Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 54 part 2/4

We could adduce very many illustrious men who approved those Dialogues: Sigebert of Gembloux, Ivo of Chartres, Honorius of Autun, Rupert of Deutz, Bernard of Clairvaux, Gratian, Peter Lombard (called the Master of the Sentences), William of Champeaux (the founder of the Canons of Saint Victor of Paris and afterwards Bishop of Châlons), Peter of Cluny, Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, and others who flourished down to our own age. But that we may not become tedious, we refer the reader to them.

Nor is it worth the labour to enumerate the manuscript codices of Gregory's Dialogues, since they are found almost everywhere in countless numbers, and there is scarcely any ancient monastery in which two or three written copies of Gregory's Dialogues are not to be discovered. By what engines our adversaries can prevail to break down the force of so many witnesses and testimonies, I do not well see. It remains for us to dissolve the arguments which they draw from reason. Now there are three which they chiefly oppose. The first they draw from the style, which in the Dialogues they say is altogether diverse, uneven, and inelegant, crammed with barbarous and corrupt words, and utterly unworthy of Gregory's genius and majesty. Secondly, in them they marvel at many things which are wholly incredible.

Thirdly, certain things are contrary to Gregory's doctrine, as in Book IV of the Dialogues, chapter 29, where the fire of Gehenna is said to be corporeal, whereas Gregory manifestly declares the contrary in Book XV of the Morals, chapter 17, namely that such fire is incorporeal. As regards the style, I acknowledge some diversity, yet not an utter one. And indeed who does not know that nearly the same thing is observed in all the works of the holy Fathers, and that the style varies according to the variety of treatises and subject matters? For that the style of orations, letters, histories, dialogues, and the like should be one and the same, no sane man would assert. Although in these Dialogues there are many things which recall the style, force, and elegance—nay, even the depth of learning—of the rest of Gregory's works, as is plain to the reader.

But whoever has seen Gregory himself candidly confess that he could not maintain one and the same style even in the single work of the Morals, will not menace us with that very diversity of style. For thus he speaks in Book XI of the Morals, chapter 1: «Although in a lengthy work the mutability of style ought not to be culpable, etc.» And a little after: «My reader, receive the change of style with an even mind, since a diversity of cooking often pleases those who eat the same foods.» As to barbarous phrases and expressions, who does not know that many such are found in the treatises of the holy Fathers, who studied not so much the elegance and purity of speech as truth and simplicity?

And Gregory himself confesses that he did this deliberately in the letter to Leander prefixed to the Morals, where he speaks thus of these matters in chapter 5: «I have disdained to observe that very art of speaking which the disciplines of external instruction inculcate. For, as the very tenor of this letter also declares, I do not flee the collision of metacism, I do not avoid the confusion of barbarism, I scorn to observe the positions and constructions of prepositions and the cases; for I deem it utterly unworthy to constrain the words of the heavenly oracle under the rules of Donatus. Nor indeed have these been observed by any translators in the authority of Sacred Scripture.» The same is to be said of the barbarous words which the barbarism of the Lombards and of other peoples had introduced into Italy.

From this the Latin tongue was already being infected in its purer form, as it were by that dregs. Indeed, Gregory himself professes in the prologue of the Dialogues that even those words which are, so to speak, somewhat more rustic, are not his own but belong to others: «Moreover I wish you to know that in some things I retain only the sense, but in others both the words together with the sense; because if I had wished to hold the very words specifically in the case of all the persons, the writer's style would not aptly admit these words uttered in rustic usage.» Concerning the histories contained in the Dialogues, I have nothing to say, save that Gregory, by relating them just as he had learned them from others, discharged his own good faith. For there are few which he has said that he himself saw, or at which he was present.

He did what very many of the holy Fathers did in many histories which will seem incredible to some, if they are weighed on the balance of human reason. But since they are miracles, that is, things exceeding human faith, who can doubt that they are not to be measured by human judgement? He thought it right to stand by public reports where eyewitnesses themselves were lacking, especially since the piety of the faithful could thereby be increased, and no appearance of error or falsehood appeared from any other quarter. Excellently and aptly to our purpose does Theodoret speak in the preface to his History of the Holy Fathers: «Our discourse will proceed by way of narration, not employing the laws of panegyrics, but relating truthfully a few things only.»

«But I beseech those who shall come upon this holy history, or this form of monastic discipline (let a man call this body of writing whatever he will), that they believe not the less what is said, if they hear anything that surpasses their own powers, and that they do not measure the virtue of those men by themselves; but let them openly know that God from above measures out to pious souls the gifts of the most Holy Spirit, and bestows greater things upon the more perfect. Now these things have been said by me to those who are not yet very accurately initiated into the mysteries of divine things; for the initiates of the sanctuaries of the Spirit know the glory of the Spirit, and what miracles He works through men among men, drawing unbelievers to the knowledge of God.»

«But he who will not believe the things that are to be said by me, it is clear that he neither believes as true the things that were done through Moses and Joshua and Elijah and Elisha, but holds even for fables the miracles that were done by the holy apostles. But if he testifies that those are true, let him believe that these also are free from falsehood. For the grace which wrought in them did through them also the things which it did. For perennial grace, choosing those who are worthy, poured forth as it were through certain leaping fountains, through these men, the streams of its operation. Now of the things that are to be told, I myself indeed saw some;»

«but those which I did not see, I heard from those who did see them—men who loved virtue and were worthy to be held fit both to behold those men and to enjoy their teaching. Now the writers of the evangelical doctrine who are worthy of faith are not only Matthew and John, the great and first among the evangelists, who saw the Lord's miracles, but also Luke and Mark, who accurately taught the things which those who from the beginning saw and were ministers of the Word had handed down—not only what the Lord suffered and what He did, but also the things which He continually taught. For since the blessed Luke himself had not seen, he says at the beginning of his work that he narrates the things of which he had been made certain.»

«Therefore, even though we hear that he did not see the things which he narrates, but received this doctrine from others, we believe him and Mark no less than Matthew and John. For each is worthy of faith in narrating, as one who learned from those who saw. We therefore shall relate some things as things seen by us, and others as things narrated by men who saw them, whom we believed—men who imitated their manner of life. But I have used a rather lengthy discourse concerning these matters, wishing to persuade that I shall narrate true things.» Finally, in the third place, it is certain that the opinion of the holy Father is the same in the Dialogues as in the rest of his works.

For it is a frivolous thing that they say, namely that his opinion is diverse—nay, altogether contrary—concerning the fire of hell, which in the Dialogues he professes to be corporeal, namely in Book IV, chapter 29. The words are: «If therefore the devil and his angels, though they are incorporeal, are to be tormented by a corporeal fire, what wonder is it if souls, even before they receive their bodies, can feel corporeal torments?» Whereas, on the contrary, in Book XV of the Morals, chapter 17, he most clearly says that the fire of Gehenna is incorporeal—namely, expounding those words of Job, chapter 20: «A fire that is not kindled shall devour him.» For thus he speaks: «In a wonderful manner indeed, in few words, the fire of Gehenna is expressed; for corporeal fire, that it may have power to be fire, needs corporeal fuel.»

«This fire, since it must needs be preserved, is without doubt nourished by heaped-up wood; nor can it exist unless kindled, nor subsist unless replenished. But on the contrary, the fire of Gehenna, since it is incorporeal, and burns the reprobate cast into it corporeally, is neither kindled by human effort nor nourished by wood. But once created, it endures inextinguishable, and needs no kindling, and lacks no heat.» I confess that in certain Editions it is so read, and even in some manuscript Codices; yet no one but will judge it to be the error of drowsy transcribers and unskilled copyists, when he shall have seen those countless most ancient and most approved manuscript Codices, some of which have been inspected by us: namely in the Vatican Library the manuscript Codices...

of the Morals, nos. 574, 575, 578, 579, 582; the most ancient Codex of the Barberini Library; likewise another manuscript Codex in large folio, on very ancient parchment, which in the time of Alexander VII was brought to Rome from the Urbino Library; and also two of the Chigi Library: all these Codices have written «corporeal.» And although two other manuscripts, nos. 576 and 578, have «incorporeal,» yet it manifestly appears that the syllable «in» has been added above the line by a later hand. But also the ancient Italian translation of the Morals, printed at Florence in the year 1486, thus renders that sentence: «but the fire of hell is quite the contrary. For being a corporeal thing and burning the wretched damned corporeally, etc.»

All these things stated above were sent to me by the most eminent Cardinal Bona, who out of his singular benevolence toward the learned deigned to review them. In the same manner the Gallican Codices have it written: the Sorbonne Codex of 600 years and more; the Codex of the cathedral of Saint Mary of Reims, of 600 years; two of Saint Remigius of Reims, of 800 and 600 years; that of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, of nearly 800 years; the most ancient Codex of the finest quality of the Church of Bayeux; the Codex of the library of that most illustrious and most erudite man Claude Joly, cantor of Paris, of 700 years; that of the Royal Monastery of Mont, of the Cistercian Order, of 600 years; that of the library of the Church of Beauvais, of 700 years; two Codices of Saint-Corneille of Compiègne, one of 899 years and more, the other of 300 years;

the Royal Codex of 410 years; in the library of the Church of Chartres, 400 years; in the library of the illustrious man Émeric Bigot, of 400 years; in the monastery of Cluny a Codex written by the monk Bertram, at the command of the holy Abbot Maiolus, who died in the year 994, with 40 years remaining. But it is established that the authors of the more ancient and more correct Editions likewise read thus. I bring forward the Venetian edition of the year 1480, which is reckoned to have been the first of the Editions of Saint Gregory, by the labour of Bartolomeo of Cremona, canon regular, in which, at Book XV, chapter 50, it is read «corporeal.» So too in another Venetian edition of 1495; in the Parisian editions of the years 1493, 1513, 1521, and others, which for brevity's sake I omit. In the same manner also read those who abridged Gregory's books of the Morals into a compendium.

Of this kind is the manuscript Corbie Codex, from the time of Abbot Adalard, around the year 810, which is preserved in the Library of Saint-Germain-des-Prés—namely, after the letters, number 51, of Saint Gregory sent by Paul the Deacon to the same Adalard, there is found a document whose title is: «Here begins the eclogue which Lathcen, son of Baíth, wrote concerning the Morals of Job which Gregory composed.» There, in Book XV, before the end, it is thus read: «And a fire that is not kindled shall devour him. The fire of Gehenna, since it is corporeal, and burns the reprobate cast into it corporeally,» and so forth, as in Saint Gregory. Odo, Abbot of Cluny, who flourished in the year 940, in his Epitome of the Morals of Saint Gregory, chapter 20, number 26, has it thus:

«But on the contrary, the fire of Gehenna, since it is corporeal, etc.» Garnerus, canon regular of Saint Victor of Paris, under Abbot Hilduin, in the year 1140, in the work which he named the Gregorianum, Book XI, chapter 1, reads in exactly the same manner as above. So too it is read in the manuscript Codex which is preserved in the Library of the Celestines of Paris, and is called the Remediarium conversorum, which was compiled from the sayings of Saint Gregory in the Morals. This, in the third part, Book VI, chapter 7, has in its heading thus: «That the bodies of the damned together with their souls shall be tormented by a corporeal and inextinguishable fire, Book XV of the Morals.» But in the body of the chapter it is thus read: «In the reprobate indeed the conscience burns with longing, and outwardly the fire of Gehenna torments.»

This fire, since it is corporeal, and burns the reprobate cast into it corporeally, etc.» Moreover, this work, without the author's name, is by some ascribed to Peter of Blois, namely in the Catalogue of the manuscript Codices of England. Pits, however, in his book On the Writers of England, ascribes it to a certain Peter, an archdeacon of London, of somewhat more recent date. Finally, it is established that it must be read thus from the common doctrine of the theologians, who, following the Master of the Sentences (in Book IV, distinction 50) and Saint Thomas (in Book IV, distinction 44, question 2, article 3), assert that the fire of hell is corporeal, and rely chiefly on two testimonies, namely of Saint Augustine and Saint Gregory. And indeed Saint Augustine, in Book XII of the City of God, chapter 10, speaks thus:

«But why should we not say that, in ways indeed marvellous yet true, even incorporeal spirits can be afflicted by the pain of corporeal fire.» And a little after: «Let them cling then, if the spirits of demons have no bodies, that the spirits of demons, though incorporeal, are to be tormented by corporeal fires.» And at last he thus concludes: «But that hell shall be a corporeal fire, and shall burn the bodies of the damned, or of both men and demons—the solid bodies of men, the airy bodies of demons, etc.» But holy Gregory, who scarcely ever departs from the opinion of Saint Augustine, teaches the same in those two places which we have cited, namely Book XV of the Morals, chapter 17, and Book IV of the Dialogues, chapter 29 (now number 35), where in express words he says that the fire of Gehenna is corporeal.

But that this is indeed his doctrine, Prudentius, Bishop of Troyes, who lived around the year 830, luculently demonstrates. For in his reply to John Scotus Eriugena he says thus: «First, this opinion of yours is convicted of falsehood on this ground, that it feigns that fire to be called corporeal by Augustine and incorporeal by Gregory. For each of them confesses it, without contradiction, to be corporeal. And because concerning Augustine you yourself have admitted it, we have judged it unnecessary to set forth his opinion. But as to the estimation of Gregory, lest it come into doubt for anyone—although a little above we set down his opinion concerning the same fire in the Morals, whereby he confesses it to be corporeal—»

«yet it does not seem beside the point if we bring forward into the midst another of his opinions from another of his own works. For as his book which is entitled the Dialogues relates, Peter the Deacon, when inquiring concerning the aforesaid fire, thus began, etc.»—he cites the words of chapter 29 of Book IV of the Dialogues. Then he concludes: «Behold, while we set forth certain testimonies of that corporeal fire, a true answer given is proved to almost all the things which you had set down in your aforesaid opinion. For by the authority of so great a doctor, not only is that fire asserted to be corporeal, but it is also probably taught that both the souls of men and the apostate spirits are tormented sensibly in it.»

The same was the opinion of Florus the master, deacon of the Church of Lyons, a contemporary of Prudentius, who in the writing which he published in the name of the Church of Lyons against the same Scotus Eriugena, chapter 17, proves that the fire of hell is corporeal, citing Gregory's testimony in this manner: «The fire of Gehenna, since it is corporeal,» and the rest, as in Saint Gregory, at the cited place of the Morals. These things are taken from the book which is entitled Vindiciae of Predestination and Grace, by the most illustrious man Lord Guillaume Mauguin. The whole matter was excellently elucidated by Sixtus of Siena, in Book V of his Sacred Library, annotation 141, where, after citing the testimony of Saint Gregory from Book XV of the Morals, he says thus:

«It seems that from these words it may be deduced that the fire of hell is incorporeal, and different in kind from this fire of ours, etc. But that Gregory did not so think is clearly demonstrated in Book IV of the Dialogues, chapter 29, etc.» Then he concludes elegantly thus: «Accordingly it must be understood that these words of Gregory are corruptly read in all the Codices of Lyons of Hugo à Porta, and in some manuscript copies, where they have: The fire of Gehenna indeed, since it is incorporeal, etc. The syllable «in» ought to have been deleted, so that instead of the word Incorporeal, Corporeal should be read. For the following words plainly show this.» And in this manner the divine Thomas cites them in the fourth volume of the Sentences, distinction 44, question 2, etc.

From which it appears that he recognized the corruption of certain copies, both manuscript and printed, against which we have set very many Codices of the finest quality, besides the exemplars of the more ancient and more approved Editions, which retained the word «corporeal.» And on that account we have restored it at Book XV of the Morals, chapter 17, whereas in the later Editions the word «incorporeal» was found. But of these things enough and more than enough. From what has been said above it can be plainly (unless I am mistaken) understood and gathered that the four books of the Dialogues ought to be attributed to none other than Gregory the Pope, first of that name; to whom that Roman man, illustrious in birth and wealth, committed to letters the miracles of the Fathers who had flourished in Italy a little before;

just as at the same period Gregory, Bishop of Tours, composed a book On the Lives of the Holy Fathers, or of certain (to use his own term) more blessed men who had shone in Gaul by holiness and miracles, both of bishops and priests, and of abbots and recluses. But which of the two wrote before the other, or which was anticipated by the other in that matter, I could not easily say. Now that the Dialogues have been vindicated for Gregory the Great, it remains for us to advise the reader in a few words what has been accomplished in this Edition. In the first place, we have emended the Latin text, corrupted in many places, according to the authority of very many manuscript Codices, of which it is superfluous to append the index here, since at the beginning of the whole Gregorian work we have provided it abundantly, where...

we have woven together a catalogue of all the manuscripts which we used in emending the whole work. Next, as regards the Greek version, its author is held to be Pope Zacharias, successor of Gregory the Great after 175 years, who, since he was Greek by nation, out of love for his own people either translated those Dialogues into the Greek tongue or had them translated, so that those who did not know the Latin tongue should not be deprived of the benefit of so great a work, as Photius says in his Library, Codex 252. This is also demonstrated by the anonymous author of the Greek preface, which we have prefixed to the Dialogues rendered by us into Latin, taken from the manuscript Codex of the Library of the Most Christian King, which, because the copyist had corrupted it in many places, we have emended from another manuscript...

the Codex of the Ambrosian Library at Milan: a copy of whose Greek preface the most illustrious man Pietro Paolo Bosca, doctor of theology and prefect of that same library, kindly transmitted to me; he also gave various readings of those same Greek Dialogues, from which several things of the Royal Manuscript have been corrected: whence for so great a kindness I profess that I return the greatest thanks to that most learned and most courteous man. Nor do I feel myself a little indebted to the erudite man Lord Émeric Bigot, most well-known to all men of letters, who greatly assisted me by his most learned conjectures of the greatest judgement upon the Greek text, as well as by the collation which with the utmost labour he made of the second book against the Ingolstadt exemplar.

Furthermore, it is to be noted that the author of this version of the Dialogues did not always adhere to the mind of Saint Gregory; but often used paraphrases and additions, and in translating the words departed from Gregory's sense, as will be demonstrated in the notes. There are also many barbarous words, such as those times bore, in which both the Greek and the Latin tongues were beginning to be corrupted. Very many Latin-Greek words too are found, a list of which we shall append below. Moreover, that Greek version is not everywhere alike in the printed editions and in the Royal Manuscript; nay, in very many places it differs, so that sometimes whole periods are to be found in the Manuscript which are not read in the Editions.

But if it is permissible to use conjecture, I should believe it to have come about from this, that Zacharias perhaps translated those Dialogues twice; which Socrates relates happened to himself, in Book II of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 1, where he says that the things which in the earlier Edition he had reported less accurately, he rendered in the later one more clearly and more carefully. But although we have emended the Greek in many places by the help of the Royal Manuscript, we would nevertheless have done this more accurately if more exemplars had been available. Add to this that in that Royal Manuscript not a few blemishes crept in through the unskillfulness or drowsiness of the copyist. Lastly, we have added notes—few, however, and to the more difficult passages, learned men so demanding;

for I had resolved to illustrate the Epistles too with notes. Yet these, such as they are, the kindly reader will receive with a well-disposed mind and peruse with a benign eye, meanwhile until fuller and more elaborate ones shall be prepared by the learned. I. We who are about to edit the Dialogues that bear the name of Saint Gregory the Pope ought at least to preface a few words, both concerning the author and concerning the work. For although both subjects have already been very copiously and most learnedly disputed, yet it is pleasing to weave in certain things, as briefly as may be, whence more and more light may shine upon the controversies raised on this matter, so that they may be more easily resolved. II. That Gregory, first Roman pontiff of this name, was the parent of those Dialogues, Cedrenus—a Greek man and a stranger in Latin matters—denied;

Huldrich Coccius, Chemnitz, André Rivet, and not a few others among the heterodox have doubted it. But among our own writers, Benedict Haeften, provost of the monastery of Affligem, in his Monastic Disquisitions, prolegomena 2 and following to the Life of Saint Benedict, and John Mabillon, in volume I of the Acts of the Saints of the Order of Saint Benedict, in the preface, from number 17 to 39, have asserted it and demonstrated it by most invincible arguments. Peter Gussanville afterwards performed the same no less strenuously in the Vindiciae which we have thought fit to prefix. But before all others, one of our own confrères treated the same matter most fully and most ornately—he who translated the praised Dialogues from Latin into French and published them in the year 1689, namely...

in the preface with which he fortified this excellent work. This very thing we are here about to embrace and conclude briefly, as in a single syllogism, as it were. III. The writer of the Dialogues shortly to be published, whoever he was, professes everywhere that he had put on the monk's habit, and indeed in the Roman monastery which he himself had founded—namely in the very prologue of the Dialogues, in Book III, chapter 33; Book IV, chapters 21, 58, 47, 55, etc. From the assigned passages, especially from chapter 55 of Book IV, it is clear that he presided over a monastery constituted by himself. That he discharged the office of apocrisiarius at Constantinople is established from Book III, chapter 36. That he was afterwards created Roman pontiff is made plain from chapter 16 of the same book, where he calls Pelagius II, the Pope, his own predecessor, and from Book IV, chapter...

57, where he still makes mention of the same predecessor of his. Sitting at Rome, he delivered Homilies on the Gospels to the people, as he very often testifies, especially in Book IV, chapters 14, 15, 16, 19, 27. In the praised Homilies he in turn speaks of the Dialogues written by himself; most notably in Homily 38, in Book I of the Dialogues, chapter 7. It is about Nonnosus the abbot, where the things he narrates about him, he professes to have received from Maximian, Bishop of Syracuse. Furthermore, in Book III, otherwise 2, indiction 2, formerly letter 50, now 51, Gregory asks the same Maximian to take care to report to him by letters whatever he knew about Nonnosus the abbot and about the miracles of the Italian Fathers; because he was being compelled by his brethren to write on this subject.

This is precisely the same thing that is treated in the Dialogues, as can be understood not obscurely from the very title. IV. Now what man of sound mind would suspect that even a single one of all these traits—by which his life is most perfectly expressed—could fit anyone other than our Gregory? And they certainly agree perfectly with those things which we have learned about the same most holy Father from his undoubted works; namely from the books of the Morals, especially in the prefatory letter to Saint Leander, from the Register of Letters, from the Homilies, etc. V. But, you will say, the writer of the Dialogues who wished to hide beneath the person of Gregory, since he had learned the history of the holy Father to a nicety by assiduous reading of his works, studied to paint and adorn himself with those colours.

As if indeed he could have been so skilled an artificer of feigning, this man whom our adversaries everywhere reproach with excessive simplicity in believing and narrating miracles. Besides, by what means could the fraud have escaped all who wrote about Gregory, whether coming shortly after or even his contemporaries? How did it deceive his notary and transcriber Paterius? Truly, in proving things so certain and clearer than the noonday light, we should tarry longer in vain. Therefore, the Dialogues having been vindicated for our Gregory, he himself must now be vindicated from his detractors; who indeed accuse him of excessive credulity—nay, of rude and stupid simplicity, whereby they complain that old wives' tales are related by him. VI.