Therefore, let your charity, when occasion is given for going to the city of Catania, or to the Church of Syracuse, having held a conversation, teach those whom you believe or understand to have been able to murmur about this matter, and cease not, as it were from another occasion, to instruct them. For as to what they say about the Church of Constantinople — who could doubt that it is subject to the apostolic see? Which both the most pious lord emperor, and our brother the bishop of that same city, constantly profess. Yet if that Church, or any other, has anything of good, I — and my inferiors, whom I restrain from unlawful things — am ready to imitate it in the good. For he is a fool who esteems himself first in this, that he disdains to learn the good things which he has seen. (Book ix, epistle 12.)
22. Gregory persisted in such great hospitality, even in the patriarchate itself, that — besides those whom he mercifully nourished with ecclesiastical alms, fleeing the swords of the Lombards' perfidy both through the diverse regions and at Rome as well — he daily invited to his own table any pilgrims whatsoever. Among whom on a certain day one drew near, into whose hands, while he himself, out of the ministry of humility, wished to pour water, turning to take up the pitcher, he suddenly did not find the one into whose hands he had wished to pour the water. And when he marveled to himself at this thing done, that same night the Lord said to him through a vision: On the other days you have received Me in My members, but yesterday you received Me in My very self. 23.
At another time also, this same Gregory, according to his custom, commanded the treasurer to invite twelve pilgrims to dinner. He, going forth, fulfilled the commands, and arranged them likewise at the table. But while they were reclining together, the pope, gazing intently, counted thirteen; and, summoning the treasurer, inquired why he had presumed, contrary to his command, to invite a thirteenth. He, dumbfounded, counted the banqueting pilgrims more carefully, and finding only twelve, secure in himself, answered the old man: Believe me, honourable Father, there are none but twelve, just as you yourself commanded.
So then, while the guest counted the twelve again and again, and did not see the thirteenth whom the pope alone could see, the spiritual Father Gregory noticed that the man reclining nearer turned his countenance frequently, and now feigned a youth, now an old man with a certain venerable hoariness. When the banquet was finished, he permitted the twelve indeed to depart; but taking the thirteenth by the hand, he led him into his chamber, vehemently adjuring him that he would deign to disclose to him plainly himself and his name. Who, answering, said: And why do you ask about my name, which is wonderful?
Nevertheless know, recognizing it by memory, that I am that shipwrecked man who once came to you, when you were writing in the cell of your monastery at the Scaurus slope, to whom you gave twelve coins and a silver dish, which your blessed mother Silvia had sent you with pulse poured into it. And let this be known to you for certain: that from that day on which you bestowed these things on me with a cheerful mind, the Lord destined you to become prelate of His holy Church, for which He also poured out His own blood, and to be the successor and vicar of Peter, the prince of the apostles — whose virtue also you have imitated, when he divided the substance of the offerers, as each had need. Hearing these things, Gregory said:
And how do you know that the Lord then destined me to preside over His holy Church? But he said: Because I am His angel, and was then sent by Him to inquire into your purpose. Then Gregory, because he had not yet manifestly seen an angel, was utterly terrified, and heard this one speaking to him thus: Fear not, neither be dismayed; for behold, the Lord has sent me to be your guardian as long as you shall be in this mortal world, so that whatever thing you shall ask, through me you may confidently avail to obtain it from Him. Immediately Gregory fell upon his face, saying:
If for the little gift of my smallness the most omnipotent Lord repays me so much, that He both makes me pontiff of His holy Church, and appoints His angel as my guardian — how much do I think will be restored to me, if, remaining with all my strength in His precepts, I shall have striven to disburse more things out of my more abundant means? 21.
Therefore, beginning to be just so much the more bountiful in the temporal advantage conferred upon him, as he was the more assured concerning the eternal reward to be received, he assessed in cash the revenues of all the patrimonies and estates out of the Gelasian polyptych, of which indeed he was seen to be a most zealous follower; and out of their payments in gold and silver (all things being collected together for all the ecclesiastical or palatine orders, for the monasteries, churches, cemeteries, deaconries, hospices — urban or suburban), he ordained through the polyptych, by which it is disbursed to this day, how many solidi should be distributed to each, four times in the year: namely at Easter, at the birthday of the apostles, at the birthday of Saint Andrew, and on his own anniversary. 25.
Besides these, first at the dawn of the Lord's resurrection, sitting in the basilica of the once most learned pope Vigilius — beside which he customarily dwelt — to impart the kiss of peace, he disbursed gold pieces to all the bishops, presbyters, deacons, and other dignitaries. But on the birthday of the apostles, or his own, offering mixed solidi, he none the less bestowed foreign garments. 26. On all the Kalends without exception, he generally disbursed to the poor those same kinds of goods which were gathered from the revenues: and in its season the wheat, in its season the wine, in its season the cheese, in its season the pulse, in its season the bacon, in its season the edible animals, in its season the fish or the oil — the most discerning householder of the Lord divided them all.
But the spices and other more delicate wares he honourably offered to the leading men, so that the Church was thought to be nothing other than certain common storehouses — a common Church. 27. To three thousand handmaids of God, whom the Greeks call monastriae, he gave fifteen pounds of gold for couch-coverings, and conferred on them yearly eighty pounds for daily stipends. Writing about these to the patrician lady Theoctista, he says: Such is the life of these women, and so strict in tears and abstinence, that we believe that, had they not existed, none of us could now, through so many years, have subsisted in this place amid the swords of the Lombards. (Book vi, epistle 26.) 28.
On each and every day, through the streets and crossroads of all the regions, he sent out cooked stipends by appointed couriers to the sick or to those weak in any part of the body. But to the more bashful ones, before he himself took food, he took care to direct from his own table, door by door, a dish of the apostolic blessing, so that the benevolence of that most merciful provider utterly excepted no one whom the knowledge of the Almighty Creator had drawn to the faith. 29.
When it happened that one of these poor men was found dead by the corpse-bearers in the narrow recesses of the alleys, and Gregory judged that he had perished for want of alms, he was so grieved—abstaining, as it is said, from the celebration of Mass for several days—as though, a thing dreadful to say, he had slain the man with his own hands. 30. There survives to this very day, in the most sacred archive of the Lateran palace, a huge volume of paper compiled in his time, in which the names of persons of both sexes, of every age and calling, dwelling both at Rome and throughout the suburbs or neighboring cities, as well as in distant coastal towns, are set down more fully together with their surnames, their dates, and the sums bestowed upon them.
As for their total sum, lest I be found tediously overreaching, I decline to transcribe it, and I direct my reader's eye to the fullness of that venerable archive, whose authority I myself have followed in nearly all matters, by the Pope's leave. 31. Moreover, since the basilica of the Arians in the district of this city called Suburra had remained shut until the days of Gregory's pontificate, it pleased him that, once the relics of the blessed martyrs Sebastian and Agatha had been brought thither, it should be dedicated in the Catholic faith; and this was done. For Gregory, arriving with a great multitude of people singing praises, entered the aforesaid basilica;
and when the venerable pontiff was already celebrating the solemnities of the Mass, and, because of the narrowness of that place, the crowds of people were pressing upon one another, certain of those who stood outside the sanctuary suddenly felt a pig running to and fro between their very feet. And as each one felt it and pointed it out to those standing beside him, that same pig made for the doors of the church and turned all those past whom it ran into amazement; yet nothing could be seen, though it could be felt. Divine mercy showed this for the purpose that it might be made plain to all that, at the coming of Gregory with the relics of the saints, the unclean occupant was departing from that place. 52. So when the celebration of Mass was finished, the Pope withdrew with the people;
but that very night a great crashing arose in the roofs of that same church, as if someone were rushing about within it in confusion. On the following night the noise grew still more grievous, when suddenly so great a terror resounded, as though that whole church were being overthrown from its very foundations; and forthwith it withdrew, and no further disturbance of the ancient enemy appeared there. Yet by the sound of terror which it made, it was made known that, being compelled by the invocation of Gregory, it was going forth from the place it had long held.
Then, a few days later, in a great serenity of the air, a cloud descended from heaven over the altar of that same church and covered it with its veil, and filled the whole church with such awe and with such sweetness of fragrance that, though the doors stood open, no one dared to enter there; and the priests and guardians, or those who had come to celebrate the solemnities of the Mass and beheld the thing, were quite unable to go in, yet drew in the sweetness of the marvelous fragrance. But on another day the lamps in it were kindled without any flame.
Again, a few days later, when, the solemnities of the Mass being ended and the lamps extinguished, the guardian had gone out from that same church, after a little while he came back in and found the lamps which he had extinguished shining; and, believing that he had negligently put them out, he now extinguished them more carefully, and going out, shut up the church. But returning after the space of three hours, he found the lamps which he had extinguished shining—so that, plainly, from that very light it might shine forth openly that through the blessed Gregory that place had passed from darkness into light. 33.
But when Gregory was being driven by unceasing surging thoughts to convert the Angles and Saxons—even as he had purposed in his monastic life—as soon as, the state of the Church being settled, he entered upon the fourth year of his pontificate, he sent Augustine, with other monks of the monastery of his own house, into Britain for the sake of preaching the Gospel. But they, after some days, weighed down by a sluggish weariness of the pilgrimage they had undertaken, resolved rather to return home than to approach a barbarous, savage, and unbelieving people, whose very language they did not understand.
Without delay they sent back to Rome Augustine—whom Gregory had appointed to be consecrated their bishop if they were received by the Angles—beseeching the supreme pontiff to remove from them a pilgrimage so laborious, so uncertain, and so perilous, lately laid upon them, and to permit them to return to their own. To them he wrote back, saying: 34. Gregory, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to the servants of our Lord Jesus Christ. Since it had been better not to begin good things than, after those which have been begun, to turn back in thought, it behooves you, most beloved sons, to complete with the highest zeal, the Lord helping, the good work which you have begun. Let neither the toil of the journey, then, nor the tongues of slandering men affright you;
but with all persistence and all fervor, God being your author, carry through what you have begun, knowing that a greater glory of eternal recompense will follow great labor. And to Augustine your provost, whom we also constitute your abbot upon his return, be humbly obedient in all things, knowing that whatever is fulfilled by you at his admonition will profit your souls in every respect. May Almighty God protect you with His grace, and grant me to see the fruit of your labor in the eternal fatherland, so that, even if I cannot labor together with you, I may yet be found together with you in the joy of the recompense—because assuredly I do desire to labor. (Book VI, Letter 51.) 35.
Strengthened by these exhortations, Augustine, together with his brethren, made for Britain through the hospitality of Aetherius, the prelate of Arles, and of the other bishops of Gaul, and of the kings to whom the most devout Father had commended them by his own letters. Coming to Ethelbert, king of the men of Kent, by the cooperating grace of God he easily obtained not only leave to preach, but also provisions and lodgings in the city of Canterbury, which was the metropolis of his kingdom. As Augustine drew near to it with his companions, with the cross, or the image of the Saviour, carried before them, he chanted, saying: We beseech Thee, O Lord, in all Thy mercy, that Thy fury and Thy wrath be turned away from this city, and from Thy holy house, for we have sinned.
And as they preached and worked miracles in the name of Jesus, many believed and were baptized, marveling at the simplicity of their innocent life and embracing the sweetness of the heavenly teaching. 36. Wherefore Augustine came to Arles and, according to Gregory's command, was consecrated bishop by Aetherius, and returned to Britain. Thereupon, through the priest Laurence and the monk Peter, he made known to Pope Gregory the conversion of the English nation and his own consecration, suggesting that he should send him many ministers of the word, since the harvest was indeed plentiful, but the laborers few. 37.
Rejoicing in Christ at these reports, Gregory sent to Augustine many ministers of the word, chief among whom were Mellitus, Justus, Paulinus, and Rufinianus; and by them all things necessary for the worship of the Church—namely, sacred vessels, and coverings for the altars, ecclesiastical ornaments, clerical vestments, relics of the apostles and of many saints, and many codices.
He also sent him the pallium, commanding that under his own metropolis of Kent he should ordain twelve bishops, and should send single bishops to London and to York, who, likewise consecrating twelve bishops under themselves, should receive the pallium from the Apostolic See; and that after Augustine's death, he among them should be held first who had first deserved to be consecrated. He charged also that in the English nation he should not destroy the temples of the idols, but should sprinkle them with sanctified water and dedicate them into churches.
And because the Saxons were wont to slay many oxen in sacrifice to demons, he commanded that on the day of dedication, or on the feasts of the holy martyrs whose relics were to be placed there, they should make for themselves, round about those same churches which had been converted from temples, tabernacles of tree-branches, and should celebrate the due solemnities with religious feasts. And because Augustine, questioning him upon certain chapters, had inquired how a bishop ought to conduct himself with his clergy, that most humble teacher, among other things, wrote back thus:
Since your Fraternity, being trained in the rules of the monastery, ought not to live apart from your clergy, in the Church of the Angles, which, God being its author, has lately been brought to the faith, you ought to institute that manner of life which was, in the beginning of the nascent Church, among our fathers, among whom none of them said that anything of what they possessed was his own, but all things were common to them. When the faith is one, why does the Gallican Church differ from the Roman concerning the celebration of the Mass? To Augustine's question Gregory says: Your Fraternity knows the custom of the Roman Church, in which it remembers that it was nurtured.
But it pleases me that, whether in the Roman or in any other Church you have found something which can be more pleasing to Almighty God, you carefully choose it, and pour it, as a chief institution, into the Church of the Angles, which is still new to the faith—that institution which you have been able to gather from many Churches. For things are not to be loved for the sake of places, but places for the sake of good things. From each and every Church, therefore, choose the things that are devout, that are religious, that are right, and, having gathered them as it were into a little vessel, turn them into a custom at the table of the Angles. Being asked also how those things which thieves have taken away from the churches ought to be restored, the most gentle Father replied:
Far be it, he said, that the Church should receive with increase what it seems to lose of earthly things, and should seek vain gains. Being duly asked by the same Augustine up to what degree of generation the faithful ought to be joined in marriage, Gregory, by way of dispensation, wrote back thus: A certain earthly law in the Roman commonwealth permits that either a brother and a sister, or the son and daughter of two brothers german, or of two sisters, be joined. But we have learned by experience that offspring cannot spring up from such a union; and the sacred law forbids to uncover the shame of kindred. Whence it is necessary that already in the third or fourth generation the faithful may lawfully be joined to one another.
For in the second generation, as we said before, they ought by all means to abstain. (Book XI, Letter 64.) 38. But after much time, being asked by Felix, prelate of Messina in Sicily, whether he had written to Augustine that marriages contracted by the Angles in the fourth generation should by no means be dissolved, the most humble Father Gregory, among other things, gave this account: Know that what I wrote to Augustine, bishop of the English nation—your own foster-son, indeed, as you have recalled—concerning the joining of blood, I wrote specially and not generally to the rest, for him and for the English nation, which had lately come to the faith, lest by fearing sterner measures it should draw back from the good which it had begun.
Whence the whole city of Rome stands as my witness that I did not enjoin these things upon them in those writings with the intention that, after they should have been firmly rooted and grounded in the faith, if they were found within their own consanguinity, they should not be separated, or should be joined within the line of affinity—that is, up to the seventh generation; but that, while they are still neophytes, it behooves us most often first to teach them to shun what is unlawful, and to instruct them by words and examples, and afterward to exclude reasonably and faithfully whatever they may do in such matters. For according to the Apostle, who says: I gave you milk to drink, not meat (1 Cor. 3:2),
we have indulged these things to them for the present time, not to their posterity, as was set forth above—lest the good which had been planted with a still weak root should be plucked up, but that, being somewhat purchased, it might be strengthened a little and be preserved unto perfection. (Book XIV, last letter.) These things, therefore, I have taken care to touch upon, that those who, on the occasion of this new dispensation, contract unlawful marriages, may recognize that the most learned Pope Gregory did not sanction the joining of the fourth generation as a rule, but rather permitted it venially and only for a time.
Assuredly, at his prayers Almighty God bestowed on Augustine and his companions so great a grace of working signs, that they confirmed by the efficacy of the signs the word of life which they preached with their mouth. Whence it came to pass that, within the space of a few years, even the outlying kings of Saxony came to the faith of Christ the Lord through his disciples. 39. Concerning the conversion of that nation, together with the prodigies of miracles which were wrought there, Gregory bears witness in his books of the Morals, saying thus: Behold, the tongue of Britain, which had known nothing else but to gnash barbarously, has for some time now begun to resound Hebrew words in the praises of God.
Behold, the Ocean, once swelling, now lies prostrate and serves at the feet of the saints, and its barbarous motions, which earthly princes had not been able to subdue with the sword, these the lips of priests bind with simple words for fear of God; and he who, unbelieving, had by no means dreaded the throngs of fighters, now, being faithful, fears the tongues of the humble. For because, upon the reception of heavenly words, with miracles also shining forth, the power of divine knowledge is poured into him, he is restrained by the terror of that same Godhead—so that he fears to act wickedly, and with all his desires longs to attain to the grace of eternity. (Book XXVII of the Morals, sect. 21.)
To Eulogius also, patriarch of Alexandria, who was reporting laudable things concerning the teaching of his Church, the conversion of heretics, and the concord of the faithful, Gregory wrote back thus: Since in the good things which you do, I know that you rejoice together with others also, I too render in turn the like to your Grace: for while the English nation, set in a corner of the world, remained until now faithless in the worship of wood and stones, it pleased me, by the help of your prayer, that I ought, God being its author, to send a monk of my own monastery for the preaching of the Gospel to it; who, license being given by me, was made a bishop by the bishops of the Germanies, and, with their aid also, was brought to the aforesaid nation at the world's end.
And now writings have come to us concerning his welfare and his work, that with so great miracles either he himself, or those who were sent with him, shine forth in that same nation, that they seem to imitate the powers of the Apostles in the signs which they display. Now on the solemnity of the Lord's Nativity, which passed by from the first indiction, more than ten thousand Angles were reported to have been baptized by that same brother and fellow-bishop of ours. This I have narrated for the purpose that you may recognize what you accomplish by speaking among the people of Alexandria, and what you accomplish by praying at the ends of the world. For your prayers are in the place where you are not, whose holy operations are shown in the place where you are. (Book VIII, Letter 30.) 40.
None the less he writes to the same Augustine concerning those same miracles, among other things, saying: I know that Almighty God, through thy love, shows great miracles in the nation which He willed to be chosen. Whence it is necessary that concerning that same heavenly gift thou shouldest both rejoice with fear and fear with joy: rejoice, namely, because the souls of the Angles are drawn through outward miracles to inward grace; but fear, lest amid the signs which are wrought, the weak mind should lift itself up in its own presumption, so that whence it is exalted outwardly by honor, thence it may inwardly fall through vainglory, etc. (Book XI, Letter 28.) 41.
But the things which are commonly read concerning Gregory's miracles among those same Churches of the Angles, I judge ought not to be omitted, lest the mind of the studious reader should suspect me either of having stubbornly defrauded him, or of having negligently passed over a fitting knowledge. A certain matron had offered her accustomed oblations to the blessed Gregory while he celebrated the solemnities of the Mass at the public stations. To her, when he was about to deliver the mysteries after them, as he said: May the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve thy soul, she smiled wantonly. He straightway turned his right hand back from her mouth and laid that portion of the Lord's Body upon the altar.
But when the solemnities of the Mass were ended, he inquired of the matron before the people for what reason she had presumed to laugh while about to receive the Lord's Body. And she, muttering long, at last burst out, saying: Because the bread which I knew I had made with my own hands, thou wast calling the Lord's Body. Then Gregory, for the woman's unbelief, prostrated himself in prayer with the whole people; and after a little, rising up, he found the particle of bread which he had placed upon the altar turned into flesh: which, showing it before all to the unbelieving matron, he was able both to recall her to the grace of belief, and took care to confirm the whole people. And so again, prostrated in prayer with them, he restored the morsel of flesh into the first form of bread. 42.
At another time also the man of God, Gregory, performed a miracle almost like this one. For when, at the request of certain Westerners through their envoys, he was enclosing in the customary manner a piece of consecrated cloth in separate little boxes under the names of the martyrs sought, and had sealed them on top, he bestowed them upon the envoys. They, bearing the received relics with fitting veneration, after they had traversed certain miles of the journey, began foolishly to murmur that they had procured for themselves so much travel-provision only to know not whether they had received the bones of the saints, or rather mere flesh, from the Roman pontiff. And so, by common counsel, the pontifical seal being removed and the boxes unlocked, they found little pieces of the consecrated cloth.
Soon returning to the walls of the city in exceeding fury, they tearfully complained through the archdeacon that they had been mocked by Gregory, in that they had received a paltry cloth instead of relics, saying that their lords abounded in most beautiful palls, and therefore had no need of the Romans' worthless bits of cloth. As it chanced, Gregory was then celebrating the solemnities of the Mass. When these were ended, receiving the consecrated cloth from those same envoys before all, he laid it upon the altar, and gave himself with all present to prayer, that Almighty God might most speedily show whether that which was sent, according to custom, from the thresholds of the apostles ought to be venerated as relics of the martyrs. Then, rising from prayer, he bade the unbelieving envoys stand nearer.