decoration of the churches: sacred vessels, rich ornaments, precious relics, and books suitable for divine service. He named Augustine archbishop of the island, and sent him the *Pallium*; he ordained twelve suffragan bishops of Canterbury; he did not want the temples of the Gentiles to be torn down, but only that they be purified with holy water and consecrated to the true living God. He recommended to Saint Augustine to introduce the Christian religion into that country little by little, and not to tear out all at once and with violence some customs, even if they were not entirely praiseworthy, provided that they were not found to be absolutely incompatible with religion; to dissimulate and pass over them until this new plant was stronger and capable of embracing entirely all the rigor of ecclesiastical discipline. He also warned him not to be too attached to the customs of the Church, but to take from other Churches what he judged to be the most profitable, according to the disposition and necessity of the country; "because," he said, "one must not love things because of places, but love places for the good things that are in them."

We pass over in silence several other instructions that he gave to this zealous disciple and his companions, to whom God granted the grace of miracles to finish winning this nation to the Christian religion. These incomparable cares of the holy Pontiff earned him the title of *Apostle of England*. For, although this island had previously received the knowledge of Jesus Christ, since the heresy of Pelagius had slipped into it from the time of the great Saint Augustine; nevertheless, as these peoples, who were Britons, had since been subjugated by the English, who gave a new name to the island, they had also changed religion and had fallen back into their ancient idolatry: thus they needed a new apostle. We call Saint Gregory the *Apostle of England*, just as we call Saint Remi the *Apostle of France* in our country, although he is not the first who preached the Gospel.

Saint Augustine rendered an exact account to Saint Gregory of the affairs of his mission, and they wrote to one another; here is what the holy Pope sent him in one of his letters: "I know that God Almighty has done, through your means, great miracles in the midst of this nation that He has chosen; that is why it is necessary that you enjoy this heavenly and fearsome gift modestly, and that you possess it only with fear and trembling; you must rejoice that the soul of the English is drawn by these exterior miracles to interior grace; but you must fear that these prodigies might give you thoughts of presumption, and make you fall into vainglory." And in the Moralia, he says: "The English, who previously knew only a barbarian language, have begun to praise God in the Hebrew language; and the Ocean, which was previously swollen and furious, is now subject and a vassal of the servants of God. The proud peoples, whom the princes of the earth could not tame by arms, have been subjugated by the simple word of priests: and the infidel nation, which did not fear armed squadrons, since it is faithful, trembles at a word from poor and humbled men."

Now that we have attempted to depict the vigilance and sovereign action of Gregory over the principal regions of the world, let us allow Father Giry to recount his virtues and what he did, so to speak, at the very heart of the Church. It is not easy to express on paper the wonders performed by this most worthy Pontiff; whether we consider the order he established in the Church for the reformation of morals and the edification of the faithful; or whether we look at what concerns the assistance of the poor, the consolation of the afflicted, the restoration of ecclesiastical discipline, and the luster and ornament of the Christian religion.

He first established a very fine order in his palace, not unaware that the house of the prince must be a model and an example of virtue for his subjects. He received no seculars there, but only ecclesiastics of recognized piety, goodness, doctrine, and prudence. He also admitted some religious, in order to live himself always as a religious as much as possible. In the collation of benefices, he had no regard for the wealth or poverty of persons, but only for the holiness of life, the excellence of doctrine, and the other qualities required to properly discharge one's duties. Thus, during his pontificate, the arts and sciences, both human and divine, were in such great repute in Rome that many patricians laid down the sword to devote themselves to study. He assembled a council, where many abuses were cut away, and several salutary and advantageous things were usefully established for the service of God and the edification of the faithful. He took particular care of the divine office and the ecclesiastical ceremonies that must be observed therein, and regulated the antiphons, prayers, epistles, and gospels that are said during the course of the year at Mass, as can be seen in his Antiphonary and his Sacramentary.

It was, according to some, this great Pope who instituted the great litanies, or (which is more certain) who ordered that the general procession, which was already being held while chanting the litanies, be led to Saint Peter's, as we learn from himself, at the beginning of the second book of the Register, cited by Cardinal Baronius in his Remarks on the Martyrology, on April 25, where he speaks of the institution of this ceremony. He also increased the principal stations of Rome, and reformed the ecclesiastical chant, which is still called today, because of this, Gregorian chant. For this purpose, he had two houses built: one near Saint John Lateran, and the other near Saint Peter's, to instru ct children de chant Grégoire Liturgical tradition carefully maintained by the Pope. stined for the choir; his zeal for the service of God was so ardent that, even in the greatest pains of the gout, with which he was extremely afflicted, he had himself carried to the house where his students were, and taught them, lying on a small bed, holding a small rod in his hand to correct those who erred: humility worthy of the Vicar of Jesus Christ, who so strongly recommended to us the practice of this virtue. The deacon John, who was the first to write this history, reports that, in his time, they still showed with devotion the bed on which the Saint had himself carried, and the switch he used to correct these young children. God approved by miracles the great zeal of this holy Pope for the worship of Religion.

One day, wishing to consecrate the church of Saint Agnes to the use of Catholics, which had been profaned by the Arians, and to do so with greater solemnity, he carried the relics of Saint Sebastian and of that Saint in procession, and placed them himself under the altar; while he was chanting the Mass there, an unclean animal came out, it is said, from the church, rumbling and making a great noise: which led to the belief that the demon, who had established his dwelling there, was forced to flee in the presence of the holy relics. Several lamps in this church lit themselves, without anyone touching them. A very bright cloud illuminated the entire altar, and a very pleasant odor spread throughout the church; although this church was open, no one dared to enter, so much had this miraculous meteor impressed respect and reverence in the hearts of the faithful.

Another miracle also occurred for the confirmation of the truth of the Eucharist. Our Saint was one day celebrating the holy sacrifice of the Redemption; the woman who had offered the bread to be consecrated approached to receive communion; but when he uttered these words: "May the body of Our Lord Jesus Christ preserve your soul for eternal life," he noticed that this woman was smiling; he deprived her of communion, returned the Blessed Sacrament to the altar, and finished the Mass; after which he commanded the woman to declare, in the presence of all the people, why she had committed the irreverence of laughing while on the point of receiving the body of Jesus Christ; she replied, after several instances, that it was because he had said that this bread, which she had kneaded with her own hands, was the body of Jesus Christ. The Saint, hearing this, knelt at the foot of the altar and began prayers with the people, conjuring the Father of lights to enlighten the soul of this poor incredulous woman. And immediately the species changed into flesh; Gregory had it shown to all those present and to this unfaithful woman, who was converted by this miracle; and the Saint having made a second prayer, the host resumed its original appearance. These wonders served not a little to confirm the Christians in the faith of the real presence of Jesus Christ in the holy Eucharist.

At this same time, ambassadors being in Rome, the supplement of sharing some relics with them, in order to honor their churches; the holy Pontiff took a white cloth, had it touch the bodies of the Saints, and, having put it in a box, according to a custom of that time, he sealed it with much reverence and gave it to the ambassadors to take to their country. When they were on their way back, curious to know what they were carrying, they found only the cloth, without any relic. Greatly astonished, they returned to Rome and complained to the Pope that he had deceived them by giving them a rag instead of the bones of the Saints. The holy Father took the cloth and placed it on the altar, and, having knelt, prayed to the divine Goodness to show what was contained in this cloth, in order to instruct the faithful with what reverence and faith they must receive all that is given as a relic by the Holy See; then he rose, and, in the presence of the ambassadors, pierced the cloth with a knife, and blood immediately flowed from it in abundance; the ambassadors, confused, took back this sacred cloth, with the box, and went away to their country with all possible satisfaction.

This custom of sending cloth that had rested on the sacred relics, or touched the holy bodies, was then very practiced in Rome, as we see in the response that our Saint made to the Empress Constantina. She had asked him for the head of Saint Paul, to place it in a magnificent church she was building in Constantinople, under the name of this Apostle of the Gentiles; Saint Gregory replied to her that the sovereign Pontiffs were not accustomed to giving the relics of holy bodies, nor even to touching them, except with great respect; but that, instead of relics, they sent a band, or a cloth, through which the hand of God worked wonders. He sent her, as a rare gift, filings from the chains of Saint Paul, as can be seen in his epistle, which is well worth reading, to learn with what veneration one must touch holy relics.

His vigilance did not concern only the external service and ornament of the Church; it extended no less to the living temples of God, which are the faithful, taking care at once of the spiritual and temporal needs of his flock. His charity toward the poor was according to the heart of Jesus Christ: thus it was rewarded by considerable favors. As it was his custom to have some beggars eat at his table, one day he wished, out of humility, to give a poor pilgrim something to wash with himself: but while he took the ewer and the basin, the poor man fainted, and, the following night, Our Lord appeared to him and said: "You usually receive me in my members, but you received me yesterday in my own person!" Another time, he had ordered an almoner to bring twelve poor people to dinner; when he sat down at the table, he found thirteen: he wanted to know why the number he had prescribed had been exceeded; the almoner replied that he had only brought twelve, and that there were no more: in fact, this man saw only twelve. The Saint saw well that there was some mystery in this, and, casting his eyes on the thirteenth, he considered him attentively, and noticed that he had changed his appearance several times during the meal, having appeared young at the beginning, and appearing at the end like a venerable old man. After dinner, he took him aside and conjured him to tell him his name and who he was. He replied: "Why do you want to know my name, which is admirable? I am, not to hide it from you, that unfortunate merchant to whom you had twelve crowns of alms given and your mother's silver bowl. Believe assuredly that it is for this good work that God willed that you should be the successor of Saint Peter, and that what he had determined from all eternity should be executed in you. As you are a faithful imitator of Peter, and you have as much care for the poor, he has had a particular care for you." "How do you know that?" Saint Gregory said to him. "Because I am," the poor man replied, "the very angel that God had sent to test you." At these words, Saint Gregory was extremely surprised; but the angel said to him: "Do not fear, Gregory, the God of heaven has sent me to you to assist you and guard you until the end, and to grant you, through his ministry, all that you will ask of him." Then the holy Prelate prostrated himself with his face to the ground, saying with fear and reverence: "If God has made me pastor of his Church for so little, I can well hope for more from his liberal hand, if I serve him with great affection and if I share with the poor all that is his." This vision wonderfully increased the zeal he had to help the needy; there was no church, nor monastery, nor hospital, nor house of devotion, that did not feel his liberality. He had written in a book the names of the poor who were in Rome, in the suburbs, and in the surrounding places, and he gave them alms according to their quality and their necessity. He sent every day some dish from his table to the sick and the ashamed poor. Having learned that a poor man had been found dead in a village far from the city, he was so saddened that, fearing that this man had died of hunger or some other hardship through his fault, he remained, as penance, several days without saying Mass.

His charity spread throughout Italy and even to the most distant provinces of the Church's domain: for the receivers who were established there on his behalf had the charge of distributing to the poor what he prescribed to them; and he put such good order into it that those who take the trouble to read his epistles on this subject will be delighted: he says very beautiful and very touching things about almsgiving. He maintained, in the city of Rome, three thousand nuns. He said of these holy girls that one had great obligations to their tears and their prayers, and that it was they who, by their credit with God, had turned away the arms of the Lombards.

He sent to Jerusalem an abbot named Probus, with a notable sum of money, to have a hospital built there, which he always maintained, during his life, with everything necessary. He also took care to provide, every year, food and clothing to the religious of Mount Sinai, one of whom, named Palladius, was superior.

His zeal for the glory of the Church led him to keep a watchful eye on bishops and other prelates, inquiring exactly into their conduct, and generously rebuking them when they failed in their duty. He wrote to a bishop who neglected the poor: "Know that it is not enough, to render a faithful account to God, to be withdrawn, studious, and given to prayer, if your works are not profitable to your diocesans, if you do not have an open hand to provide for the necessities of the poor; a prelate must regard the poverty of others as his own: it is in vain that you bear the name of bishop if you do otherwise."

He ordered that only ecclesiastics should have the administration of churches and their income, and that the same person could not hold several offices; so that, according to the doctrine of the Apostle, each member of the ecclesiastical body might have his own office, and that each might serve God in one and the same spirit.

He forbade giving the management of monasteries to ecclesiastics, saying that this was the way to ruin them. He did not want them, nor the religious, to intercede easily with judges for evildoers; but, if they did so, that it should be with great prudence, so that their reputation would lose nothing of its luster, and that one could not imagine that the Church favored crimes and delayed the execution of justice. He severely rebuked simoniacal bishops and laymen who ascended to bishoprics without having passed through the other degrees of the Church. He was an enemy of gifts; he had those returned that had been sent to him and had money sent back even to those who had given it to him. He rebuked Januarius, bishop of Cagliari, for having excommunicated a man for some injury he had received from him; he said that a bishop should not excommunicate anyone for his own private interest, nor employ to avenge himself an authority he has only for the general good of the Church. Didier, Archbishop of Vienne, had asked him for the Pallium: the holy Pope wrote to him not to explain poets or other profane authors to the public, because that was not at all suitable for his age or his dignity.

He did not allow bishops to reside outside their dioceses, unless necessity demanded it, and even then only for a short time. Nor did he approve of them involving themselves in worldly affairs that did not concern the functions of their office. He watched with extreme care that nuns kept their vow in all its purity: that is why he strongly blamed Vitalian, Bishop of Manfredonia, for having allowed a nun to leave the habit and return to the world; and he reprimanded Romanus, Exarch of Italy, for having consented to the marriage of some nuns, threatening him with the wrath of God if he did not do penance for it. He also warned Venantius, who had left the religious habit, that, if Ananias and Sapphira had died at the feet of Saint Peter for having withheld and concealed part of the money they had received from their inheritance consecrated to God, he could, with much more reason, fear the rigor of His justice, for having stolen from Him, not money, but himself and what he had promised Him when he had consecrated himself entirely to His service. He could not suffer ecclesiastics to do anything against the holiness of their character. He wrote to Andrew, Bishop of Taranto, who was accused of having fallen into a grave fault against Christian morals, that, if he felt guilty, he should resign his bishopric, because, although men could not convict him of this sin, he could not hide it from God nor avoid the rigors of His justice.

Saint Gregory preached to his people himself, and, when illness or some legitimate impediment deprived him of this consolation, he composed sermons and homilies, and had them pronounced in public by someone else. Finally, he was so careful, so vigilant, and so indefatigable in discharging the office of a good shepherd, that it seems almost impossible that one man alone could have done so many and such different things at once: procuring peace through his mediation, thinking of war, regulating ecclesiastics and laymen, dealing with God in prayer, and with men in conversation, applying himself to the government of the spiritual and temporal affairs of the Church, preaching so often, dictating such admirable letters to so many people of various conditions; in a word, composing the beautiful works that remain to us of him. Thus the Church, during his life, extended its branches in various places, and, to use the terms of the Prophet: "The vine of the great God of hosts covered almost the whole earth"; several holy personages flourished and shone with miracles during his pontificate, as we can learn from what he says about them himself in his Dialogues. His firmness in defending the purity of morals often put his life in danger. He excommunicated a Roman knight who, having fallen into adultery, had repudiated his legitimate wife. This wretch, wanting to take revenge on him, had recourse to magicians; for the execution of this design, they promised him that on a day when the Saint would go to the city, they would make an evil spirit enter the body of his horse, so that the latter, having thrown him to the ground, would trample on his stomach and take his life. This detestable design was executed in the manner it had been planned: a demon seized the horse and made it perform such strange leaps that it could not be stopped by those who were near the Holy Father; but Gregory, discovering, by divine inspiration, the source of the evil, made the sign of the cross and drove the demon out of the body of his horse. The magicians, in punishment for their malice, lost their bodily sight; but this accident opened the eyes of their soul, and, making them know the enormity of their crime, they renounced all commerce with the demon, and asked for baptism. The holy Pontiff gave it to them, without, however, restoring their sight, for fear that they might return to their sorcery and the reading of books of enchantments and magic; preferring to have them maintained at the expense of the Church rather than to give them a reason to lose themselves.

As we have already said, Gregory joined to a great courage for the defense of the interests of God, such a profound humility and such a marvelous sweetness, that it is a prodigy to see so well united together, in one and the same person, two things so different: the firmness and constancy of a sovereign Pontiff in supporting and preserving the rights of the Holy See, with the humility of a simple individual who considered himself the last of men. It was a wonder worthy of the eyes of God, to see him now giving laws, and commanding priests, magistrates, and even princes to keep them, and that, with such authority, that he deprived them of their dignities if they did not obey; and now humbling and lowering himself as if he were the least of all and the most unworthy of honor. For, as he says himself, superiors should not let themselves be blinded by their power, but consider that they have a human nature common with their inferiors; and, instead of rejoicing to see themselves as the superiors of men, they should take pleasure in being able to be useful to them through the functions of their office.

Saint Gregory's humility made him call priests his brothers, other ecclesiastics his dearest children, and laymen his lords; and, although he was the sovereign Pontiff, the pastor and universal patriarch of the whole Church, he did not want to suffer, however, as we have said, that one should give him this title, but he took only the quality of Servant of the servants of God, which he used in his apostolic letters, and, since then, all the other popes have followed this beautiful example of modesty. In a letter he wrote to Gregoria, a lady-in-waiting to the empress, he speaks to her in these terms: "As for what you threaten me with, that you will always be importunate to me until I write to you that God has revealed to me that He has forgiven your sins, you ask me for a difficult and useless thing; difficult, because I am not worthy to have revelations; useless, because you should not be assured of the forgiveness of your sins until the last breath of your life, when you can no longer weep for them; as long as that hour is slow to come, always be in fear and apprehension for your faults: wash them every day with your tears." Writing to Stephen, a bishop, he says: "You show by your letters that you have much esteem for me, and more than I deserve; the Wise Man warns us not to praise a man during his life; however, although I am not worthy to hear the things you say about me, I beg you to make me worthy of them by your prayers, so that having said of me the good that is not, it may be in me in the future, because you have said it to me."

From this humility was born the contempt he had for himself. He speaks in these terms to the Emperor Maurice, in a letter he wrote to him at the height of his persecution: "I am a great sinner; but if I continually offend my God, I hope that on the day of His fearful judgment, He will forgive me my sins, for which I am afflicted in this life; and I believe, O Emperor, that you appease divine justice by persecuting me as you do, since I am only a cowardly and lazy servant." From this same humility proceeded a great detachment from all the things of the earth, for, although he possessed many goods, his heart was not at all attached to them. A hermit, who had remained for a long time in the deserts, in perpetual prayer and penance, had prayed to Our Lord to let him know the reward he could hope for having abandoned all the comforts of this life, in order to serve Him in such strict poverty; he heard a voice during his sleep: this voice told him that he could hope for the same price that was due to the poverty of Pope Gregory. The solitary was extremely saddened by this answer, fearing that his poverty was not pleasing to God, since He promised no other reward than that which He gave to a man raised to the first dignity of the world, and who possessed immense treasures; he complained about it for several days, which he spent in sighs and groans, until God taught him, by a second oracle, that it was not the possession of goods that made the rich, but the covetousness alone, and that thus he should not prefer his poverty to the riches of Gregory, since he loved his cat more than Gregory had affection for all the goods and treasures he possessed; for Gregory, instead of loving them, despised them and liberally shared them with the poor.

His patience did not appear with less brilliance than his humility; it was a thing worthy of admiration to see how he suffered the public calamities that happened in his time, the bloody war that the Lombards waged against the Romans, the persecutions and ill-treatment of his enemies, and the painful illnesses with which he was attacked. Here is what he says about it in his epistles: "It has been almost two years that I have been on a bed, tormented by such great pains of gout, that I can hardly get up on feast days to celebrate Mass; I am no sooner up than the violence of the pain makes me return to bed, and presses me in such a way that it makes me sigh. Although this pain is more or less bearable, it is never so small that it leaves me entirely, nor so acute that it makes me die completely; thus, dying every day, I cannot cease to live. I am not surprised that being such a great sinner, God keeps me so long in prison." He says in another epistle: "I beg you not to cease to pray for me, who am a poor sinner; because the pain that I suffer in my body, and the bitterness with which my heart is filled in seeing the desolation and the ravage caused by the barbarians, afflict me extremely; it is not that in the midst of so many evils I seek a temporal consolation, I only ask for the eternal; but as I cannot obtain it by myself from my sovereign Lord, I expect it only by means of your prayers."

We learn, in his other epistles, that he was so undermined by illnesses that he had a body as attenuated and as dry as if he had already been in the tomb; nothing was capable of consoling him but the desire and the hope of dying soon. He conjured all his friends to pray for him, in order to obtain for him patience and constancy in his sufferings, "for fear that my faults," he said, "which could be healed by pains, might be renewed by my complaints." Finally, when he was purified by so many trials, it pleased God, who gives reward to just souls, to satisfy his desires and to deliver his beautiful soul, to give him the crown of glory that he had so well deserved by his heroic virtues. He had governed the Apostolic See for thirteen years, six months, and some days. He died in the year 604, the second year of the empire of Phocas, on March 12, the day on which the Church celebrates his feast, and was buried in the church of Saint Peter.

The Doctors of the Church, who succeeded him, have given him magnificent praises: they call him "a man of very great erudition, the prince of theologians, the light of philosophers, the splendor of orators, the mirror of holiness, the organ of the Holy Spirit." Saint Ildefonsus, Archbishop of Toledo, speaks of him in these terms: "He was so endowed with the merits of all the ancients, that we find nothing similar to him in antiquity: he surpassed Anthony in holiness, Cyprian in eloquence, Augustine in science, etc." Saint Isidore writes that not one of the Doctors of his time, nor of the ancients, could enter into comparison with him. And the eighth council of Toledo says that, in moral matters, Saint Gregory should be preferred to almost all the Doctors of the Church.

The persecutions against this holy Pope did not end at his death: God wanted to make his holiness more brilliant and more famous by the miracles that would be done on this subject. Indeed, one day the people, in a time of famine, addressed themselves to Pope Sabinian, to point out to him the care and charity that Saint Gregory, his predecessor, had shown in similar calamities, hoping to lead him, by that, to help them; this Pope, feeling stung by this tacit reproach, gave orders to flatterers to publish that Gregory had been a vain and prodigal man, and that, by his bad administration, the Church was so exhausted of finances that it could not suffice for this extreme necessity. This unjust complaint went so far that they began to gather all the books of the Saint to burn them; some were even burned, according to John the Deacon, or else they were close to being burned, according to Cardinal Baronius. Those that we have were preserved by the industry of Peter, a deacon, who had been very familiar with the holy Pontiff; it is he whom Saint Gregory introduces, discoursing, in his Dialogues. This holy deacon, seeing the unjust design of Sabinian, assured that he had often perceived the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, on the head of Saint Gregory, when he was writing, and that it was committing a horrible crime against heaven and a sacrilege against the spirit of God, to want to burn books that had been composed under his inspiration; and, to convince them that he was telling the truth, he added that he was ready to maintain and confirm his deposition by a solemn oath in the presence of everyone; that, if he died after having sworn, they should believe that he had told them the truth, and preserve with veneration the books of this great Pope; but that, if he did not die, they would hold him for a liar, and he would be the first to burn the books. His proposal was accepted: Peter affirmed, by oath, what he had advanced, and died as he had said, while finishing his oath. Everyone was extremely frightened by this prodigy, and since then, they had all the possible veneration for the one whom God had justified by such an evident miracle. That is why painters represent a white dove near the ear of our holy Pope, to signify to us that the Holy Spirit is the author of what he writes.

Several other miracles were performed by the merits of this great servant of God, particularly against persons who profaned his monastery by their disorderly life, who spent uselessly, or managed badly its income, who took from the poor what he had left them, or who committed some other actions against the respect and veneration that one owed to his memory.

Besides the dove, of which we have just spoken, one gives, in the arts, a great number of other attributes to Saint Gregory. Few lives offer such grandiose scenes: Such is that of the procession he made to obtain from heaven the cessation of the plague in Rome; in the air, above the Mole of Hadrian which will from then on take the name of Castel Sant'Angelo, appears an angel, who puts the sword back into the sheath and various spirits sing in the air. One can include in this scene the image of Our Lady that the holy Pope had carried in this procession and which is still honored today at Saint Mary Major. — The song of the angels was this: Rejoice, Queen of heaven, *Regina cæli lætare*, alleluia. The Pope completed the antiphon by adding these words that end it today: *Ora pro nobis Deum*; pray to God for us: the artist will therefore be able to write these words characteristic of the Saint, either on a cartouche or on a banner.

Saint Gregory the Great has also received as an attribute a church in his hand, either to recall that he was the support of the Church, or to designate him as the founder of monasteries.

The Mass called of Saint Gregory is famous: We describe the scene that these words recall, according to an old woodcut, prior to the 15th century. Saint Gregory wearing the chasuble is kneeling on the step of the altar, between a deacon and a subdeacon, who carry a torch. The chalice is in the middle of the altar on a spread corporal; the book is open on the side of the Gospel and towards the opposite corner is seen the papal tiara. The accessories recall the various circumstances and instruments of the passion, which is represented there with infinite details. But what is the meaning of all this ensemble in which Saint Gregory figures?

We have told that Saint Gregory having recognized that a woman did not believe in the real presence, he obtained a miracle to convince her and revive the faith of the people: the consecrated host appeared on the corporal in the form of flesh, visible to all those present. Is this fact the first idea of the engraving in question? The thing seems probable to us.

Old prayer books add to this painting, which they often reproduce, seven prayers in honor of the Passion, entitled: Prayers of Saint Gregory. The indulgences mentioned following them have undoubtedly made the fortune of these prayers and the prayers have given vogue to the image.

This painting can also recall the considerable part that Saint Gregory took in the drafting of the Roman missal and the liturgy of the Eucharist.

Whatever the true meaning of the painting called the Mass of Saint Gregory, it has so become his attribute that the pawnshops of Italy had taken it for a sign, undoubtedly because of the memory of the great alms of the holy Pope, and that the Franciscans had adopted it as the seal of their province of the Philippine Islands, whose title was province of Saint Gregory.

One also places near him papers or books of musical notation to show that he fixed the bases of the liturgy and regulated the ecclesiastical chant. Everyone knows that one calls Gregorian chant the system of tonalities and modulations that dominate in the music of the Church.

Saint Gregory is the patron of Granada, of Peters-Hausen and of Catholic England. He is also the patron of cantors and choir students.

The Council of Clovesho, held in 747 under Archbishop Cuthbert, ordered all the monasteries of England to celebrate the day on which the Church honors Saint Gregory. The feast became of obligation for the whole kingdom, by virtue of an ordinance passed in 1222 by the Council of Oxford, and this ordinance was observed until the so-called reformation.

Here are some notes on the state of his cult and his relics in the dioceses of Autun, Sens and elsewhere.

## RELICS AND WRITINGS OF SAINT GREGORY THE GREAT.

In the year 826, a part of the body of our holy Pontiff was brought to France, with relics of Saint Sebastian, to the famous monastery of Saint-Médard de Soissons, which he called, during his lifetime, the Father of monasteries. His precious ashes still rested there in the 18th century, in a shrine above the high altar.

The abbey of Saint-Pierre-le-Vif, in Sens, possessed his head, which was given to Archbishop Angésille, by the favor of the most Christian king Charles the Bald. Urban VIII, in the year 1628, asked for a fragment for Rome, so that this famous city, which had been the theater of the beautiful actions of this great Pope, would not be entirely deprived of his precious remains. Thus Saint Gregory, who, during his life, had spoken with so much honor of France, even to raising its kings above other kings, as much as the latter are raised above their subjects, has finally come himself to honor it with his presence by his holy relics.

## I. Current state of the cult of Saint Gregory the Great in Sens.

Since the restoration of the cult in Sens, in 1852, Saint Gregory has been returned to his old place of March 12, where he had always been in Sens until 1702, when he was moved to September 3.

The current legend is no long er a Sens Archiepiscopal see occupied by Saint Aldric. nything but that of the Roman.

The old one mentioned the gift of the head of Saint Gregory to Sens in 876, preserved until 1793 at Saint-Pierre-le-Vif, and the possession of gold in the Treasury of the Metropolis.

## II. Relics of Saint Gregory the Great in Sens.

According to the new description of the Treasury of the Metropolitan and Primatial Church, in-8°, Jentain printing house, in Sens, around 1844, anonymous, but nevertheless official, and which I believe is by M. the Abbé Carlier, canon-treasurer;

The Treasury of Sens possesses 4th page 8: A vertebra of Saint Gregory the Great; 2nd page 14: Glass reliquary; four fragments of the head of Saint Gregory the Great, given by Pope John VIII in 876.

"Various parcels of the head of Saint Gregory were given at different times and to different churches; among others to the Roman Church, where the memory of the gift made by John VIII had been preserved *in Vaticanum*, and which had the apostolic nuncio ask for a fragment of the said head on behalf of Urban VIII, from Octave de Bellegarde, then Archbishop of Sens. 1628".

In 1569, Saint-Germain-d'Auxerre possessed gold.

Page 9. Saints Sancius, Beata, Gervasius, Protasius, Simeon the Just, Blaise, Augustine, martyrs. Page 10. Saint Thomas of Canterbury (ornament). Page 11. Saint Paula, Roman lady. Page 13. The forty martyrs of Sebaste. Page 14. Saints Ursicinus, Ambrose, Agricius, Leo of Sens. Page 15. Saint Victorinus of Sens. Page 18. Autograph letter of Saint Vincent de Paul, armchair and comb of Saint Lupus, etc., etc. (The comb of Saint Lupus was used, on October 28, 1862, at the coronation of Mgr Bravard, Bishop of Coutances.) The inventories of the Treasury and of the relics of Sens, since 1200, official and unofficial, could amount to the number of twenty. It would be desirable that copies be made of them which would be gathered in a beautiful folio volume, gilded on the edge, which would be kept in the Treasury.

## Parishes of Sens.

1. Saint-Pierre-le-Rond (relics)? 2. Saint-Maurice. Famous relics of saints Fort, Guinafort, Aveline (pilgrimage). 3. Saint-Pregte? 4. Saint-Savinien *intra muros*.

Saint-Savinien *extra muros*, now Good Shepherd. Relics of Saint Theodochilea, daughter of Clovis, founder of Saint-Pierre-le-Vif, in 509; vault or crypt of Saint Savinien, altar still stained with his blood, four famous inscriptions in social letters.

Saint-Bidier. Relic and pilgrimage of Saint Mâthie of Troyes.

NOTE. The notice analyzed, page 2, does not speak of the body of Saint Romanus, famous foster father of Saint Benedict, whose monks of Monte Cassino asked for relics from Sens, a few years ago, and which is in the Treasury.

In 1164, Pope Alexander III, who spent eighteen months in Sens, made a solemn visit to the relics of the metropolis, and, in memory of the benevolent hospitality he had received, ordered that they all be exposed and venerated, every year, at Quasimodo, and granted indulgences in perpetuity.

This pious and glorious exposition took place every year until 1793: it is mentioned in the historical calendars of all the parish books.

It had been imitated by the other parishes, and the Works Board was called for this reason *Bureau of Relics*.

Auxerre is extremely rich in relics. The catacombs of the church of Saint-Germain contain sixty holy bodies. MM. Thomas, dean of Chablis, and Labosse, parish priest of Carisey, also have private collections of very precious relics.

1° A garden of seventeen acres, with the walls with which it was enclosed in 1112, by Abbot Arnoul. This abbot, an admirable figure of the Middle Ages, made the catalog of the library of Saint-Pierre-le-Vif; he cut the parchment himself for the copyist monks.

This garden contains the well called of Saint Petronilla, built of cut stone inside; it is attributed to Oderan, monk, artist, sculptor, historian, painter, musician, who died in Sens in 1040. This well never runs dry.

2° Audience chamber of the former bailiwick of Saint-Pierre-le-Vif. 3° Building of the former farmyard. 4° Old garden of the abbot, separated by a wall, belongs to a private individual. 5° The church of Saint-Pierre-le-Vif was bought, then demolished, by Loménie, of Brienne, archbishop who became the first bishop of the Yonne.

The old church of Saint-Savinien *extra muros*, contiguous to Saint-Pierre-le-Vif, bought and preserved by pious faithful, then given by them to the archbishops in charge of conservation and maintenance, was ceded to the nuns of the Good Shepherd of Angers, who bought Saint-Pierre-le-Vif, and founded there a house of education and refuge.

6° Place Saint-Pierre-le-Vif; public square, opposite the Good Shepherd. 7° Finage called of Saint-Pierre-le-Vif. 8° Some sandstone boundary stones, with two keys sculpted, having served formerly for the properties of the monks, and now private boundary stones. 9° Some precious books and manuscripts in the libraries of Sens and Auxerre.

*Pedes sanctorum morum servabit, Et impit in tenebris canticescent*.