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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011
Dispute about the authenticity of the Dialogues attributed to St Gregory the Great is not new. As long ago as 1551, when the New Learning had given birth to the critical study of texts, the Protestant humanist scholar Huldreich Coccius first challenged the traditional ascription of that work to Gregory, on the grounds that it differed from all the other works of the great pope and doctor, ‘in character, style of expression, seriousness and purpose’. There followed more than two centuries of controversy on this subject, coloured by confessional antagonism, with strong opinions expressed on both sides. The Benedictine scholars, Van Haeften, Mabillon, Ceillier and others, were particularly affronted by the challenge to the patristic authority of the Dialogues, which seemed also to be a challenge to their monastic loyalties. All that is known of the person and life of St Benedict, patriarch of Western monasticism, comes from the vivid biography presented in that book, and the book is generally acknowledged to have been a principal factor in the triumph of the Regula Benedicti as the general rule of monastic observance in medieval Europe.
1 Bulletin de Théologie Ancienne et Mediévale xii (1978), 295.
2 E. J. Brill, Leiden 1987, Studies in the History of Christian Thought, xxxvii, ed. Heiko A. Oberman. This work is referred to below as Clark. The history of the earlier controversies about the authenticity of the Gregorian Dialogues is surveyed in ch. iii.
3 ‘The Enigma of Gregory the Great's Dialogues: a response to Francis Clark’, this JOURNAL xxxix (1988), 335–81Google Scholar; referred to below as Meyvaert.
4 It is difficult to know how to deal with the many derogatory and derisive comments that the reviewer directs against the author of the book which he is reviewing and with which he so vehemently disagrees. I should much prefer to ignore those personal animadversions, but some notice must be taken of them since they affect the substance of his critique and generate prejudice against my arguments. He delivers his strictures in a lofty tone, de haul en bas. In his opening pages he seeks to discredit my book in advance by impugning my capacity for objective historical judgement. ‘It is essential that we should perceive from the outset the general character and tone of Clark's enterprise,’ he declares: ibid. 337. To illustrate the lack of historical objectivity that he imputes to me, he then alludes to a couple of my other publications, including my best known work, Eucharistic Sacrifice and the Reformation, first published in 1960 and now in its third edition. I assume he has read that book. His insinuation that it is historically unreliable conflicts with the judgement of many others - church historians as well as Protestant, Anglican and Roman Catholic theologians. In his endeavour to expose ‘the temper of Clark's mind’, he could have found further data to consider in my course textbooks of religious history published by the Open University Press, which have also been widely used.
5 Godding, Robert, ‘Les Dialogues dc Grégoire le Grand: à propos d'un livre récent’, Analecta Bollandiana, 1988, 201–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Dom A. de Vogüé, ‘La mort dans les monastères: Jonas de Bobbio et les Dialogues de Grégoire le Grand’, in Memorial Dom Jean Gribomont (Studia Ephemeridis ‘Augustinianum’, xxvii), Rome 1988, 593–619. I am offering my comments on their specific objections to Clark in an article to be published in Augustinianum. Where appropriate I also comment here on some of them. (Since the present article was submitted for publication Dom de Vogue has published a further lengthy critique of my book in Revue d'Histoire Ecclésiastique lxxxiii (1988), 294–348Google Scholar. There he does address several of my arguments from the internal evidence of the Dialogues, as developed in vol. ii. His acute and courteous counter-arguments call for detailed discussion; but that must be the subject of a separate ‘response’ elsewhere.)
6 Clark, 746.
7 The time factor in manuscript diffusion also suggests a date of origin somewhat earlier than 670.
8 References for what is said in the following section will be found in Clark, ch. iv.
9 Pp. 372–4. ‘It is the absence of any evidence regarding the circulation of the Dialogues that presents us with an enigma that is still unresolved,’ he writes.
10 P. 372. It is pleasing to acknowledge an appreciative comment on p. 381, as an exception to an otherwise uniformly negative critique.
11 Meyvaert, 374–81; Clark, 443–7, 463–5, 628–30, 632–9, 641–3.
12 Meyvaert, 352–61.
13 Meyvaert also concedes (374 n. 135) that a point I make in my discussion of the Liber pontificalis ‘may have a bearing’ on the question of the latency of the Dialogues in the early period. He acknowledges that he is impressed by the observation (Clark. 57–8) that the Dialogues arc omitted from the list of Gregory's writings reproduced by John the Deacon, who quotes it from an early source which he terms ‘in episcopali cius. John the Deacon's witness to the omission in that early record (which may have been the archive codex of the Lib. pont. ) is not isolated: it concords with and corroborates the independent witness of the manuscript data relating to the original entry in the Lib. pont. My discussion of the testimony of John the Deacon is appended to my demonstration that the evidence of several early MSS attests more clearly still the same omission in the pristine text of the Lib. pont. But Meyvaert expresses doubt here:’ I am not sure that one can develop a satisfactory proof, on the basis of the Cononian Abridgment, to show that reference to the Dialogues did not occur in the original text’ (of the Lib. pont. ). This remark reveals his supposition that my argument here is based only on the text of the Cononian Abridgment of the Lib. pont. (discussed in Clark, 55–6). It appears that he has missed the weighty evidence that I present in the following pages (56–7) to show that four early medieval MSS of the unabridged Lib. pont. text, representing different MS families, attest the same omission. I sec this as one among many indications that he has studied my arguments only cursorily. Godding evidently does not share Meyvaert's reluctance to accept my findings about the original lack of mention of the Dialogues in the Lib. pont. He accepts that ‘la version la plus ancienne du Liber Pontificalis ne les mentionne pas': ‘Les Dialogues’, 221 n. 42.
14 Clark, 118–30.
15 Pp. 247–61; see also 225–7, 261–82, 288.
16 The names of two abbots who were St Columban's chief disciples and successors, Athala and Eustasius, whose merits are also recorded by Jonas, are likewise honoured in the Hieronymianum. But there is no mention there of any of the holy disciples and successors of St Benedict, of whom we read in the Gregorian Dialogues.
17 In the Calendar of St Willibrord, probably dating from not much later, a commemoration of St Benedict is also found - but as a ‘martyr’, a description which may suggest that his cull was new and unfamiliar to the scribe.
18 Meyvaert makes a dismissive reference (344 n. 40) to the documented case I have presented concerning the long-delayed rise of cult and biographical knowledge of St Benedict. There he declares: ‘The cult of St Benedict and the Rule that bears his name did not spread like wildfire overnight, but Clark constantly maintains that if the Dialogues were authentic this would have had to be the case.’ It can hardly be said that this caricature of what I have written (and similar rhetorical exaggerations throughout Meyvaert's article) reflect ‘the detached scrutiny of a historian’ that he elsewhere desiderates.
19 Pp. 342–4. I have already pointed out that, even if documentary quotation from the Dialogues earlier in the seventh century could be proved, it would still not invalidate the evidence (presented in Clark, vol. ii) that shows Gregory was not the author of the work. The same hypothetical caveat may be made in the discussion of seventh-century awareness of the biography of St Benedict contained in book 11 of the Dialogues.
20 P. 344.
21 If it was his visit to Rome in 652–3 that prompted Benedict Biscop to take up the monastic life, as Meyvaert surmises, he would not have found Benedictine monasticism there at that time. It is now established (against the assertions of earlier apologists) that there was no observance of the Regula Benedicti in Rome throughout the seventh century. See Clark, 189–92, with references to the works of Penco, Ferrari, Hallinger and others; also 225, 242–6.
22 From this disconcerting fact they conclude: ‘... which leads one to think it probable that his feast was not celebrated in Rome in the seventh century': ibid. 258–9.
23 ‘Les Dialogues’, 221 n. 42. His cautious reserve on this point may be contrasted with the confident triumphalism of the traditional apologetic, as expressed by the Maurists: ‘Statim ac in luce editi sunt Dialogi, toto in orbe Christiano summa gratulatione sunt excepti...’ (cf. Clark, 49 n. 1). It may also be compared with the opinion of de Vogüé: ‘le succès des Dialogues a été rapide et considerable’: Sources Chrétiennes, ecli. 141.
24 Clark, v and vi; Meyvaert, 345–66.
25 Pp. 66, 68, 71, 73.
26 ‘In my introductory chapter I wrote that not all the arguments in this book would have the same probative force: some, while not apodirtic, would at least indicate probabilities, and would be seen to have fuller significance in the light of the principal and more plainly probative arguments. The considerations I have put forward in this chapter mainly belong to that category of probable arguments. I would point out that all that is needed in this specific context is to show that the genuineness of the Letter to Maximian cannot be taken for granted. I show elsewhere by cogent argument in other chapters - from both internal and external evidence - that the Dialogues attributed to St Gregory the Great are not authentic, and that there is no reliable historic trace of their existence for nearly a century after their alleged appearance. In the present chapter I have faced the objection put forward by all the defenders of the Dialogues: “But what about Gregory's Letter to Maximian, which proves that he was writing the Dialogues in the year 593?” My answer is: The cumulative demonstration of the spuriousness of the Dialogues, arising from all the other arguments in this book, is probative. Therefore, either we must conclude that Gregory did not carry out the intention he announced in the Letter to Maximian, and a later pseudepigrapher took the letter as his cue to fill the literary gap; or we must conclude that the Letter to Maximian is itself a forgery, introduced to provide a cover of external authentication for the Dialogues. Though the first of these two options is theoretically possible, the second appears to be the only realistic possibility. It is in this context that we ask whether there are any indications from the letter itself, and from other circumstances, which make it reasonable at least to suspect that it is not genuine. I submit that I have provided sufficient reasons to answer this question in the affirmative’: 80–1. In his impartial review Dom Pierre Minard perhaps assumes that I claim greater force for my argument concerning the wording of the letter to Maximian than is the case, ‘Les Dialogues de Saint Grégoire et les origines du monachisme bénédictin: à propos d'un livre récent’, Revue Mabillon lxi (1986–1988), 471–81Google Scholar.
27 Meyvaert, 346–8; Clark, 79–80 and 740–4 (‘The Dialogist and his peers in the Roman secretariate’). See especially 744 n. 66.
28 P. 352.
29 Clark, 95–6 n. 8; Meyvaert, 358–9.
30 Among documents belonging to that genre I would cite the prologue later added to Gregory's unpublished commentary In I Regum. (cf. Clark 207–11).
31 P. 352 n. 64. He promises a fuller study of these questions.
32 Pp. 94–100.
33 P. 360; cf. Clark, 411–21.
34 I realise that chs xii–xvii make daunting demands on the reader; but only laborious scrutiny of each of the IGPs in its context can fully reveal their adventitious character within the Dialogues narrative.
35 Clark, 468–9. Godding also assumes a mingling of sources in the Liber lestimoniorum citation of Gregory's commentary on the Numbers text, ‘Les Dialogues’, 205–8. He too lightly dismisses the problem raised by the verbal admixture that he has to assume was made by Paterius.
36 Both Meyvaert, 364–5, and Godding, art. cit. 208, point out Tajo's borrowings from the Lib. test.
37 When Tajo visited the Roman secretariat in the middle of the century was Lib. test. then of recent origin? Meyvaert wonders ‘whether Paterius was still alive at the time and, if he was, whether he personally gave Taio a copy of his Liber testimoniorum or perhaps allowed him to copy it’: 363.
38 In addition to those discussed in my book (in particular, concerning Jonas of Bobbio and Isidore), I give further attention, in the forthcoming Augustinianum article mentioned above, to the objections that have been raised by Godding and de Vogüé.
39 ‘Les Dialogues’, 216–20.
40 These three testimonies, he says, ‘ne permettent plus aucun doute’: ibid. 221. The claim, which he mentions earlier, that Isidore's definition of falcastrum was taken from the Dialogues, is unsubstantial (cf. Clark, 727).
41 In the Augustinianum article I devote fuller discussion to the allusion to the Dialogues found at the end of one section of the Chronicle of Fredegar. Although Godding's preference is to date that passage to the years 613/14, he recognises that his opinion on this point cannot be proposed as a certainty, in view of contradictory opinions held by other scholars about the origins and dating of that composite document. More cautiously, he argues that, even if the opposing opinion of other scholars were to prevail, ‘il serait difficile d'admettre une date postérieure à 642’: art. cit. 220. On that hypothesis, what Godding claims to be ‘the most ancient explicit testimony to the existence of the Dialogues’ would still not be of early enough date to prove their authenticity.
42 Pp. 93; italics added here. My supposition in that paragraph was that such extra work was required before some delayed sections of Gregory's magnum opus could be despatched to his ‘dearest friend’ Leander of Seville, and I commented that Gregory could not spare time even for that. Meyvaert argues that the Moralia was already completely finished by 591, and that thus I am mistaken in supposing that any further rcdactional work would have been needed on Gregory's part before the missing sections could be sent to Leander. Granted that he is right on that point, his lengthy argument is quite irrelevant as justification for the unfounded charge he repeatedly brings against me: namely, that I crassly maintain that in 593 Gregory was too busy working on the Moralia to have time to concern himself with a project like the Dialogues.
43 I cite one out of several instances of such superficial criticism. On p. 380 (n. 154) there is a comment on my use of a distinctive saying of St. Gregory concerning miracles: ‘Clark, who cites this text, fails to note that his “Dialogist” makes a similar remark’, which the reviewer proceeds to quote. It is he who has failed to study his data. If he will look at Clark, 300 and 447–8, he will sec that I explicitly refer (on p. 448) to the phrase he thinks I have missed, and that I identify it not as a remark of the Dialogist's but as belonging to a genuine Gregorian pericope (IGP 3). Moreover, Meyvaert has misread the Gregorian text that he abridges and quotes against me with an exclamation mark. It is not about miracles, as he too hastily assumes, but about reliance on the internal teaching of the Holy Spirit. Elsewhere I discuss the Dialogist's attitude to the miraculous at some length, and contrast it with that of Gregory himself, Clark 442–7. 463–5, 63–2–40, 641–3.
44 Especially on 359–61 and in the passage of heavy sarcasm on 370. Contrary to what is there attributed to me, I do not imagine that Gregory himself saw to the collection of what Meyvaert twice refers to as ‘a horde of fragments and snippets”, excised from earlier drafts of his writings, in order that he could re-use such discarded scraps in future works. The archivists naturally filed the various drafts and redactions of the pope's writings and discourses. I use the terms ‘fragments’ and “snippets’ to refer to single passages later excerpted from those files by others.
45 The real starting point and the stages of development of my study of this question unrelated in detail in Clark, 6–8. but apparently the reviewer discredits that account. It was many years after I had arrived at my main conclusions that I set myself to writing a survey of the earlier controversies about the authenticity of the Dialogue, and it was only then that ‘I eventually ran Cocus to earth’, ibid. 36. and read his book. Meyvaert unhesitatingly asserts (p. 339) that, in using the term ‘The Dialogist’ throughout my book, I am following Cooke who, he notes, used the word Dialogista in one place. My adoption of that title to refer to the author of the Dialogues, which I had already used in the research paper mentioned on my page 7, antedated my first reading of Cooke by at least a dozen years. Seeking a handy name by which to refer to the pseudonymous author, I chose one that had an echo of the cognomen ó Διλογος, given by the medieval Greeks to Pope Gregory, whom they knew primarily as the author of the Dialogues. (Their use of that title was not without some confusion between Gregory I and Gregory II, and even Gregory III; cf. Clark, 34.)
46 ‘I would say at the outset that I am one of many who do not think that any cybernetic methods yet devised can alone lead to apodictically certain conclusions about literary authorship’: 694. ‘Stylometric’ investigation can, nevertheless, reinforce the conclusions arrived at by use of non-quantitative methods of research into the literary composition of the Dialogues. I remarked: ‘It is evident that my computer-based survey is a pioneer exploration of the data, and that much more detailed work could be done in that specialized field’: 745. I look forward to publication of the results of an independent investigation recently undertaken with the use of numerical methods.
47 Meyvaert writes: ‘The case would be different if Clark were able to point to very precise habits of vocabulary and style, unconnected with literary genre and subject matter, that would differentiate the narrative portions of the Dialogues from other Gregorian writings’: 369. In ch. xxi, I do point to many such differentiating features.
48 P. 369. The marked contrast in style and language has been recognised for centuries. The negative judgements passed on the Latinity of the Dialogues by the humanist scholars cited in ch. iii of my book have been continued to our own day by many critics disconcerted by encounter with what one of them describes as ‘son style barbare et ennuyeux’: 685 n. 7; cf. also 684–93, 715.
49 Pp. 581–2, 608–23, 740–2.
50 Sec Clark, 196–7. In that controversy, too, there was a challenge to received wisdom. Scholarly assumptions and traditional loyalties were challenged, and sharp criticisms were made. In the end the new thesis won acceptance. A reviewer in Benediktijns Tijdschrift (1987), 169–70, giving a positive welcome to my book, pointed to an analogy between the Regula magistri debate and the present controversy.