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The Enigma of Gregory the Great's Dialogues: A Response to Francis Clark1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Paul Meyvaert
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Extract

The Middle Ages remained serenely unaware that a dark problem might attach itself some day to the Dialogues of Gregory the Great. They knew their Gregory, studied his Moralia and other scriptural commentaries with uplifted hearts, read his Dialogues with equal veneration and devotion and never perceived even the glimmer of a contradiction between the two categories of works. Then came the Reformation with its stress on Scripture and its dislike of the ‘superstitious Romanist piety’ fostered by works like the Dialogues. A problem thus arose for the Reformers. They had little love for the papacy but retained a veneration for the Church Fathers, among whom they counted Gregory the Great, that great interpreter of Scripture, who had been instrumental in bringing Christianity to England. Was it possible to retain Gregory but divest him of an embarrassing work? It is important to note that the first attempts to deny Gregory's authorship of the Dialogues are rooted in the polemics of the Reformation period.

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The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 39 , Issue 3 , July 1988 , pp. 335 - 381
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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References

2 John Calvin developed a real warmth towards Gregory, ‘the last bishop of Rome’, citing him no less than fifty times in the last edition of his Institutes; see Lester K. Little, ‘Calvin's appreciation of Gregory the Great’, Harvard Theological Review lvi (1963), 145–57.

3 Cooke's work bears a long title: Censura quorundam scriptorum quae sub nominibus sanctorum et veterum auctorum, a pontijiciis passim in eorum scriptis sed potissimum in quaeslionibus hodie controversis cilari solenl. In qua oslenditur scripla ilia, vel esse supposititia, vel dubiae saltern fidei, London 1614. There was a further London edition in 1623 and three editions in Helmstadt in 1641, 1655 and 1683. The edition used here is that of 1641. Ralph Thoresby, Vicaria Leodiensis or the History of the Church of Leedes, London 1724, 55–60, gives a biography of Cooke and attributes ‘the Revival of religious Knowledge and substantial Piety in these Parts [Leeds]’ to him.

4 Cooke's massive work would deserve careful analysis to determine the contribution it made towards the development of critical scholarship. Although the author's primary motivation, evident on every page, is the desire to call into question the authenticity of all patristic works cited as grounds for ‘papist beliefs’, one discerns also a sharp and alert eye, able to spot multiple attributions of a single work to several authors in the printed editions of the period and able also to detect undeniable historical anachronisms with regard to particular attributions.

5 ‘Gregorii Dialogi videntur supposititii’, Cooke, op. cit. 413–19. Cooke expresses indignation that, in his own day, the Dialogues, a work supporting the doctrine of purgatory and the invocation of saints etc., should have been translated ‘from poor Latin into worse English’ and dedicated to Queen Anne (of Denmark), the consort ofJames 1. This refers to the translation signed ‘Your Majesty's most devoted servant, and daily orator, P. W. [ = Philip Woodward]’, bearing a Paris imprint of 1608, but actually printed at Douai in the same year.

6 ‘Quomodohi Dialogi erunt Gregorii 1. qui contra Gregorium primum dicunt?’, Cooke, op. cit. 419.

7 On this and the following see Clark, Pseudo-Gregorian Dialogues (hereinafter cited as Clark), 31–45.

8 See for example the passage from Gregorovius quoted by Clark: ‘In reading anecdotes such as these, the wish involuntarily arises that the great pope had not been responsible for their authorship’, ibid. 42. It would make an interesting study to examine t o what extent the Weltanschauung of a period which considers itself more advanced and civilized than earlier periods prejudices a full understanding of the past and results in belittling judgments about individuals who did not share the later, ‘more civilised’ attitudes. Are we to think less of Bede because he believed that water, in which the leaves of manuscripts that came from Ireland had been dipped, had the property of curing snake-bites, HE i. i, or because he believed that the Apostle Paul had spent a day and a night at the bottom of the sea without being suffocated by the water? Would we have believed differently if we had lived in his age? For Bede's attitude towards the miraculous see P. Meyvaert, ‘Bede the scholar’, in Famulus Christi. Essays in commemoration of the ijth centenary of the birth of the Venerable Bede, London 1976, 551–5.

9 Clark states that ‘Cooke was more incisive than preceding critics, bringing detailed arguments against the traditional attribution of the work to St Gregory…Cooke's challenge to the authenticity of the Dialogues was the most forceful of all…’, op. cit. 38–9-

10 London 1956.

12 Clark, 750.

13 ‘The more the true spiritual greatness of St Gregory has been realized anew in the present century, the more the problem of the Dialogues has become obtrusive and embarrassing. How could such an inspired yet humble master of divine wisdom be the author of that extraordinary farrago of preposterous tales, which seem to reflect a debased level of religious sensitivity?’, ibid. 749. If the scholarly papers presented at the International Conference on Gregory the Great held at Chantilly in 1982 and recently published, Grégoire le Grand (Editions du CNRS, 1986), can be taken as representative of today's scholarly climate, one detects no hesitation in accepting the Dialogues as an authentic work and no sense that this work in any way diminishes Gregory's true stature. The exception, of course, is Clark's own paper presented at the conference and summarizing the arguments of his forthcoming book.

14 Clark, 722.

15 Ibid. 179–85.

16 Ibid. 163–78.

17 ‘Ut loquitur Dialogista’, Cooke, Censura, 415.

18 Clark, 731.

19 Ibid. 298–410.

20 Ibid. 65–92.

21 Ibid. 93.

22 Ibid. 95–100.

23 Ibid. 100–4.

24 Ibid. 721.

25 For example: ‘Even at the commercial level, the librarii or copyists who supplied the demand north of the Alps for patristic texts, and who busily transcribed the Moralia, Homilies and Regula pastoralis of Gregory, would have been well aware how lucratively marketable would be another Gregorian work of such great interest’, 722; ‘the Roman librarii who supplied the needs of the book-questors north of the Alps’, 736. Clark is mistaken in his interpretation of the term librarius at this period as referring to a ‘publishin g house’ intent on profit. Librarius simply means copyist: Bede, in the prologue t o his Commentary on Luke states: ‘Ut ipse mihi dictator simul et notarius et librarius existerem’; that is, in addition to composing, he sometimes also made copies of his own works (obviously other monks acted as librarii for him at other times). Work as librarii was considered eminently suitable for monks, as we know from Cassian, Institutes v. 39. 2, and from Cassiodorus, Instilutiones i. 30. Monks were the main copyists in this era. It was moreover not ‘Roman publishing houses’ that were supplying the need for books north of the Alps. As Bernhard Bischoff has pointed out in an article to which Clark makes only a passing reference (422 n. 28), Rome was well supplied with libraries, and many books from elsewhere, for example from Cassiodorus’ library at Vivarium, seem to have migrated there. The existing stock was ample to satisfy the needs, for instance, of Benedict Biscop, who among other works brought back with him from Rome to Wearmouth-Jarrow the Codex grandior of Cassiodorus.

26 This reasoning would be invalid only if it could be demonstrated that the four surviving manuscripts were copied directly from one another. Since only fragments survive (CLA nos 1356, 1595, 1626, 1808), each representing a different section of the Dialogues (Dial. iii. 28, iii. 7, iv. 38, iii. 1) a full comparison of texts is impossible. The likelihood is, however, that they are not immediately related.

27 The precept ‘posteriores non deteriores’, well known to students of textual criticism, s a reminderi that the age of a given manuscript is not the only factor that counts in establishing the history of a text.

28 See P. Verbraken, ‘La tradition manuscrite du Commentaire de saint Gregoire sur l e Cantique des Cantiques’, Revue Benedictine lxxiii (1963), 277–88; idem, ‘Un nouveau manuscrit du Commentaire de S. Grdgoire sur le Cantique des Cantiques’, Revue Benedictine lxxv (1965), 143–5: the new manuscript, ‘est le plus ancien de tous…en ddpit de son anciennete, il n'est pas parmi les meilleurs’.

29 ‘The first mention of th e work I have found is in th e writings of Aldhelm of Malmesbury, nearly one hundred years after the alleged date of its composition’, Clark, 163.

30 Ibid. 172. If Aldhelm was not th e person who brough t a copy to England, Clark believes ‘one coul d conjecture that among th e books Benedict Biscop brough t back from his sixth and last visit to Rome in 684 was the text of th e Dialogues, which by that means would have become known in England, and so could hav e reache d Aldhelm’. This conjecture has obviousl y some appeal for Clark since it would explain how Bede kne w th e work and also how Adamnan, who used the Dialogues when writing his Life of Columba(probably composed betwen 688 and 692), could have obtaine d a copy of the work on his second visit to Northumbria in 688. Clark, 173, points out that the Prognosticon of Julia n of Toledo (in which the Dialogues are quoted) also date s from 688, but he considers tha t Julian got his copy of the Dialogues directl y from Rome. While Clar k is impressed by the numerous quotations from th e Dialogues in the 680s, other s may simply conclude that they are related to the increase d literary activity perceptible at this period. Th e Dialogues are quoted more often, not because they have newly appeared on the scene, bu t because mor e writers are at work.

31 Clark, 162 n. 1.

32 Aldhelm, the Prose Works, Ipswic h 1979, 14–15 for the date of th e De virginitate; p. 9, on Aldhelm's journey to Rome, which cannot be securely dated in the pontificate of Sergius 1 (687–701) - as Clark maintains, p. 172 - since this dating rests on a papal bull ‘that is almost certainly spurious’.

33 See: ‘Reverentissimis christi virginibus Hildilithae, regularis disciplinae et monas-ticae conversationis magistrae, simulque Iustinae ac Cuthburgae nee non Osburgae, contribulibus necessitudinum nexibus conglutinatae, Aldgithae ac Scolasticae, Hidburgae et Berngithae, Eulaliae ac Teclae, rumore sanctitatis concorditer ecclesiam ornantibus’, Aldhelmi Opera, MGH Auct. Ant, xv. 228–9. *ls obviously the names of some of the nuns at Barking that prompted Aldhelm to insert particular passages into his work: Iustina, De virginitate, c. xliii, Ted a and Eulalia, c. xlvi, Scholastica, c. xlvii. One may suspect that nuns in other monasteries of the period bore similar names, not excluding that of St Benedict's sister.

34 The monastery of Barking, like those of Whitby, Coldingham, Ely etc., was a double monastery already well established in Bede's day. Lapidge and Herren, op. cit. 51 and 191 n. 2, suggest its foundation date must be placed after 665, but before 675.

35 See Clark, 104–6. In the case of John Moschus, the story he had heard in the East from a certain priest, Peter, who had been to Rome (c. cxcii of the Pratum spirituale) is obviously the same as the one told in the Dialogues iv. 57. 8–16 about the monk Justus of Gregory's own monastery. Peter's version represents the oral tradition then in circulation, a story reduced to a few essentials and probably obtained at several removes from the actual event. There is no need to posit a textual link with the Dialogues to account for Peter's version. But the story as told in the Dialogues has an otherwise authentic and even poignant ring. It reflects Gregory's ever present and deep anxiety about the salvation of his own soul (see below, pp. 375–81) and that of others, an anxiety fed by a certain ingrained pessimism-le pessimisme de Gregoire est parmi les plus sombres dans l'histoire de la pensee chrétienne’, according to P. Boglioni - that led him to let Justus die without the uplifting and consoling presence of any of his brethren, just to make sure he would repent sincerely. To some this might seem a procedure guaranteed to generate inner despair!

36 Dom A. de Vogue, in the introduction to his edition of the Dialogues, SC ccli. 140, pointed out that some of the stories in the so-called Vita Burgundofarae (= bk II of the Life of Columbanus and his Disciples), a work by Jonas ofBobbio composed about AD 642 showed dependence on bk IV of the Dialogues. Clark concedes, not only that there is undeniable similarity between the two sets of stories, but also that the ‘influence of one of the two texts on the other may indeed be inferred with some probability’, op. cit. 108–9. He argues that it is the Dialogist who is drawing on Jonas and not vice versa. This is difficult to maintain particularly when one notices that Jonas ‘debt to the Dialogues is even greater than was suspected by de Vogue or Clark. The chapter (bk I. 10) describing Columbanus’ arrival at Luxeuil is clearly modelled on the Dialogue account of Benedict's arrival at Monte Cassino. Jonas moreover ends this chapter with an unmistakeable echo of Dialogues II. 36 on Benedict and his Rule: compare (Gregory) ‘scripsit monachorum regulam…cuius si quis velit subtilius mores vitamque cognoscere, potest in eadem institutione regulae omnes magisterii illius actus invenire, quia sanctus vir nullo modo potuit aliter docere quam vixit’ with (Jonas) ‘regulamque, quam tenerent, Spiritu Sancto repletus condedit, in qua, qualis et quantae disciplinae vir sanctus fuerit, prudens lector vel auditor agnoscit’, MGH SS rer. Merov., iv. 76 lines 22–4. It is likely that a fuller investigation would turn up even more points of contact, all showing that it is Jonas who i s using the Dialogues as his literary model and not vice versa. On Jonas' use of other literary models see Ian Wood, ‘The Vita Columbani and Merovingian hagiography, Peritia i (1982), 63–80. For a comparative study between the miracles in the Dialogues and in the work of Jonas, stressing the pastoral concern underlying the Dialogue narratives, see S. Boesch Gajano, ‘La tipologia dei miracoli nell’ agiografia altomedioevale. Qualche riflessioné. Schede Medievali v (1983), 303–12.

37 Clark, 109.

38 Since the nun s of Barking wer e obviously reading the Dialogues at this time, Aldhelm must already have known about them.

39 Bede writes ‘adulescens, nomine Biscop, cognomento Benedictus’, HE v. 19; ‘religiosus Christi famulus Biscopus cognomento Benedictus, Hist. Abb. i, thus indicating that Benedict was not his original name. Eddius Stephanus in ch. iii of his Life of Wilfrid, alludes to him thus: ‘ducem nobilem et admirabilis ingenii quendam nomine Biscop Baducing’, ed. B. Colgrave, Cambridge 1927, 8. Baducing has been interpreted as a patronymic. On the name see Peter Hunter Blair, The World of Bede, London 1970, 155-

40 I will refrain here from comment on Clark's enormously long chapter concerning the Dialogues and early Benedictine monasticism, 186–295, which would require an essay on its own to show how various strands of evidence are being woven together and made to fit the author's overriding purpose. The cult of St Benedict and the Rule that bears his name did not spread like wildfire overnight, but Clark constantly maintains that if the Dialogues were authentic this would have had to be the case.

41 ‘Fratres mei, qui mecum familiariter uiuunt, omnimod o me compellunt aliqua de miraculis patrum, quae in Italia facta audiuimus, sub breuitate scribere. Ad quam rem solacio uestra e caritatis uehemente r indigeo, ut quaeque uobis in memoriam redeunt, quaeque cognouisse uos contigit, mih i breuiter indicetis. De domno enim Nonnoso abbate, qui iuxta domnu m Anastasium de Pentumis fuit, aliqua retulisse te memini, qua e obliuioni mandaui. Et hoc ergo et si qua sunt alia tuis peto epistulis imprimi, et mihi sub celeritate transmitti, si tamen ad m e ipsum non proferas’, MGH Epp. i. 206–7; see also CCSL cxl. 195-6-

42 ‘[Petrus] Non ualde in Italia aliquorum uitam fulsisse cognoui. Ex quorum igitur conparatione accenderis ignoro. Et quidem bonos uiro s in hac terra fuisse non dubito, signa tamen atqu e uirtutes aut ab eis nequaquam factas existimo, aut ita sunt hactenu s silentio suppressa, ut utrumne sint facta nesciamus. [Gregorius] Si sola, Petre, referam quae de perfectis probatisque uiris unus ego homuncio uel bonis ac fidelibus uiris adtestantibu s agnoui uel per memetipsum didici, dies, ut opinor, antequa m sermo cessabit’, SC cclx. 14–16. The stage is thus set to launch into narratives concerning the Italian Fathers. Clark, 75, is absolutely right in saying that the letter to Maximian and the above passage have always been regarded as ‘mutually corroborativ e texts’.

43 Ibid. 65.

44 Clark, 68–71, mounts an elaborate attack to discredit the contents of the letter. Among other things he tells us that the concluding phrase ‘rings false’, because Gregory would never have suggested that Maximian bring his stories to Gregory in person. A bishop's duty, according to Gregory, was to stay at home and govern his diocese. The year 593 was not the year for a quinquennial visit of the Sicilian bishops to Rome, since these visits seem to have occurred in 592 and 597 etc. Clark does not concede that general rules are subject to exceptions in individual circumstances. Maximian was one of Gregory's most trusted friends, a monk of his monastery of St Andrew who had accompanied him t o Constantinople. On return he became abbot of St Andrew and, soon after Gregory's election, was appointed by Gregory to the bishopric of Syracuse. In October 591 Gregory also entrusted him with the Sicilian vicariate, and this appointment could easily have occasioned additional visits to Rome. Gregory's correspondence is too incomplete (see below p. 347) to allow us to determine the full scope of their relationship. While Gregory was very willing to lay down general principles, he was not above making exceptions to them, especially for those to whom he felt close. Gregory would no doubt have agreed that an abbot's proper role was that of governing his monastery, yet he arranged for Claudius, abbot of SS. John and Stephen in Ravenna, to spend several years with him in Rome, while leaving his monastery in the hands of a praepositus. In this case Gregory allowed the help Claudius gave him with his scriptural homilies to take precedence over Claudius’ duties towards his monastic community. If Maximian had reason to make a visit to Rome, and incidentally to bring with him the material Gregory wanted for the Dialogues, we need not doubt that Gregory would have welcomed the visit. For the evidence involving Claudius see P. Meyvaert, ‘The date of Gregory the Great's Commentaries on the Canticle of Canticles and on 1 Kings’, Sacris Erudiri xxiii (1978–9), 191–216.

45 Clark, 66. This is an excellent example of the many instances throughou t the work where Clark takes pains to hedge his bet or, as was said above (p. 338), to leave no avenue of escape undefended.

46 ‘Tot charticios libros epistolarum.-.quot annos probatur uixisse’, ‘quartum decimum epistolarum librum septimae indictionis imperfectum reliquit’, Joh n the Deacon, Vita Gregorii I, praef. and iv. 71. I n the terminology of the ninth century, whe n John is writing, this can only mean book s in codex form, not ‘rolls’ (rotuli) as Clark translates, 79 an d n. 35. Dag Norberg, In Registrum Gregorii Magni Studia Critica, ii, Uppsala 1939, 40–5 has provided a detailed analysis of how the documents were laid out on th e pages of these papyrus volumes.

47 For the various collections which derive from Gregory's Registrum see ibid. 53–85 (with further bibliography).

48 On Collection C, see ibid. 65.

49 Convincing proof of the incompleteness of the Gregorian correspondence that survives can be found by working one's way through the Regislrum in the MG H edition and noting the allusions to ‘epistolae deperditae’ in the footnotes, letters Gregory refers to that have not survived. Nine such references occur for indiction 11 and ten for indiction xn alone. Again, if we had the full transcript for these indictions we would no doubt find these ‘lost’ letters.

50 ‘Nothelmus postea Romam ueniens, nonnullas ibi bead Gregorii papae simul et aliorum pontificum epistulas, perscrutato eiusdem sanctae ecclesiae Romanae scrinio, permissu eius, qui nunc ipsi ecclesiae praeest Gregorii pontificis’, HE, ed. C. Plummer, Oxford 1896, praef.

51 Clark, 93.

52 See Epp. i. 41, v. 53, ix. 228.

53 For comment on the word librarius see above, n. 25.

54 ‘Dulcissimae autem mihi fraternitati uestrae codices direxi, quorum notitiam subter inserui. Ea autem quae in beati lob expositione dicta fuerant, et uobis scribitis dirigenda, quia haec uerbis sensibusque tepentibus per homilias dixeram, utcumque studui in librorum ductum permutare, quae nunc adhuc a librariis conscribuntur. Et nisi portitoris praesentium me festinatio coangustasset, cuncta uobis transmittere sine aliqua imminu-tione uoluissem; maxime quia et hoc ipsum opus ad uestram reuerentiam scripsi, ut ei quern prae ceteris diligo in meo uidear labore desudasse’, MGH Epp. i 58; CCSL cxl. 49. ‘Sine aliqua imminutione’ shows that it was not the completion of the work, but the time needed to transcribe it, that caused the problem.

55 Epistola ad Leandrum, CCSL cxliii. 3, lines 73–4.

56 ‘Hoc opus per triginta et quinque volumina extensum, in sex codicibus explevi.’ It i s importan t to note that, on the evidence of Ep. i. 41, this phrase had been written before April 591!

57 ‘Reverendissimo et sanctissimo fratri Leandro coepiscopo Gregorius servus servorum Dei’, CCSL cxliii. l.

58 Minuscule scripts were not in use in Gregory's day, only uncial and, less frequently, semi-uncial. Because these scripts were not economical in their use of space one can understand why it took six separate codices to contain the whole of the Moralia. On the basis of MS Paris, Bibliotheque NaUonale lat. 2206, CLA no. 542, an early eighth-century uncial manuscript of part of the Moralia, one can calculate that the whole of the work might have occupied a total of about 1,134 folios.

59 Clark writes: ‘Gregory told Leander that he had been labouring to put into book form the notes of that dictated commentary, and hoped to send it to him very soon’! p. 93.

60 ‘Quia longo terrarum spatio disiunctum te uidere nequeo, unum quod mihi de te dictauit caritas feci, ut librum Regulae pastoralis, quern in episcopatus mei exordio scripsi, et libros, quos in expositione beati lob iamdudum me fecisse cognouisti, sanctitati tuae communi filio Probino presbytero ueniente transmitterem. Et quidem in eo opere tertiae et quartae partis codices non transmissi, quia eos solummodo ex eisdem partibus codices habui quos iam monasteriis dedi’, CCSL cxl. 348; MGH Epp. i. 352–3.

61 In the preface to his recent edition of the Moralia for Corpus Christianorum Marc Adriaen writes: ‘Minime liquet illo tempore [i.e. 595] iam totum opus euulgatum fuisse, cum in Moralium libro xxvuo, 11 mentionem fecisset de conuersione Anglorum quae non ante missionem Augustini, sc. anno 596 incepit’, CCSL cxliii. p. vi. It is essential that we disjoin the problems concerning Gregory's further revisions of the already completed Moralia (on this see below pp. 357–8) from the question of the completion of the work itself. Since Ep. v. 53, ofJuly 595, explicitly states that Gregory is sending Moralia parts v-vi, containing bks XXIII-XXXV, it is obvious that Gregory's exposition of Job xxxvi. 29 (‘cardines quoque maris operiet’) in bk XXVTI of the copy that Leander received cannot have contained mention of the mission to the English, which still lay at least a year in the future. The fact that Adriaen has been unable to discover a surviving copy of the Moralia that does not contain the passage alluding to the English is a different problem that must not be allowed to negate the clear statement of Gregory's Ep. i. 41 (that the whole work, in six parts and comprising thirty-five books, was complete by April 591) and of Ep. v. 53 (that, in-595, Leander received the completed Moralia with the exception of parts m-iv, for lack of sufficient copies of these parts).

62 ‘Nam sicut in libris Moralibus dixisse me memini…Nam sicut in libris Moralibus iam diximus’, Reg. past., PL lxxviii. 34B and 38A-the allusions being to Moralia bks xxi and xx. In one of the homilies on Ezechiel, delivered in 593, we read: ‘Sed quia de his in libris Moralibus diu tractatum est, nobis nunc in eis diutius immorandu m non est’, CCSL cxlii. 180–1 - the allusion here is to Moralia bk xxv.

63 Clark, 94–100 (on Paterius); 100–4 (on Taio); 411–30 (on the ‘store’ of literary remains).

64 In preparing this essay I became acutely aware of the lack of a satisfactory study on Paterius, Tai o and their relationship. I hope to present elsewhere in greater detail the evidence for the conclusions I have reached, presented in summary form in the following pages.

65 ‘Cum beatissimi atqu e apostolici Gregorii, pontificis nostri, uestri quoque, addam nutritoris, dicta saepius lectione percurrerem, auidiusque mihi eis assiduum esse ipsa luculentissima uerboru m eius satisfactio suaderet: quiddam in eis reperi sine comparatione potissimum. Dum igitur unius sancti uiri, hoc est beati Jo b historiam abstrusis mysteriorum opacibus tectam, sub triplici, id est typica, morali, atque historica studuit expositione discutere, ac repulso ignorantiae nubil o in aperto cuncd s luce clariu s serena patefactione monstrare, pene totam ueteris ac noui Testamenti seriem reru m explanandarum necessitate est coactus exponerc.Huius ergo rei ardend nimis desiderio prouocatus, quaedam de iisdem testimoniis coeperam sub quadam breuitate decerpere, aliqua uero negligendo transire’, PL lxxix. 683A-4A.

66 ‘Quod dum fieret, sicut conscientia mea mihi testis est, me uolente, atque hoc cautius prouidente ne a quoquam aliquo modo nosceretur, per quosdam ad eiusdem apostolici notitiam pontificis nostri usque peruenit. Qui me uerbis mox, quibus beatitudo uestra nouit, suasoriis, atque ad superna trahentibus, hortando coepit accendere, quatenus hoc quod neglecte coeperam, explere studiosius debuissem, ita ut et opus, et librum in quo testimonium positum legeretur, uel ex qua re ortum esset, in tituli eius praenotatione designarem’, ibid. 684A.

67 Clark writes: ‘I t appears from the wording of the prologue that when the compiler wrote it Pope Gregory was dead and held in hallowed memory’, 96. Quite the contrary; the wording of the prologue clearly treats Gregory as a living person. It also lacks the quasi-obligatory term memoriae used when alluding to the dead. (If we examine Gregory's correspondence we find this word memoriae occurring over seventy times, preceded by one or another of the following terms: beatae, clarissimae, dileclissimae, gloriosae, recordandae, piae, sanctae, uenerabilis, reuerendae.) Perhaps Clark believes that the first word in the phrase ‘beatissimi atque apostolici Gregorii pontificis nostri’ implies that Gregory was held ‘in hallowed memory’ and therefore was dead. This was standard usage, however, towards a living and respected bishop at the period. (The restriction of ‘beatus’ to signify ‘saint’ or ‘holy man’ was a development of the Carolingian period.) Thus, for example, Ep. xi. 15, of 5 October in the year 600, which represents the minutes, recorded probably by Paterius, of the session at which Abbot Probus was granted permission to draw up a will: ‘Praesidente beatissimo et apostolico papa Gregorio…propria manu ego Probus seruus uester subscripsi et uobis beatissimo domino meo Gregorio papae prorrexi’, CCSL cxlA. 881, 883. In the newly discovered collection of letters of Augustine, edited by J. Divjak, CSEL lxxxviii, we find: ‘Domino beatissimo et merito uenerabili sancto fratri et coepiscopo Honorio…Augustinus’, Ep. xxvi; ‘Domino uere sancto et beatissimo papae Aurelio Hieronymus’, Ep. xxvii. On this topic see ErnstJerg, Vir Venerabilis. Untersuchungen zur Titulatur der Bischofe in den ausserkirchlicken Texten der spdlantike als Beitrag zvx Deutung ihrer offentlichen Stellung, Vienna 1970. Jerg provides numerous examples in connection with ‘beatissimus’ (see index, p. 287), for example p. 170:‘“beatissimus” gilt dem Papst, dem Patriarchen von Konstantonopel, den VStern der alten Konzilien; ein verstorbener Papst heisst “beatae memoriae”.’

68 ‘Moxque hoc imperantis suffragio prouocato assumens, quo ualui studio, ueteris ac noui Testamenti in unum testimonia congesta collegi. [Et iam non solum de beati Job expositione, sed nee de aliis eius opusculis quidquam curaui, sicut prius facere coeperam, neglectum relinquere]’, PL lxxix. 685A.

69 ‘Quae [i.e. leslimonia] dum disperse, sicut quippe reperta fuerant in schedis suis relata, transcurrerem, uisum mihi est, licet esset laboris immodici, ut uniuscuiusque rei testimonia, iuxta quod in suis ex ordine sunt sita codicibus, per libros suos ordinando componerem, quatenus studiosi lectoris desiderium, ad dilucidandam sibi quam uelit obscuritatem, inuento libri quern requireret titulo, nihil morae uel ad parum aliquo modo praepediret’, PL lxxix. 685A.

70 ‘Alicubi autem, quaedem quae de eo minus pridem dixerat, inter repetita addens uerba suppleui. Quod ego de iam dictis excerpens, eidem testimonio ubi poposcit locus, inserendum aptaui, quia res non erant, quae separatim poni utiliter possent, dum ex praecedentibus, quae dicta fuerant, subsequentibusque penderent. Si enim propter nouitatem paruae rei, rursum dicta ponerentur, facerent etiam repetita fastidium procul dubio. Ut ergo expositionis, unde haec excerpta sint, recurrens ordinem, plus in quibusdam huius operis locis aliquid, quam in textu libri est positum minusue reperias, causae fecit ratio, quam praemisi’, PL lxxix. 686A. A good example is the testimonium (no. 12) on Lev. xv. 10, ibid. 758D, where a sentence from the Reg. past. ii. 4 (‘in mente quippe audientium…in mente generatur’) has been inserted into the teslimonium drawn from Moralia xxiii. 28. Another example is the testimonium (no. 63) on Gen. xxix. 24, PL lxxix. 714D, where a short passage from the Moralia vi. 61 (quia nimirum mens…sed amplius parit'/‘post Liae complexum…copulatur’) has been split into two and inserted into the testimonium taken from the In Ezechielem. For our present purpose the most striking example is the lestimonium (no. 4) on Num. viii. 24–5, PL lxxix. 763B, where a passing comment on this verse from Dialogues II. iv. 3 (‘Electi ergo…fatigari/…cum uero iam mentis… animarum fiunt’) has been integrated into the teslimonium which is taken from Moralia xxiii. 31. The importance of this feature will emerge when we deal further on with Taio. (The Moralia are cited with book and paragraph number.)

71 ‘Perpendens autem, quod si utriusque Testamenti in unum uellem testimonia redacta colligere, et uoluminis normam excederet, et legentis desiderium impediret; in tribus hoc uoluminibus Domino est cooperante dispositum, et duo ueteris, tertium noui dicta contineat. Quae beatitudini uestrac, non temeritatis ausu, sed amore uestri prouocatus studii quod in inquisitione diuini olim feruet eloquii, sciens maxime in dictis praedicti pontificis nostri quanta noscendi uestrae sit auiditas mentis, ex multis uoluminibus pauca componens, studui destinare, humili obsecrans prece qua ualeo, ut dum uobis, uel quisquis legerit, in hoc opere laboris mei cura placuerit, pro me ad Dominum intercessores esse dignentur.’ The tenor of this passage does not suggest that the work was left unfinished. This again is of some import for what follows.

72 PL lxxix. 683–916. This edition, based on that of the Maurists, does not introduce the texts in the way they are presented in the manuscripts.

73 A. Wilmart, ‘Le recueil Gregorien de Paterius et les fragments wisigothiques de Paris’, Revue Benedictine xxxix (1927), 81–104.

74 R. Etaix, ‘Le Liber testimonionim de Paterius’, Revuedes Sciences Religieuses xxxii (1958), 66–78. See in particular pp. 73–5 which provide a corrective list to the text of Migne. A full study of the relationship between the works of Paterius and Taio (see below pp. 363–5) i s likely to lead to some modifications of a few of Etaix's conclusions.

75 Clark, 96, indicates that he has had access to the new edition of Paterius' work, by R. Vander Plaetse, now in preparation for Corpus Christianorum.

76 See Wilmart, op. cit. 85, and Etaix, op. cit. 69 n. 12.

77 ‘Au temoignage de nos manuscrits, Paterius detache toujours et met en evidence, au premier rang, comme une sorte de titre ou de rubrique, la reference aux ceuvres de saint Grégoire: “In expositione beati lob libri VII”; “In commentario Hezechielis”; “In codice Dialogorum” etc.’, Wilmart, op. cit. 90.

78 Etaix points out that, in the course of his work, Paterius seems to have tired of this particular feature: ‘II semble done que Paterius se soit fatigue au cours de cet interminable chapitre consacre au psautier, et qu'il n'ait plus eule courage de presenter par une breve introduction les morceaux choisis de saint Gregoire’, op. cit. 70.

79 There are three testimonia which lack an attribution in the manuscripts, but probably only through an accident of the transmission, since one can be shown to derive from the exposition ofJob and the other two can be linked to the In Ezechielem. I hope to deal with this evidence in the article referred to above in n. 64.

80 In CCSL cxlii, Marc Adriaen, the editor, brings together in an appendix, pp. 399–432, the nineteen passages which Paterius attribute s to the In Ezechielem, but which do not occur in the version of these homilies as they were finally edited by Gregory. It is unfortunate that the excellent new computer-generated Thesaurus Gregorii Magni does not take account of this material.

81 ‘Homilias quae in beatum Hiezechihelem prophetam, ita ut coram populo loquebar, exceptae sunt, multis curis irruentibus in abolitione reliqueram. Sed post annos octo, petentibus fratribus, notariorum schedas requirere studui, easque fauente Domino transcurrens, in quantum ab angustiis tribulationum licuit, emendaui’, CCSL cxlii. 3.

82 This point is likewise made by Etaix: ‘Paterius…nous citerait done des passages omis lors de l'ldition officielle, et il aurait ecrit son ouvrage avant 601–602’, Liber, 78. There s i however a slight problem' about the exact date when the homilies on Ezechiel were delivered, see Meyvaert, ‘The date’, 201–2 n. 25.

83 ‘Saepe quis fallaciae uel irae, uel immunditiae, uel superbiae suae meminit, et se in humilitatis loco a mundi huius strepitu abscondit. Sed cum ad regendum populum post occultationem suam ducitur, hinc inde subintrantibus peccatorum iaculis feritur, atque timere incipit ne ei et hoc ipsum iam sit ad iudicium, quia bonum quietis intimae degustauit, quod tenere non potuit…Sed cum ad turbas atque strepitus mundi uel coacti reuertimur, inter irruentia peccata deprehensi, et ipsam munitionem nostram pertime-scimus, quia de subtili omnipotentis Dei examine hoc quoque formidare incipimus, quod bene uixisse credebamus.’ ‘Immunditia’ - the word should neither shock nor surprise. There are enough telling comments throughout his work to show that Gregory had normal human impulses; see, for instance, Moralia ix. 20, CCSL cxliii. 471, Moralia x. 17, ibid. 550, etc. Gregory was capable of enjoying small talk, sometimes of a derogatory nature, and then feeling regretful about it afterwards, In Ezech. I. xi. 6, CCSL cxlii. 171–2, etc. Claude Dagens, Saint Crégoire le Grand, Paris 1977 140–4, rightly stressed the autobiographical nature of some of Gregory's comments. One can easily perceive why Gregory might have omitted the passage quoted above in the course of his revision of the homilies. What is by no means obvious is that he would have wanted the deleted passage preserved in a ‘store’ for future use, which is Clark's contention.

84 On the question of authors revising their works see Hilarius Emonds, Zweile Auflage im Altertum, Leipzig 1941. The case of Bernard of Clairvaux's revision of his own works has been well studied b y Dom Jean Leclercq ; see Recueil d'études sur saint Bernard et ses érits, iii, Rome 1969, 171–9.

85 This comes in no. 13 of 3 Kings in Paterius' Liber testimoniorum, PL lxxix. 813A.

86 CCSL cxliiiB. 1346, lines 68–9. See also the comment on this above in n. 61.

87 PL lxxix. 70gC-1A. This leslimonium is taken from Dialogues I. viii. 5–6. Paterius has inserted a phrase (‘Quod utrum ita sit concite ualet probari’) to bridge over the exchange between Gregory and Peter which he omits, taking his cue from Peter's comment (‘Probari mihi apertius uelim’).

88 PL lxxix. 783D-5A. This leslimonium is from Dialogues III. xxxiv. 1–4. Paterius rearranged the order of these four paragraphs, placing the fourth first, because it was here that he found the verse of Scripture with which he was dealing. The same Dialogue text s i also found almost verbatim in Gregory's Ep. vii. 27 of June 597 to Theoctista. Clark comments at length on this matter, IGP 39, on 512–17, and asks: ‘Would not that great lady, and her court at Constantinople, regard it as a poor compliment, verging on disrespect, that the Bishop of Rome could find nothing better for his chosen message of spiritual edification for the Empress than to reuse a section of a hagiographical work that he had already disseminated for all and sundry to read?’ ibid. 517. This rhetorical question ignores the hard evidence of Gregory's ‘self-plagiarism’. Among other instances his Ep. i. 24 of February 591 to the Eastern Patriarchs borrows profusely (without a word of acknowledgement) from the Regula pastoralis, which he had just finished composing. Presumably he did not expect any of the recipients of the letter to obtain copies of the Regula pasloralis which Anatolius, his apocrisarius, had taken with him to Constantinople; he certainly expressed displeasure when he learned they had indeed received such copies (see below, n. 136). It would be significant if Paterius, as secretary, had had a hand in preparing the letter to Theoctista, since he might well have suggested using the same passage excerpted for his Liber lestimoniorum.

89 ‘The possibility cannot be altogether excluded that the prologue was a literary artifice, and that the compiler of the work was of a later generation. The first certain indication that the work was in existence is a reference to it by Bede (before 731), which shows that, although spoken of, it ha d not yet reached Northumbria at the time. There are manuscript fragments from later in the eighth century’, Clark, 96 n. 8. Clark doe s not exhibit much familiarity with the value of manuscript evidence. One wonders how many classical or patristic works would need to be jettisoned or declared spurious because no contemporary evidence can be produced for their existence! Ar e we to doubt the newly discovered letters of Augustine of Hippo simply because the earliest manuscript to contain them is only of the twelfth century?

90 Ibid. 96. The word ‘scheda’ is not an easy one to render. The dictionary meaning, ‘a leaf or sheet of paper’, is inadequate as Emin Tenstrbm has shown: see his ‘exkurs’, ‘Was bedeutet scheda und schedula’, in Die Protokollierung der Collatio Carthaginensis, Gotenborg 1962, 35–49. Context can help to clarify the meaning, and in the present instance ‘notebooks’ seems the most satisfactory rendering.

91 For the full Latin text of this section of Paterius' preface nn. 68 and 69 above should be read in sequence.

92 Clark, 415–18.

93 Abbot Claudius of Ravenn a spent a few years at Gregory's side before returnin g to Ravenna in 598. After his death, Gregory wrot e (Ep. xii. 6, of Jan. 6OQ) requesting that all the written material (cartulae) in Claudius ‘possession relating to Gregory's discourse s on Proverbs, the Canticle of Canticles, the Prophets, the Books of Kings and the Heptateuch be returned immediately to Rome. It is interesting that Paterius does not draw on this material. For example, in his section on th e Canticle of Canticles he shows no knowledge of Gregory's homilies on the Canticle. This ma y simply indicate that the Liber lestimoniorum predates these discourses of Gregory or, more likely, that the written texts were in Claudius’ possession and so no t directly available to Paterius through the scrinium. Since Gregory expresses dissatisfaction with what Claudiu s accomplished one wonders whethe r this material, if it was returne d from Ravenna to Rome, was deposited ‘sub cautela’ in the scrinium. Joh n the Deacon, in his Life of Gregory, refers somewhat enigmatically to ‘reliqua ipsius opera qua e nun c in sancta Roman a Ecclesia retinentur adhuc sub custodia, ne penitus vulgarentur’, bk iv. 70, PL lxxv. 223A. Copies of the homilies on the Canticle were circulating surreptitiously in Gregory's day. But th e existence of only one manuscript containin g the commentary on 1 Kings, Cava MS 9, of the twelfth century, suggests something unusual about its history.

94 See above n. 83.

95 See above n. 85.

96 See above n. 60.

97 Carmen Codoner Merino, El ‘De viris illustribus’ de Isidoro.de Sevilla, Salamanca 1964, 148–9.

98 Clark, 113–16, deals with the verbal links between the Dialogues and Isidore's Etymologies which Dom de Vogue had pointed out to him. He suggests that what is involved here is not the Dialogues but some of the ‘unpublished’ Gregorian material that reached either Isidore - or more likely Braulio of Saragossa - through Taio. The correspondence between Isidore and Braulio makes it dear that the latter had a hand in preparing revised editions of the Etymologies; see Luis Riesco Terrero, Epistolario de San Braulio, Seville 1975, 64–74, Letters ii, v, vi. Since, as we shall see, Taio had a copy of the Dialogues, it is Braulio, rather than Isidore, who was probably responsible for borrowing some phrases from it.

99 ‘Peto…ut mihi codices sancti pape Gregorii in expositos, qui necdum in Hispania erant tuo[s]que studio et sudore de Roma hue sunt delati, ad transcribendum ocius mittas’, from Letter xlii; see Riesco Terrero, op. cit. 162. He corrects the ‘inexpositos’ of earlier editions and translates: ‘voy a pedirtc.que me envies ripidamente para copiarlos los codices de comentarios del papa Gregorio, que todavia no existian en Espafia y por tu esfuerzo y empefio fueron traidos aqui de Roma’, ibid. 163. Clark, intent on his store of ‘unpublished’ Gregorian works, believes there is ammunition here for his theory, since he translates: ‘send to me, as quickly as possible, the unpublished codices of the holy pope Gregory’, p. 117.

100 Letter xlii dates from 649–50 - not from before 632, as stated by Clark, op. cit. 177 n. 14; see Jose Madoz, Epislolario de S. Braulio de garagoza, Madrid 1941, 56. The brother (germanus) mentioned in the letter is not John, Braulio's predecessor who died in 632, but Frunimianus to whom Braulio dedicated his Vita S. Aemiliani, Madoz, op. cit. 6. It is therefore unlikely that Taio ‘made more than one text-seeking journey to Rome’. The story of Taio's supposed commission by the Council of Toledo to obtain the works of Gregory is generally considered to be no more than a legend, ibid. 184 n. 158.

101 ‘Vidimus Gregorium nostrum Romae positum, non visibus corporis, sed obtutibus mentis. Vidimus eum non solum in suis notariis, sed etiam in familiaribus, qui ministerio corporali eidem fidele exhibuerant famulatus obsequium’, from the Letter to Eugenius of Toledo, MGH Auct. Ant. xiv. 288; PL lxxx. 725.

102 ‘Igitur cum Romae positus eius quae in Hispaniis deerant volumina sedulus vestigator perquirerem, inventaque propria manu transcriberem’, ibid.

103 ‘In sex codicibus, quattuo r scilicet veteris instrumenti, duobus etiam novi testa-menti, suis conexis ordinibus, praetermissis scripturis, quas idem virorum sanctissimus ex ordine tractavit, adiutus orationibus vestris explere curavi’, MG H Auct. Ant. xiv. 289–90; PL lxxx. 726.

104 Edited, with a long introduction (from Lerida, Cathedral Library, MS Roda 2) by A. C. Vega, Espana Sagrada lvi (1957), 227–399; a'so found in PL, Suppl. iv. 263–419. R. Etaix, ‘Note sur le De aenigmatibus Salomonis’, Melanges de Sciences Religieuses xv (1958), 137–42, has pointed out some new manuscripts and has shown that the De aenigmatibus is also by Taio.

105 PL lxxx. 727–990. For the chapters missing at the end of Risco's edition (reproduced i n PL), see G. Heine, Bibliolheca anecdotorum, i, Leipzig 1848, 23–5, or Z. Garcia Villada, n i Renista de Archivos, Bibliotecasy Museos xxx (1934), 23–31.

106 The relationship of the Liber sententiarum to the earlier work has never been studied. But it is only when we realize that Taio has in front of him his own earlier commentary, arranged according to the order of the biblical books, that we begin to understand the often strange concatenation of texts in certain chapters of his later work. Thus to take but one example: Lib. sent. v. 21, PL lxxx. 975, is headed ‘De igne purgatorio, et quod post mortem peccata laxari credantur’. It is made up of three Gregorian texts: (/) ‘Omne pondus… debuisset’, In Ezech. ii. i. 5, CCSL cxlii. 212; (2) ‘Ipse quippe…robustorum’, Moralia xxviii. 14, CCSL cxliu'B. 1406; (3) ‘Egregius predicator ait…promereatur’, Dialog. IV. xli. 5–6. Only the last text, 3, is germane to the heading of the chapter. But then one notices that / and 2 are both concerned with the 1 Cor. iii. 11; indeed the short extract 2 is welded to / in exactly the same manner that Paterius welds such texts together. Th e text from the Dialogues is a comment on 1 Cor. iii. 12. Since the New Testament portion of Paterius ‘collection does not survive, we cannot check to see if these testimonia were present in Paterius’ work, but it is clear that we have here the key to the choice of texts - Taio has simply been fishing among the extracts in his larger work that relate to 1 Corinthians. And it is likely that the selection present in this work derived from the Liber testimoniorum of Paterius.

107 Vega, in the introduction of his edition of Taio, op. cit. 249–51, printed portions of the two preface s in parallel columns to underline the plagiarism. A closer comparison would reveal even mor e points of contact than the columns suggest. Veg a also stressed Taio's links to Paterius in the sectio n on the Canticle of Canticles. But it would need a full-scale study to bring out the extent of the relationship, particularly throug h a careful analysis of the Liber senlenliarum.

108 In the case of Paterius ‘testimonium (n. 1) o n Joshua (see above n. 88) Taio obviously consulted the Dialogues, since he reproduces Gregory's, and not Paterius’, sequence.

109 See above p. 354.

110 For on e example amon g many, Taio in th e Liber sententiarum iii. 21, PL lxxx. 876B-D, reproduces the identical text of Paterius, Gen. n. 63, PL lxxix. 714C-D, with the two excerpts from Moralia vi. 61 woven into the testimonium from the Commentary on Ezechiel, see n. 70 above. There is, moreover, another piece of evidence to alert us here. Paterius gives as the context for this testimonium ‘Dum de contemplativa activaque vita tractaretur’. The heading of Taio's chapter is ‘De vita activa et contemplativa’. A full comparison between the headings in the Liber senlenliarum and in Paterius' Liber testimoniorum will strongly suggest that it was from Paterius that Taio derived the idea of reorganizing some of the material into a more systematic treatise.

111 The references to Taio's works for the passages of the Dialogues alluded to in the first column are as follows: (1) PL lxxx. 764–5; (2) PL lxxx. 851–2; (3) PL lxxx. 902 (on this text see n. 88 above); (4) Vega, op. cit. 361 (PL, Suppl. iv. 1760); (5) Vega, op. cit. 355–7 (PL, Suppl. iv. 1754–6); (6) Vega, op. cit. 372 (PL, Suppl. iv. 1771–2); (7) PL lxxx. 975; (8) PL lxxx. 974–5; (9) Vega, op. cit. 395–6 (PL, Suppl. iv. 1789–90) and PL lxxx. 919–21.

112 The solution to (9), for which Clark, IGP 74, on 566–72 gives a very long and involved argument, is really quite simple and straightforward. Taio's Lib. sent. iv. 7 reproduces, in toto, section 21 on Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) of his ‘Liber testimoniorum’. This, i n turn, probably reproduces a lost portion of Paterius' Liber testimoniorum. The testimonium on Sirach xxxiv. 7 consists of two passages: (/) Dialogues IV. 1. 1–6 (‘sex modis… laqueare’) - proved by the presence of ‘sancti autem viri’ that relates to the context of the Dialogues; and (2) Moralia viii. 43 (‘saepe quoque malignus spiritus…non vacet’). We have here also another example (see above n. 88) of ‘self-plagiarism’ by Gregory. He used a passage from his Moralia for his Dialogues.

113 See above n. 106.

114 Clark seems unaware of the existence of Taio's earlier work, of its relationship with Paterius and of the consequences this spells for his theory.

115 Clark, 684–717, on ‘style, vocabulary and construction’.

116 See above n. 9.

117 Cooke, Censura, 414–15; Clark, 37 n. 27. I have not, however, repeated the phrases as they stand in Cooke (and Clark) since, if they are to be judged objectively, they should be quoted according to modern editions of the Dialogues.

118 Published as part of the Corpus Christianorum, Thesaurus patrum latinorum, by Brepols, Turnhout 1986. I must admit that several good Latinists whom I have consulted tell me they fail to see where the supposed ‘barbarism’ or ‘uncouthness’ of these expressions lies.

119 ‘Hoc uero scire te cupio quia in quibusdam sensum solummodo, in quibusdam uero et uerba cum sensu teneo, quia si de personis omnibus ipsa specialiter et uerba tenere uoluissem, haec rusticano usu prolata stilus scribentis non apte susciperet’, ed. A. de Vogii, SC cclx. 16–18.

120 Clark, 697–8.

121 Ibid. 701–2.

122 Ibid. 705, 707.

123 Here is a small example of the kind of test that would lead to more valid results. Clark's IGP 52, pp. 541–2, makes a comparison between a passage from Gregory's Homilies on the Gospels and the Dialogues, but he fails to note that, where the homily, PL lxxvi. 1134A, 113–4 has ‘Factumque est ut, quantum ad mensuram propriam’, the Dialogues, SC cclxv. 60, line 21, give ‘Factumque est ut iuxta modum suum’. Now while ‘quantum ad’ and ‘iuxta’ are words that figure frequently in Gregory's vocabulary, ‘quantum ad mensuram propriam’ occurs only in this homily, while ‘quantum ad modum suum’ occurs several times elsewhere. I myself see here a small authorial retouching and one that betrays the hand of Gregory.

124 I find Clark's reaction on the one occasion when he was tempted to make a comparison interesting. Clark recognizes that the four stories that occur in Gregory's Ep. xi. 26 of Feb. 601 to Rusticiana most closely approach ‘the mental climate of the Dialogues’, op. cit. 636 n. 22. But on 428 n. 52, he has constructed a theory to distance Gregory from this portion of the letter-whose authenticity he dare not doubt: ‘If the four stories, doubtless of a kind which would appeal to the piety of Rusticiana, were added to Gregory's letter in the written narrative form supplied by the abbot and prior, then the last part of this letter would not reflect Gregory's own literary style but that of the monastic relators, as edited by the papal secretary responsible for the despatch of the letter.’ Clark obviously has a fear that something may breach the wall of his citadel. If the abbot and prior of his own monastery told him such stories, these surely do reflect ‘the mental climate of the period’, and why should the other stories of the Dialogues, also told him by others, not be seen to reflect the same ‘mental climate’? And why, finally, must Gregory be viewed so much out of context that he cannot be allowed to live in his own period and share its ‘mental climate’?

125 Clark, 735.

126 See Herbert Bloch, ‘The schism of Anacletus u an d the Glanfeuil Forgeries of Peter the Deacon’, Traditio viii (1952), 159–264. The literature concernin g medieva l forgeries is vast, and there is no need to cite it here. For some general reflections, however, concerning both medieval forgers and the scholars who investigate them, see P. Meyvaert, ‘Medieval forgers and modern scholars: tests of ingenuity’, in The Role of the Book in Medieval Culture, i ( = Bibliologia iii), Turnhout 1986, 83–96.

127 ‘Scepticisme doctrinal au seuil du Moyen Age? Les objections du diacre Pierre dans les Dialogues de Grdgoire le Grand’, in Grégoire le Grand, 318.

128 Clark, 12.

129 Clark lists them, 50–1.

130 See above, nn. 88 and 112.

131 The letter to Secundinus of Taormina that serves as preface to the Homilies on the Gospels is especially important to us here. Gregory warns Secundinus - and all other readers of his preface - that unrevised copies of these homilies are in circulation and that these contain a passage that should be changed. He points out that in Homily xvi he originally explained Matt. iv. 1 (‘Jesus was led by the spirit into the desert’) ‘with a certain ambiguity’, but, on further thought, ‘eliminated the doubt with a categorical statement’. It is obvious that Gregory's original interpretation must have made allowance for those patristic writers who had identified the ‘spirit’ of this passage with the devil. His revised version abandoned those views completely and now reads: ‘Vere et absque ulla quaestione accipitur ut a Spiritu sancto in desertum ductus credatur’, PL lxxvi. 1135B. His letter to Secundinus shows that Gregory was anxious to have the revised interpretation inserted into all existing copies of his work and the earlier text eliminated. He ends his letter with the statement: ‘Editae [i.e. texts as finally revised] in scrinio sanctae Ecclesiae nostrae retinentur, ut si qui forte a tua fraternitate longe sunt hie inveniant, unde in his quae emendatae sunt certiores fiant’, PL lxxvi. 1078A. This statement identifies the papal scrinium as the repository for those works, as finally edited, that established the standard according to which all other versions should be corrected. The retention of excised material for future use, as envisioned by Clark, would have contradicted this intention and confused the issue.

132 ‘His diebus sapientissimus ac beatissimus Gregorius papa Romanae urbis, postquam alia multa ad utilitatem sanctae ecclesiae scripserat, etiam libros quattuor de vita sanctorum composuit; quern codicem dialogum, id est duorum locutionem, quia eum conloquens cum suo diacono Petro ediderat, appellavit. Hos igitur libros praefatus papa Theudelindae reginae direxit, quam sciebat utique et Christi fidei deditam et in bonis actibus esse praecipuam’, MGH SS. rer. Lang., 117.

133 In bk iii. 20 Paul tells us that Gregory, while still a deacon, wrote a letter, in the name of Pelagius 11, on the question of the Three Chapters. Three letters of Pelagius 11 on this matter have come down to us, the third being a very long one. I hope to show, in a forthcoming article, that this letter's vocabulary, style and content indicate that it was unquestionably composed by Gregory the Great. We do not know on what evidence Paul the Deacon based his assertion.

134 La Technique du livre d'apris saint Jerome, Paris 1953, 82–3. In antiquity as today, an author retained the right to publish - edere was the word often used - his work or not: statements of Cicero ‘scripsi.-.versibus tres libros de temporibus nostris, quos…misissem, si esse edendos putassem’, and Pliny ‘Petis, ut libellos tuos…legam, examinem, an editione sint digni’, aptly capture the two stages, which are not to be confused.

135 There is another point that may have a bearing on this question. Clark, 54–8, expends much effort to show that the Dialogues were not mentioned in the earliest version of Gregory's biography in the Liber pontificalis. I am not sure that one can develop satisfactory manuscript proof, on the basis of the Cononian Abridgment, to show that reference to the Dialogues did not occur in the original text. But I am impressed by the reference to John the Deacon's Life of Gregory, bk iv. 70; cf. PL lxxv. 222–3. Jo n n writes, after a reference to the letter (Ep. xii. 6) concerning Claudius quoted above: ‘Constat nimirum quia plures libros quam nunc habeatur composuit. Quorum mernoriam quidam i n episcopali eius perstringens, ait: “Job, Ezechiel, Evangelia et Pastoralem exposuit, et multa alia”.’ One regrets the absence of a critical edition ofJohn's Vita. But if he is giving an exact quotation from an early text, which he terms ‘in episcopali eius’, then this list may reflect only the published works, the editae, and if so the omission of the Dialogues may be deliberate, and significant.

136 CCSL cxl A. 975–6.

137 Ibid. 844–45.

138 For some of the texts which bring this out, see P. Meyvaert, ‘Diversity within unity’, The Heythrop Journal iv (1963), 147–8.

139 In Ezechielem I. xi. 14, CCSL cxlii. 175.

140 Ibid. I. xi. 13, CCSL cxlii. 175.

141 Moralia viii. 84, CCSL cxliii. 448–9.

142 CCSL cxl. 149–50.

143 Moralia ix. 37, CCSL cxliii. 482. Gregory's dilemma was that, while he understood the need to please his audience in order to keep its attention, he was conscious also that the attempt to give pleasure might lead him away from the truth he was trying to expound. See the following text from the homilies on Ezechiel: ‘Quisquis expositor in explanatione sacri eloquii, ut fortasse auditoribus placeat, aliquid mentiendo componit, sua et non Domini verba loquitur, si tamen placendi vel seducendi studio mentiatur. Nam si in verbis Dominicis virtutem requirens, ipse aliter quam is per quern prolata sunt senserit, etiamsi sub intellectu alio aedificationem caritatis requirat, Domini sunt verba quae narrat, quia ad hoc solum Deus per totam nobis sacram Scripturam loquitur, ut nos ad suum et proximi amorem trahat’, In Ezech. I. x. 14, CCSL cxlii. 150. An attentive psychological analysis of this interesting text might suggest that, when Gregory found himself developing an allegorical or moral interpretation of a scriptural verse mainly for the sake of captivating and pleasing his audience, rather than edifying them, he lost his inner certainty that it was a true interpretation he was giving and concluded that he was composing a ‘lie’. It is passages like the two linked here that reveal Gregory's inner tensions and preoccupations and the constant watch he tried to keep on himself and all his actions.

144 Moralia xxxv. 49, CCSL cxliiiB. 1810-n.

145 The judgmen t that the Dialogues are to be considered a ‘popular’ work meant for a ‘popular’ audience is a modern judgment, resembling that of the Reformers who, for other reasons, sought to deny the authenticity of the Dialogues. It stems, not from a view of Gregory set in his ow n time, but from the desire to justify wha t is seen as a departure from more fitting standards of cultural dignity. Bede would certainly not have subscribed to such a judgment, and h e lived closer to Gregory in time. Do m de Vogue tries to redress the balance, by showing tha t a monastic audience was intended, in his introduction to th e Dialogues, SC ccli. 31–42.

146 Dialogues i. prol. 9, SC cclx. 16. The translation is taken from O. J. Zimmerman, Saint Gregory the Great. Dialogues, New York 1959, 6.

147 ‘Sed haec cum ante mentis oculos continua cogitatione reuoluimus’, Moralia ix. 51, CCSL cxliii. 492.

148 CCSL cxlii. 416, Fragment, vi. This is a passage from Paterius' Liber testimoniorum (In Exodum n. 29) attributed to Homily ix In Ezech. It was left out by Gregory in his revision of the text (see above p. 357 and n. 83).

149 CCSL cxlii. 422, Fragment, ix. This agai n is from Paterius, In Deuteronomium n. 9, attributed also to Homily ix. Both this and the preceding testimonium have the same introductory phrase: ‘Dum de discretione tendendae allegoriae ac historiae tractaretur, adiunctum est’.

150 The best introduction that I know to Gregory's position on the question of miracles, and their presence in the Dialogues, remains Pierre Boglioni, ‘Miracle et nature chez Gregoire le Grand’, in Cahiers d'études médiévales, I: Epopees, légendes et miracles, Montreal 1974, 11–102. The single passing allusion to this work in Clark, 634 n. 16, can hardly lead one to suspect the wealth of observation and comment that Boglioni provides. His contrast of the difference in attitudes between Augustine and Gregory is particularly revealing in helping us to capture Gregory's cast of mind.

151 Moralia xxvii. 76, CCSL cxliiiB. 1389–90.

152 Ep. xi. 36, CCSL cxlA. 926.

153 An author is entitled to try his hand at different literary genres withou t being viewed as a ‘cultural schizophrenic’. Gregory's gifts undoubtedly lay in the realm of scriptural exposition and spiritual counseling. Viewed from a purely literary angle one can ventur e the judgment that the Dialogues do not exhibit the creative talents that suc h a genre requires to be carried off successfully. Clark, 731–2, makes much of Dom de Vogue's comment that th e Dialogues exhibit a ‘style de notaire’ to build his case for the Dialogist as a curial official. But what de Vogue has in mind is a certain lameness an d uninspired tone in parts of th e Dialogues. Man y of the 145 interventions of Peter, Gregory's interlocutor, sound rathe r flat. Peter admire s Gregory's stories, approve s Gregory's remarks, asks for mor e subtl e and enlightening elucidations. I a m persuaded that, on rereading these self-congratulatory remarks, Gregory concluded that there was too much self-praise and self-admiratio n in the pages of this work. All th e mor e reason to hesitate before releasing it to circulate amon g monks for whom he was trying to set an example of humility.

154 ‘Miracula in exemplo operationis non sunt trahenda’, In Ezech. I. ii. 4, CCSL cxlii. 19. Clark, who cites this text (p. 641) fails to note that his ‘Dialogist’ makes a similar remark: ‘haec.infirmis ueneranda sunt, non imitanda’, Dialogues I. i. 7!

155 The links between the Moralia and the Dialogues are multiple and would deserve separate analysis. The Moralia present teaching in a general and abstract way, but this teaching is based on Gregory's real life experience, on stories he had read or been told and episodes he had himself participated in. The Moralia tell us that holy men may possess some virtues and yet lack others. The Dialogues, III. xiv. 8, mention the saintly Isaac who, although ‘endowed to a unique degree with the virtue of abstinence, contempt for worldly goods, the spirit of prophecy and steadfastness in prayer, had one trait that seemed reprehensible - at times he gave way to extreme hilarity. On such occasions, anyone who did not know his virtues would never have believed that he possessed them in great measure.’ The Moralia warn that even holy persons who work miracles can be subject to impulses of pride. The Dialogues tell us the story of the saintly Eleutherius, whom Gregory venerated, giving in to such an impulse: ‘credo quod ei elatio parva subrepserat’, III. i. 1–6. This same Eleutherius appears in the only ‘miracle’ in the Dialogues, III. xxxiii. 7–9, that involves Gregory himself. The ever-ailing Gregory was depressed that even on Holy Saturday he was unable to fast. He asked Eleutherius to pray with him and then latei found that he had passed that whole day without once thinking about food or his ailing stomach. The story has the ring of truth. It is experiences like this that stand behind Gregory's teaching and show us how he came to formulate his doctrinal prescriptions.

156 ‘Neque enim uolo, dum in hac came sumus, si qua dixisse me contigit, ea facile hominibus innotesci.’ This key text, from Ep. xii. 6, has already been quoted above (n. 136).