A HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. BOOK III. FROM THE ELECTION OF GREGORY THE GREAT TO THE DEATH OF CHARLEMAGNE, A.D. 590-814. CHAPTER I. GREGORY THE GREAT, A.D. 590-604.-COLUMBAN, A.D. 589-615. THE end of the sixth century may be regarded as the boundary between early and mediæval Church-History. The scene of interest is henceforth varied; the eastern churches, oppressed by calamities and inwardly decaying, will claim but little of our attention, while it will be largely engaged by regions of the West, unnoticed, or but slightly noticed, in earlier times. The Gospel will be seen penetrating the barbarian tribes which had overrun the western empire, bringing to them not only religious truth but the elements of culture and refinement, adapting itself to them, moulding them, and experiencing their influence in return. As Christianity had before been affected by the ideas and by the practices of its Greek and Roman converts, so it now suffered among the barbarians, although rather from the rudeness of their manners than from the infection of their old religions. Yet throughout the dreariest of the ages which lie before us, we may discern the gracious providence of God, preserving the essentials of the truth in the midst of ignorance and corruptions, enabling men to overcome the evil by which they were surrounded, and filling the hearts of multitudes with zeal not only to extend the visible bounds of Christ's kingdom, but also to enforce the power of faith on those who were already professedly His subjects. B a b Gregory, the most eminent representative of the transition from the early to the middle period, was born at Rome about the year 540. His family was of senatorial rank, and is said by some authorities to have belonged to the great Anician house; he was great-grandson of a pope named Felix-either the third or the fourth of that name. Gregory entered into civil employment, and attained the office of prætor of the city; but about the age of thirty-five he abandoned the pursuit of worldly distinctions, and employed his wealth in founding seven monasteries-six of them in Sicily, and the other, which was dedicated to St. Andrew, in his family mansion on the Cœlian hill at Rome. In this Roman monastery he took up his abode, and entered on a strictly ascetic life, in which he persevered notwithstanding the frequent and severe illness which his.austerities produced. About the year 577, he was ordained deacon, and was appointed to exercise his office in one of the seven principal churches of the city; and in 578, or the following year, he was sent by Pelagius II. as his representative to the court of Tiberius, who had lately become sole emperor on the death of the younger Justin." The most noted incident of his residence at Constantinople was a controversy with the patriarch Eutychius, who maintained the opinion of Origen, that the "spiritual body" of the saints after the resurrection would be impalpable, and more subtle than wind or air. Gregory on the contrary held, according to the doctrine which had been recommended to the western church by the authority of Augustine,' that, if the body were impalpable, its identity would be lost; it will, he 66 Lau, Gregor der Grosse," 10. Leipz., 1845. See Patrol. lxxv. 241; Ciacon. i. 401. The third, according to Gregory's biographer, Paul Warnefrid (c. 1), Baronius (492. 1; 581. 4), Nat. Alex. (ix. 20), and Lau (9); the fourth, according to John the Deacon (Vita Greg. i. 1), the Benedictine biographer, Ste. Marthe (i. 3), and Fleury (xxxiv. 35). d For the date see Pagi, x. 363; Lau, 71. e Paul. 4; Sammarth. ii. 6; Lau, 120-1. The name of St. Andrew has now been exchanged for that of the founder himself. In like manner, the monastery founded at Canterbury in honour of St. Peter and St. Paul, afterwards took the name of the founder, St. Augustine; and for a list of other instances see Montalembert, ii. 560. f Paul. 5. Ste. Marthe (Vita, i. 3) and Mabillon (Acta SS. Ord. S. Bened. I., xxxix.; Analecta, 502, seqq.) claim him as a member of the Benedictine order; but it seems very doubtful (Pagi, x. 368; Schröckh, xvii. 245). On this depends another question--whether Augustine and his companions in the English mission were Benedictines. See Reynerius de Apostolatu Benedictinorum in Anglia (Duaci, 1626); Sammarth. iii. 6-7; Mabill., I. xl. seqq.; Thomassin, I. iii. 24. Paul. 7; Lau, 25. h A.D. 578. He had been associated in the empire four years before. Gibbon, iv. 253-4. i Enchirid. 88-91; De Civ. Dei, xxii., 11, 20-1. See Gieseler, vi. 427; Hagenbach, i. 378. Eutychius has been already mentioned (vol. i., p. 531). John of Ephesus represents him as having taught that "these bodies of men do not attain to the resurrection, but others are created anew, which arise in their stead," pp. 147, 149, 196. A.D. 582. said, be "palpable in the reality of its nature, although subtle by the effect of spiritual grace." Tiberius ordered a book in which Eutychius had maintained his opinion to be burnt; and the patriarch soon after, on his death-bed, avowed himself a convert to the opposite view, by laying hold of his attenuated arm and declaring, "I confess that in this flesh we shall all rise again. After his return to Rome," Gregory was elected abbot of his monastery, and also acted as ecclesiastical secretary to Pelagius." On the death of that pope, who was carried off by a plague in January, 590, he was chosen by the senate, the clergy, and the people to fill the vacant chair. He endeavoured by various means to escape the promotion; but the letter, in which he entreated the emperor Maurice to withhold his consent," was opened and detained by the governor of Rome; miracles baffled his attempts to conceal himself; and he was consecrated in September, 590.9 The position which Gregory had now attained was one from which he might well have shrunk, for other reasons than the fear ascribed to him by an ancient biographer, "lest the worldly glory which he had before cast away might creep on him under the colour of ecclesiastical government." r He compares his church to an "old and violently-shattered ship, admitting the waters on all sides, -its timbers rotten, shaken by daily storms, and sounding of wreck." The north of Italy was overrun, and its other provinces were threatened, by the Lombards.. The distant government of Constantinople, instead of protecting its Italian subjects, acted only as a hindrance to their exerting themselves for their own defence. The local authorities had neither courage to make war nor wisdom to negotiate; some of them, by their unprincipled exactions, even drove their people to espouse the interest of the enemy. The inhabitants of the land had been wasted by war, famine, and disease, while the rage for celibacy had contributed to prevent the recruiting of their numbers. In many places the depopulated soil had become pestilential. The supplies of corn, which had formerly been drawn from Sicily to support the excess of population, were now rendered * Greg. Moralia, xiv. 56. A.D. 584. Pagi, x. 368, 585; Lau, 30, 586; Dupin, v. 102. Dean Milman thinks that he was abbot before his mission to Constantinople, i. 404. "Sammarth. I., vi. 1. • Jaffé, 91. P For the necessity of the emperor's consent, see vol. i. p. 550, and Baron. 540, 10. 9 Paul, 13; Greg. Turon. x. i.; Pagi, x. 489; Lau, 37-40. John the Deacon thinks it necessary to enter into a formal proof that Gregory's reluctance was real (i. 45)-a vindication of the man which reflects on the age. r Paul. 10. Ep. v. 41. t Ep. i. 4. 4 STATE OF THE CHURCH - GREGORY'S EPISTLES. BOOK III. necessary by the general abandonment of husbandry. Rome itself had suffered from storms and inundations, in addition to the common misfortunes of the country. So great were the miseries of the time, as to produce in religious minds the conviction, which Gregory often expresses, that the end of the world was at hand." Nor was the aspect of ecclesiastical affairs more cheering. Churches and monasteries had been destroyed by the Lombards; the clergy were few, and inadequate to the pastoral superintendence of their scattered flocks; among them and among the monks, the troubles of the age had produced a general decay of morals and discipline. The formidable Lombards were Arians; the schism which had arisen out of the question as to the "Three Articles," continued to hold Istria and other provinces separate from Rome, and had many adherents in Gaul." In Gaul, too, the Church was oppressed by the extreme depravity of the princes and nobles, and by the general barbarism of the clergy as well as of the people. Spain had just been recovered from Arianism, but much was yet wanting to complete and assure the victory. In Africa, the old sect of Donatists took occasion from the prevailing confusions to lift up its head once more, and to commit aggressions on the Church. The eastern patriarchates were distracted by the Nestorian and Monophysite controversies; a patriarch of Antioch had been deprived, and the bishop of Rome had reason to look with jealousy on his brother and rival of the newer capital. The collection of Gregory's letters, early eight hundred and fifty in number, exhibits a remarkable picture of his extensive and manifold activity. And it is in this that their value mainly consists; for, although questions of theology and morality are sometimes treated in them, they do not contain those elaborate discussions which are found among the correspondence of Jerome and Augustine. Gregory had neither leisure nor inclination for such discussions; but his capacity for business, his wide, various, and minute supervision, his combination of tenacity and dexterity in the conduct of affairs, are truly wonderful. From treating with patriarchs, kings, or emperors on the highest concerns of Church or State, he passes to direct the management of a farm, the e. g. Dial. iii. 38; Ep. iii. 29; Baron. 590, 22-5; 594. 9; Sammarth. II., iv. 4; Gibbon, iv. 267-8; Neander, v. 155; Lau, 60. X Greg. Dial. iii. 36. Lau, 48, 111. 2 Lau, 143. See vol. i. p. 531. Dupin (v. 104, seqq.) gives a summary of the chief points in Gregory's letters, classed under separate heads. Jaffé, in his elaborate and valuable Regesta,' gives an analysis of them, arranged in chronological order. reclaiming of a runaway nun, or the relief of a distressed petitioner in some distant dependency of his see. He appears as a pope, as a virtual sovereign, as a bishop, as a landlord. He takes measures for the defence of his country, for the conversion of the heathen, for the repression and reconciliation of sectaries and schismatics; he administers discipline, manages the care of vacant dioceses, arranges for the union of sees where impoverishment and depopulation rendered such a junction expedient, directs the election of bishops, and superintends the performance of their duties. He intercedes with the great men of the earth for those who suffered from the conduct of their subordinates; he mediates in quarrels between bishops and their clergy, or between clergy and laity; he advises on the temporal concerns of churches, and in a spirit of disinterestedness and equity very unlike the grasping conduct of too many bishops where legacies or other property were in question. In his letters to the emperors, although the tone is humble and submissive, he steadily holds to his purpose, and opposes everything which appears to him as an encroachment on the rights of the Church.a e 4 Gregory lived in a simple and monastic style, confining his society to monks and clergy, with whom he carried on his studies." He endeavoured to provide for the education of the clergy, not indeed according to any exalted literary standard, but in such a manner as the circumstances of his time allowed. He introduced a new and more effective organization into his Church. He laboured for the improvement of the liturgy, and gave to the - canon of the mass the form which it still retains in all essential respects.h He instituted a singing-school, selected music, and established the manner of chanting which derives its name from him. He superintended in person the exercises of the choristers; the whip with which he threatened and admonished them was preserved for centuries as a relic. The misconduct of persons who k good asses. I cannot ride the horse, 8 Lau, 303. See vol. iv. of his works; also Palmer's Origines, i. 111, seqq.; Guéranger, i. 162, seqq.; Lau, 244-299. Maimbourg, in Bayle, art. Grégoire I., note O; Lau, 258. k Joh. Diac. ii. 5-6. This writer's account of the manner in which the "Germans or Gauls" performed the Gregorian chant (ii. 7) is too curious to |