The Book of Pastoral Rule and Selected Epistles
- Language:
- English
- Translation:
- James Barmby
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~270,000 words · 1,279 passages
Cite this work
- APAGregory I. (n.d.). The Book of Pastoral Rule and Selected Epistles. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/gregory-i/the-book-of-pastoral-rule-and-selected-epistles
- MLAGregory I. "The Book of Pastoral Rule and Selected Epistles." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/gregory-i/the-book-of-pastoral-rule-and-selected-epistles.
- ChicagoGregory I. The Book of Pastoral Rule and Selected Epistles. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/gregory-i/the-book-of-pastoral-rule-and-selected-epistles.
What it is about
The Pastoral Rule: what a man with charge of others must be, how he should come to it, and how differently he must speak to each kind of person. With a selection of letters.
Context and history
Gregory wrote it just after being made pope, in 590, and it opens by explaining why he had not wanted the office. The fourth part is a minute list of how to preach to the proud and the humble, the rich and the poor, the healthy and the sick: not rhetoric but a theory of how to deal with people. It was among the most copied books of the early Middle Ages, and King Alfred had it translated into Old English so that every bishop should have one.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
T R A N S L A T E D , W IT H INTROD U CTION ,N0TES,AND INDICES BY THE REVELATION JAMES BARMBY, D. D VICAR OF NORTHALLERTON, YORKSHIRE PREFATORY NOTE PREFATORY NOTE The Text followed in these Translation is the Benedictine one, as given by Migne in Patrologia, Vol. LXXVIL, Sancti Gregorii Magni, Vol. III. The same Text of the Regula Pastoralis has been published with an English Translation by the Rev. H. R. Bramley (James Parker and Co., 1874). The Translation now given is an original one, though the translator desires to express his obligations to his predecessor in the same task. The selection of Epistles translated has been made with the view of exhibiting Gregory' s various activities, his various styles of correspondence, his views and character, as well as of illustrating the history of his time. Those which related to certain important subjects — such as the Lombard invasion, the English Mission, the dispute about the title of 'Oecumenical Bishop,' correspondence with the Emperors and with the Potentates of Gaul — have been given in their entirety. Of such as relate to subjects of less moment specimens only have been selected, but sufficient, it is hoped, for presenting a picture of the writer under his various aspects, and in his various spheres of work. It is hoped also that the appended notes may serve to shew the connexion of the several Epistles with each other, and with the circumstances they refer to, as well as to explain obscure words or passages. For a better understanding of the correspondence relating to the Church in Gaul, a pedigree of the contemporary Merovingian Kings is appended.