Church History (Vol.1-3). J. H. Kurtz

      1 Leo the Great occupied the papal chair from A.D. 440 to A.D. 461. While but a deacon he was the most distinguished personage in Rome. On assuming the bishopric he gave the whole powers of his mind to the administration of his office in all directions. By the energy and consistency with which he carried out the idea of the Roman primacy, he became the virtual founder of the spiritual sovereignty of Rome. With a strong arm he guided the helm of the church, reformed and organized on every side, settled order and discipline, defended orthodoxy, contended against heretics (Manichæans, Priscillianists, Pelagians, Eutychians), and appeased the barbarians (Attila). Of his writings we have 96 Sermones and 173 Epistles, which last are of the utmost importance for the church history of his times. He is also supposed to be the author of a talented work De vocatione Gentium (§ 53, 5).

      2 Gelasius I., A.D. 492 to A.D. 496, left behind him a treatise Adv. hæresin Pelagianem, another De duabus in Christo naturis, and a work against the observance of the Lupercalia which some prominent Romans wished to have continued. He also wrote 18 Decretals. The celebrated Decretum de libris recipiendis et non recipiendis, in a sense the oldest Index prohibitorum, is ascribed to him. The first section, wanting in the best MSS., contains a biblical canon corresponding to that of the Synod of Hippo, A.D. 393 (§ 59, 1); the second section treats of the pre-eminence of the Church of Rome granted by our Lord Himself in the person of Peter; the third enumerates the œcumenical Councils; and the fourth, the writings of the fathers received by the Roman Church; the Chronicle and Church History of Eusebius are found fault with (quod tepuerit) but not rejected; in respect to the writings of Origen and Rufinus the opinion of Jerome is approved. The fifth section gives a list of books not to be received—the New Testament Apocrypha, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Arnobius, Cassianus, Faustus of Rhegium, etc.

      3 Gregory the Great, A.D. 590 to A.D. 604, born in Rome about A.D. 540, sprung from a distinguished old Roman family, held about A.D. 574 the office of city prefect, after his father’s death founded on his inherited estates, six monasteries, and himself withdrew into a seventh, which he built in Rome. Ordained deacon against his will in A.D. 579, he was entrusted with the important and difficult office of a papal apocrisiarius in Constantinople, and was constrained in A.D. 590, after a long persisted-in refusal, to mount the papal chair, which obliged him to abandon the long-cherished plan of his life, the preaching of the gospel to the Anglo-Saxons (§ 77, 4). Gregory united a rare power and energy of will with real mildness and gentleness of character, deep humility and genuine piety with the full consciousness of his position as a successor of Peter, insight, circumspection, yea even an unexpected measure of liberal-mindedness (comp. e.g. § 57, 4; 75, 3) with all monkish narrowness and stiff adherence to the traditional forms, doctrines and views of the Roman Church. He himself lived in extremest poverty and simplicity according to the strictest monastic asceticism, and applied all that he possessed and received to the support of the poor and the help of the needy. It was a hard time in which he lived, the age of the birth throes of a new epoch of the world’s history. There is therefore much cause to thank the good providence which set such a man as spiritual father, teacher and pastor at the head of the Western Church. He took special interest in fostering monasticism and such-like institutions, which were, indeed, most conducive to the well-being of the world, for during this dangerous period of convulsion, monasticism was almost the only nursery of intellectual culture. The Roman Catholic church ranks him as the last of the Fathers, and places him alongside of Ambrose, Jerome and Augustine, the four greatest teachers of the church, Doctores ecclesiæ, whose writings have been long reverenced as the purest and most complete vehicles of the Catholic tradition. Among the Greeks a similar position is given to Athanasius, Basil, Gregory Nazianzen and Chrysostom. The rank thus assigned to Gregory is justifiable inasmuch as in him the formation and malformation of doctrine, worship, discipline and constitution peculiar to the ancient church are gathered up, completed and closed. His most complete work is the Expositio in b. Jobum s. Moralium, Ll. xxxv., (Engl. transl., Lib. of Fath., 3 vols., Oxf., 1844–1850) which, by dragging in all possible relations of life which an allegorical interpretation can furnish, is expanded into a repertory of moral reflections. His Regula pastoralis s. Liber curæ pastoralis obtained in the West a position of almost canonical authority. In his “Dialogues,” of which the first three books treat “de vita et miraculis Patrum Italicorum,” and the 4th book mostly of visionary views of the hereafter (heaven, hell and purgatory), “de æternitate animarum,” we meet with a very singular display of the most uncritical credulousness and the most curious superstition. Besides these we have from him Homilies on Ezekiel and the Gospels, as well as a voluminous correspondence in 880 Epistles of great importance for the history of the age. To Gregory also is attributed the oft quoted saying which compares holy scripture to a stream in quo agnus peditat et elephas natat.

      1 Boëthius, Anicius Manlius Torquatus Severinus, was descended from a distinguished Roman family, and stood high in favour with the Ostrogoth Arian king Theodoric. Accused, however, by his enemies of treasonable correspondence with the Byzantine court, he was, after a long imprisonment, condemned unheard and executed, A.D. 525. In prison he composed the celebrated treatise, De consolatione philosophiæ, which, written in pure and noble language, was the favourite book of the Latin Middle Ages, and was translated into all European languages: first of all by Alfred the Great into Anglo-Saxon, and often reprinted in its original form. The book owed its great popularity to the mediæval tradition which made its author a martyr for the Catholic faith under Arian persecution; but modern criticism has sought to prove that in all probability he was not even a Christian. Still more decidedly the theological writings on the Trinity and the Two Natures of Christ bearing his name are repudiated as irreconcileable with the contents and character of the De consolatione; though, on the other hand, their authenticity has again found several most capable defenders. Finally, Usener has conclusively, as it seems, in a newly discovered fragment of Cassiodorus, brought forward a quite incontestable witness for their authenticity. In any case Boëthius did great service in preserving the continuity of Western culture by his hearty encouragement and careful prosecution of classical studies at a time when these were threatened with utter neglect. Of special importance was his translation of a commentary on the logical works of Aristotle as the first and for a long time almost the only philosophical groundwork of mediæval scholasticism (§ 99, 2).

      2 Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus, surnamed Senator, belonged to Southern Italy and held the highest civil offices under Odoacer and Theodoric for fifty years. About A.D. 540, he retired to the cloister of Vivarium founded by him in Southern Italy, and devoted the rest of his life to the sciences and the instruction of the monks. He collected a great library in his monastery, and employed the monks in transcribing classical and patristic writings. He died about A.D. 575 when almost a hundred years old. His own writings show indeed no independence and originality, but are all the more important as concentrated collections of classical and patristic learning for the later Latin Middle Ages. His twelve books of the History of the Goths have come down only in the condensed reproduction of Jordanes or Jornandes. His twelve books Variarum (sc. epistolarum et formularum), which consist of a collection of acts and ordinances of the period of his civil service, are important for the history of his age. His Historia ecclest. tripartita (§ 5, 1), was for many centuries almost the only text book of church history, and his Institutiones divinarum et sæcularum litterarum had a similar position as a guide to the study of theology and the seven liberal arts (§ 90, 8). Also his commentary on the Psalms and the most of the books of the New Testament, made up of compilations, was held in high esteem.

      3 Dionysius Exiguus, a Scythian by birth,