Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- INTRODUCTION
- PART I CONSIDERATION
- PART II TALK OF GOD
- PART III INWARD AND OUTWARD: SPIRITUALITY IN THE WORLD
- Light and silence
- Contemplation and action
- Monastic order
- Rectus Ordo
- The bishop
- Division
- CONCLUSION
- Select bibliography
- Index
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- INTRODUCTION
- PART I CONSIDERATION
- PART II TALK OF GOD
- PART III INWARD AND OUTWARD: SPIRITUALITY IN THE WORLD
- Light and silence
- Contemplation and action
- Monastic order
- Rectus Ordo
- The bishop
- Division
- CONCLUSION
- Select bibliography
- Index
Summary
The early letters of his pontificate are full of Gregory's sense of loss in his new office. He writes to one correspondent, a friend in Constantinople called Narsus (October 590), in a series of gloomy paradoxes:
When you described the sweetness of deep contemplation you stirred again my groans over my ruin, for I heard what I have lost inwardly; although outwardly I have ascended – undeservedly – to the high point of rule (regimen) rainclouds of sorrow blind the eyes of my mind. For I reflect, crashing down from the high point of my peace, to what a low point of outward advancement I have climbed.
(Letter 1.6, ccsl, p. 7.2–9)To the Emperor Maurice's sister Theoctista he writes in October 590:
Under the colours of episcopacy, I have been brought back to the world, in which I am subject to as many worldly responsibilities as I remember myself to have had in my life as a layman. For I have lost the high joys of my peace (alta quietis meae gaudia); tumbling down inwardly, though I seem to have ascended outwardly. That is why I grieve to have been thrust so far from my Creator's face. Every day I strive to be outside the world and outside the flesh.
(Letter 1.5, ccsl, p. 5.6–12, October 590)- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Thought of Gregory the Great , pp. 123 - 129Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1986