Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume XII/Gregory the Great/Register of Epistles/Book III/Chapter 23

Epistle XLVII.

To the Clergy of the Church of Salona For notice of the Metropolitan See of Salona, and Gregory&#8217;s dealings with its former bishop Natalis, see II. 18, note 3.&#160; The appointment of a successor to Natalis engaged Gregory in a long struggle for maintenance of his authority over the Illyrican churches, which on this occasion seems to have been, for some time at least, slightly regarded.&#160; What took place, as gathered from his extant letters, may be thus summarised.&#160; Immediately on hearing of the death of Natalis he wrote to Antoninus, the rector patrimonii in Dalmatia, charging him to see to the canonical election of a successor and to its notification, when made, to himself, that it might be approved, as was customary, by the See of Rome (III. 22).&#160; This was in the 11th Indiction, i.e. between Sept. 592 and Sept. 593.&#160; Subsequently. having been informed that the clergy of Salona had elected their archdeacon Honoratus, he wrote to them in the letter before us approving their choice, and exhorting them to stick to it, being evidently aware of a party opposed to it.&#160; This Honoratus was the man whom he had previously supported against Bishop Natalis, who had attempted to deprive him of his archdeaconry.&#160; See II. 18, 19, 20; III. 32.&#160; Hence it was not improbable that the election of Honoratus would be opposed by the partizans of the late bishop who, as appears from his correspondence with Gregory, had been a convivial man, with a pleasant vein of wit, and thus likely to be popular with many.&#160; But, whatever the cause, Gregory before long received the startling intelligence that not only had the election of Honoratus, confirmed by himself, been set aside, but that another candidate, one Maximus, had been actually ordained under the alleged authority of an order from the Emperor.&#160; This defiance of his authority was the more offensive as he had already, having apparently got wind of the candidature of Maximus, prohibited his ordination under pain of excommunication of both him and his ordainers (IV. 10).&#160; He accordingly wrote a strongly-worded letter (IV. 20), dated May, 594, prohibiting Maximus from undertaking any episcopal functions, and from officiating at the altar, till it should be ascertained whether the emperor had really ordered his consecration.&#160; But Maximus treated this prohibition with contempt and appealed against the Pope to the Emperor, who thereupon wrote to Gregory, requesting him to condone the fact of the ordination having taken place without his assent, and bidding him receive Maximus with honour if he should resort to Rome, as he was apparently desired to do.&#160; This was at the time when John Jejunator, the patriarch of Constantinople, had recently incensed Gregory by his assumption of the title of Universal Bishop, and when the latter was urging the Emperor to disallow the title.&#160; Writing on this subject to the Empress Constantina, he alludes also to the case of Maximus, hoping through her whose religious reverence for St. Peter he appeals to, to move the Emperor.&#160; In his letter to her (V. 72), written in the 13th Indiction (594&#8211;5), he consents, in deference to the Emperor&#8217;s wish, to look over the fact of Maximus having been ordained without his leave; but he insists on his appearing at Rome to answer to other charges, including especially that of simony, and his having disregarded the excommunication pronounced against him.&#160; He also protests strongly against his bishops being allowed to appeal to the secular power in ecclesiastical causes.&#160; But he did not thus move the Emperor, who appears from one of Gregory&#8217;s letters to Maximus (VI. 25) to have directed any charges against the latter to be entertained in his own locality rather than at Rome.&#160; Meanwhile Maximus continued to disregard Gregory&#8217;s repeated letters summoning him to Rome, being apparently supported by a majority of his own people and of his suffragan bishops.&#160; For in a letter to the Salonitans (VI. 26), written in the 14th Indiction (395&#8211;6), Gregory expresses his surprise that Honoratus alone among the clergy of Salona, and one only of the suffragan bishops, had refused to communicate with Maximus, notwithstanding his excommunication.&#160; However, as time went on, Gregory&#8217;s persistence seems to have had some effect.&#160; In the 15th Indiction (596&#8211;7) one of the suffragan bishops, Sabinianus of Jadera, who had previously communicated with Maximus, deserts him, and is invited by Gregory to come to Rome to be absolved, and to bring with him any other whom he could persuade to come (VII. 15).&#160; Sabinianus did not go, but retired for a time to a monastery by way of expressing penitence, after which Gregory in the following year granted him full absolution (VIII. 10, 24).&#160; Perhaps about a year later, in the 2nd Indiction (IX. 5), we find Gregory writing to Marcellus, the proconsul of Dalmatia, in reply to a letter from him in which he had expressed his regret for being apparently out of favour with the pope, and his wish to be reconciled.&#160; This Marcellus had been, according to what Gregory says in his reply, the prime and original abettor of Maximus; and it would seem that he had now become desirous of coming to terms with the pope.&#160; In the same year we find a letter to one Julianus, described as Scribo, at Salona, who had addressed Gregory with a view to peace, asserting that Maximus enjoyed both the affection of his people and the favour of the court (IX. 41).

In replying to both these correspondents Gregory shews no signs of giving way:&#160; but in the same Indiction (588&#8211;9) he did give way to an extent that seems at first sight surprising, considering the resolute tone of his previous correspondence.&#160; He may have been partly moved to make some concession by such letters as those from Marcellus and Julianus, testifying to the character of Maximus and to the support he continued to receive; but the intercessor who really prevailed with him at last appears evidently to have been Callinicus, Exarch of Italy, resident at Ravenna, to whom Maximus had applied after failing to induce the Emperor himself to interfere.&#160; In one of his letters (IX. 67), Gregory says that Maximus, having failed to influence &#8220;the greater powers of the world&#8221; in his behalf, had betaken himself to the lesser ones, and implies that it was to their intercession that the concession he was prepared to make was due.&#160; It may be supposed that by &#8220;the greater power&#8221; are meant the imperial family, and that among &#8220;the lesser&#8221; Callinicus was at any rate the most influential:&#160; for in writing to the latter (IX. 9) he says, &#8220;In the cause of Maximus we can no longer resist the importunity of thy Sweetness;&#8221; and again to Marinianus, bishop of Ravenna, &#8220;I have received repeated and pressing letters from my most excellent son the lord exarch Callinicus in behalf of Maximus.&#160; Overcome by his importunity, &amp;c.&#8221; (IX. 10).&#160; Nor is the reason far to seek why the intercession of Callinicus should at that particular time prevail.&#160; For Gregory was in correspondence with him, and most anxious to secure his co-operation, in the reconciliation to the Roman Church of the Istrian bishops, who had so far been out of communion with Rome in the matter of &#8220;the Three Chapters&#8221; and was therefore likely to wish to oblige him. &#160;However induced, he now consented that Maximus should appear not before himself at Rome as he had before so resolutely insisted, but before Marinianus, bishop of Ravenna, and promised to accede to whatever the latter might determine (IX. 10).&#160; Nay, he even accepted the proposal of Marinianus that the charges against Maximus should not be investigated at all, but that a declaration on oath by the accused of his own innocence should be accepted as a sufficient purgation; requiring only that he should do such penance as the bishop of Ravenna might impose for having disregarded the excommunication pronounced at Rome (IX. 79, 80).&#160; He wrote also to Constantius, bishop of Milan, requesting him to proceed to Ravenna in order to act in concert with Marinianus in case of Maximus not having confidence in the latter (IX. 67).&#160; But the bishop of Ravenna appears to have acted alone:&#160; and the result was that Maximus was acquitted of simony and all other charges, and, after doing the penance assigned by Marinianus at Ravenna, was, seven years after his ordination, cordially received by Gregory into communion, and had the pallium sent him (IX. 81, 82, 125).&#160; The epistles to be consulted for a view of the whole proceedings are III. 22, 47; IV. 10, 20, 47; V. 21; VI. 3, 25, 26, 27; VII. 17; VIII. 10, 24; IX. 5, 10, 41, 67, 79, 80, 81, 82, 125..

Gregory to the clergy, &amp;c.

Having read your letter, beloved, we learn

that you have made choice of Honoratus your archdeacon; and know ye that it is altogether pleasing to us that you have chosen for the order of episcopacy a man tried of old and of grave manner of life.&#160; We too join with you in approbation of his personal character, inasmuch as it is already known to us; and it has been our own wish also that he should be ordained as your priest according to your desire.&#160; For which cause we exhort you to persist in his election without any ambiguity.&#160; Nor ought any circumstances to disincline you from his person, since, as this laudable choice is now approved, so it will impose both a burden on your souls and a stain of unfaithfulness on your reputation, if any one should seduce you (which forbid) to turn aside your love from him.&#160; But as to those who are not at one with you in this desired election, we have caused them to be admonished by Antoninus our subdeacon, that they may be able to agree with you.&#160; To him also we have already given our injunctions as to what ought to be done with respect to the person of our brother and fellow-bishop Malchus .&#160; But, inasmuch as we have ourselves also written to him, we believe that he will without delay keep himself quiet from disquieting you.&#160; If by any chance he should in any way whatever neglect to obey, his contumacy will in every way be mulcted with the utmost rigour of canonical punishment.