Voices and influences
Gregory the Dialogist
The Roman prefect who became a monk, then a reluctant pope, and taught the Middle Ages how to care for souls.
Summary
This site quotes Gregory the Dialogist 628 times across 33 books, and lists 0 works.
- Lived died 604.
- Quoted here most in Job: 384 of 628.
Gregory the Dialogist
- Lived
- died 604
- Tradition
- Patristic
5 of 628 quotations
Own words
Quoted in full, because Gregory the Dialogist died in 604 and these works are out of copyright. Each citation below names its edition and its year. A citation naming a modernised text means that edition makes its own editorial changes, and that edition's terms are not in this site's record.
Kish, who is called harsh, signifies not only his elect, but also the Redeemer himself. For no one was harsher toward himself than he.
The rest of the quotation
For the prophet, indicating the severity of this harshness, says: "Truly he himself bore our infirmities, and he himself carried our sorrows" (Isa. 53:4). For to die is not to suffer for mortals, who are subject to the suffering of a condemned nature.
1 Samuel 9:3 One day the donkeys of Saul’s father Kish wandered off, and Kish said to his son Saul, “Take one of the servants and go look for the donkeys.” BSB
There follows: "But as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you." 15.
The rest of the quotation
He speaks these things, to whom the Lord said above concerning those to whom he speaks: "They have not rejected you, but me, that I should not reign over them." Behold, the prophet is rejected, and he speaks to those who reject him, saying: "Far be it from me that I should commit this sin against the Lord, that I should cease to pray for you."
1 Samuel 12:23 As for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD by ceasing to pray for you. And I will continue to teach you the good and right way. BSB
When long afterward David sat against the battle lines of enemies, he wished from desire to drink water from the cistern of Bethlehem. His chosen soldiers, breaking through the midst of the opposing forces, brought back unharmed the water the king had desired.
The rest of the quotation
But the man instructed by scourges immediately reproached himself for having desired water at the peril of his soldiers, and pouring it out, he offered it to the Lord, as it is written there: He poured it out to the Lord.
2 Samuel 23:16 So the three mighty men broke through the Philistine camp, drew water from the well near the gate of Bethlehem, and brought it back to David. But he refused to drink it; instead, he poured it out to the LORD, BSB
Behold, His servants are not stedfast, and in His Angels He found folly: How much more in them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which shall be consumed as by the moth?
The rest of the quotation
Though the Angelical nature, by being fixed in contemplation of the Creator, remains unchangeable in its own state, yet hereby, that it is a created being, it admits in itself the variableness of change. Now to be changed is to go from one thing into another, and to be without stability in one's self.
Job 4:18–19 If God puts no trust in His servants, and He charges His angels with error, how much more those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundations are in the dust, who can be crushed like a moth! BSB
MORAL INTERPRETATION. But he shall save the poor from the sword of their mouth, and from the hand of the mighty. For the 'poor' is everyone that is not set up in his own eyes.
The rest of the quotation
And hence 'Truth' saith in the Gospel, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Now a person is drawn into sin in two ways. For either he is led on by pleasure, or overcome by fear. For 'the sword of the mouth' is the mischievousness of persuasion, but 'the hand of the mighty' is the opposition of power.
Job 5:15 He saves the needy from the sword in their mouth and from the clutches of the powerful. BSB
Influence, on the record
This site quotes Gregory the Dialogist 628 times across 33 books.
This site’s own count of what it does with the voice
The life, in order
The life told as one accountfrom this site's record
Gregory was born in Rome about 540, into an old senatorial family with money and land. The Rome he grew up in was a wreck. Plague came through in waves. The Lombards were burning their way down the peninsula. A city that had once held a million people was down to a few tens of thousands, camped among ruins it could no longer repair. About 573 he became prefect of the city — the highest civil office left in Rome. Then he walked away from it. He turned the family mansion on the Caelian Hill into a monastery of St. Andrew and used the family estates in Sicily to found six more. He later said those were the happiest years of his life. He was pulled back out. For roughly six years he served as the pope's representative at the imperial court in Constantinople, learning how empires actually work. He came home to Rome, and in 590 plague killed Pope Pelagius II. The city elected Gregory. He tried to refuse. He called the office a burden and began signing his letters servus servorum Dei — servant of the servants of God. Popes still use the title. He governed like a man who expected no help. He fed Rome out of the church's own estates, kept careful accounts of grain and the poor who received it, and negotiated peace with the Lombard king Agilulf when the emperor in Constantinople would not. In 596 he sent the monk Augustine and about forty companions to convert the English. Bede preserved the story behind it: Gregory seeing fair-haired boys for sale in the Roman market and asking who they were. Angles, he was told. Not Angles but angels, he answered. He wrote the Pastoral Rule, a short and practical book on how a pastor should live and how differently he must speak to the proud man and the frightened one. It became the standard handbook for bishops for a thousand years; King Alfred had it put into English. His Moralia on Job, thirty-five books long, was the most-copied commentary of the early Middle Ages. His Dialogues — four books of stories about Italian holy men, including the only life we have of Benedict — gave him his Eastern name. In Greek churches he is Gregory the Dialogist, and the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts is called by his name. He was ill for most of his working life: gout, and a stomach complaint that often kept him off his feet. He wrote about it plainly in his letters. He died on 12 March 604. Sources: Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People; Gregory the Great, Pastoral Rule and Dialogues; Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, vol. IV; The Catholic Encyclopedia (1913).
628 quotations across 33 books
Where this voice is quoted
Wherever the spirit would go, they would go, and the wheels would rise alongside them, because the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.
“"Wherever the spirit went, the wheels were equally lifted as the spirit went there, following it." For wherever the spirit of the reader tends, there the divine utterances are also lifted up, because if you seek something lofty in them by seeing and understanding, these…”
When the creatures moved, I heard the sound of their wings like the roar of many waters, like the voice of the Almighty, like the tumult of an army.
“"And I heard the sound of their wings, as the sound of many waters." In sacred speech, peoples are customarily designated by waters. Hence it is said through John: "The waters are peoples."”
And there came a voice from above the expanse over their heads as they stood still with their wings lowered.
“"For when there was a voice above the firmament that was over their head, they stood and lowered their wings." We have judged that the upper firmament should be expounded under a twofold understanding.”
not to the many peoples of unfamiliar speech and difficult language whose words you cannot understand. Surely if I had sent you to them, they would have listened to you.
“"And if you were sent to them, they would listen to you." The obedience of the Gentiles is clearly declared, who would one day follow the voices of the preachers without delay.”
But if you warn a wicked man and he does not turn from his wickedness and his wicked way, he will die in his iniquity, but you will have saved…
“For then your subject dies without you, when in the cause of death he has endured you as one who does not speak against it. For you are joined to the death which you do not oppose.”
But if you warn the righteous man not to sin, and he does not sin, he will indeed live because he heeded your warning, and you will have saved yourself.”
“If, therefore, the preacher freed his soul because he warned the just man not to sin, when the just man has fallen into sin while the preacher remained silent, the preacher is held guilty because he was silent.”
I will make your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth, and you will be silent and unable to rebuke them, though they are a rebellious house.
“And again, because of the fault of those subject to them, the voice of preachers is forbidden, as the Lord says to Ezekiel: "I will make your tongue cleave to your palate, and you shall be mute, and not as a man who rebukes, because…”
Their entire bodies, including their backs, hands, and wings, were full of eyes all around, as were their four wheels.
“Wherefore those who are over others are to be admonished, that through earnestness of circumspection they have eyes watchful within and round about, and strive to become living creatures of heaven.”
You have profaned Me among My people for handfuls of barley and scraps of bread.
“It often happens that a Pastor is moved by hatred or favor toward any neighbor; but those who follow their own hatreds or favor in the cases of their subjects cannot judge worthily concerning their subjects.”
If I tell the righteous man that he will surely live, but he then trusts in his righteousness and commits iniquity, then none of his righteous works will be remembered…
“If you are righteous, fear his wrath lest you slip; if you are a sinner, believe in his mercy so that you can arise. But see, we have already fallen, we are not strong enough to stand, we lie prostrate in our evil desires.”
Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: Surely in My burning zeal I have spoken against the rest of the nations, and against all Edom, who took My land…
“For hence it is that under the figure of the Idumaeans, who allowed themselves to be vanquished by their own prosperity, those who rejoice in the successes of this world are rebuked, when it is said, "They have given my land to themselves for an…”
Because they ministered before their idols and became a stumbling block of iniquity to the house of Israel, therefore I swore with an uplifted hand concerning them that they would…
“For certainly no one does more harm in the Church than one who has the name and rank of sanctity, while he acts perversely.”