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Gregory the Great and a papal missionary strategy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

R. A. Markus*
Affiliation:
University of Liverpool

Extract

In his Ecclesiastical History of the English People Bede includes a deservedly famous letter of Gregory I containing the Pope’s instructions to his missionaries in Kent on how to go about converting the heathen English to Christianity. The letter is addressed to Abbot Mellitus, one of the band of reinforcements sent to England from Rome in June 601. In it Mellitus is asked to instruct Augustine, established at Canterbury for the last four years, that ‘the sanctuaries of the idols among this nation should on no account be destroyed’; by all means, let the idols go; but the temples, if they be soundly constructed, need only be sprinkled with holy water and consecrated to the worship of the true God. In this way hardened English minds may be won to a stepwise ascent and not be required to make too large a leap of faith.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1970

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References

Page 29 of note 1 HE, I, 30.

Page 29 of note 2 Epist. XI, 56. References to Gregory’s correspondence are in the edition by Ewald and Hartmann, MGH, Epist. I and II.

Page 29 of note 3 Except for a hint in my paper, ‘The chronology of the Gregorian mission to England: Bede’s narrative and Gregory’s correspondence’, JEH, XIV (1963), 23 n. 2 Google Scholar.

Page 30 of note 1 Geschichte des Papsttums, II (Tübingen 1933), 506.

Page 30 of note 2 Epist. I, 17; cf. II, 4.

Page 30 of note 3 Epist. I, 17.

Page 30 of note 4 E.g. Epist. I, 42; VIII, 25; IX, 38, 40, 195; XIII, 15.

Page 30 of note 5 Epist. I, 34; cf. II, 6.

Page 31 of note 1 Cf. Epist. II, 38; VI, 29; vIII, 23.

Page 31 of note 2 Epist. XIII, 15.

Page 31 of note 3 Epist. V, 7.

Page 31 of note 4 Epist. I, 45.

Page 31 of note 5 The congratulations which Gregory offered to King Reccared on his anti-Semitic legislation are altogether out of keeping with the prevailing mood of his instructions to the Italian bishops and agents on Church lands. His warm approval of the Visigothic measures I think refers only to their attempt to extirpate Christian slavery to Jewish masters. His correspondence abounds with censures of repeated instances of this, and he seems to have been particularly worried about the prevalence of this abuse in Visigothic Narbonne. This might explain his apparent inconsistency.

Page 31 of note 6 Epist. III, 59.

Page 31 of note 7 Epist. V, 7.

Page 31 of note 8 Epist. XI, 33.

Page 31 of note 9 Epist. VIII, I.

Page 32 of note 1 Epist. IV, 29

Page 32 of note 2 Epist. IV, 23

Page 32 of note 3 Epist. IV, 26

Page 32 of note 4 Ibid.

Page 32 of note 5 Epist. IV, 25

Page 32 of note 6 Epist. XI, 12

Page 32 of note 7 Epist. IV, 27

Page 32 of note 8 Epist. V, 38

Page 32 of note 9 Epist. IX, 204

Page 33 of note 1 Epist. XI, 39 = HE, I, 29.

Page 33 of note 2 Epist. XI, 36 = (in part) HE, I, 31.

Page 33 of note 3 Epist. XI, 37 = HE, I, 32.

Page 33 of note 4 Epist. XI, 35.

Page 33 of note 5 I have discussed the interpretation of these letters in my paper referred to above, p. 29 n. 3.

Page 34 of note 1 Cf. Epist. IV, 27, referred to above.

Page 34 of note 2 Epist. XI, 56 = HE, I, 30, referred to on p. 29, above.

Page 36 of note 1 Cf. HE, I, 26.

Page 36 of note 2 Cf. HE, II, 5-6.

Page 36 of note 3 Gregory’s usual procedure is to make maximum use of any available messenger. Unlike all the remaining correspondence with England and Gaul, this letter appears to have been despatched by itself through a special messenger.

Page 37 of note 1 Tangl, no. 37.