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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2011
The present chapter obliges us to return to the reverse side of the picture. If we have hitherto seen in the noble figure of Gregory nothing but the clear light of a penetrating intellect and an unequalled and many-sided energy, we must now survey him as he stands encompassed by the darkness of his time. His mind was entangled in many a superstition, and his writings have served to diffuse these superstitions over various lands and peoples. Genius in some instances may enable a man to rise above the level of the age to which he belongs, in others it is powerless, and the mind necessarily remains subject to the influence of the time in which it dwells and by which, as by the atmosphere, it is surrounded.
The sixth century
The sixth century is one of the most memorable in history. In it mankind experienced the overthrow of a great and ancient civilisation, and on this account believed that the end of the world had come. A thick cloud of barbarism, as it were of dust arising from the crash, hung over the Roman Empire, devastated throughout its length and breadth by the destroying angel, dealing pestilence and other ills. The world entered upon a turning-point in its development.
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