HE was born in Rome, to an affluent fortune, and being educated in the
palace of the popes, acquired great skill in the holy scriptures and in
ecclesiastical affairs, and attained to an eminent degree of sanctity.
Pope Sergius I., to whom he was very dear, ordained him subdeacon. Under
the succeeding popes, John the sixth and seventh, Sisinnius, and
Constantine, he was treasurer of the church, and afterwards library
keeper, and was charged with several important commissions. The fifth
general council had been held upon the affair of the three chapters, in
553, in the reign of Justinian, and the sixth against the Monothelites,
in those of Constantine Pogonatus and pope Agatho, in 660. With a view
of adding a supplement of new canons to those of the aforesaid two
councils, the bishops of the Greek church, to the number of two hundred
and eleven, held the council called Quini-sext, in a hall of the
imperial palace at Constantinople, named Trullus, in 692, which laid a
foundation of certain differences to discipline between the Eastern and
Western churches; for in the thirteenth canon it was enacted, that a man
who was before married should be allowed to receive the holy orders of
subdeacon, deacon, or priest, without being obliged to leave his wife,
though this was forbid to bishops. (can. 12.) It was also forbid, (canon
55,) to fast on Saturdays, even in Lent. Pope Sergius I. refused to
confirm this council; and, in 695, the emperor, Justinian II., surnamed
Rhinotmetus, who had succeeded his father, Constantine Pogonatus, in
685, was dethroned for his cruelty, and his nose being slit, (from which
circumstance he received his surname,) banished into Chersonesus. First
Leontius, then Apsimarus Tiberius, ascended the throne; but Justinian
recovered it in 705, and invited pope Constantine into the East, hoping
to prevail upon him to confirm the council in Trullo. The pope was
received with great honor, and had with him our saint, who, in his name,
answered the questions put by the Greeks concerning the said council.
After their return to Rome, upon the death of Constantine, Gregory was
chosen pope, and ordained on the 19th of May, 715. The emperor Justinian
being detested both by the army and people, Bardanes, who took the name
of Philippicus, an Armenian, one of his generals, revolted, took
Constantinople, put him and his son Tiberius, only seven years old, to
death, and usurped the sovereignty in December, 711. In Justinian II was
extinguished the family of Heraclius. Philippicus abetted warmly the
heresy of the Monothelites, and caused the sixth council to be
proscribed in a pretended synod at Constantinople. His reign was very
short, for Artemius, his secretary, {411} who took the name of
Anastasius II., deposed him, and stepped into the throne on the fourth
of June, 713. By him the Monothelites were expelled; but, after a reign
of two years and seven months, seeing one Theodosius chosen emperor by
the army, which had revolted in January, 716, he withdrew, and took the
monastic habit at Thessalonica. The eastern army having proclaimed Leo
III., surnamed the Isaurian, emperor, on the 25th of March, 717,
Theodosius and his son embraced an ecclesiastical state, and lived in
peace among the clergy. Pope Gregory signalized the beginning of his
popedom by deposing John VI., the Monothelite, false patriarch of
Constantinople, who had been nominated by Philippicus, and he promoted
the election of St. Germanus, who was translated to that dignity from
Cyzicus, in 715. With unwearied watchfulness and zeal he laid himself
out in extirpating heresies on all sides, and in settling a reformation
of manners. Besides a hospital for old men, he rebuilt the great
monastery near the church of St. Paul at Rome, and, after the death of
his mother, in 718, changed her house into the monastery of St. Agatha.
The same year he re-established the abbey of Mount Cassino, sending
thither, from Rome, the holy abbot St. Petronax, to take upon him the
government, one hundred and forty years after it had been laid in ruins
by the Lombards. This holy abbot lived to see monastic discipline
settled here in so flourishing a manner, that in the same century,
Carloman, duke or prince of the French, Rachis, king of the Lombards,
St. Willebald, St. Sturmius, first abbot of Fulda, and other eminent
persons, fled to this sanctuary.[1] Our holy pope commissioned zealous
missionaries to preach the faith in Germany, and consecrated St.
Corbinian bishop of Frisingen, and St. Boniface bishop of Mentz. Leo,
the Isaurian, protected the Catholic church during the first ten years
of his reign, and St. Gregory II. laid up among the archives of his
church several letters which he had received from him, from the year 717
to 726, which proved afterwards authentic monuments of his perfidy. For,
being infatuated by certain Jews, who had gained an ascendant over him
by certain pretended astrological predictions, in 726 he commanded holy
images to be abolished, and enforced the execution of his edicts of a
cruel persecution. St. Germanus, and other orthodox prelates in the
East, endeavored to reclaim him, refused to obey his edicts, and
addressed themselves to pope Gregory. Our saint employed long the arms
of tears and entreaties, yet strenuously maintained the people of Italy
in their allegiance to their prince, as Anastasius assures us. A
rebellion was raised in Sicily, but soon quelled by the death of
Artemius, who had assumed the purple. The pope vigorously opposed the
mutineers, both here and in other parts of the West. When he was
informed that the army at Ravenna and Venice, making zeal a pretence for
rebellion, had created a new emperor, he effectually opposed their
attempt, and prevented the effect. Several disturbances which were
raised in Rome were pacified by his care. Nevertheless, he by letters
encouraged the pastors of the church to resist the heresy which the
emperor endeavored to establish by bloodshed and violence. The tyrant
sent orders to several of his officers, six or seven times, to murder
the pope: but he was so faithfully guarded by the Romans and Lombards,
that he escaped all their snares. St. Gregory II. held the pontificate
fifteen years, eight months, and twenty-three days, and died in 731, on
the 10th of February; but the Roman Martyrology consecrates to his
memory the 13th which was probably the day on which his corpse was
deposited in the Vatican church.
Footnotes:
1. Bulteau, Hist. Mon. d'Occid. t. 2, l. 4, c. 2, p. 8.
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