Quotes:Gregory I, the Great, Saint

Zirkoff, Boris

Gregory I, the Great, Saint. Bom and died at Rome, ca. 540-604. Pope from 590 to 604. In early life withdrew from his civic post as prefect, to live as a Benedictine monk. Founded seven monasteries; later became deacon and, in 579, resident ambassador to the imperial court at Constantinople. After returning to the monastery for a period, he was chosen successor to Pelagius II, September, 590, during a critical time of panic, plague and floods. Although greatly inclined to the tranquility of monastic life, he accepted the challenge of his office and restored peace and order, bringing great political and social power to the Papacy. As a strict disciplinarian, he enforced the authority of Rome. Among his missionary enterprises, he dispatched Augustine to heathen England in 596, and made strenuous efforts to uproot paganism in Gaul, Italy, Sicily, etc. He protected the Jews 577 and secured for them legal privileges. His Life of St. Benedict (Engl, tr., ed. by H. Coleridge, 1874) was devoted to the spread of Benedictine rule. Through his writings on Ezekiel and the Gospels, he won the reputation as one of the four classical Doctors of the Western Church. He is considered as the last of the great Latin Fathers and the first representative of mediaeval Catholicism. Most of his writings are included in Migne, Patrol. Lat., Vols. 75-79.

Source: Boris de Zirkoff, «H. P. Blavatsky Collected Writings», vol. 11, pp. 576-577