Gregory

Summary

[Bayle takes for granted that Pope Gregory I had wielded massive civil power and that the historian should ask if he had used it well. He accuses Gregory of lacking principle in making conversions. For when his missionaries preached to the English pagans, he had taught that in Christ's kingdom there were only voluntary subjects. Yet within the Empire itself, the mission of ‘conversion’ had degenerated into debating the relative effectiveness of inducements vs. punishments. In Remark (E), Bayle shows that Gregory's ambiguity remained Christendom's received wisdom. He concludes, augmenting the thesis of his Commentaire philosophique (1686), that the society that was not tyrannical would propose to the unorthodox neither punishments nor rewards. In Remark (R), he shows how a critical scholar should approach a text that apparently gave credence to miracles.]

Gregory I, known as the Great, was born in Rome of a patrician family. He revealed so much ability in the exercise of the office of senator that the Emperor Justinian the Younger made him prefect of Rome. He gave up this dignity when he found it was too worldly, and retired to a monastery [(A)] under the discipline of the Abbot Valentius. He was recalled a short time later by Pope Pelagius II, who made him his seventh deacone and sent him as nuncio to Constantinople to solicit assistance against the Lombards. He returned to Rome after the death of the emperor [(B)], serving for some time as secretary to Pope Pelagius after which he obtained leave to return to his monastery.