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
Listen to this, O Job; stand still and consider the wonders of God.
“Hearken unto these things, O Job, stand, and consider the wondrous works of God. He saw him to be lying down, as it were, in comparison with himself, whom he directed to stand at the words of so great preaching.”
Now no one can gaze at the sun when it is bright in the skies after the wind has swept them clean.
“But now they see not the light. The air will suddenly be gathered into clouds. And the wind passing over will drive them away.”
Out of the north He comes in golden splendor; awesome majesty surrounds Him.
“Gold will come from the north. And from God fearful praise. What is designated by the 'north,' but the Gentile world, fast bound in the cold of sin?”
The Almighty is beyond our reach; He is exalted in power! In His justice and great righteousness He does not oppress.
“We cannot worthily find Him out. He is great in power, and judgment, and justice, and cannot be spoken of. Even if we can now find Him out, yet not worthily. For whatever we perceive in Him, is of faith, and not of sight.”
Therefore, men fear Him, for He is not partial to the wise in heart.”
“Therefore men will fear Him, and all who seem to themselves to be wise, will not dare to contemplate Him. Eliu in this place calls those who are strong of understanding 'men.'”
“Who is this who obscures My counsel by words without knowledge?
“Who is this that involves sentences in unskilful words? As we have said also in the former part, an interrogative of this kind, in which it is said, Who is this? is the beginning of a reproof. For Eliu had spoken arrogantly.”
Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding.
“Where wast thou when I was laying the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if thou hast understanding. ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION Behold all things are put together in historical narration, as if concerning the origin of the world.”
Who fixed its measurements? Surely you know! Or who stretched a measuring line across it?
“Who hath laid the measure of it, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION Lines of measures are stretched forth in the partition of lands, in order that fairness of dimension may be observed by their very extension.”
On what were its foundations set, or who laid its cornerstone,
“Whereupon are the bases thereof fastened? Or who hath laid the corner stone thereof? ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION What else do we understand by the foundations of this earth, but the teachers of Holy Church?”
while the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
“When the morning stars were praising Me together. And all the sons of God exulting for joy. For because the nature of rational spirits is believed to have been created first in time, the Angels are, not improperly, called 'morning stars.'”
and I declared: ‘You may come this far, but no farther; here your proud waves must stop’?
“And I set a bar and doors, and said, Hitherto shall thou come, and thou shalt not proceed further, and here shall thou break thy swelling waves.”
In your days, have you commanded the morning or assigned the dawn its place,
“Hast thou commanded the morning since thy birth, and hast thou shewn to the day-spring its place? Our Lord Jesus Christ, in that He is the Power and Wisdom of God, is born of the Father before all times, or rather, because He neither began…”
The earth takes shape like clay under a seal; its hills stand out like the folds of a garment.
“The seal shall be restored as clay, and shall stand as a garment. [ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION] What else but 'clay' did the Lord find the people of Israel, whom He came unto when given up to the practices of the Gentiles, and toiling at bricks in…”
Have you journeyed to the vents of the sea or walked in the trenches of the deep?
“Hast thou entered into the depth of the sea, and hast thou walked in the lowest parts of the abyss?”
Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Have you seen the gates of the shadow of death?
“Have the gates of death been opened unto thee, and hast thou seen the gloomy doors? For the 'gates of death' are the adverse powers. Which the Lord descended and opened, because by dying He overcame their strength.”
Have you surveyed the extent of the earth? Tell Me, if you know all this.
“Hast thou considered the breadth of the earth? For whilst the Lord sought the narrowness of death, He spread abroad His faith in the nations, and extended Holy Church to numberless hearts of believers.”
Where is the way to the home of light? Do you know where darkness resides, so you can lead it back to its border?
“Tell Me, if thou knowest all things, in what path the light dwelleth, and what is the place of darkness? that thou mayest take each of them to the bounds thereof, and understand the paths to the house thereof.”
Surely you know, for you were already born! And the number of your days is great!
“Didst thou know then that thou wast about to be born, and didst thou know the number of thy days? As if He were openly saying, What wonder if thou understandest not thine end, since thou dost not comprehend thy beginning?”
Have you entered the storehouses of snow or observed the storehouses of hail, which I hold in reserve for times of trouble, for the day of war and battle?
“Hast thou entered into the treasures of snow, or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail, which I have prepared against the time of the enemy, against the day of battle and war?”
In which direction is the lightning dispersed, or the east wind scattered over the earth?
“By what way is the light scattered? The heat is divided over the earth. For He in truth is the way, Who says, I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”
to bring rain on a barren land, on a desert where no man lives,
“That it should rain upon the earth without man, in the desert, where no mortal dwelleth. To rain upon the earth without man in the desert, is to preach the word of God to the Gentile world.”
to satisfy the parched wasteland and make it sprout with tender grass?
“That it should fill the pathless and desolate land, and should produce green herbs. For the Gentile world, to which a way was not open for the word of God, was a long while pathless.”
Does the rain have a father? Who has begotten the drops of dew?
“Who is the father of the rain? or who hath begotten the drops of dew? [ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION] As if He were saying, Except Myself, Who sprinkle, of My free grace, the barren earth of the human heart with drops of knowledge.”
Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Bear and her cubs?
“Dost thou bring forth the morning star at its time, and dost thou make the evening star to rise over the sons of earth?”
Who has put wisdom in the heart or given understanding to the mind?
“Who hath placed wisdom in the inward parts of a man? or who hath given the cock understanding? 9.”