ceremonies, added to the public forms of prayer, he made it his chief care to reform the psalmody, of which he was excessively fond. Of this kind he composed the "Anti phone *, and such tunes as best suited the psalms, the hymns, the prayers, the verses, the canticles, the lessons, the epistles and gospels, the prefaces, and the Lord's prayer. He likewise instituted an academy of chanters for all the clerks, as far as the deacons exclusively: he gave them lessons himself, and the bed, in which he continued to chant amidst his last illness, was preserved with great * It is to this pope that we owe the invention, used to this day, of expressing musical sounds by the seven first letters of the alphabet. Indeed the Greeks made use of the letters of their alphabet to the like purpose: but in their scale they wanted more signs, or marks, than there were letters, which were supplied out of the same alphabet, by making the same letter express different notes, as it was placed upright, or reversed, or otherwise put out of the common position; also making them imperfect by cutting off something, or by doubling some strokes. For example, the letter Pi expresses different notes in all these positions and forms, II &c. They who are skilled in music, need not be told what a task the scholar had in this method to learn. In Boethius's time the Romans eased themselves of this diffieulty as unnecessary, by making use only of the first 15 letters of their alphabet. But afterwards, this pope, considering that the octave was the same in effect with the first note, and that the order of degrees was the same in the upper and lower octave of the diagram, introduced the use of seven letters, which were repeated in a different character. Malcolm on Music, chap. xiv. § 4. Dr. Burney says on this subject, "Ecclesiastical writers seem unanimous in allowing that it was the learned and active pope Gregory the Great, who collected the musical fragments of such ancient hymns and psalms as the first fathers of the church had approved, and recommended to the primitive Christians; and that he selected, methodized, and arranged them in the order which was long continued at Rome, and soon adopted by the chief part of the western church. The anonymous author of his life, VOL. XVI. published by Canisius, speaks of this transaction in the following words: "This pontiff composed, arranged, and constituted the Antiphonarium and chants used in the morning and even ing service." Fleury, in his Hist. Eccl. tom. VII. p. 150, gives a circum stantial account of the Scola Cantorum, instituted by St. Gregory. It subsisted 300 years after the death of that pontiff, which happened in the year 604, as we are informed by John Diaconus, author of his life. Two col leges were appropriated to these stu dies; one near the church of St. Pe ter, and one near that of St. John Lateran; both of which were endowed with lands. "It has been imagined that St. Gre gory was rather a compiler than a composer of ecclesiastical chants, as music had been established in the church long before his pontificate; and John Diaconus, in his life, (lib. i. cap. 6.) calls his collection Antipho narium Centonem,' the ground-work of which was the ancient Greek chaut, upon the principles of which it was formed. This is the opinion of the abbé Lebœuf, (Traité Historique et Pratique sur le Chant Ecclesiastique, chap. iii.) and of many others. The derivation is respectable; but if the Romans in the time of St. Ambrose had any music, it must have been composed upon the Greek system: all the arts at Rome, during the time of the emperors, were Greck, and chiefly cultivated by Greek artists; and we hear of no musical system in use among the Romans, or at least none is mentioned by their writers on the art, but that of the Greeks." Burney's Hist. of Music, and Rees's Cy. elopædia, art. GREGORY. S veneration in the palace of St. John Lateran for a long time, together with the whip with which he used to threaten the young clerks and singing boys, when they sang out of tune. He was so rigid in regard to the chastity of ecclesiastics, that he was unwilling to admit a man into the priesthood who was not strictly free from defilement by any commerce with women. The candidates for orders were according to his commands questioned particularly on that subject. Widowers were excepted, if they had observed a state of continency for some considerable time. At this time, as well as the next year 600, he was confined to his bed by the gout in his feet, which lasted for three years; yet he celebrated mass on holidays, although with much pain. This brought on a painful burning heat all over his body, which tormented him in the year 601. His behaviour in this sickness was very exemplary. It made him feel for others, whom he compassionated, exhorting them to make the right use of their infirmities, both by advancing in virtue and forsaking vice. He was always extremely watchful over his flock, and careful to preserve discipline; and while he allowed that the misfortunes of the times obliged the bishops to interfere in worldly matters, as he himself did, he constantly exhorted them not to be too intent on them. This year he held a council at Rome, which made the monks quite independent by the dangerous privileges which he granted them. Gregory forbad the bishops to diminish in any shape the goods, lands, and revenues, or titles of monasteries, and took from them the jurisdiction they ought naturally to have over the converts in their dioceses. But many of his letters shew, that though he favoured the monks in some respects, he nevertheless knew how to subject them to all the severity of their rules. The same year he executed a second mission into England, and, in answer to the bishop of Iberia, declared the validity of baptism by the Nestorians, as being performed in the name of the Trinity. The dispute about the title of Universal Bishop and the equality of the two sons of Rome and Constantinople still subsisting, and the emperor Maurice having declared for the latter, our pope saw the murder of him and his family without any concern by Phocas. This usurper having sent his picture to Rome in the year 603, Gregory received it with great respect, and placed it with that of the empress his consort (Leontia) in the oratory of St. Cæsarius in the palace; and soon after congratulated Phocas's accession to the throne. There are still extant, written upon this occasion, by the holy pontiff, three letters, wherein he expresses his joy, and returns thanks to God, for that execrable parricide's accession to the crown, as the greatest blessing that could befall the empire; and he praises God, that, after suffering under a heavy galling yoke, his subjects begin once more to enjoy the sweets of liberty under his empire: flatteries unworthy a man of honour, and especially a pope; and for which his historian, Maimbourg, condemns them. But Gregory thought himself in conscience obliged to assert the superiority of his see above that of Constantinople, and he exerted himself much to secure it. In general he had the pre-eminence of the holy see much at heart; accordingly this same year, one Stephen, a Spanish bishop, having complained to him of an unjust deprivation of his bishopric, the pope sent a delegate to judge the matter upon the spot, giving him a memorial of his instructions, in which among other particu→ lars he orders thus: "If it be said, that bishop Stephen had neither metropolitan nor patriarch, you must answer, that he ought to be tried, as he requested, by the holy see, which is the chief of all churches." It was in the same spirit of preserving the dignity of his pontificate, that he resolved to repair the celebrated churches of St. Peter and St. Paul; with which view, he gave orders this year to the subdeacon Sabinian (afterwards his successor in the pope. dom), to fell all the timber necessary for that purpose in the country of the Brutii, and send it to Rome: he wrote several other letters on this occasion, which are striking proofs of his zeal for carrying on the repairs of old churches, although he built no new ones. But while he was thus intent in correcting the mischiefs of the late war, he saw it break out again in Italy, and still to the disadvantage of the empire, the affairs of which were in a critical situation, not only in the provinces of the west, but every where else. Gregory was much afflicted with the calamities of this last war, and at the same time his illness increased. The Lombards made a truce in November 603, which was to continue in force till April 605. Some time after, the pope received letters from queen Theodilinda, with the news of the birth and baptism of her son Adoaldus. She sent him also some writings of the abbot Secundinus upon the fifth council, and desired him to answer them. Gregory "congratulates her on having caused the young prince, destined to reign over the Lombards, to be baptised in the catholic church." And as to Secundinus, he excuses himself on account of his illness: "I am afflicted with the gout," says he, "to such a degree, that I am not able even to speak, as your envoys know; they found me ill when they arrived here, and left me in great danger when they departed. If God restores my health, I will return an exact answer to all that the abbot Secundinus has written to me. In the mean time, I send you the council held under the emperor Justinian, that by reading it he may see the falsity of all that he has heard against the holy see and the catholic church. God forbid that we should receive the opinions of any heretic, or depart in any respect from the letter of St. Leo, and the four councils:" he adds, "I send to the prince Adoaldus, your son, a cross, and a book of the gospel in a Per sian box; and to your daughter three rings, desiring you to give them these things with your own hand, to enhance the value of the present. I likewise beg of you, to return my thanks to the king, your consort, for the peace he made for us, and engage him to maintain it, as you have already done." ness. This letter, written in January 604, is the last of Gre gory's that has any date to it; he died the 12th of March following, worn out with violent and almost incessant illHis remains were interred in a private manner, near the old sacristy of St. Peter's church, at the end of the great portico, in the same place with those of some pre ceding popes. It is thought he was not above sixty years of age. We shall only add one particular relating to our own country. Augustin the missionary having followed the rule approved by former popes of dividing the revenues of all the English churches into four parts, the first for the bishop, the second for the clergy, the third for the poor, and the fourth for repairing the church; this division was confirmed by Gregory, who directed farther, that the bishop's share should be not only for himself, but likewise for all his necessary attendants, and to keep up hospitality. It remains to be observed, in justice to this pope, that the charge of his causing the noble monuments of the an eient splendour of the Romans to be destroyed, in order to prevent those who went to Rome from paying more attention to the triumphal arches, &c. than to things sacred, is rejected by Platina as a calumny. Nor is the story, though credited by several learned authors, particularly by Brucker, of his reducing to ashes the Palatine library founded by Augustus, and the burning an infinite number of pagan books, particularly Livy, absolutely certain. However, it is undeniable, he had a great aversion to all such books, which he carried to that excess, that he flew in a violent passion with Didier, archbishop of Venice, for no other reason than because he suffered grammar to be taught in his diocese. In this he followed the apostolical constitutions : the compiler whereof seems also to have copied from Gregory Nazianzen, who thought reading pagan books would turn the minds of youth in favour of their idolatry; and we have seen more recently the same practice zealously defended, and upon the same principle too, by Mr. Tillemont. Yet Julian the apostate is charged with using the same prohibition, as a good device to effect the ruin of Christianity, by rendering the professors contemptible on account of their ignorance. Dupin says, that his genius was well suited to morality, and he had acquired an inexhaustible fund of spiritual ideas, which he expressed nobly enough, generally in periods, rather than sentences: bis composition was laboured, and his language inaccurate, but easy, well connected, and always equally supported. He left more writings behind him than any other pope from the foundation of the see of Rome to the present period. These consist of twelve books of "Letters," amounting to upwards of eight hundred in number, "A comment on the book of Job," generally known by the name of "Gregory's Morals on Job." "A Pastoral," or a treatise on the duties of a pastor. This work was held in such veneration by the Gallican church, that all the bishops were obliged, by the canons of that church, to be thoroughly acquainted with it, and punctually to observe the rules contained in it. He was author also of "Homilies" on the prophet Ezekiel; and on the gospels, and of four books of "Dialogues." His works have been printed over and over again, in almost all forms, and at a number of diffe rent places on the continent, as Lyons, Paris, Rouen, Basil, Antwerp, Venice, and Rome. The best edition is that of Paris, in 1705, in 4 vols. folio.' 1 Gen. Dict.-Bower's Hist. of the Popes.-Cave, vol. I.-Dupin.-Milner's Church History, in which his works are analyzed. |