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 distant emperor; within famine and plague were raging. Gregory was at once unanimously chosen by senate, clergy, and people to succeed Pelagius; but to him his election was distressing, and he wrote to the emperor Mauricius imploring him not to confirm it. His letter was intercepted by the prefect of Rome, and another sent, in the name of senate, clergy, and people, earnestly requesting confirmation. Before the reply of the emperor reached Rome, Gregory aroused the people to repentance by his sermons, and instituted the famous processional litany, called Litania septiformis. The emperor confirmed the election of Gregory, who fled in disguise, was brought back in triumph, conducted to the church of St. Peter, and immediately ordained on Sept. 3, 590 (Anastas. Bibliothec. and Martyrol. Roman.).

After his accession he continued in heart a monk, surrounding himself with ecclesiastics instead of laymen, and living with them according to monastic rule. In accordance with this plan a synodal decree was made under him in 595, substituting clergy or monks for the boys and secular persons who had formerly waited on the pope in his chamber (Ep. iv. 44). Yet he rose at once to his new position. The church shared in the distress and disorganization of the time. The fires of controversy of the last two centuries still raged in the East. In Istria and Gaul the schism on the question of the Three Chapters continued; in Africa the Donatists once more became aggressive against the Catholics. Spain had but just, and as yet imperfectly, recovered from Arianism. In Gaul the church was oppressed under its barbarian rulers; in Italy, under the Arian Lombards, the clergy were infected with the demoralization of the day. The monastic system was suffering declension and was now notoriously corrupt. Literature and learning had almost died with Boëthius; and all these causes combined with temporal calamities led to a prevalent belief, which Gregory shared, that the end of all things was at hand. Nor was the position of the papacy encouraging to one who, like Gregory, took a high view of the prerogatives of St. Peter's chair. Since the recovery of Italy by Justinian (after the capture of Rome by Belisarius in 536) the popes had been far less independent than even under the Gothic kings. Justinian regarded the bishops of Rome as his creatures, to be appointed, summoned to court, and deposed at his pleasure, and subject to the commands of his exarch at Ravenna. No reigns of popes had been so inglorious as those of Gregory's immediate predecessors, Vigilius, Pelagius I., Benedict, and Pelagius II. He himself describes the Roman church as "like an old and violently shattered ship, admitting the waters on all sides, its timbers rotten, shaken by daily storms, and sounding of wreck" (Ep i.).

Gregory may be regarded, first, as a spiritual ruler; secondly, as a temporal administrator and potentate; lastly, as to his personal character and as a doctor of the church.

Immediately after his accession he sent, according to custom, a confession of his faith to the patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, in which he declared his reception of the first four general councils, as of the four gospels, and his condemnation of the Three Chapters—i.e. the writings of three deceased prelates, Theodorus, Theodoret, and Ibas, supposed to savour of heresy, and already condemned by Justinian and by the fifth council called oecumenical. The strong language in which he exalts the authority of the four councils as "the square stone on which rests the structure of the faith, the rule of every man's actions and life, which foundation whoever does not hold is out of the building," is significant of his views on the authority of the church at large, while his recognition of the four patriarchs as co-ordinate potentates, to whom he sends an account of his own faith, expresses one aspect of the relation to the Eastern churches which then satisfied the Roman pontiffs. He lost no time in taking measures for the restoration of discipline, the reform of abuses, the repression of heresy, and the establishment of the authority of the Roman see, both in his own metropolitan province and wherever his influence extended. That jurisdiction was threefold—episcopal, metropolitan, and patriarchal. As bishop he had the oversight of the city; as metropolitan of the seven suffragan, afterwards called cardinal, bishops of the Roman territory,i.e. of Ostia, Portus, Silva Candida, Sabina, Praeneste, Tusculum, and Albanum; while his patriarchate seems to have originally extended (according to Rufinus, H. E. i. [x.] 6) over the suburban provinces under the civil jurisdiction of the vicarius urbis, including Upper Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica. But being the only patriarch in the West, he had in fact claimed and exercised jurisdiction beyond these original limits, including the three other vicariates into which the prefecture of Italy was politically divided: N. Italy, with its centre at Milan, W. Illyricum, with its capital at Sirmium, and W. Africa, with its capital at Carthage. Before his accession a still wider authority had been claimed and in part acknowledged. As bishops of the old imperial city, with an acknowledged primacy of honour among the patriarchs, still more as occupants of St. Peter's chair and conservators of his doctrine, and as such consulted and appealed to by various Western churches, the popes had come to exercise a more or less defined jurisdiction over them all. The power of sending judges to hear the appeals of condemned bishops, which had been accorded to pope Julius by the Western council of Sardica in 343, had been claimed by his successors as perpetually belonging to the Roman see and extended so as to involve the summoning of cases to be heard at Rome; and a law had been obtained by Leo I. from Valentinian (445) by which the pope was made supreme head of the whole Western church, with the power of summoning prelates from all provinces to abide his judgment. On the assumption of such authority Gregory acted, being determined to abate none of the rights claimed by his predecessors.

In the year of his accession (590) he endeavoured, though without result, to bring over the Istrian bishops, who still refused to condemn the Three Chapters. With this view