Gregory the Great

George E. Demacopoulos

Description

Gregory the Great (bishop of Rome from 590 to 604) is one of the most significant figures in the history of Christianity. His theological works framed medieval Christian attitudes toward mysticism, exegesis, and the role of the saints in the life of the church. The scale of Gregory's administrative activity in both the ecclesial and civic affairs of Rome also helped to make possible the formation of the medieval papacy. Gregory disciplined malcontent clerics, negotiated with barbarian rulers, and oversaw the administration of massive estates that employed thousands of workers. Scholars have often been perplexed by the two sides of Gregory—the monkish theologian and the calculating administrator. George E. Demacopoulos's study is the first to advance the argument that there is a clear connection between the pontiff's thought and his actions. By exploring unique aspects of Gregory's ascetic theology, wherein the summit of Christian perfection is viewed in terms of service to others, Demacopoulos argues that the very aspects of Gregory's theology that made him distinctive were precisely the factors that structured his responses to the practical crises of his day. With a comprehensive understanding of Christian history that resists the customary bifurcation between Christian East and Christian West, Demacopoulos situates Gregory within the broader movements of Christianity and the Roman world that characterize the shift from late antiquity to the early Middle Ages. This fresh reading of Gregory's extensive theological and practical works underscores the novelty and nuance of Gregory as thinker and bishop.

Sujets

• Religion
• Christianisme
• Religious
• medieval
• Philosophie et théologie
• Roma (serie de televisión)
• Pope Gregory I
• Catholic
• Christianity
• Rome
• European
• History
• Gregory

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 15 octobre 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780268077860
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Gregory
the Great
ASCETIC, PASTOR, AND FIRST MAN OF ROME
George E. Demacopoulos
University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, Indiana
Copyright © 2015 by the University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
www.undpress.nd.edu
All Rights Reserved
E-ISBN 978-0-268-07786-0
This e-Book was converted from the original source file by a third-party vendor. Readers who notice any formatting, textual, or readability issues are encouraged to contact the publisher at [e-mail] Manufactured in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Demacopoulos, George E. Gregory the Great : ascetic, pastor, and first man of Rome / George E. Demacopoulos. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-268-02621-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 0-268-02621-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Gregory I, Pope, approximately 540–604. I. Title. BX1076.D46 2015 270.2092—dc23 [B] 2015023757 ∞ The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. -->
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part One Gregory as Ascetic Theologian
ONE A Theology of Asceticism
TWO Fall, Redemption, and the Ascetic’s Filter
THREE Ecclesiology and the Rhetoric of Episcopal Equality
FOUR Some Mystical Attributes of Gregory’s Ascetic Theology
Part Two Gregory as Pastoral Theologian
FIVE The Importance of Spiritual Leadership
SIX The Recruitment of Leaders
SEVEN The Tasks of the Spiritual Leader
EIGHT The Impediments to Effective Leadership
Part Three Gregory as “First Man” of Rome
NINE The Rome of Gregory’s Imagination
TEN Ever the Praefect : Gregory’s “Secular” Responsibilities
ELEVEN Gregory’s Ascetic Program and Its Opponents
TWELVE Prefect of the Roman Church
THIRTEEN Spreading Christianity beyond the Roman World
FOURTEEN The Steward of Peter’s Tomb
Conclusion: The Apostolic Steward
Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography Index \232 -->
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In some respects, I have been working on this book for more than fifteen years. I wrote my doctoral dissertation at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on Gregory’s distinctive approach to spiritual direction. That project expanded to include additional authors in my first monograph, Five Models of Spiritual Direction in the Early Church (University of Notre Dame Press, 2007), which concluded with a chapter on Gregory. A second monograph, The Invention of Peter (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), on Petrine discourse in the early Church similarly concluded with a chapter that investigated Gregory’s contribution. While those projects were intellectually satisfying in their own ways, it was not until I began working on the present study that I was able to articulate with some semblance of clarity how it was that Gregory’s ascetic and pastoral commitments fit alongside his pragmatic administration of the Roman Church.
This project began in earnest during the fall of 2011 with the combined support of the Carpenter Foundation and a Fordham Faculty Fellowship. It was late in the year, however, before I began—the sabbatical had been devoted primarily to The Invention of Peter —and I was only able to dedicate a few months to rereading Gregory’s large corpus and to developing what I hope is an original approach to the material. Thus, I have written the majority of this book in short bursts of a few days at a time over the course of the past few years.
Along the way, I benefitted a great deal from the generosity of friends in the academy who were willing to share their time and insight. Kristina Sessa has proven to be an invaluable conversation partner for all matters regarding the Roman Church in late antiquity. Her insight and patience are beyond compare. Carole Straw read an early draft of the manuscript, providing pertinent critiques and identifying many lacunae. Joseph Lienhard, S.J., a longtime friend at Fordham, also read the manuscript and offered many helpful suggestions for revision. Although they did not contribute directly to this project, I would be remiss if I failed to acknowledge Aristotle Papanikolaou and Ben Dunning, who continuously provide intellectual stimulation, models of scholarly excellence, and friendship.
Finally, this book is dedicated to Peter Iver Kaufman. It was Peter who first pushed me to think more carefully and more comprehensively about the multiple strands within Gregory’s thought and action. As both friend and mentor, Peter has provided me more than I can ever hope to repay.
Introduction
Pope Gregory I, known among Western Christians as St. Gregory the Great and by Eastern Christians as St. Gregory the Dialogist, was born around the year 540 to an aristocratic family well connected to the Roman Church. Gregory’s great-great-grandfather was likely Pope Felix III (bishop of Rome from 483–492), and Pope Agapetus (bishop of Rome from 533–536) was presumably a distant uncle. 1 Three of Gregory’s aunts (on his father’s side) are known to have been estate-dwelling ascetics. 2 Gregory’s father, Gordianus, held the administrative rank of defensor in the Church of Rome, which would typically mean that he served as a property and legal manager for a portion of the Church’s extensive landholdings. 3 Gregory’s family was wealthy, and he possessed all of the advantages of an aristocratic youth, including a palatial estate on the Caelian Hill and the best education available at that time. 4 Unfortunately, Gregory tells us little about his youth or the specifics of his studies. 5
At the time of his birth, Italy and the city of Rome were shadows of their former selves. For most of his childhood, the “Roman” armies of the East waged a destructive war against the Ostrogoths for supremacy of the Italian peninsula. Between 546 and 547 alone, control of the city of Rome switched three times between imperial and Gothic hands. 6 We know nothing about how Gregory’s family responded to the calamity of the initial siege of the capital in 546, when famine is said to have ensnared even the wealthiest of the city’s districts. One of Gregory’s early-twentieth-century biographers, F. Homes Dudden, speculated that the family may have retreated to the relative safety of its Sicilian estates to escape the devastation of the siege, but no evidence survives to support that idea. 7 However Gregory’s family weathered the crisis, the Gothic wars dramatically hastened an already steep decline for the once mighty capital of the Roman Empire. 8 By the time that Gregory reached adolescence, a great percentage of the city of Rome, including many of its greatest monuments, was abandoned. 9 Indeed, it is not too hard to imagine why Gregory’s writings are, at times, so apocalyptic in character—he was living in a nearly deserted city. 10
Although Justinian’s armies finally routed the Goths and established a permanent stronghold of Eastern Roman influence at Ravenna in the 550s, by 568 another Germanic tribe, the Lombards, crossed the Alps into Italy. That migration, and the wars that resulted from it, only furthered the desperation of the local populations and increased the political complexities for Rome’s civil and religious leaders. 11 It was onto this shifting stage that Gregory stepped when he entered public life so auspiciously in 573 as the praefectus urbi (prefect of the city). In former times, the urban prefect would have been the head of the Senate, with both legal and civil jurisdiction over the city and everything within one hundred miles of it. 12 By Gregory’s tenure, the authority of the prefecture’s office was likely diminished, but there is little denying that Gregory would have been seen as one of the leading men in the city, responsible for public works, finance, supply lines, and military defenses.
It is often noted that Gregory held this post for only a single year before abandoning public service to pursue the contemplative life of monasticism. It is not often described, however, just how traumatic that year would have been. First, it was during this year that Lombards threatened the city for the first time, temporarily suspending all communication with Ravenna and Constantinople. 13 Second, Pope John III (bishop of Rome from 561–574) died, leaving an uncommonly long vacancy until the election of Benedict the following year. 14 And, third, the famous Byzantine general Narses, who was responsible for protecting the city, also died. However unpopular the tax-happy Narses might have been among the aristocrats of Rome, his death left Gregory alone to address the multifaceted needs of the city’s inhabitants. 15 We know nothing of how Gregory actually dealt with the problems he faced; we have only a brief comment, made years later, in which Gregory emphasized the spiritual burden that this period placed upon his soul. 16 But as we will see, Gregory’s experience of civic leadership, however brief, helps to explain both the competence for public administration and the commitment to service that would become hallmarks of his tenure as Roman bishop.
Despite the immense pressure that public service would have placed upon the young Gregory, there is little reason to believe that he chose monasticism as a means to escape responsibility. Indeed, Gregory’s commitment to the ascetic life seems to have been absolute. He donated his family’s patrimony, endowed six monasteries in Sicily, and transformed his Roman estate into a seventh, St. Andrew’s, which he entered as a novice under the instruction of Valentius, the abbot. 17 According to his medieval biographers, the future bishop subjected himself to an unusually rigorous asceticism, likely causing the frequent ill health he suffered later in life. 18 As chapter 1 will demonstrate, Gregory’s entire outlook was formed by a particular vision of the ascetic life that he no doubt began to develop during this period.
In 579, at the start of his p