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585-590] the first letter between them that is preserved, written in 590, reads as though their cordiality had never been great.

In the imperial court the papal envoy made many friends: and when Tiberius had chosen Maurice for his successor Gregory had still closer relations with those of Caesar's household. Theoctista, the new Emperor's sister, and Narses, one of his generals, are found later among those to whom he wrote. He was intimate, too, with other foreign ecclesiastics, visitors like himself at the centre of imperial power, notably with Leander of Seville, afterwards the victorious champion of Catholicism against the Arian Visigoths. Leander and Gregory became close friends: it was Leander who induced Gregory to write his Moralia, and he received its dedication. In later years no congratulations on Leander's success were so warm as those of his old companion; though the Spanish prelate was absent in body yet, said Gregory, he was felt to be ever present in the spirit his image impressed upon the heart of his friend. Anastasius, once patriarch of Antioch, also lived in Constantinople, with memories of the theological storm which clouded the last days of Justinian, and he was said to have refuted the Aphthartodecetic opinions which that Emperor probably never held and the edict in favour of them which he certainly never issued. With him also Gregory was on cordial terms.

But from the imperial Court itself the papal apocrisiarius could find no support for the cause which he came to advocate. The Lombards had northern Italy at their feet, Pelagius wrote piteously begging for succour. But Maurice looked eastwards rather than towards the West, and as Caesar would not, or could not, help the pope. When Gregory returned to Rome in 585 he had accomplished nothing. But he had acquired a knowledge of foreign politics, of the routine of imperial administration, and of the great personages of his time, which was invaluable to him.

For five years Gregory remained at Rome as head of his own monastery, and he made it a school of saints, and a home of Biblical study. He himself wrote commentaries on several of the Scriptures, and completed his lectures on the Book of Job which (like the Magna Moralia) became almost a popular classic in the Middle Age and proved a storehouse from which very much of later theology was extracted. To him also was entrusted by Pope Pelagius the conclusion of the unhappy controversy of Justinian's day on the Three Chapters; and he set before the bishops of Istria the orthodox creed as Rome and Constantinople had accepted it in a treatise of lucid and masterful reasoning. In 590 Pelagius died and the Roman people insisted that he who had once been their highest official and was now the most eminent of their monks should become their bishop. If he was reluctant to accept it, he yet in the interval before the imperial assent could be obtained shewed himself to be the religious leader that the city needed in its distress.