Part 66 (1/2)

3. Hist. b. 2, c. 1.

4. Bede adds, that he again asked, what was the name of that nation, and was answered, that they were called Angli or Angles. ”Right,”

said he, ”for they have angelical faces, and it becomes such to be companions with the angels in heaven. What is the name (proceeded he) of the province from which they are brought?” It was replied, that the natives of that were called Deiri. ”Truly Deiri, because withdrawn from wrath, and called to the mercy of Christ,” said he, alluding to the Latin, De ira Dei eruti. He asked further, ”How is the king of that province called?” They him that his name was All{} and he making an allusion to the word, said: ”Alleluiah, the praise of G.o.d the Creator, must be sung in those parts.” Some censure this conversation of St. Gregory as a piece of low punning. But the taste of that age must be considered. St. Austin found it necessary to play sometimes with words to please auditors whose ears had, by custom, caught an itch to be sometimes tickled by quibbles to their fancy. The ingenious author of the late life of the lord chancellor Bacon, thought custom an apology for the most vicious style of that great man, of whom he writes: ”His style has been objected to as full of affectation, full of false eloquence. But that was the vice, not of the man, but of the times he lived in; and particularly of a court that delighted in the tinsel of wit and learning, in the poor ingenuity of punning and quibbling.” St. Gregory was a man of a fine genius and of true learning: yet in familiar converse might confirm to the taste of the age. Far from censuring his wit, or the judgment of his historian, we ought to admire his piety, which, from every circ.u.mstance, even from words, drew allusions to nourish devotion, and turn the heart to G.o.d. This we observe in other saints, and if it be a fault, we might more justly censure on this account the elegant epistles of St. Paulinus, or Sulpitius Severus, than this dialogue of St. Gregory.

5. Eutychius had formerly defended the Catholic faith with at zeal against the Eutychians and the errors of the emperor Justinian, who, though he condemned those heretics, yet adopted one part of their blasphemies, a.s.serting that Christ a.s.sumed a body which was by its own nature incorruptible, not formed of the Blessed Virgin, and subject to pain, hunger, or alteration only by a miracle. This was called the heresy of the Incorrupticolae, of which Justinian declared himself the abetter; and, after many great exploits to retrieve the ancient glory of the empire, tarnished his reputation by persecuting the Catholic Church and banis.h.i.+ng Eutychius.

6. St. Greg. Moral. l. 14, c. 76, t. 1, p. 465.

7. He died in 582 and is ranked by the Greeks among the saints. See the Bollandists in vita S. Eutychil ad 6 Apr.

8. Fleury thinks he was chosen abbot before his emba.s.sy to Constantinople; but Ceillier and others prove, that this only happened after his return.

9. It appears from the life of St. Theodosius the Cen.o.biarch, from St.

Ambrose's funeral oration on Valentinian, and other monuments, that it was the custom, from the primitive ages, to keep the third, seventh, and thirtieth, or sometimes fortieth day after the decease of a Christian, with solemn prayers and sacrifices for the departed soul. From this fact of St. Gregory, a trental of ma.s.ses for a soul departed are usually called the Gregorian ma.s.ses, on which see Gavant and others.

10. Dial. l. 4, c. 55, p. 465, t. 2.

11. It is inserted by St. Gregory of Tours in his history. Greg. Touron.

l. 10 c. 1.

12. Some moderns say, an angel was seen sheathing his sword on the stately pile of Adrian's sepulchre. But no such circ.u.mstance is mentioned by St. Gregory of Tours, Bede, Paul, or John.

13. Paul the deacon says, it was by a pillar of light appearing over the place where he lay concealed.

14. L. 1, ep. 21, l. 7, ep. 4.

15. L. 1, ep. 25.

16. L. 1, ep. 5, p. 491.

17. L. 1, ep. 6, p. 498.

18. Conc. 3, Touron. can. 3. See Dom Bulteau's Preface to his French translation of S. Gregory's Pastoral, printed in 1629.

19. He reformed the Sacramentary, or Missal and Ritual of the Roman church. In the letters of SS. Innocent I., Celestine I., and St.

Leo, we find mention made of a written Roman Order of the ma.s.s: in this the essential parts were always the same; but accidental alterations in certain prayers have been made Pope Gelasius thus augmented and revised the liturgy, in 490; his genuine Sacramentary was published at Rome by Thomasi, in 1680. In it are mentioned the public veneration of the cross on Good Friday, the solemn benediction of the holy oils, the ceremonies of baptism, frequent invocation of saints, veneration shown to their relics, the benediction of holy water, votive ma.s.ses for travellers, for the sick and the dead, ma.s.ses on festivals of saints, and the like. The Sacramentary of St. Gregory, differs from that of Gelasius only in some collects or prayers. The conformity between the present church office and the ancient appears from this work, and the saint's Antiphonarius and Responsorium. The like ceremonies and benedictions are found in the apostolic const.i.tutions, and all other ancient liturgic writings; out of which Grabe, Hickes, Deacon, and others have formed new liturgies very like the present Roman, and several of them have restored the idea of a true sacrifice. Dom Menard has enriched the Sacramentary of St. Gregory with most learned and curious notes.

Besides his Comments or Morals on the book of Job, which he wrote at Constantinople, about the year 582, in which we are not to look for an exposition of the text, but an excellent compilation of the main principles of morality, and an interior life, we have his exposition of Ezekiel, in twenty-two homilies. These were taken in short hand as he p.r.o.nounced them, and were preached by him at Rome, in 592, when Ag{}ulph the Lombard was laying waste the whole territory of Rome. See l. 2, in Ezech. hom. 6, and Paul the deacon, l. 4, hist.

Longob. c. 8. The exposition of the text is allegorical, and only intended for ushering in {} moral reflections, which are much shorter than in the books on Job. His forty homilies on the gospels he preached on several solemnities while he was pope. His incomparable book, On the Pastoral Care, which is an excellent instruction of pastors, and was drawn up by him when he saw himself placed in the pontificate, consists of four parts. In the first he treats of the dispositions requisite in one who is called to the pastoral charge; in the second of duties of a pastor; in the third on the instruction which he owes to his flock; and, in the fourth, on his obligation of watching over his own heart, and of diligent self-examination. In four books of dialogues, between himself and his disciple Peter, he recounts the miracles of his own times, upon the authority of vouchers, on whose veracity he thought he could rely. He so closely adheres to their relations, that the style is much lower than in his other writings. See the preface of the Benedictin editor on this work. His letters are published in fourteen books, and are a very interesting compilation. We have St.

Gregory's excellent exposition of the Book of Canticles, which Ceillier proves to be genuine against Oudin, the apostate, and some others. The six books on the first book of Kings are valuable work but cannot be ascribed to St. Gregory the Great. The commentary on the seven penitential psalms Ceillier thinks to be his work: but it seems doubtful. Paterius, a notary, one of St. Gregory's auditors, compiled, out of his writings and sermons, several comments on the scriptures. Claudius, abbot of Cla.s.sius, a disciple of our saint, did the same. Alulphus, a monk at Tournay, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, made the like compilations from his writings. Dom Dionysius of St. Marthe, a Maurist Benedictin monk, favored the world with an accurate edition of the works of St. Gregory the Great, published at Paris in four volumes folio, in 1705. This has been reprinted at Verona and again at Ausburg, in 1758, with the addition of the useful anonymous book, De formula Praelatorum.

20. L. 6, Ep. 35.

21. L. 7, Ep. 26.

22. Animae nostra pericula, l. 1, Ep. 14.

23. L. 1, Ep. 35, &c.

24. L. 1, Ep. 35.

25. L. 7, Ep. 5, l. 12, Ep. 30.

26. L. 4, Ep. 47.

27. Praef. in Dial.

28. L. 9, Ep. 22.

29. L. 2, Ep. 121.

30. L. 12, Ep. 24.

31. The Lombards came originally from Scandinavia, and settled first in Pomerania, and afterwards with the Hunns in Pannonia, who had remained there when they returned out of Italy under Attila. Na.r.s.es, the patrician, after having governed Italy sixteen years with great glory, was recalled by the emperor Justin the Younger. But resenting this treatment, he invited the Lombards into that country. Those barbarians leaving Pannonia to the Hunns, entered Italy, easily made themselves masters of Milan, under their king Alboinus, in 568; and extending their dominions, often threatened Rome itself. In the reign of Charles the Fat, the Hunns were expelled Pannonia by the Hongres, another swarm from the same northern hive, akin to the Hunns, who gave to that kingdom the name of Hungary. That the Lombards were so called, not from their long swords, as some have pretended, but from their long beards, see demonstrated from the express testimony of Paul the Deacon, himself a Lombard of Constantine Porphyrogenetta, by Jos. a.s.semani. Hist. Ital. scriptor. t. 1, c. 3, p. 33.

32. Paul Diac. de Gest Longobard. l. 4, c. 8. S. Greg. l. 2, Ep. 46.

33. L. 5. Ep. 41.

34. L. 4, Ep. 30.

35. Sublata exinde, qua par est veneratione, imagine et cruce. L. 9, Ep. 6, p. 930.

36. L. 9, Ep. 6, p. 930.

37. L. 14, Ep. 12, p. 1270.

38. These words are quoted by Paul the deacon, in the council of Rome, Conc. t. 6, p. 1462, and pope Adrian I., in his letter to Charlemagne in defence of holy images.

39. L. 11, Ep. 13.