Medieval Christianity: Pope Gregory the Great

Gregory's life culminated in his holding the office of pope (590 - 604). He is generally regarded as one of the outstanding figures in the long line of popes, and by the late ninth century had come to be known as "the Great". Along with Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine, he played a critical role in the history of his time. During the middle ages his intellectual influence was second only to that of Augustine.

This study, the first in English since 1912, revises the traditional picture of Pope Gregory in the light of all the research that has taken place since that time. It looks at his achievements in various fields, and estate administration of the papacy. He waged unremitting war on heresy and schism, and was responsible for sending out the mission which converted the Anglo-Saxons of England. Gregory also pioneered a new western pastoral tradition in learning, popularized and promoted monasticism, and supervised and trained the Italian episcopate. -Flap cover.

Markus seeks to understand Gregory as a cultivated late Roman aristocrat converted to the ascetic ideal, caught in the tension between attraction to the monastic vocation and his episcopal ministry, at a time of catastrophic change in the Roman world.

Gregory tended to see his troubled world as divided between realms of purity and pollution: the safe haven of the church contrasted sharply with the corruption of secular life. His preference for a monastic life was indisputable, but circumstances contravened his will, and he was forced to exercise an office of great prestige and power. This experience reshaped his spirituality, so that he came to appreciate how the soul could be tried and refined by life in the body. Straw explains Gregory's prescription for Christian life as one of "perfection in imperfection". -Flap cover.

A collection of essays which were presented at a symposium on Gregory the Great (1502-1585) at the University of Notre Dame in 1993. These essays assess the importance of his persuasive theological and pastoral agenda which has influenced past and ongoing projects.

Recognized as the most thorough pastoral treatise of the patristic era,this sixth-century work by St.Gregory the Great carefully details the duties and obligations of the clergy concerning the spiritual formation of their flock.-Back cover.

Without being guilty of the naive credulity of which he has often been accused, Gregory did believe in the miracles of modern saints. Miracles function primarily as ostensio sanctitatis, a visible representation of the inner life of sanctity to which we are all called. In developing a fuller description of Gregory's views, this work seeks to analyze the interrelationship of ideas about miracles implicit in the stories of the "Dialogues" and explicit in the more strictly theological works, and to consider both within the context established by late antique /early medieval theological, philosophical, historiographical, and hagiographical traditions. "Signs of Sanctity " engages critically a large body of recent scholarship on these questions, drawing on a careful reading of sources that would have been available to Gregory himself, in particular the influential texts of Augustine. The portrait of Gregory that emerges is intended as a contribution to the continuing reappraisal of a major figure in the intellectual history of late antiquity, and a significant influence on the cultural life of the middle ages. -Foreword