the countries which were not fubject to the ecclefi- CHAP. astical dictator

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62

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and relics of the apo*

Like Thebes, or Babylon, or Carthage, the Thetombs name of Rome might have been erazed from the earth; if the city had not been animated by a vital ftles. principle, which again restored her to honour and dominion. A vague tradition was embraced, that two Jewish teachers, a tent-maker, and a fisherman, had formerly been executed in the circus of Nero, and at the end of five hundred years their genuine or fictitious relics were adored as the Palladium of Christian Rome. The pilgrims of the East and West resorted to the holy threshold; but the fhrines of the apostles were guarded by miracles and invifible terrors; and it was not without fear that the pious Catholic approached the object of his worship. It was fatal to touch, it was dangerous to behold, the bodies of the faints; and those who from the pureft motives prefumed to disturb the repofe of the fanctuary, were affrighted by vifions, or punished with fudden death. The unreasonable request of an emprefs, who wifhed to deprive the Romans of their facred treasure, the head of St. Paul, was rejected with the deepest abhorrence; and the pope afferted, moft probably with truth, that a linen which had been fanctified in the neighbourhood of his body, or the filings of his chain, which it was fometimes easy and sometimes impoffible to obtain,

62 Bayle (Dictionaire Critique, tom. ii. p. 598, 599.), in a very good article of Gregoire I. has quoted, for the building and ftatues, Platina in Gregorio I.; for the Palatine library, John of Salisbury (de Nugis Curialium, 1. ii. c. 26.); and for Livy, Antoninus of Florence: the oldeft of the three lived in the xth century.

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poffeffed

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the Ro

man.'

CHAP. poffeffed an equal degree of miraculous virtue But the power as well as virtue of the apostles re fided with living energy in the breast of their fucceffors; and the chair of St. Peter was filled under Birth and the reign of Maurice by the first and greatest of the ofGregory name of Gregory 64. His grandfather Felix had himself been pope, and as the bifhops were already bound by the law of celibacy, his confecration must have been preceded by the death of his wife. The parents of Gregory, Sylvia, and Gordian, were the nobleft of the senate and the most pious of the church of Rome: his female relations were numbered among the faints and virgins; and his own. figure with thofe of his father and mother were reprefented near three hundred years in a family portraits, which he offered to the monaftery of St. Andrew.

63 Gregor. I. iii. epist. 24. indict. 12, &c. From the epiftles of Gregory, and the viith volume of the Annals of Baronius, the pious reader may collect the particles of holy iron which were inferted in keys or croffes of gold, and diftributed in Britain, Gaul, Spain, Africa, Conftantinople, and Egypt. The pontifical fmith who handled the file must have understood the miracles which it was in his own power to operate or with-hold: a circumstance which abates the fuperftition of Gregory at the expence of his veracity.

64 Befides the Epistles of Gregory himself which are methodised by Dupin (Bibliothêque Ecclef. tom. v. p: 103126.), we have three lives of the pope; the two first written in the viiith and ixth centuries (de Triplici Vita St. Greg. Preface to the ivth volume of the Benedictine edition) by the deacons Paul (p. 1-18.) and John (p. 19-188.), and containing much original, though doubtful, evidence; the third, a long and laboured compilation by the Benedictine editors (p. 199-305.). The Annals of Baronius are a copius but partial hiftory. His papal prejudices are tempered by the good fenfe of Fleury (Hift. Ecclef. tom. viii.), and his chronology has been rectified by the criticism of Pagi and Muratori.

65 John the deacon has described them like an eye-witness (1. iv. c. 83, 84.); and his defcription is illuftrated by Angelo Rocca, a Roman

XLV.

Andrew. The defign and colouring of this picture CHAP. afford an honourable teftimony, that the art of painting was cultivated by the Italians of the fixth century, but the most abject ideas must be entertained of their taste and learning, fince the epiftles of Gregory, his fermons, and his dialogues, are the work of a man who was fecond in erudition to none of his contemporaries "": his birth and abilities had raised him to the office of præfect of the city, and he enjoyed the merit of renouncing the pomp. and vanities of this world. His ample patrimony was dedicated to the foundation of seven monasteries 67 one in Rome, and fix in Sicily; and it was the wifh of Gregory that he might be unknown in this

66

Roman antiquary (St. Greg. Opéra, tom. iv. p. 312-326.), who obferves, that some mosaics of the popes of the viith century are ftill preserved in the old churches of Rome (p: 321-323.). The fame walls which represented Gregory's family are now decorated with the martyrdom of St. Andrew, the noble contest of Dominichino and Guido.

66 Difciplinis vero liberalibus, hoc eft grammaticâ, rhetoricâ, dialecticâ, ita a puero est institutus, ut quamvis eo tempore florerent adhuc Romæ ftudia literarum, tamen nulli in urbe ipfâ fecundus putaretur. Paul.. Diacon. in Vit. S. Greg. c. 2.

67 The Benedictines (Vit. Greg. 1. i. p. 205–208.) labour to reduce the monafteries of Gregory within the rule of their own order; but as the question is confeffed to be doubtful, it is clear that thefe powerful monks are in the wrong. See Butler's Lives of the Saints, vol. iii. p. 145.; a work of merit; the fense and learning belong to the author his prejudices are those of his profeffion.

63 Monafterium Gregorianum in ejufdem Beati Gregorii ædibus ad clivum Scauri prope ecclefiam S. S. Johannis et Pauli in honorem St. Andreæ (John, in Vit. Greg. 1. i. c. 6. Greg. 1. vii. epift. 13.). This house and monaftery were fituate on the fide of the Celian hill which fronts the Palatine; they are now occupied by the Camaldoli; San Gregorio triumphs, and St. Andrew has retired to a small chapel. Nardini, Roma Antica, 1. iii. c. 6. p. 100. Defcrizzione di Roma, tom. i. p. 442-445.

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life,

CHAP life, and glorious only in the next.

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Pontífi.

cate of

Yet his devo tion, and it might be fincere, pursued the path which would have been chosen by a crafty and ambitious statesman. The talents of Gregory, and the fplendour which accompanied his retreat, rendered him dear and useful to the church; and implicit obedience has been always inculcated as the first duty of a monk. As foon as he had received the character of deacon, Gregory was fent to refide at the Byzantine court, the nuncio or minifter of the apoftolic fee; and he boldly affumed, in the name of St. Peter, a tone of independent dignity, which would have been criminal and dangerous in the most illustrious layman of the empire. He returned to Rome with a just increase of reputation, and after a fhort exercise of the monaftic virtues, he was dragged from the cloyfter to the papal throne, by the unanimous voice of the clergy, the fenate, and the people. He alone refifted, or feemed to refift, his own elevation; and his humble petition, that Maurice would be pleased to reject the choice of the Romans, could only ferve to exalt his character in the eyes of the emperor and the public. When the fatal mandate was proclaimed, Gregory folicited the aid of fome friendly merchants to convey him in a basket beyond the gates of Rome, and modeftly concealed himfelf fome days among the woods and mountains, till his retreat was discovered, as it is faid, by a celeftial light.

The pontificate of Gregory the Great, which Gregory lafted thirteen years fix months and ten days, is one the Great,

of

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A.D. 604.

March 12.

of the most edifying periods of the hiftory of CHAP. the church. His virtues, and even his faults, a fingular mixture of fimplicity and cunning, of pride or Firft, and humility, of sense and superstition, were hap- Feb. 8pily fuited to his station and to the temper of the times. In his rival, the patriarch of Conftantinople, he condemned the Antichriftian title of univerfal bishop, which the fucceffor of St. Peter was too haughty to concede, and too feeble to af fume; and the ecclefiaftical jurisdiction of Gregory His fpiriwas confined to the triple character of bishop of tual office, Rome, primate of Italy, and apostle of the Weft. He frequently afcended the pulpit, and kindled, by his rude, though pathetic eloquence, the congenial paffions of his audience: the language of the Jewish prophets was interpreted and applied, and the minds of the people, depreffed by their prefent calamities, were directed to the hopes and fears of the invifible world. His precepts and example defined the model of the Roman liturgy; the distribution of the parishes, the calendar of feftivals, the order of proceffions, the fervice of the priests and deacons, the variety and change of fa cerdotal garments. Till the last days of his life, he officiated in the canon of the mafs, which continued above three hours; the Gregorian chant

has

69 The Lords prayer confifts of half a dozen lines the Sacramentarius and Antiphonarius of Gregory fill 880 folio pages (tom. iii. P. i. p. 1-880,); yet thefe only conftitute a part of the Ordo Romanus, which Mabillon has illuftrated and Fleury has abridged (Hift. Ecclef. tom. viii. p. 139-152.).

70 I learn from the Abbé Dubos (Reflexions fur la Poefie et la Peinture, tom. iii. p. 174, 175.) that the fimplicity of the Ambrofian

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chant