Introduction

Demacopoulos-00intro_Layout 1 7/31/15 8:57 AM Page 1 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 Greg - ory’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 de - fensor 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 1 Demacopoulos-00intro_Layout 1 7/31/15 8:57 AM Page 2 2 – Gregory the Great 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 en - snared 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 ado - lescence, a great percentage of the city of Rome, including many of its greatest monuments, was abandoned. 9 Indeed, it is not too hard to imag - ine 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 fur - thered the desperation of the local populations and increased the politi - cal complexities for Rome’s civil and religious leaders. 11 It was onto this shifting stage that Gregory stepped when he entered public life so auspi - ciously 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 hun - dred 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 be - fore abandoning public service to pursue the contemplative life of monas - ticism. 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 elec - tion 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 Demacopoulos-00intro_Layout 1 7/31/15 8:57 AM Page 3 Introduction –3 aristocrats of Rome, his death left Gregory alone to address the multifac - eted 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 experi - ence of civic leadership, however brief, helps to explain both the com - petence 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 com - mitment 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 nov ice under the instruction of Valentius, the abbot. 17 According to his medieval biographers, the future bishop subjected himself to an unusu - ally rigorous asceticism, likely causing the frequent ill health he su ffered 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 pontificate, Pope Pelagius II (bishop of Rome from 579– 590) recalled Gregory from his monastic retreat, ordained him to the diaconate, and appointed him apocrisiarius (i.e., papal representative to the emperor in Constantinople). 19 Given the intricate and overlapping concerns of the See of Rome with the city of Rome, Gregory’s responsi - bilities in the Eastern capital included religious, political, military, and economic interests. Gregory spent nearly seven years in Constantinople in this capacity, but the emperor’s preoccupations with Eastern a ffairs left Gregory free to devote a good deal of his time to study and the supervi - sion of a small community of Latin ascetics from St. Andrew’s who had accompanied him to Constantinople. 20 It was in this environment that Gregory began what would become his voluminous Moralia in Iob , which runs a dizzying eighteen hundred pages in the modern critical edition. The experience also provided Gregory with important contacts and a be hind-the-scenes look at the imperial court and the Church of Constan - tinople, both of which would prove valuable in Gregory’s future negoti - ations with the civil and ecclesiastical leaders of the East. 21 Demacopoulos-00intro_Layout 1 7/31/15 8:57 AM Page 4 4 – Gregory the Great In 585 Gregory returned to Rome and St. Andrews, where he may have assumed the role of abbot. In 590 he was selected to be Pelagius’s successor as bishop of Rome. Unlike so many episcopal elections in Rome and elsewhere, Gregory’s rise to the throne of Peter seems to have been uncontested. Indeed, as Peter Kaufman wryly noted, the only person who seems to have been upset about the appointment was Gregory himself. 22 The lone contemporary account is that of Gregory of Tours, who de - votes a few lines to the election, emphasizing (in hagiographic fashion) Gregory’s many attempts to avoid the papal o ffice. 23 Gregory the Great served as bishop of Rome from September of 590 until his death in March of 604. In some respects, he may have been the most accomplished pon - ti ff of the entire late-ancient period. Some of his achievements include the daily feeding of Rome’s indigent, the refurbishing of the city’s de - fenses, the introduction of monastics to the papal administration (he was himself the first monk-pope), and the reintroduction of Roman Christi - anity to England. 24 Added to these pragmatic endeavors are the ponti ff ’s important theological, exegetical, and hagiographic works, which likely did more to shape the theological landscape of the Latin West in the Middle Ages than those of any other author, save Augustine. To be sure, Gregory’s accomplishments required a determination and assertiveness that belie the irenic presentation of Gregory’s medieval biographers, who characterized him as a gentle-minded contemplative. Perhaps what is so fascinating about Gregory’s thought and activity is that his achievements in many ways came despite a deep theological and ideological pull toward the seclusion of ascetic detachment. Indeed, if there is any single axiom that explains Gregory as both theologian and papal actor, it is that he felt ever conflicted between his inclination for ascetic ideals (namely humility and retreat) and a Ciceronian-like com - pulsion to public service. Interpreting the Life and Thought of Gregory the Great Modern assessments of Gregory’s life and thought are, of course, confined by the availability of the historical sources. In many ways, we are fortunate to have access to so many of Gregory’s writings—biblical commentaries, sermons, hagiographic works, a treatise on pastoral care, Demacopoulos-00intro_Layout 1 7/31/15 8:57 AM Page 5 Introduction –5 and more than eight hundred letters survive. With the availability of so much material, it is easy for interpreters to make the mistake of thinking that we have access to everything and that we can know a great deal more about his career than we actually can.

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