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:
- No scanning noise detected (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand)
- Extent:
- ~270,000 words · 1,279 passages
Cite this work
- APAGregory I. (n.d.). The Book of Pastoral Rule and Selected Epistles (James Barmby, Trans.). Digital reproduction: 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. Translated by James Barmby. Digital reproduction, 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. Translated by James Barmby. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/gregory-i/the-book-of-pastoral-rule-and-selected-epistles.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
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.
Narbonensian Gaul, was an independent Visigothic kingdom. The relations of these kingdoms to the Empire were at this time amicable; and it was in ecclesiastical, and not temporal, matters that Gregory had dealings with them, as will appear below. His talents and activity in secular affairs were shewn also in his management of the possessions in various quarters with which the See of Rome had been endowed, known as "St. Peter's patrimony." In Sicily especially, and also in Campania, Calabria, Dalmatia and elsewhere, and to a small extent in Gaul, the Roman Church held lands so called, over all fo which Gregory exercised personal superintendence by letters to his various agents, shewing a remarkable knowledge of the state of things in the several localities, and giving minute directions. While, on the one hand, he took care that the Church should not be defrauded of her just dues, on the other hand we find him repeatedly and strongly forbidding any unjust claims, or any oppression of him, by agents on the spot, called rectores patrimonii, and often by deacons, or subdeacons, sent from Rome, to control the ordinary rectores, or act in the same capacity. We find bishops also in some cases acting as rectores. There was also a class of officials called defensores ecclesiae, or Guardians of the Church, who were required to be authorized by letters from Rome under the Pope's hand (see V. 29; IX. 62; XL 38). These letters of appointment, of which we have specimens in V. 29 and XL 38, specified the protection of the poor as their primary duty. But their office had a much wider scope. We find them commissioned, not only to carry out various works of charity, but also to