The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I

by T. W. Allies

But there was no one in the eastern Church—neither the emperor Mauritius, nor the patriarch John the Faster, nor the patriarch Eulogius—who failed to acknowledge the Pope's charge over the whole Church, grounded on the three texts to Peter. Gregory himself reprehends the patriarch Eulogius for giving him in the superscription of his letter the title "universal Pope". He chose for himself, in opposition to the bishop John's arrogated title of ecumenical patriarch, that of "servant of the servants of God". The title chosen indicated the temper in which St. Gregory exercised the vast charge which he had inherited. For if there is any one principle which seems to serve as the favourite maxim of his whole pontificate, it is that expressed in a letter to the bishop of Syracuse. That bishop had been speaking of an African primate who had professed that he was subject to the Apostolic See. St. Gregory's comment is: "If a bishop is in any fault, I know not any bishop who is not subject to it. But when no fault requires it, all are equal according to the estimation of humility."[196] Natalis, archbishop of Salona, in Dalmatia, had given the Pope much trouble. The Pope deals with him tenderly in more than one letter. But he says: "After the letters of my predecessor (Pelagius) and my own, in the matter of Honoratus the archdeacon, were sent to your Holiness, in despite of the sentence of us both, the above-mentioned Honoratus was deprived of his rank. Had either of the four patriarchs done this, so great an act of contumacy could not have been passed over without the most grievous scandal. However, as your brotherhood has since returned to your duty, I take notice neither of the injury done to me, nor of that to my predecessor."[197]

Of the immense energy shown by St. Gregory in the exercise of his Principate, of the immense influence wielded by him both in the East and in the West, of the acknowledgment of his Principate by the answers which emperor and patriarch made to his demands and rebukes, we possess an imperishable record in the fourteen books of his letters which have been preserved to us. They are somewhat more than 850 in number. They range over every subject, and are addressed to every sort of person. If he rebukes the ambition of a patriarch, and complains of an emperor's unjust law, he cares also that the tenants on the vast estates of the Church which his officers superintend at a distance should not be in any way harshly treated. He writes to his defensor in Sicily: "I am informed that if anyone has a charge against any clerks, you throw a slight upon the bishops by causing these clerks to appear in your own court. If this be so, we expressly order you to presume to do so no more, because beyond doubt it is very unseemly. If anyone charges a clerk, let him go to his bishop, for the bishop himself to hear the case, or depute judges. If it come to arbitration, let the so-deputed judges cause the parties to select a judge. If a clerk or a layman have anything against a bishop, you should act between them either by hearing the cause yourself, or by inducing the parties to choose judges. For if his own jurisdiction is not preserved to each bishop, what else results but that the order of the Church is thrown into confusion by us, the very persons who are charged with its maintenance.

"We have also been informed that certain clerks, put into penance for faults they had committed by our most reverend brother the bishop John, have been dismissed by your authority without his knowledge. If this is true, know that you have committed an altogether improper act, worthy of great censure. Restore, therefore, at once those clerks to their own bishop, nor ever do this again, or you will incur from us severe punishment."[198]

I have quoted already his letters on eastern affairs. They might be enlarged upon to any extent. As to those who held the highest rank, he has warm sympathy with a deposed patriarch of Antioch, sending him a copy of the letter which announced his accession, as well as to the sitting patriarchs. After twenty years' deposition Anastasius was restored. He has also close friendship with Eulogius, patriarch of Alexandria, to whom he writes gracefully: "Besides our mutual affection, there is a peculiar bond uniting us to the Alexandrian Church. All know that the Evangelist Mark was sent by his master Peter; thus we are clasped together by the unity of the master and the disciple. I seem to sit in the disciple's see for the master's sake, and you in the master's see for the sake of the disciple. To this we must add your personal merits; for we know how you follow the institutions of him from whom you spring. Thus we are touched with compassion for what you suffer; but we shrink from telling you what we endure ourselves by the daily plundering, killing, and maiming of our people by the Lombards."[199]

Let us here take a short view of Gregory's incessant activity among the western nations in process of formation. In his struggle to tame the ferocity, lawlessness, and unbelief of the Lombards, he betakes himself to the illustrious Catholic queen Theodelinda. He strives to use her influence with her husband Agilulf, on behalf of Rome, ever the object of oppression. Knowing her to be a good Christian, he sent her his Dialogues. He also set before her the supremacy of his see, because she had been misled into withdrawing from the communion of the new archbishop of Milan, Constantius. The Pope assures her that the archbishop, as well as himself, venerates the doctrinal decisions of the Four Councils. He adds: "Since, then, by my own public profession you know the entireness of our belief, it is fitting that you have no further scruple concerning the Church of St. Peter, prince of the Apostles. But persist in the true faith, and ground your life on the rock of the Church, that is, in his confession: lest your many tears and your good works avail nothing, if they be separated from the true faith. For as branches wither without a root, so works, however good they seem, are nothing if separated from the solidity of the faith."[200]

Ten of his letters are addressed to Brunechild, the terrible queen of the Franks. But his letter to all the Gallic bishops in the kingdom of Childebert will best set forth his authority. That king then reigned over nearly all France. The Pope began by saying that the universe itself was ruled by graduated orders of spirits. If there was such distinction of ranks even in the sinless, what man should hesitate to obey a disposition to which angels are subject? "Since, then, each individual office is happily fulfilled when there is a superior to whom application can be made, we have thought it good, following ancient custom, to make our brother Virgilius, bishop of Arles, our representative in the churches which are in the kingdom of our most illustrious son king Childebert. We do this in order that the integrity of the Catholic faith, that is, of the Four holy Councils, may by God's protection be carefully preserved; and that, if any contention should arise between our brethren and fellow-bishops, he may, by virtue of his authority, as holding the place of the Apostolic See, reduce it by discreet moderation. We have also enjoined him, that if any contest should arise requiring the presence of others, he should collect a sufficient number of our brethren and fellow-bishops, discuss the matter equitably, and determine it in conformity with the canons. But if, which the divine power avert, contest should arise on a matter of faith, or some business emerge about which there is great hesitation, and which for its magnitude requires the judgment of the Apostolic See, after diligent examination of the facts, he is to make report to us, that we may terminate all doubt thereon by a fitting sentence."[201]

In this letter we are at a hundred years after the conversion of Clovis. The Catholic kingdom has swallowed up its Arian competitors whether at Toulouse or at Lyons, and over it stands the protecting vigour of Gregory, as a hundred and fifty years before that of Leo strove to support the falling empire. Arles receives the pallium for the Frankish kingdom, as it held it for the Theodocian empire, from Rome. Leo saw the imperial line expire at Rome; from Rome Gregory places the bishops "of his most illustrious son Childebert" under the old primacy of Arles. This is the "solidity" of the rock of Peter in which Gregory recommends the queens Theodelinda and Brunechild to place themselves.

We know how Gregory, while yet a Roman deacon and monk, walking one day from the palace which he had made a monastery, scarcely more than a stone's-throw to the forum in which a slave-market was held, was moved to pity at the sight of the fair-haired Angles; how he was minded to leave Rome himself on a mission to convert them; how he was kept back by the affection of the Romans; how Pope Pelagius suddenly died of the plague, and Gregory, in spite of all his efforts, was made to succeed him; how from the See of Peter he sent out Augustine and his forty monks to the lost island in the Atlantic, where, since Stilicho withdrew the Roman armies, every cruelty had revelled, and every pagan abomination had been practised by the Saxon invaders. To many, no doubt, the subsequent success of Gregory's venture to convert the Anglo-Saxon England has served to disguise its danger and difficulty at the time. When Augustine reached the shores of Kent, the successive invasions of the Saxon pirates had set up eight petty kingdoms upon the ruin of the Roman civilisation and the Christian Church. The miseries which are covered under those five generations of unrecorded strife are supposed to have exceeded the misery endured in France, Spain, Italy, and the Illyrian provinces during the same time. The old inhabitants were reduced to slavery, or exterminated, or driven to the three corners of Cornwall, Wales, and Strathclyde. So bitter was the British feeling under the destruction of their country and the wrongs they had endured, that it overcame all Christian principle in them, and the Welsh refused all aid to the Roman missionary in the attempt to convert a race so cruel. It required all St. Gregory's firmness to induce his own monks to persist. In all the annals of Christian enterprise during eighteen centuries, there is probably not one which presented less hope of success than St. Gregory's resolution to add the spiritual beauty of the Christian to the physical beauty which he admired in the captives of the Roman forum.

Among those to whom he applied to assist and further his purpose was the great queen of the Franks. To Brunechild he directed a letter saluting her, he says, with the charity of a father: "We hear that, by the help of God, the English people is willing to become Christian; and we recommend the bearer of these, the servant of God, Augustine, to your Excellency, to help him in all things, and to protect his work".[202]

It was also to Virgilius, bishop of Arles, and primate of all the Gallic bishops, as we have seen, by Gregory's own appointment, that he sent Augustine, after his first success with Ethelbert, to receive episcopal consecration.