its deeper and spiritual diseases the remedial attention which he confined to its discipline and its ceremonies.

The character of Gregory was distinguished by the fervour of his charity; the virtue which surrounded his palace with crowds of sufferers of every rank and profession, and distributed for their relief* the funds, which with little scandal might have been lavished on selfish purposes, has never been disputed, and ought never to have been disparaged. Nor was he contented to exercise this alone, but strove, on the contrary, to extend its practice by powerful exhortations among his episcopal brethren- Let not the Bishop think that reading and preaching alone suffice, or studiously to maintain himself in retirement, while the hand which enriches and fructifies is closed. But let his hand be bountiful; let him make advances to those who are in necessity; let him consider the wants of others as his own; for without these qualities the name of Bishop is a vain and empty titlet. We should also remark, that this Pope exerted himself on more than one occasion to redeem Christian prisoners from captivity, and to alleviate their sufferings during it.

He was diligent in his efforts to propagate the Catholic faith. His most important spiritual conquest was that of England; and if it be a reproach to him that he there permitted the first converts to retain, under other names, the substance of some of their superstitious practices, in France, where the longer and more general diffusion of the religion left less excuse for such a concession, he zealously endeavoured to extirpate the remains of idolatry§. The conversion of the Jews was another favourite object with him; and in one respect he adopted the most promising means for that purpose, by treating them with mildness and humanity; in another he insulted their principles, while he disgraced his own, by the direct offer of gain, as the reward of their apostacy. His zeal for the unity of the Church is a very ambiguous excellence; but it was warmly, and (as Roman Catholic historians assert) successfully exerted, both against the remnant of the Donatists, and against certain schismatics who had seceded from the Church on the controversy respecting the Three Chapters. We may add to this, that his activity in ennobling the services of religion, and adding splendour to its ceremonies, however unworthy a method of recommending a spiritual religion, found some excuse in the degenerate principles of the sixth century.

Through the disturbed condition of Italy, the aggressions of the Lombard invaders, and the weakness of the Imperial power, the direction of

* See Baronius, ann. 591, sect. iii. xxiv. &c.; ann. 592, sect. ii.; ann. 596, sect. viii. Fleury, 1. xxxv. sect. xvi. Gibbon, chap. xlv.

Lib. v., Epist. 29, apud Baron. ann. 592, sect. xvi.

Altaria destruantur, relliquiæ ponantur. He allows even sacrifices on Saints dayssubstituting, however, a convivial, for a superstitious, motive-nec diabolo tam animalia immolent, sed ad laudem Dei in esu suo animalia occidant, &c. Baron. ann. 601. xxii.

Fleury, H. E, lib. xxxv., sect. xxi. He complains of immolations to idols, worship of trees, sacrifices of the heads of animals, &c.-Quia pervenit ad nos quod multi Christianorum et ad Ecclesias occurrant, et (quod dici nefas est) a culturis dæmonum non discedant. See Baron. ann. 597, xviii.

Baron. ann. 594, sect. viii. ann. 598, sect. xiv.

The subject of the fifth General Council. One of these schismatics, named Stephanus, came to Rome, and offered to Gregory to return to the Church, if the Bishop would take upon himself the risk of his soul, and intercede with God as his sponsor and fidejussor, that his return to the Catholic Church should be sanctioned in Heaven; which Gregory undertook without any hesita tion-quod Gregorius minimè facere, cunctatus est, Baronius, ann. 590, sect. xxvi.

the political interests of Rome devolved for the most part upon Gregory. It appears not that he sought that charge, so eagerly grasped by many of his successors, but rather that he entered with reluctance upon duties which, if not at direct variance, were at least little in accordance with a spiritual office. But, having once undertaken them, he discharged them with the ability and in the spirit which became his character and his profession; he presented himself as a mediator and pacificator, and by his faithful ministry to the God of peace*, he succeeded in averting the arms of his enemies, and in preserving his country from servitude.

He professed to reject from the service of religion that profane learning of which his writings prove him to have been ignorant; and hence probably proceeded the charge so commonly believed, though insufficientlyt supported, that he burnt the Palatine Library, and destroyed some of the most valuable remains of classical antiquity. But it is admitted, that he was inferior to none in the learning of his own aget; and his diligence and energy are abundantly attested by the voluminous and even vigorous compositions which he has left behind him§.

Use of

We shall proceed to point out some instances in which] Gregory deviated even farther than his predecessors from that ancient faith and practice of which his See, since it now claimed exclusively the denomination of Apostolical, professed a peculiar Images. observance. Before the end of the sixth century, the dangerous usage which had originated in the fourth, of exposing images of saints, of the virgin, and even of Christ, in places consecrated to worship, had taken deep root, as well in the Western as in the Eastern Church. Serenus, the Bishop of Marseilles, caused some of them to be removed, and complaint was made to Gregory. The Pope at once, and very explicitly, declared, that images should on no account be approached as objects of worship, and strongly exhorted the Bishop to press that consideration on all who might possibly mistake their use which was, when truly understood, to impart knowledge to the ignorant, and learning to the illiterate. At the same time, such being their professed end and purpose, he strenuously opposed their removal. By this determination, he impressed upon a popular corruption that sanction and authority which alone was wanting to make it permanent and universal.

The belief in the fire of Purgatory was seriously inculcated by the same

The following is his boast to Sabinianus, his Apocrisiarius or Envoy at Constantinople. Unum est quod breviter suggeras serenissimis Dominis nostris: quia (that) si ego servus eorum in mortem Longobardorum me miscere voluissem, hodie Longobardorum gens nec regem, nec duces, nec comites habuisset, atque in summa confusione esset divisa. Sed quia Deum timeo, in mortem cujuslibet hominis me miscere formido.' See Baronius (ann. 595, sect. xviii.), who details his various negotiations with the Lombards very accurately.

+ There seems to be no authority for this accusation older than the twelfth century. See Bayle, Vie de Greg. I.

Disciplinis vero liberalibus, hoc est grammatica, rhetorica, dialectica, ita a puero est institutus, ut quamvis eo tempore florerent adhuc Romæ studia literarum, tamen nulli in urbe sua secundus putaretur.' Paul. Diac. Vit. St. Greg. Gibbon, c. xlv.

There are greater remains of the works of Gregory than of any other Pope; and a diligent and judicious study of his Epistles might still throw much new light on the early History of his Church. Baronius attributes the rudeness of his style to the barbarism of the age in which he lived.

We shall treat this and some other of the Roman Catholic corruptions more fully in the thirteenth Chapter.

*

Pontiff; and to him more justly than to any individual, we may attribute the practical system to which that speculative opinion gave birth. He also exalted the merit of pilgrimages to the Holy Places; but the superstition which he most ardently sustained, was, a reverential respect for relics, founded for the most part on their miraculous qualities. The deep and earnest solemnity with which one of the greatest characters of his age and church was not ashamed to enforce so very gross a delusion, cannot so well be depicted to the reader as in his own language.

The Empress Constantina, who was building a Church at Constantinople to St. Paul, made application to Gregory for Reverence for the head of that Apostlet, or at least for some portion Relics. of his body. The Pope begins his answer by a very polite expression of his sorrow that he neither could nor dared to grant that favour; for the bodies of the holy Apostles, Peter and Paul, are so resplendent with miracles and terrific prodigies in their own Churches, that no one can approach them without great awe, even for the purpose of adoring them. When my predecessor, of happy memory, wished to change some silver ornament which was placed over the most holy body of St. Peter, though at the distance of almost fifteen feet, a warning of no small terror appeared to him. Even I myself wished to make some alteration near the most holy body of St. Paul, and it was necessary to dig rather deeply near his tomb. The Superior of the place found some bones which were not at all connected with that tomb; and, having presumed to disturb and remove them to some other place, he was visited by certain fearful apparitions, and died suddenly. My predecessor, of holy memory, also undertook to make some repairs near the tomb of St. Lawrence as they were digging, without knowing precisely where the venerable body was placed, they happened to open his sepulchre. The monks and guardians who were at the work, only because they had seen the body of that martyr, though they did not presume so much as to touch it, all died within ten days; to the end that no man might remain in life who had beheld the body of that just man. Be it then known to you, that it is the custom of the Romans, when they give any relics, not to venture to touch any portion of the body; only they put into a box a piece of linen (called brandeum), which is placed near the holy bodies; then it is withdrawn, and shut up with due veneration in the Church which is to be dedicated, and as many prodigies are then wrought by it as if the bodies themselves had been carried thither; whence it happened, that in the time of St. Leo, (as we learn from our ancestors,) when some Greeks doubted the virtue of such relics, that Pope called for a pair of scissors, and cut the linen, and blood flowed from the incision. And not at Rome only, but throughout the whole of the West, it is held sacrilegious to touch the bodies of the Saints, nor does such temerity ever remain unpunished. For which reason we are much astonished at the custom of the Greeks to take away the bones of the Saints, and we scarcely give credit to it. But what shall I say respecting the bodies of the holy Apostles, when it is a known fact, that at the time of

Baronius, ann. 592, sect. xix.

+ Baronius, who cites the Pope's reply with considerable admiration, attributes the Empress's exorbitant request to Eccelesiastical ambition,-to a desire to exalt the See of Constantinople to a level with that of Rome, by getting into her possession so important a portion of so great an Apostle. Fleury quotes the letter chiefly in proof that the transfer of relics was forbidden in the Roman Church, while that abuse was permitted in the East.

Chap. X.]

A HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

REESE LIBRA

UNIV
OF 53E

SITI

their martyrdom, a number of the faithful came from the East to claim them? But when they had carried them out of the city, to the second milestone, to a place called the Catacombs, the whole multitude was unable to move them farther,-such a tempest of thunder and lightning terrified and dispersed them. The napkin, too, which you wished to be sent at the same time, is with the body, and cannot be touched more than the body can be approached. But that your religious desire may not be wholly frustrated, I will hasten to send to you some part of those chains which St. Paul wore on his neck and hands, if indeed I shall succeed in getting off any filings from them. For since many continually solicit as a blessing that they may carry off from those chains some small portion of their filings, a priest stands by with a file; and sometimes it happens that some portions fall off from the chains instantly, and without delay; while, at other times, the file is long drawn over the chains, and yet nothing is at last scraped off from them.'

The pages of Ecclesiastical History are so full of such idle fables, that the repetition even of the smallest portion of them is a task as tedious as it is unworthy of a reasonable mind; but when such absurdities are propagated and dignified by the pen of Gregory the Great-of him whom the Roman Church reveres almost as the first among her saints, and whose writings for so many centuries directed, and even still direct, the principles of her Ministers-it would be a neglect of historical duty to pass them over in complete silencet.

The public worship of God was still celebrated by every nation in its own language; but its forms were enlarged from time to time by new prayers and offices, as well as hymns and psalmody, and such other additions as were found proper to enliven devotion. Gregory introduced a more imposing method of administering the Communion, with a magnificent assemblage of pompous ceremonies. This institution was called the Canon of the Mass; and such as it appears in the Sacramentaries of

* Eligius or Eloi, Bishop of Noyon (or Limoges), a contemporary of Gregory, and also a Saint, acquired extraordinary celebrity by his ardour in searching after the bodies of martyrs, and his miraculous sagacity in the discovery of them. And as he thus became a person of influence in his day, we may venture to record what, in his opinion, was the sum and substance of true religion. He is a good Christian (says St. Eligius) who goes frequently to church, and makes his oblations at God's altar; who never tastes of his own fruit until he has presented some to God; who, for many days before the solemn festivals, observes strict chastity, though he be married, that he may approach the altar with a safe conscience; lastly, who can repeat the Creed and the Lord's Prayer. Redeem your souls from punishment whilst you have it in your power; offer your free gifts and tithes; contribute towards the luminaries in holy places; repair frequently to church, and humbly implore the protection of the Saints. If you observe these things, you may appear boldly at God's tribunal in the day of judgment, and say-Give, Lord, according as we have given.' The original is quoted by Mosh. Cent. vii., p. ii. c. iii.

The Dialogues of Gregory abound with miraculous narratives; and Fleury excuses this practice by pleading that he had not philosophers for his antagonists, who needed argument for confutation, but that the pagans then to be found were chiefly peasants, serfs, or soldiers, and were more moved by a miraculous story than by the most conclusive syllogism. In process of time, Gregory, from being the relater, rose to be the performer of miracles. About one hundred and eighty years after his death, Paulus Diaconus records, that a Roman lady, on some occasion, receiving the Communion from Gregory, and hearing him say the customary words, could not forbear smiling, when he called that the body of Christ which she had made with her own hands-for at that time the people used to bring to the Communion their own bread, which was a small, round, flat cake. The Pope, perceiving her behaviour, took the bread out of her hands, and, having prayed over it, showed it to her turned into flesh, in the sight of the whole people.

St. Gregory, such, word for word (says Fleury *), we say it still. After regulating the prayers, the Pope descended to the modulation of the chant; and to give some permanency to his success in this matter, he established a school of chanters, which subsisted for at least three centuries after his death.† Other alterations were made by the same pontiff in the distribution of the parishes, the calendar of festivals, the order of processions, the service of the priests and deacons, the variety and change of sacerdotal garments; and as most of them were permanent, we may consider the system properly called Roman Catholic as having assumed its peculiar character at this time. And thus, while the Antiquity of the universal Church may justly be regarded as having ceased at the accession of Constantine, it is not a fanciful position that its Middle Age-that indistinct period, during which the principles that were hereafter to give it a more lasting and definite form were collecting strength, but were not yet developed-was brought to a close by the splendid pontificate of Gregory.

If, then, it be not incorrect to date the modern history of the Catholic Church from this epoch, it will be reasonably inquired Elements of what elements then existed, or, at least, what indications Рарасу. may be discovered, of the monarchical or papal government, which formed the characteristic of the Communion in later ages? We shall, therefore, proceed to point out such of these as were most perceptible during the time of Gregory. We have noticed an early jealousy subsisting between the Sees of Rome and Constantinople, and the sort of superiority which was conferred upon the former by the council of Chalcedon. It appears, too, that St. Leo was addressed by certain oriental correspondents by the title of Ecumenic, or Universal Patriarch, though his immediate successors refrained from adopting that lofty appellation. Matters rested thus till the year 588, when the Emperor Maurice conferred that same title upon his own Patriarch John, commonly called the Faster, an austere and ambitious prelate. Pope Pelagius opposed those pretensions; and, eight years afterwards, the contest was much more vigorously renewed by Gregory. In 595, he addressed five epistles on this subject to John himself, to the Emperor and Empress, and to the

*H. E. lib. xxxvi., s. xix. Fleury describes the alterations of Gregory at length and clearly. The great pains which the Pope took in these matters, and especially in the composition of his celebrated chant, are zealously related by Maimbourg, in his History of the Pontificate of St. Gregory.

Fleury, lib. xxxvi., sect. xxi. In the time of John the Deacon (about 900), the original of his Antiphonarius was preserved with great respect, as well as the couch on which he reposed while chanting, and the whip with which he menaced the children.' Pope Gelasius (says the same historian in sect. xv.) had made a collection of the office of the masses, into which St. Gregory introduced many changes and additions. He collected the whole in one volume, which is his Sacramentarius, for so they formerly called the book which contained the prayers used in the administration of the sacraments, and chiefly of the Eucharist. All that was to be chanted was marked in another volume, called the Antiphonaire, parce que l'on chantoit alternativement; d'où vient le nom d'antiphones ou autiennes (anthems) comme il a été expliqué.'

John the Faster, disputing an unmeaning title with Gregory, is assimilated by Baronius (ann. 595, sect. xxvii.) to the apostate angel rising against the Most High God—a comparison not far removed from blasphemy. In more than thirty sections, which that historian devotes to the subject, he labours to depress the See of Constantinople even below that of Alexandria, and continually advances the obtrusiveness of Rome, as a proof of her rightful authority. However, it is true enough that the power of Rome was now growing real and substantial-a fact much more easily shown than either its antiquity or legitimacy.