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
On that day the burden will be lifted from your shoulders, and the yoke from your neck. The yoke will be broken because your neck will be too large.
“It may be that by the designation of oil the actual anointing of the Holy Spirit is denoted, whereof it is said by the Prophet: "And the yoke shall rot at the presence of the oil."”
My soul longs for You in the night; indeed, my spirit seeks You at dawn. For when Your judgments come upon the earth, the people of the world learn righteousness.
“For "night" is this present life, and as long as we are in it, we are covered with a mist of uncertain imaginations as far as the sight of inward objects is concerned.”
Their rock will pass away for fear, and their princes will panic at the sight of the battle standard,” declares the LORD, whose fire is in Zion, whose furnace is…
“Of this love that is begun here to be perfected from the sight of the Lord in the eternal kingdom Isaiah rightly speaks, saying, "The Lord lives, whose fire is in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem."”
He who walks righteously and speaks with sincerity, who refuses gain from extortion, whose hand never takes a bribe, who stops his ears against murderous plots and shuts his eyes…
“There are some who indeed do not receive rewards of money from ordination, yet bestow sacred orders for human favor, and from that very generosity seek only the recompense of praise.”
he will dwell on the heights; the mountain fortress will be his refuge; his food will be provided and his water assured.
“By the name of bread the teaching of perfection is shown, as Paul attests, who, rousing the weak to conversion, says: "I gave you milk to drink, not solid food. For you were not yet able, nor are you yet able."”
But there the Majestic One, our LORD, will be for us a place of rivers and wide canals, where no galley with oars will row, and no majestic vessel will…
“For the plainly spoken words of these interpreting have made the sentences of the ancient Fathers henceforth clear to us.”
I will place it in the hands of your tormentors, who told you: ‘Lie down, so we can walk over you,’ so that you made your back like the ground…
“Hence another prophet says concerning unclean spirits: Who said to your soul, Bow down that we may pass over. For the soul stands upright when it desires heavenly things, and is by no means bent toward the lowest things.”
Instead of shame, My people will have a double portion, and instead of humiliation, they will rejoice in their share; and so they will inherit a double portion in their…
“About this twin glory it is written, "they will possess double in their own land." This is written concerning the souls of the saints, for single white cloaks are given to them, and it is said that they might have rest a short time until…”