Gregory the Great and his WorldGregory the Great and his World
R.A. Markus

CBD Price: $44.99
( Usually ships in 24-48 hours. )
Add To Cart
R. A. Markus's new and accessible work is the first full study of Gregory the Great since that of F. H. Dudden (1905) to deal with Gregory's life and work as well as with his thought and spirituality. With his command of Gregory's works and of the entire Latin tradition from which he cam, Markus portrays vividly the daily problems of one of the most attractive characters of the age. Gregory's culture is described in the context of the late Roman educational background and in the context of previous patristic tradition. Markus seeks to understand Gregory as a cultivated late Roman aristocrat converted tot he ascetic ideal, caught in the tension between his attraction to the monastic vocation and his episcopal ministry, at a time of catastrophic change in the Roman world. The book deals with every aspect of his pontificate: as bishop of Rome, as landlord of the Church lands, in his relations to the Empire, and to the Western Germanic kingdoms in Spain, Gaul, and, especially, his mission to the English. Thus this book promises to be a major contribution to the study of late antique society.
     

Back To Detail Page
Preface
List of Abbreviations
Maps

1. Introduction: a contemplative in a troubled world

The sources
Gregory's Italy
Gregory and his family
Gregory's writings

2. Integritas animi: ministry in the Church

The contemplative and the active life
The two lives of the pastor
The rector
The rector and the Christian order

3. Sapienter indoctus: scriptural understanding

Education and Letters
From Augustine to Gregory
The exegetical programme
Allegory and mystery
Text and world

4. Appropinquante mundi termino: the wrold in its old age

Nearing the end
Church and world in the last age
Holiness now
In Italy

5. The Christian community and its neighbours

Monks and monasteries
Diversity within unity
Christians and Jews
Christiansand pagans

6. Christiana respublica: within the confines of the Empire

The Church in the Empire after Justinain
Harmony and conflict
The ecumenical patriarch

7. Terra mea: Italy between two worlds

The papacy between the Empire and the Lombards
Gregory and the Church in Italy

8. Argus luminosissimus: the pope as landlord

The Roman Church and its land
Rome: the common larder

9. Scissum corpus: the schism of the Three Chapters

The Schism
Aquileia
Milan
Catholicism among the Lombards
Additional Note: The Election of Bishop Constantius

10. Ravenna and Rome: and beyond

Aspirations and myth
11. In cunctis mundi partibus: the far West
The Visigoths and Spain
The Frankish Curch and kingdoms
The Franks and the English Church

12. Inconcussam servare provinciam: dissent in Africa

A Donatist revival?
Gregory and the African Church
The African Christian tradition
Additional Note: Gregory's correspondence with Dominicus of Carthage

Epilogue
Appendix: On the distribution of Gregory's Correspondence
Glossary of terms for offices
Sources
Secondary works referred to
Index of Gregorian texts
General index