_Lat._ Sanctus Gregorius Magnus. _Ital._ San Gregorio Magno or Papa.
_Fr._ St. Grégoire. _Ger._ Der Heilige Gregor. (March 12, A.D. 604.)
The fourth Doctor of the Latin Church, St. Gregory, styled, and not
without reason, Gregory the Great, was one of those extraordinary men
whose influence is not only felt in their own time, but through long
succeeding ages. The events of his troubled and splendid pontificate
belong to history; and I shall merely throw together here such
particulars of his life and character as may serve to render the
multiplied representations of him both intelligible and interesting.
He was born at Rome in the year 540. His father, Gordian, was of
senatorial rank: his mother, Sylvia, who, in the history of St.
Gregory, is almost as important as St. Monica in the story of St.
Augustine, was a woman of rare endowments, and, during his childish
years, the watchful instructress of her son. It is recorded that when
he was still an infant she was favoured by a vision of St. Antony, in
which he promised to her son the supreme dignity of the tiara. Gregory,
however, commenced his career in life as a lawyer, and exercised during
twelve years the office of prætor or chief magistrate of his native
city; yet, while apparently engrossed by secular affairs, he became
deeply imbued with the religious enthusiasm which was characteristic
of his time and hereditary in his family. Immediately on the death
of his father he devoted all the wealth he had inherited to pious
and charitable purposes, converted his paternal home on the Celian
Hill into a monastery and hospital for the poor, which he dedicated
to St. Andrew: then, retiring to a little cell within it, he took
the habit of the Benedictine Order, and gave up all his time to study
and preparation for the duties to which he had devoted himself. On
the occasion of a terrific plague which almost depopulated Rome, he
fearlessly undertook the care of the poor and sick. Pope Pelagius
having died at this time, the people with one voice called upon Gregory
to succeed him: but he shrank from the high office, and wrote to the
Emperor Maurice, entreating him not to ratify the choice of the people.
The emperor sent an edict confirming his election, and thereupon
Gregory fled from Rome, and bid himself in a cave. Those who went
in search of him were directed to the place of his concealment by a
celestial light, and the fugitive was discovered and brought back to
Rome.
No sooner had he assumed the tiara, thus forced upon him against his
will, than he showed himself in all respects worthy of his elevation.
While he asserted the dignity of his station, he was distinguished
by his personal humility: he was the first pope who took the title
of ‘Servant of the Servants of God;’ he abolished slavery throughout
Christendom on religious grounds; though enthusiastic in making
converts, he set himself against persecution; and when the Jews of
Sardinia appealed to him, he commanded that the synagogues which had
been taken from them, and converted into churches, should be restored.
He was the first who sent missionaries to preach the Gospel in England,
roused to pity by the sight of some British captives exposed for sale
in the market at Rome. Shocked at the idea of an eternity of vengeance
and torment, if he did not originate the belief in purgatory, he was
at least the first who preached it publicly, and made it an article of
faith. In his hatred of war, of persecution, of slavery, he stepped
not only in advance of his own time, but of ours. He instituted the
celibacy of the clergy, one of the boldest strokes of ecclesiastical
power; he reformed the services of the Church; defined the model of
the Roman liturgy, such as it has ever since remained—the offices
of the priests, the variety and change of the sacerdotal garments;
he arranged the music of the chants, and he himself trained the
choristers. ‘Experience,’ says Gibbon, ‘had shown him the efficacy of
these solemn and pompous rites to soothe the distress, to confirm the
faith, to mitigate the fierceness, and to dispel the dark enthusiasm of
the vulgar; and he readily forgave their tendency to promote the reign
of priesthood and superstition.’ If, at a period when credulity and
ignorance were universal, he showed himself in some instances credulous
and ignorant, it seems hardly a reproach to one in other respects so
good and so great.
His charity was boundless, and his vigilance indefatigable: he
considered himself responsible for every sheep of the flock intrusted
to him; and when a beggar died of hunger in the streets of Rome,
he laid himself under a sentence of penance and excommunication,
and interdicted himself for several days from the exercise of his
sacerdotal functions.
Such was St. Gregory the Great, the last pope who was canonised:
celestial honours and worldly titles have often been worse—seldom so
well—bestowed.
* * * * *
During the last two years of his life, his health, early impaired by
fasts and vigils, failed entirely, and he was unable to rise from his
couch. He died in 604, in the fourteenth year of his pontificate. They
still preserve, in the church of the Lateran at Rome, his bed, and the
little scourge with which he was wont to keep the choristers in order.
The monastery of St. Andrew, which he founded on the Celian Hill, is
now the church of San Gregorio. To stand on the summit of the majestic
flight of steps which leads to the portal, and look across to the
ruined palace of the Cæsars, makes the mind giddy with the rush of
thoughts. _There_, before us, the Palatine Hill—pagan Rome in dust:
_here_, the little cell, a few feet square, where slept in sackcloth
the man who gave the last blow to the power of the Cæsars, and first
set his foot as sovereign on the cradle and capital of their greatness.
St. Gregory was in person tall and corpulent, and of a dark complexion,
with black hair, and very little beard. He speaks in one of his
epistles of his large size, contrasted with his weakness and painful
infirmities. He presented to the monastery of St. Andrew his own
portrait, and those of his father, and his mother St. Sylvia: they
were still in existence 300 years after his death, and the portrait of
Gregory probably furnished that particular type of physiognomy which we
trace in all the best representations of him, in which he appears of a
tall, large, and dignified person, with a broad full face, black hair
and eyebrows, and little or no beard.
As he was, next to St. Jerome, the most popular of the Four Doctors,
single figures of him abound. They are variously treated: in general,
he bears the tiara as pope, and the crosier with the double cross,
in common with other papal saints; but his peculiar attribute is the
dove, which in the old pictures is always close to his ear. He is
often seated on a throne in the pontifical robes, wearing the tiara:
one hand raised in benediction; in the other a book, which represents
his homilies, and other famous works attributed to him: the dove
either rests on his shoulder, or is hovering over his head. He is
thus represented in the fine statue, designed, as it is said, by M.
Angelo, and executed by Cordieri, in the chapel of St. Barbara, in
San Gregorio, Rome; and in the picture over the altar-piece of his
chapel, to the right of the high altar. In the Salviati Chapel, on the
left, is the ‘St. Gregory in prayer,’ by Annibal Caracci. He is seen
in front bareheaded, but arrayed in the pontifical habit, kneeling on
a cushion, his hands outspread and uplifted; the dove descends from
on high; the tiara is at his feet, and eight angels hover around:—a
grand, finely-coloured, but, in sentiment, rather cold and mannered
picture.[286]
By Guercino, St. Gregory seated on a throne, looking upwards, his hand
on an open book, in act to turn the leaves; the dove hovers at his
shoulder: to the left stands St. Francis Xavier; on the right, and more
in front, St. Ignatius Loyola. Behind St. Gregory is an angel playing
on the viol, in allusion to his love and patronage of sacred music;
in front an infant angel holds the tiara. The type usually adopted in
figures of St. Gregory is here exaggerated into coarseness, and the
picture altogether appears to me more remarkable for Guercino’s faults
than for his beauties.[287]
* * * * *
Several of the legends connected with the history of St. Gregory are of
singular interest and beauty, and have afforded a number of picturesque
themes for Art: they appear to have arisen out of his exceeding
popularity. They are all expressive of the veneration in which he was
held by the people; of the deep impression left on their minds by his
eloquence, his sanctity, his charity; and of the authority imputed to
his numerous writings, which commonly said to have been dictated by
the Holy Spirit.
* * * * *
1. John the deacon, his secretary, who has left a full account of his
life, declares that he beheld the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove
perched upon his shoulder while he was writing or dictating his famous
homilies. This vision, or rather figure of speech, has been interpreted
as a fact by the early painters. Thus, in a quaint old picture in the
Bologna Gallery, we have St. Gregory seated on a throne writing, the
celestial dove at his ear. A little behind is seen John the deacon,
drawing aside a curtain, and looking into the room at his patron with
an expression of the most naïve astonishment.
2. The Archangel Michael, on the cessation of the pestilence, sheathes
his sword on the summit of the Mole of Hadrian. I have never seen even
a tolerable picture of this magnificent subject. There is a picture in
the Vatican, in which Gregory and a procession of priests are singing
litanies, and in the distance a little _Mola di Adriano_, with a little
angel on the summit;—curious, but without merit of any kind.
3. The Supper of St. Gregory. It is related that when Gregory was only
a monk, in the Monastery of St. Andrew, a beggar presented himself at
the gate, and requested alms: being relieved, he came again and again,
and at length nothing was left for the charitable saint to bestow,
but the silver porringer in which his mother, Sylvia, had sent him a
_potage_; and he commanded that this should be given to the mendicant.
It was his custom, when he became pope, to entertain every evening at
his own table twelve poor men, in remembrance of the number of our
Lord’s apostles. One night, as he sat at supper with his guests, he
saw, to his surprise, not twelve, but thirteen seated at his table.
And he called to his steward, and said to him, ‘Did I not command thee
to invite twelve? and behold, there are thirteen!’ And the steward
told them over, and replied, ‘Holy Father, there are surely twelve
only!’ and Gregory held his peace; and after the meal, he called forth
the unbidden guest, and asked him, ‘Who art thou?’ And he replied,
‘I am the poor man whom thou didst formerly relieve; but my name is
the Wonderful, and through me thou shalt obtain whatever thou shalt
ask of God.’ Then Gregory knew that he had entertained an angel (or,
according to another version of the story, our Lord himself). This
legend has been a frequent subject in painting, under the title of
‘The Supper of St. Gregory.’ In the fresco in his church at Rome, it
is a winged angel who appears at the supper-table. In the fresco of
Paul Veronese, one of his famous banquet-scenes, the stranger seated
at the table is the Saviour habited as a pilgrim.[288] In the picture
painted by Vasari, his masterpiece, now in the Bologna Gallery, he has
introduced a great number of figures and portraits of distinguished
personages of his own time, St. Gregory being represented under the
likeness of Clement VII. The unbidden guest, or angel, bears the
features of the Saviour.
This is one of many beautiful mythic legends, founded on the words of
St. Paul in which he so strongly recommends hospitality as one of the
virtues: ‘Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some
have entertained angels unawares.’ (Heb. xiii. 2.) Or, as Massinger has
rendered the apostolic precept,—
Learn all,
By this example, to look on the poor
With gentle eyes, for in such habits often
Angels desire an alms.
4. The Mass of St. Gregory. On a certain occasion, when St. Gregory
was officiating at the mass, one who was near him doubted the real
presence; thereupon, at the prayer of the saint, a vision is suddenly
revealed of the crucified Saviour himself, who descends upon the
altar, surrounded by the instruments of his passion. This legend has
been a popular subject of painting from the beginning of the fifteenth
century, and is called ‘The Mass of St. Gregory.’ I have met with it
in every variety of treatment and grouping; but, however treated, it
is not a pleasing subject. St. Gregory is seen officiating at the
altar, surrounded by his attendant clergy. Sometimes several saints are
introduced in a poetical manner, as witnesses of the miracle: as in
an old picture I saw in the gallery of Lord Northwick;—the crucified
Saviour descends from the cross, and stands on the altar, or is
upborne in the air by angels; while all the incidental circumstances
and instruments of the Passion,—not merely the crown of thorns, the
spear, the nails, but the kiss of Judas, the soldiers’ dice, the cock
that crew to Peter,—are seen floating in the air. As a specimen of the
utmost naïveté in this representation may be mentioned Albert Dürer’s
woodcut.
The least offensive and most elegant in treatment is the marble
bas-relief in front of the altar in the Chapel of St. Gregory at Rome.
* * * * *
5. The miracle of the Brandeum. The Empress Constantia sent to St.
Gregory requesting some of the relics of St. Peter and St. Paul. He
excused himself, saying that he dared not disturb their sacred remains
for such a purpose, but he sent her part of a consecrated cloth
(_Brandeum_) which had enfolded the body of St. John the Evangelist.
The empress rejected this gift with contempt: whereupon Gregory, to
show that such things are hallowed not so much in themselves as by
the faith of believers, laid the Brandeum on the altar, and after
praying he took up a knife and pierced it, and blood flowed as from a
living body. This incident, called the ‘miracle _dei Brandei_,’ has
also been painted. Andrea Sacchi has represented it in a grand picture
now in the Vatican; the mosaic copy is over the altar of St. Gregory
in St. Peter’s. Gregory holds up to view the bleeding cloth, and the
expression of astonishment and conviction in the countenances of the
assistants is very fine.
6. St. Gregory releases the soul of the Emperor Trajan. In a little
picture in the Bologna Academy, he is seen praying before a tomb, on
which is inscribed TRAJANO IMPERADOR; beneath are two angels raising
the soul of Trajan out of the flames. Such is the usual treatment of
this curious and poetical legend, which is thus related in the Legenda
Aurea:—‘It happened on a time, as Trajan was hastening to battle at
the head of his legions, that a poor widow flung herself in his path,
and cried aloud for justice, and the emperor stayed to listen to her;
and she demanded vengeance for the innocent blood of her son, killed
by the son of the emperor. Trajan promised to do her justice when he
returned from his expedition. “But, Sire,” answered the widow, “should
you be killed in battle, who then will do me justice?” “My successor,”
replied Trajan. And she said, “What will it signify to you, great
emperor, that any other than yourself should do me justice? Is it not
better that you should do this good action yourself than leave another
to do it?” And Trajan alighted, and having examined into the affair, he
gave up his own son to her in place of him she had lost, and bestowed
on her likewise a rich dowry. Now, it came to pass that as Gregory was
one day meditating in his daily walk, this action of the Emperor Trajan
came into his mind, and he wept bitterly to think that a man so just
should be condemned as a heathen to eternal punishment. And entering
into a church he prayed most fervently that the soul of the good
emperor might be released from torment. And a voice said to him, “I
have granted thy prayer, and I have spared the soul of Trajan for thy
sake; but because thou hast supplicated for one whom the justice of God
had already condemned, thou shalt choose one of two things: either thou
shalt endure for two days the fires of purgatory, or thou shalt be sick
and infirm for the remainder of thy life.” Gregory chose the latter,
which sufficiently accounts for the grievous pains and infirmities to
which this great and good man was subjected, even to the day of his
death.’
This story of Trajan was extremely popular in the middle ages: it
is illustrative of the character of Gregory, and the feeling which
gave rise to his doctrine of purgatory. Dante twice alludes to it;
he describes it as one of the subjects sculptured on the walls of
Purgatory, and takes occasion to relate the whole story:—
... There was storied on the rock
Th’ exalted glory of the Roman prince,
Whose mighty worth moved Gregory to earn
His mighty conquest—Trajan the Emperor.
A widow at his bridle stood attired
In tears and mourning. Round about them troop’d
Full throng of knights: and overhead in gold
The eagles floated, struggling with the wind.
The wretch appear’d amid all these to say:
‘Grant vengeance, Sire! for, woe beshrew this heart,
My son is murder’d!’ He, replying, seem’d:
‘Wait now till I return.’ And she, as one
Made hasty by her grief: ‘O Sire, if thou
Dost not return?’—‘Where I am, who then is,
May right thee.’—‘What to thee is others’ good,
If thou neglect thy own?’—‘Now comfort thee,’
At length he answers. ‘It beseemeth well
My duty be perform’d, ere I move hence.
So justice wills; and pity bids me stay.’
Cary’s DANTE, _Purg._ x.
It was through the efficacy of St. Gregory’s intercession that Dante
afterwards finds Trajan in Paradise, seated between King David and King
Hezekiah. (_Par._ xx.)
As a subject of painting, the story of Trajan was sometimes selected as
an appropriate ornament for a hall of justice. We find it sculptured
on one of the capitals of the pillars of the Ducal Palace at Venice:
there is the figure of the widow kneeling, somewhat stiff, but very
simple and expressive, and over it in rude ancient letters—‘_Trajano
Imperador, che die justizia a la Vedova_.’ In the Town Hall of Ceneda,
near Belluna, are the three Judgments (_i tre Giudizi_), painted by
Pompeo Amalteo: the Judgment of Solomon, the Judgment of Daniel, and
the Judgment of Trajan. It is painted in the Town Hall of Brescia by
Giulio Campi, one of a series of eight righteous judgments.
I found the same subject in the church of St. Thomas of Canterbury at
Verona. ‘The son of the Emperor Trajan trampling over the son of the
widow’ is a most curious composition by Hans Schaufelein.[289]
* * * * *
7. There was a monk, who, in defiance of his vow of poverty,
secreted in his cell three pieces of gold. Gregory, on learning
this, excommunicated him, and shortly afterwards the monk died. When
Gregory heard that the monk had perished in his sin, without receiving
absolution, he was filled with grief and horror; and he wrote upon a
parchment a prayer and a form of absolution, and gave it to one of
his deacons, desiring him to go to the grave of the deceased and read
it there: on the following night the monk appeared in a vision, and
revealed to him his release from torment.
This story is represented in the beautiful bas-relief in white marble
in front of the altar of his chapel; it is the last compartment on the
right. The obvious intention of this wild legend is to give effect to
the doctrine of purgatory, and the efficacy of prayers for the dead.
St. Gregory’s merciful doctrine of purgatory also suggested those
pictures so often found in chapels dedicated to the service of the
dead, in which he is represented in the attitude of supplication, while
on one side, or in the background, angels are raising the tormented
souls out of the flames.
In ecclesiastical decoration I have seen the two popes, St. Gelasius,
who reformed the calendar in 494, and St. Celestinus, who arranged the
discipline of the monastic orders, added to the series of beatified
Doctors of the Church.