A Merger

Letter 1,8 - to Bacauda, bishop of Formiae. October 590.

"We have learnt that through abandonment, the church of Minturno is as totally destitute of its clergy as it is of its people, and we can see how pious and extremely just your petition is on its behalf, namely that it ought to be joined to the church of Formiae (wherein lies the body of Saint Erasmus the Martyr), over which your Fraternity presides. We have thought it necessary, therefore, in considering the abandonment of the place as much as the poverty of your church, that by the authority of this injunction of ours, we transfer the right and power of your church the revenues of the above mentioned church of Minturno, or whatever could and can for whatever reason belong to it, by ancient and modern right or privilege."

Cited from: The Letters of Gregory the Great, trans. John R.C. Martyn (Toronto: PIMS, 2004), I: 127.

Comfort and Pain

Letter 1,7 - to Bishop Anastasius. October 590.

"I have received your Grace's letters as a tired man receives rest, a sick man health, a thirsty man a spring, and a hot one shade. For those words did not seem to have been expressed through a carnal tongue, but each word so revealed the spiritual love which you bore, it was just as if your mind were speaking all on its own. But what followed was very harsh, as your love ordered me to bear earthly burdens. Whom you loved spiritually before, loving afterwards with a temporal love, in my opinion, you forced me right down to the ground, with the burden placed on top of me, so that totally losing rectitude of mind, and giving away the clarity of contemplation, I can say, not through the spirit of the prophet but through my own experience: 'I have been in every way cast down and humiliated' (Ps 118:107)."

Cited from: The Letters of Gregory the Great, trans. John R.C. Martyn (Toronto: PIMS, 2004), I: 126.

Everything has a price....

Letter 1,6 - to Narses. October 590.

"As you describe the heights of contemplation, you have made me lament my ruin once again. For I heard what I had lost internally, while I was ascending to the highest command, externally and undeservedly. But realize that I am struck by so much grief that I am scarcely able to speak. For the eyes of my mind are blocked off by the shadows of my grief. Whatever I look at is gloomy, whatever I think is delightful appears lamentable to my heart. For I weigh carefully, falling from the high summit of my repose, to what a low peak of external advancement I have risen. And sent, for my sins, into an occupational exile from the face of the Lord, I say with the prophet in his words, as at the destruction of Judeae: 'He who comforted me has withdrawn far from me' (Lam 1:16)."

Cited from: The Letters of Gregory the Great, trans. John R.C. Martyn (Toronto: PIMS, 2004), I: 124.

Again - Earthly Cares

Letter 1,5 - to Theoctista, sister of the emperor. October 590.

"I have been brought back to the world in the guise of a bishop, in which I am as much a slave to earthly cares, as I remember being a slave to them in my life as a layman. For I have lost the profound joys of my peace and quiet, and I seem to have risen externally, while falling internally. Wherefore, I deplore my expulsion far from the face of my Creator. For I was trying every day to move outside the world, outside the flesh, to drive all corporeal images from my mind's eye and to regard the joys of Heaven in an incorporeal way."

Cited from: The Letters of Gregory the Great, trans. John R.C. Martyn (Toronto: PIMS, 2004), I: 122.

COMMENT In this letter too, Gregory responds to congratulations becoming bishop of Rome. The letter plays out an, in Gregory's spirituality, important opposition: inner versus outer, contemplatio versus actio. His election is like a tornado, which made him fall from the pinnacle of contemplation "headlong into fears and trepidations" which go with his (in the eyes of the world) high office. He certainly knows how use language. At the end of this letter he compares himself with an ape, which by command of the emperor was called a lion, but, of course, cannot become one - Theoctista must have smiled reading this, and I do hope her brother too saw the subtle irony of the closing statement of this fine letter.

Some Irony & A Call for Prayer

Letter 1,4 - to John of Constantinople. October 590.

"If the virtue of charity consists of love for one's neighbors, and if we are accordingly ordered to love our neighbors as ourselves, why is it that your Beatitude does not love me as much as you love yourself? For I know with what ardor, with what zeal you wished to escape the burdens of the episcopate, and yet you did not prevent these same burdens of the episcopate from being imposed on me. And so it is certain that you do not love me as much as you love yourself, for you wanted me to undertake those burdens that you did not want imposed o yourself. But because, while unworthy and inform, I have taken on an old and very broken down ship (for the waves pour in from all sides and the rotten planks, shaken by daily and powerful storms, suggest a shipwreck), I ask by our almighty Lord that in this danger of mine you stretch forth the hand of your prayer. For you are able to pray all the more earnestly, as you are situated further away from the confusion of the tribulations from which we suffer in this country."

Cited from: The Letters of Gregory the Great, trans. John R.C. Martyn (Toronto: PIMS, 2004), I: 121.

A Heavy Burden

INTRODUCTION This is the first letter with a hint to Gregory's elevation to the papacy. He was more a monk, who longed for a contemplative life, but he was drawn (again) to the world. And was congratulated for what he did not want by his friends. He doesn't hesitate to point to the fact, that he is not the only one 'bound by the burden of office'.

Letter 1,3 - to Paul the Scholastic. September 590.
"However much strangers congratulate me, due to the honor of my episcopal office, I do not put much value on it. But when you congratulate me over this matter, it brings me no little pain, as you are very well aware of my wish and yet believe that I have been successful. For it would have been the highest promotion for me, if what I wanted could have been fulfilled, if I had been able to achieve my desire, which you have long known about, the attainment of longed-for peace and quiet. But as things are, because I am held bound by the chains of this office in the city of Rome, I have something over which I may also rejoice, to your Glory. For with the arrival of the ex-consul and most eminent Lord Leo, I suspect that you will not remain in Sicily. And when you too, bound by your office, realize that you are kept in Rome, you will recognize what grief and bitterness I myself am suffering."

Cited from: The Letters of Gregory the Great, trans. John R.C. Martyn (Toronto: PIMS, 2004), I: 121.

Morals & Judgement

Letter 1,2 - to Justin, praetor of Sicily. September 590

"Let no bribes draw you to injustice and let no one's threats or friendship deflect you from the path of righteousness. Look how brief life is, contemplate before what judge you are going to appear, and how soon, you who exercise juridical power. And so one should consider carefully that we leave all of our riches here, and only carry for Judgement examples of riches distributed by us. We should, therefore, seek those rewards which death can in no way remove, but which in the end of this present life can show to be about to last forever."

Cited from: The Letters of Gregory the Great, trans. John R.C. Martyn (Toronto: PIMS, 2004), I: 119.

On Concord

Below you can read a fragment from the very first letter from Gregory the Great. One would expect something special. But no, the huge collection of (kept) letters, almost begins at random. It seems business as usual.

Letter 1,1 - to all the Bishops in Sicily. September 590

"(Y)ou ought to settle with moderation (...) all that concerns the interest of the province itself, and of its churches, whether to lighten the burden of the poor and oppressed, or to admonish all men and those whose faults happen to have been proved.

Let hatred, the source of wrongdoing, be far removed from this synod [i.e. a planned synod of the bishops of Sicily], and let mutual envy and all too detestable discord of minds, fade away within you. Let concord, pleasing to God, and love recognize you as his priests. Therefore carry out all of these things with that maturity and tranquility, so that the synod can most worthily be called episcopal."

Cited from: The Letters of Gregory the Great, trans. John R.C. Martyn (Toronto: PIMS, 2004), I: 119.