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
How often is the lamp of the wicked put out? Does disaster come upon them? Does God, in His anger, apportion destruction?
“Ver. 17. How often shall their candle be put out? and how oft shall a flood come over them, and shall He divide sorrows in His fury? 55.”
Are they like straw before the wind, like chaff swept away by a storm?
“Ver. 18. They shall be as chaff before the wind, and as ashes that the storm scattereth. 56. When the wicked man is seen in power, when he is utterly without check or restraint in his acts of oppression and violence, by the imaginations of…”
It is said that God lays up one’s punishment for his children. Let God repay the man himself, so he will know it.
“Ver. 19. God shall lay up for his children the grief of their father. And when He repayeth, then he shall know it. 57.”
Can anyone teach knowledge to God, since He judges those on high?
“Ver. 22. Shall any teach God knowledge? seeing that He judgeth those that are high. 61. When in the things, which are done concerning us, we have doubts, we ought to look at others, which are well known to us, and to pacify that murmuring…”
One man dies full of vigor, completely secure and at ease. His body is well nourished, and his bones are rich with marrow.
“Ver. 23-25. One dieth in his full strength, being rich and prosperous. His inwards are full of fatness, and his bowels are moistened with marrow. And another dieth in the bitterness of his soul, and hath never any wealth. 62.”
But together they lie down in the dust, and worms cover them both.
“Ver. 26. And yet they shall lie down alike in the dust, and the worms shall cover them. What wonder then if those persons for a moment run a course unlike in the prosperity and adversity of this world, who through the corruption of the…”
Behold, I know your thoughts full well, the schemes by which you would wrong me.
“Ver. 27, 28. Behold I know your thoughts, and the devices that ye wrongfully imagine against me. For ye say, Where is the house of the prince? and where are the dwellings of the wicked? 63.”
Who denounces his behavior to his face? Who repays him for what he has done?
“Ver. 31. Who shall reprove his way to his face? and who shall repay him what he hath done? 69.”
The clods of the valley are sweet to him; everyone follows behind him, and those before him are without number.
“Ver. 33. He was sweet to the pebbles of Cocytus. 71. 'Cocytus' in the Greek tongue is the term for 'lamentation,' which is used to be taken for the lamentation of women, or any persons going weakly.”
Does it delight the Almighty that you are righteous? Does He profit if your ways are blameless?
“Is it any profit to the Almighty that thou art righteous? or is it gain to Him, that thou makest thy ways perfect? For in all that we do well, we are doing good to ourselves and not to God.”
But it was He who filled their houses with good things; so I stay far from the counsel of the wicked.
“Yet He has filled their houses with good things. The Lord 'filleth the houses of the wicked with good things,' in that even to the unthankful He refuses not His gifts, that either they may blush at the loving-kindness of their Creator and be brought…”
The righteous see it and are glad; the innocent mock them:
“The righteous shall see it and be glad; and the innocent one shall laugh them to scorn. The righteous when they see the unrighteous erring here cannot be glad for the error of persons ruining themselves.”
You will pray to Him, and He will hear you, and you will fulfill your vows.
“Thou shalt make thy prayer unto Him, and He shall hear thee. For they make their prayer to God, but never obtain to be listened to, who set at nought the precepts of the Lord, when He enjoins them.”
When men are brought low and you say, ‘Lift them up!’ then He will save the lowly.
“For he that has been abased shall be in glory, and he that has bent down his eyes, the same shall be saved.”
If only I knew where to find Him, so that I could go to His seat.
“O that one would grant me that I might know and find Him, that I might come even to His seat! An elect person if he did not know God, assuredly would not love Him.”
Would He contend with me in His great power? No, He would certainly take note of me.
“I would not that He should contend with me with great power, nor oppress me with the weight of His mightiness.”
Then an upright man could reason with Him, and I would be delivered forever from my Judge.
“Let Him put forth equity against me, and my judgment shall come unto victory. PROPHETICAL INTERPRETATION For who else saving the Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus, is denoted by the title of 'equity?'”
If I go east, He is not there, and if I go west, I cannot find Him.
“If I go to the East, He appeareth not; if I go to the West, I shall not understand Him; if I go to the left hand, what shall I do?”
Yet He knows the way I have taken; when He has tested me, I will come forth as gold.
“But He Himself knoweth the way that I take. And He shall try me like gold which passeth through the fire.”
God has made my heart faint; the Almighty has terrified me.
“For God maketh my heart soft, and the Almighty troubleth me. By divine gift the heart of the righteous man is said to be made soft, in that it is penetrated with the fear of the judgment from Above.”
Yet I am not silenced by the darkness, by the thick darkness that covers my face.
“Because I have not perished on account of the overhanging darkness; neither hath the darkness covered my face.”
Then there are those who rebel against the light, not knowing its ways or staying on its paths.
“They are rebellious against the light. They know not the ways thereof, nor have returned by the paths thereof.”
The eye of the adulterer watches for twilight. Thinking, ‘No eye will see me,’ he covers his face.
“The eye also of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight, saying, No eye shall see me. And disguiseth his face.”
Yet by His power, God drags away the mighty; though rising up, they have no assurance of life.
“He took away the mighty in his might. Since in the might of his wickedness the mighty he severally takes away, whilst by the craftiness of his error he carries off the great ones of this world.”
He gives them a sense of security, but His eyes are on their ways.
“God hath given unto him room for repentance, and he abuseth it in pride. Whosoever commits sin and lives, such a person Divine Appointment for this reason bears with in iniquity, that it may withhold him from iniquity.”