GREGORAS, Nicephorus. See Byzantine Historians, vol. iv. p. 613.
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GREGORY, St, surnamed the Great (c. 540-604), the first pope of that name, and one of the four doctors of the Latin Church (Ambrose, Augustine, and Jerome being the other three), wa3 born at Rome about the year 540. His father Gordianus possessed senatorial rank, and his mother Sylvia is said to have been remarkable for her mental endowments. Educated for the legal profession, Gregory about his thirtieth year was chosen by the citizens to the high position of praetor urbanus; this post he is said to have occupied for three years (571-574), discharging its duties with great pomp and magnificence; but on the death of his father, having become deeply impressed with a sense of the transitoriness and vanity of all earthly things, he retired from public life and gave up his whole fortune to pious uses, building six monasteries in Sicily and one in Rome; in this last, which was dedicated by him to St Andrew, he embraced the Benedictine rule, and divided his whole time between works of charity and the exercises of fasting, meditation, and prayer. It was while he was still a simple monk of St Andrew that the often repeated incident related by Bede is believed to have occurred. Having seen some English slaves of striking beauty exposed for sale in the public market, “non Angli sed Angeli,” he set his heart upon the evangelization of Britain, and was only prevented by the command of his ecclesiastical superiors from setting out in person to seek the realization of his pious wish. About 578 or 579 he was appointed abbot of his monastery, and likewise one of the seven deacons (regionarii) of the Roman Church; and in 582 he was sent by Pelagius II. to Constantinople as papal apocrisiarius or responsatis at the imperial court. There he remained for upwards of three years, during ...which he negotiated several matters of importance and delicacy; but amid his diplo matic and other engagements he found time to begin, if not even to complete, one of his largest works, the Moralia, or exposition of the book of Job. A few years after his return from the Eastern capital, the death of Pelagius (590) caused a vacancy in the papal chair, and the choice of. the clergy, senate, and people unanimously fell upon Gregory. He strongly deprecated the bestowal of this honour, and wrote to the emperor (Maurice) imploring him not to confirm the nomination. A pious fraud, committed by the city praetor then in office, prevented the letter from reaching its destination; and though Gregory hid himself for a time, he was at length obliged to yield to the urgency of his friends by accepting the papal crown (September 590). The pontificate of fourteen years which followed was marked by extraordinary vigour and activity, which made themselves felt throughout almost every department of the doctrine, discipline, and worship of the entire Western Church. By means of earnest prayer and wisely expended pains the aggressions of the Lombards were checked, and order and tranquillity were speedily restored to Rome; in Italy and France he tightened the too long relaxed reins of ecclesiastical discipline; in England, Spain, and Africa the powers of Paganism, Arianism, and Donatism were perceptibly weakened; as against the Eastern emperor and the patriarch of Constantinople the prerogatives of the bishop of Rome were asserted with a vigour previously unwitnessed; the ceremonies of the church were regulated and extended, the liturgy further developed. The anniversary of Gregory’s death, which took place at Rome on the 12th of March 604, is observed as a duplex by the Latin Church, and even in the Greek Church his wisdom and sanctity continue to be commemorated. The hyperbolical panegyrics of those ecclesiastical writers who lived nearest his time (such as Gregory of Tours and Isidore of Seville) must of course be taken with considerable reservation; but they are interesting as showing how powerful and profound was the impression he left upon his contemporaries and immediate successors—an impression and an influence well entitling him to the epithet of “great.” Of the personal qualities of Gregory, the most obtrusive are beyond all question the singular strength and energy of his character. Firmly and intensely convinced of the divineness of the Christian doctrine and life as these had presented themselves to his mind and heart, he suffered no obstacle and no discouragement to triumph over his determination to give them all the currency and prevalence that were possible in his day. Having clearly seen the end he had in view, he with equal discernment made choice of his measures for its attainment. The refinements alike of literature and of art had for him no place in the Christian scheme; it is needless to say that he therefore despised them both for himself and for others. There is some room for hoping indeed that the burning of the books of the Palatine library was due to some ruder pontiff; but there is no possibility of mistake as to the literary taste of the man who could write (pref, to Moralia) — “non metacismi collisionem fugio, non barbarismi confusionem devito, situs motusque etiam et praepositionum casus servare contemno, quia indignum vehementer existimo utverba coelestis oraculi restringam sub regulis Donati.” The uniformity of the Roman ritual, the ascendency of the Roman hierarchy, the prevalency of the Catholic dogma,—these were not merely the highest, they were the only, ideals he had ever caught sight of. It ought not therefore to surprise us if in striving towards them he sometimes was tempted, and yielded to the temptation, to sacrifice truthfulness to what he conceived to be the truth, and the mere claims of humanity to the demands of what he regarded as a higher love. Never purely selfish, he was, apart from the exigencies of his ecclesiastical position, singularly tolerant, liberal, and kindly.
Of the numerous extant works attributed to Gregory the Great the following are undisputed:—the Moralia, in thirty-five books, being an exposition of the book of Job, composed between 580 and 590; the twenty-two Homilies on Ezekiel (about 595), and the forty Homilies on the Gospels (about 592); the Regula (or Cura) Pastoralis, dedicated to John, archbishop of Ravenna (about 590); the Dialogues with Peter the deacon, in four books, on the lives and miracles of the Italian saints (593 or 594); and the Letters, in fourteen “registers,” aιτanged according to the years of his pontificate. He was also the author of various rhymed hymns, nine of which are still extant and appear in the collected editions of his works. They are characterized more by simplicity of language than by depth of feeling. The Concordia quorundam testimoniorum sacrarum scripturarum, and also the Commentaries on 1 Kings, Canticles, and the seven penitential psalms usually ascribed to him, are spurious. His liturgical works, the Sacramentarium and Λntiphon-arium, have been considerably tampered with by mediaeval collectors and revisers; and even the Letters are not wholly free from interpolations. Of Gregory’s merits as an expositor little need be said; he avowedly adopts in all cases the allegorical method, which in his hands is unflinchingly carried out, with, in many cases, sufficiently astounding results. As Milman has remarked, “It may safely be said that, according to Gregory’s licence of interpretation, there is nothing which might not be found in any book ever written.” In practical homiletics, however, he is very often just and profound as well as high-toned; but it would be too much to say that he was superior to the prejudices of his time; in particular his preference for the monastic and ascetic forms of the Christian life is carried to a height which a wider observation of the conditions of human usefulness and happiness will never cease to regaι ’ d as excessive. His Dialogues, which have been translated into Anglo-Saxon, Greek, and even Arabic, describe the most astonishing miracles with an artless simplicity which, as suggestive of entire belief, is certainly interesting to the student; yet it is difficult (as Gibbon has pointed out) to free the lavish dispenser of miraculous filings from the chains of St Peter from the suspicion of some degree of pious insincerity. The Letters are, as might be expected, of great importance from the light they throw upon the history of those times.
The complete editions of the works of this great father of the Latin Church have been, as was to be expected, numerous. The earliest was that of Lyons (1516), which was rapidly followed by those of Paris (1518-39), Basel (1551), and Rome (1588). The best edition is the Benedictine (Paris, 1705), in 4 vols, fol., reprinted at Venice (1768-76), in 17 vols. 4to, and in Migne’s Patrology, vol. lxxv.-lxxix. See Wiggers, De Gregorio Magno (1838-40); Marggraf, De Greg. Μ. Vita (1844); Lau, Gregor, d. Grosse nach s. Leben u. Lehre dargestellt (1845); Pfähler, Gregor der Grosse u. seine Zeit (1852); and Baxmann, Politik der Päpste von Gregor I. bis Gregor VII. (1868-69). There is a convenient edition of the Cura Pastoralis by Westhoff (1860).
GREGORY, St, the Illuminator (in Armenian Gregor Lusarovitch, in Greek Gregorios Phoster or Photistes), the founder and patron saint of the Armenian Church, was born about 257 a.d. He belonged to the royal race of the Arsacides, being the son of a certain Prince Anak, who assassinated Chosroes of Armenia, and thus brought ruin on himself and his family. His mother’s name was Okohe, and the Armenian biographers tell how the first Christian influence he received was at the time of his conception, which took place near the monument raised to the memory of the holy apostle Thaddeus. Educated by a Christian nobleman, Euthalius, in Caesarea in Cappadocia, Gregory sought, when he came to man’s estate, to introduce the Christian doctrine into his native land. At that time Tiridates I., a son of Chosroes, sat on the throne, and, influenced partly it may be by the fact that Gregory was the son of his father’s enemy, he subjected him to much cruel usage, and imprisoned him for fourteen years. It would he useless to relate the various forms of torture which the orthodox accounts represent the saint to have endured without permanent hurt; almost any one of his twelve trials would have been certain death to an ordinary mortal. But vengeance and madness fell on the king, and at length Gregory was called forth from his pit to restore his royal persecutor to reason by virtue of his saintly intercession. The cause of Christianity was now secured; king and princes and people vied with each other in obedience to Gregory’s instruction, and convents, churches, and schools were established. Gregory in 302 received consecration as patriarch of Armenia from Leontius of Caesarea, and in 318 he appointed his son Aristax to be his successor. About 331 he withdrew to a cave in the mountain Sebuh in the province of Daranalia in Upper Armenia, and there he died a few years afterwards unattended and unobserved. When it was discovered that he was dead his corpse was removed to the village of Thordanum or Thortan. The remains of the saint were scattered far and near in the reign of Zeno. His head is said to be now in Italy, his right hand at Etchmiadzin, and his left at Sis. It is almost impossible to get at Gregory’s real personality through the tangled growth of ecclesiastical legend; but he would appear to have possessed some of that consideration for expediency which is so frequently of service to the reformer. While he did his best to undermine their system, he left the pagan priests in enjoyment of their accustomed revenues.
A number of homffies, possibly spurious, several prayers, and about thirty of the canons of the Armenian Church are ascribed te Gregory. The homilies appeared for the first time in a work called Hαsehαehαpαdαm at Constantinople in 1737; a century afterwards a Greek translation was published at Venice by the Mekhiterists; and they have since been edited in German by J. Μ. Schmid (Ratisbon, 1872). The original authorities for Gregory’s life are Agathangelos, whose History of Tiridates was published by the Mekhitarists in 1835; Moses of Chorene, Historiée Armcnieoe ; and Simeon Metaphrastes. A Life of Gregory by the vartabed Matthew, published in Armenian at Venice in 1749, was translated into English by Rev. S. G. Malan, 1868. See also Bonucci, Istoria della vita di S. Gregorio, 1717; Neumann, Gesch. der Armenischen Literatur, 1835; and Dulaurier, Hist, des dogmes, <kc., de l'église Arménienne, 1859.
GREGORY, St, of Nazianzus, surnarned Theologus, one of the four great fathers of the Eastern Church, was born about the year 329 a.d., at or near Nazianzus, Cappadocia. His father, also named Gregory, a convert from Hypsistari-anism, had lately become bishop of the diocese; his mother Nonna, an eminently pious woman, by whom he was dedicated to the service of God from his birth, appears to have exercised a powerful influence over the religious convictions of both father and son. In pursuit of a more liberal and extended culture than could be procured in the insignificant town of Nazianzus, Gregory visited successively the two Caesareas, Alexandria, and Athens, as a student of grammar, mathematics, rhetoric, and philosophy; at the last-named seat of learning, where he prolonged his stay until he had entered his thirtieth year, he enjoyed the society and friendship of Basil, who afterwards became the famous bishop of Caesarea; the prince Julian, destined soon afterwards to play so prominent a part in the world’s history, was also a fellow-student. Shortly after his return to his father’s house at Nazianzus (about the year 360) Gregory received baptism, and renewed his dedication to the service of religion; he still continued, however, for some time, and indeed more or less throughout his whole life, in a state of hesitation as to the form which that service ought to take. Strongly inclined by nature and education to a contemplative life spent among books and in the society of congenial friends, he was yet continually urged by outward circumstances.
and doubtless also by some inward call, to active pastoral labour. The spirit of refined intellectual monasticism, which clung to him through life and never ceased to struggle for the ascendency, was about that time strongly encouraged by his intercourse with Basil, who was then revelling in the exalted pleasures of his retirement in Pontus; the preparation of the φιλοκαλία, a sort of chrestomathy compiled by the two friends from the writings of Origen, belongs to this period. But the events which were at that time stirring the political and ecclesiastical life of Cappadocia, and indeed of the whole Roman world, made a career of learned leisure difficult if not impossible to a man of Gregory’s position and temperament. The emperor Constantius, having by a course of artful intrigue and intimidation succeeded in thrusting a semi-Arian formula upon the Western bishops assembled at Ariminum in Italy, had next attempted to follow the same course with the Eastern episcopate. The aged bishop of Nazianzus having yielded to the imperial threats, a great storm arose among the monks of the diocese, which was only quelled by the influence of the younger Gregory, who shortly afterwards (about 361) was ordained to the priesthood. After a vain attempt to evade his new duties and responsibilities by flight, he appears to have continued to act as a presbyter in his father’s diocese without interruption for some considerable time; and it is probable that his two Invectives against Julian are to be assigned to this period. Subsequently (about 372), under a pressure w hich he somewhat resented, he allowed himself to be nominated by Basil as biehop of Sasima, a miserable little village some 32 miles from Tyana; but he seems hardly, if at all, to have assumed the duties of this diocese, for after another interval of “flight” we find him once more (about 372-3) at Nazianzus, assisting his aged father, on whose death (374) he retired to Seleucia in Isauria for a period of some years. Mean while a more important field for his activities was opening up. Towards 378-9 the small and depressed remnant of the orthodox party in Constantinople sent him an urgent summons to undertake the task of resuscitating the catholic cause, so long persecuted and borne down by the Arians of the capital. With the accession of Theodosius to the imperial throne, the prospect of success to the Nicene doctrine had dawned, if only it could find some courageous and devoted champion. The fame of Gregory as a learned and eloquent disciple of Origen, and still more of Athanasius, pointed him out as such a defender; nor could he resist the appeal made to him, although he took the step sorely against his will. Once arrived in Constantinople, he laboured so zealously and well that the orthodox party speedily gathered strength; and the small apartment in which they had been accustomed to meet was soon exchanged for a vast and celebrated church which received the significant name of Anastasia, the Church of the Resurrection. Among the hearers of Gregory were to be found, not only churchmen like Jerome and Evagrius, but also heretics and heathens; and it says much for the sound wisdom and practical tact of the preacher that from the outset he set himself less to build up and defend a doctrinal position than to urge his flock to the cultivation of the loving Christian spirit which cherishes higher aims than mere heresy hunting or endless disputation. Doctrinal, nevertheless, he was, as is abundantly shown by the famous five discourses on the Trinity, which earned for him the distinctive appellation of θεολόγο? (0eoλoγiα being here used in the stricter sense to designate the doctrine of Christ’s divinity, as distinguished from οικονομία, which denotes the doctrine of His incarnation). He continued to labour in the Eastern capital till the arrival of Theodosius, and the visible triumph of the orthodox cause; the metropolitan see was then conferred upon him, and after the assembling of the second oecumenical council in 381 he received consecration from Meletius. In consequence, however, of a spirit of discord and envy which had manifested itself in connexion with this promotion, he soon afterwards, in an oration, not without some bitterness of tone, resigned his dignity, and withdrew into comparative retirement. The rest of his days were spent partly at Nazianzus, where he appears still to have mixed himself in ecclesiastical affairs, and partly on his patrimonial estate at Arianzus, where he devoted himself to his favourite literary pursuits, and especially to poetical composition, until his death, which occurred in 389 or 390. His festival is celebrated in the Eastern Church on January 25th and 30th, in the Western on 9th May (duplex).
His extant works consist of poems, epistles, and orations. The poems, which include epigrams, elegies, and an autobiographical sketch, have been frequently printed, the editio princeps being the Aldine (1504). Other editions are those of Tollius (1696) and Muratori (1709); a volume of Carmina Selecta also has been edited by Dronke (1840). The tragedy entitled χριστbs τraσχων usually included is certainly not genuine. Of Gregory’s poetry there is not much to be said. His best energies were not devoted to it; it was adopted in his later years as a recreation rather than as a serious pursuit; thus it is occasionally delicate, graphic, beautiful, as could not fail to be the case with a writer of his culture and power, but it is not sustained. Of the hymns none have passed into ecclesiastical use. The letters are entitled to a higher place in literature. They are always easy and natural; and there is nothing forced in the manner in which their acute, witty, and profound sayings are introduced. As an orator he is held to have surpassed all his contemporaries “in the purity of his words, the nobleness of his expressions, the ornaments of his discourse, the variety of his figures, the justness of his comparisons, the beauty of his reasonings, and the sublimity of his thoughts.” Thus, though possessed neither of Basil’s gift of government nor of Gregory of Nyssa’s power of speculative thought, he worthily takes a place in that triumvirate of Cappadocians whom the Catholic Church gratefully recognizes as having been, during the critical struggles in the latter half of the 4th century, the best defenders of its faith. The Opera Omnia were first published by Hervagius (Basel, 1550); the subsequent editions have been those of Billius (Paris, 1609, 1611; aucta ex interpretatione Morelli, 1630), of the Benedictines (begun in 1778, but interrupted by the French Revolution and not completed until 1840, Caillau being the final editor), and of Migne.
Scattered notices of the life of Gregory Nazianzen are to be found in the writ ings of Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, and Rufinus, as well as in his own letters and poems. The data derived from these sources do not always harmonize with the account of Suidas. The earlier modern authorities, such as Tillemont (item. Eccl., t. ix.) and Leclerc (Bib. Unir., t xviii.) have been made use of by Gibbon in his brief but able sketch of this father. Among recent monographs may be mentioned those of Ullmann (Gregorius con Nazianz, der Theologe, 1825; Eng. transi, by G. F. Cox, M.A., 1857), Benoit (St Grégoire de Nazianze-, sa vie, ses oeuvres, et son époque, 1877), and Montant (Reçue critique de quelques questions historiques se rapportant à St Grégoire de Nazianze, 1879).
GREGORY, St, of Nyssa, one of the great Cappadocians, and designated by one of the later oecumenical coùncils as “a father of fathers,” was a younger brother of St Basil, and was born (probably) at Neocaesarea about 331 a.d. For his education, which was the best that could be got at that time, he appears to have been chiefly indebted to his elder brother. At a comparatively early age he entered the church, and held for some time the office of anagnost or reader; subsequently he manifested a desire to devote himself to the secular life as a rhetorician; but this impulse was checked by the earnest remonstrances of Gregory Nazianzen. Finally, in 371 or 372 he was ordained by his brother Basil to the bishopric of Nyssa, a small town in Cappadocia. Here he is usually said (but on inadequate data) to have adopted the opinion then gaining ground in favour of the celibacy of the clergy, and to have separated from his wife Theosebia, who became a deaconess in the church. His strict orthodoxy on the subject of the Trinity and the Incarnation, together with his vigorous eloquence, combined to make him peculiarly obnoxious to the Arian faction, which was at that time in the ascendant through the protection of the emperor Valens; and in 375, on the ground of alleged irregularities in his election, and in the administration of the finances of his diocese, he was driven into exile, whence he did not return till the publication of the edict of Gratian in 378. Shortly afterwards he took part in the proceedings of the synod which met at Antioch in Caria, principally in connexion with the Meletian schism. At the great oecumenical council held at Constantinople in 381, he was a conspicuous champion of the orthodox faith; according to Nicephorus, indeed, the additions made to the Nicene creed were entirely due to his suggestion, but this statement is of doubtful authority. That his eloquence was highly appreciated is shown by the facts that he pronounced the discourse at the consecration of Gregory of Nazianzus, and that he was chosen to deliver the funeral oration on the death of Meletius the first president of the council. In the following year, moreover (382), he was commissioned by the council to inspect and set in order the churches of Arabia, in connexion with which mission he also visited Jerusalem. The impressions he gathered from this journey may, in part at least, be gathered from his famous letter De Euntibus Hierosolyma, in which an opinion strongly unfavourable to pilgrimages is expressed. In 383 he was probably again in Constantinople; where in 385 he pronounced the funeral orations of the princess Pulcheria and afterwards of the empress Placilla. Once more we read of him in 394 as having been present in that metropolis at the synod held under the presidency of Nectarius to settle a controversy which had arisen among the bishops of Arabia; in the same year he assisted at the consecration of the fine new church of the apostles at Chalcedon, on which occasion there is reason to believe that his discourse commonly but wrongly known as that ε⅛ την εαυτού χ∈ιpoτovιαy wa3 delivered. The exact date of his death is unknown; some authorities refer it to 396, others to 400. His festival is observed by the Greek Church on January 10th; in the Western martyrologies he is commemorated on March 9 th.
Gregory of Nyssa is generally admitted to have excelled both his brother Basil and Gregory of Nazianzus alike in the natural vigour of his intellect and in the wide extent of his acquirements. His teaching though strictly trinitarian, shows considerable freedom and originality of thought; in many points his mental and spiritual affinities with Origen show themselves with advantage; though in one particular—namely, in his doctrine of i∙ποκατiστασιs or final restoration—his views have since been repudiated by the orthodox. His style has been frequently praised by competent authorities for sweetness, richness, and elegance. His numerous works may be classified under five heads:—(1.) Treatises in doctrinal and polemical theology. Of these the most important is that Against Eunοmius in twelve books. Its doctrinal thesis (which is supported with great philosophic acumen and rhetorical power) is the divinity and consubstantiality of the Word; incidentally the character of Basil, which Eunomius had aspersed, is vindicated, and the heretic himself is held up to scorn and contempt. This is the work which, most probably in a shorter draft, was read by its author when at Constantinople before Gregory Nazianzen and Jerome in 381 (Jerome, De Vir. III., 128). To the same class belong the treatise To Aι ∣ lavius, against the tritheists; On Faith, against the Arians; On Common Notions, in explanation of the terms in current employment with regard to the Trinity; Ten Syllogisms, against the Manichaeans; To Theophilus, against the Apollinarians; an Antirrhetic against the same; Against Fate, a disputation with a heathen philosopher; the Oratio Catechetica Magna ; and the dialogue De Anima et Resurrectione. (2.) Practical treatises. To this category belong the tracts On Virginity and On Pilgrimages·, as also the Canonical Epistle upon the rules of penance. (3.) Expository and homiletical works, including the Hexaemeron, and several series of discourses On the Workmanship) of Man, On the Inscriptions of the Psalms, On the Sixth Psalm, On the first three Chapters of Ecclesiastes, On Canticles, On the Lord's Prayer, and On the Eight Beatitudes. (4. ) Biographical, consisting chiefly of funeral orations. (5.) Letters. The only complete editions of the whole works are those by Fronton le Duc (Fronto Ducaeus, Paris, 1615; with additions, 1618 and 1638) and by Migne. Of the new edition projected by F. Oehler only the first volume, containing the Opera Dogmatica, has appeared (1865). There have been numerous editions of several single treatises, as for example of the Gratio Catechetica, De Precatione, and De Anima et Resurrectione. See the monograph by Rupp (Gregors, des Bischofs von Nyssa, Leben und Meinungen, Leipsic, 1834), and compare Heyns (Disputatio historico-theologica de Greg. Nyss., 1835), Moller (Grcgorii Nyss. doctrinam de hominis natura et illustravit et cum Origeniana comparavit, 1854), and Stigler, Die Psychologie des h. Gregors von Nyssa (Ratisbon, 1857).
GREGORY, St, surnarned in later ecclesiastical tradition Thaumaturgus (the miracle-worker), was born of noble and wealthy heathen parents at Neocaesarea, towards the beginning of the 3d century of the Christian era. His original name was Theodorus. Destined by his parents for the bar, he studied civil law at Athens, Alexandria, and Berytus, it is said; he afterwards (about 231) accompanied his sister to Caesarea in Palestine, where he became the pupil and finally the convert of Origen. In returning to Cappadocia some five years after his conversion, it had been his original intention to live a retired ascetic life (Euseb., H. E., vj. 30); but this wish he was not permitted to gratify. Urged by Origen, and at last almost compelled by Phaedimus of Amasia, his metropolitan, neither of whom was willing to see so much learning, piety, and masculine energy practically lost to the church, he, after many attempts to evade the dignity, was consecrated bishop of his native town (about 240). His episcopate, which lasted some thirty years, was characterized by great zeal, and by so mueh success that, according to the (doubtless somewhat rhetorical) statement of Gregory of Nyssa, whereas at the outset of his labours there were only seventeen Christians in the city, there were at his death only seventeen persons in all who had not embraced Christianity. This result he achieved in spite of the Decian persecution (250), during which he had felt it to be his duty to absent himself from his diocese, and notwithstanding the demoralizing effects of an irruption of barbarians who laid waste the diocese in 260. Gregory, although he has not always escaped the charge of Sabellianism, now holds an undisputed place among the fathers of the church; and although the turn of his mind was practical rather than speculative, he is known to have taken an energetic part in most of the doctrinal controversies of his time. He was active at the synods of Antioch which investigated and condemned the heresies of Paul; and the rapid spread in Pontus of a Trinitarianism approaching the Nicene type is attributed in large measure to the weight of his influence. Gregory is believed to have died in the reign of Aurelian, about the year 270, though some accounts place his death six years earlier. His festival (semiduplex) is observed by the Church of Rome on the 17th of November. For the facts of his biography our earliest and best authority is the Life or rather Panegyric by Gregory of Nyssa; but there are also incidental notices of him in the writings of Basil the Great. Both these writers represent him as having wrought miracles of a very startling description; but nothing related by them comes near the astounding narratives given in the Martyrologies, or even in the Breviarium Bomanum, in connexion with his name.
The principal works of Gregory Thaumaturgus are the Panegyricus in Origenem (els , Ωριγevηv πανηγυρικός K<Sγos), which he wrote when on the point of leaving the school of that great master; a Metap>hrasis in Ecclesiasten, characterized by Jerome as “short but useful”; and an Epistola Canonica, which treats of the discipline to be undergone by those Christians who under pressure of persecution had relapsed into paganism, but desired to be restored to the privileges of the church. An Expositio Fidei, usually attributed to Gregory, and traditionally alleged to have been received by him immediately in vision from the apostle John himself, is of doubtful authenticity. There have been several editions of the works of this father; of these may be mentioned that of Gerard Voss, in Greek and Latin (Mainz, 1604); the Paris edition of 1622; and that contained in the third volume of Galland’s Bibliotheca Patrum (Paris, 1788). They are also to be found in a Latin translation in Migne’s Patrologia Graeca, vol. vii. A separate reprint of the Panegyricus in Origenem was published by Bengel in 1722. The life of Gregory has been written by Pallavicini (Rome, 1644) and by Boye (Jena, 1703).
GREGORY, St, of Tours (c. 540-594), historian of the Franks, was born at Clermont, Auvergne, not earlier than 539 and not later than 543 a.d. He was the youngest son of Florentius, a provincial senator, and head of one of the oldest and most powerful Christian families in the country; at his baptism he received the name of George, that of Gregory not having been assumed until his consecration at least thirty years afterwards. He received his education under the superintendence of his uncle Gallus, at that time bishop of Clermont, and afterwards under Avitus, who succeeded to that see. Having been ordained a deacon on attaining the canonical age, the youthful Georgius Florentius for a time attended in some ecclesiastical capacity the court of Sigebert of Austrasia; and when in 573 a vacancy occurred in the see of Tours, which had been occupied by many of his kindred, his reputation for piety and wisdom led to his being immediately designated as a suitable successor to that bishopric. Circumstances soon occurred which brought into great prominence his peculiar fitness for this post; first in 575, when Guntran had taken refuge from Chilperic in the sanctuary of St Martin, and afterwards in 577, when Pretextatus of Rouen had been unjustly condemned by the rest of his brethren. The firmness and courage which he showed on these and other occasions brought upon him the bitter hostility of the strong-minded Queen Fredegond, who caused him to be summoned before a council at Braine on a charge of treason, of which, however, he was acquitted. In 581 he took a leading part in adjusting that arrangement between Chilperic and Childebert which gave peace to France for many years. During the later years of his life he used his political influence and prestige, which were now immense, with singular unselfishness and judgment in the interest alike of his diocese and of the whole country. He died at Tours on the 17th of November 591, and subsequently attained the honours of beatification and canonization, his day in the calendar (semiduplex) being November 17th.
Of his writings, besides the Historia Francorum in ten books, we possess a treatise Be Miraculis in seven books, containing the miracles of Christ and his apostles, those of Julian, of Martin, and also of others. Other treatises which he mentions have perished. The De Miraculis appears to have occupied him at intervals durin» the whole of his prelacy; of the Historia Francorum he is supposed to have written as far as to about the middle of the fifth book by 577; the eighth book was completed before 585, and the tenth about 591, the epilogue being of still later date. This work, which gives Gregory of Tours a just title to be called the father of French history, has no pretensions to elegance or even grammatical accuracy of style, it is wholly uncritical, and betrays in every page the prejudice and ignorance of the age to which it belongs. But it is honestly and truthfully written from the point of view of one whose avowed intention was to trace ‘ ‘ the wars of kings with hostile nations, of martyrs with pagans, of churches with heretics;” and as an original source for the period of 174 years which it covers it is still, notwithstanding the unfavourable judgment which Gibbon has expressed, invaluable.
The edition of the works of Gregory of Tours, which appeared at Paris in 1511-12, has been entirely superseded by that of Ruinart (Paris, 1699). It includes the not very valuable life of the saint by Odo. The 71st volume of Migne’s Patrology adds to a reprint of Ruinart an Historia Septem Dormientium which is sometimes (but improperly) attributed to Gregory. Translations by Bonnet, Guizot, and others into French have been frequently reprinted; a German version appeared at Würzburg in 1847-49; it was followed by Giesebrecht’s in 1851. See Kries, De Greg. Tur. episc. vita et scriptis (Breslau, 1839); Löbell, Gregor v. Tours u. seine. Zeit (Breslau, 1839; 2d ed. Leipsic, 1869); and an article in the Mémoires de l' Académie, t. xxvi.
GREGORY, the name of a Scottish family, many members of which attained high eminence in various departments of science, sixteen having held professorships. Of the most distinguished of their number a notice is given below.
I. David Gregory (1628-1720), eldest son of the Rev. John Gregory of Drumoak, Aberdeenshire, was born in 1628. For some time he was connected with a mercantile house in Holland, but on succeeding to the family estate of Kinardie he returned to Scotland, and occupied most of his time in scientific pursuits, freely giving his poorer neighbours the benefit of his medical skill. He is said to have been the first possessor of a barometer in the north of Scotland; and on account of his success by means of it in predicting changes in the weather, he was accused of witchcraft before the presbytery of Aberdeen, but he succeeded in convincing that body of his innocence. He diedin 1720.
II. James Gregory (1638-1675), the author of important discoveries in mathematics and optics, younger brother of the preceding, was born in 1638. He was educated at the grammar school of Aberdeen and at Marischal College of that city. At an early period he manifested a strong inclination and capacity for mathematics and kindred sciences; and before completing his twenty-third year he published his famous treatise Optica Promota, in which he made known his great invention the Gregorian reflecting telescope. About 1665 he went to the university of Padua, where he studied for some years, and in 1667 published Vera Circuli et Hyperbolae Quadratura, in which he propounded his method of an infinitely converging series for the areas of the circle and hyperbola. In the following year he published also at Padua Geometriae Pars Universalis, in which he laid down a series of rules for the transmutation of curves and the measurement of their solids of revolution. On his return to England in this year he was elected a member of the Royal Society; in the following year he became professor of mathematics in the university of St Andrews; and in 1674 he was transferred to the chair of mathematics in Edinburgh. In October 1675, while showing the satellites of the planet Jupiter to some of his students through one of his telescopes, he was suddenly struck with blindness; and he died a few days afterwards at the early age of thirty-seven.
Besides the works already mentioned Gregory is the author of Exercitationes Geometricas, 1668, and, it is alleged, of a satirical tract entitled The Great and New Art of Weighing Vanity, intended to ridicule certain fallacies of a contemporary writer on hydraulics, and published at Glasgow in 1672, professedly by “Patrick Mathers, archbeadle of the university of St Andrews.”
III. David Gregory (1661-1708), nephew of the preceding and son of the David Gregory above mentioned, was born in Aberdeen in 1661. He was educated partly in his native city and partly in Edinburgh, where at the age of twenty-three he became professor of mathematics. In 1691 he was appointed Savilian professor of astronomy at Oxford, an office which he held till his death in 1708. His principal works are Exercitatio Geometrica de dimensione figurarum (1684), Catoptricoe et Dioptricae Sphoericae Elementa (1695), and Astronomiae Physicoe et Geometricae Elementa (1702),—the last a work highly esteemed by Newton, of whose system it is an illustration and a defence. A Treatise on Practical Geometry which he left in manuscript was translated from the Latin and published in 1745. He was succeeded in the chair of mathematics in Edinburgh by his brother James; another brother, Charles, was in 1707 appointed professor of mathematics in the university of St Andrews; and his eldest son, David, became professor of modern history at Oxford, and canon and latterly dean of Christ Church.
IV. John Gregory (1724-1773), professor of medicine in the university of Edinburgh, grandson of James Gregory, the inventor of the Gregorian telescope, and youngest son of Dr James Gregory, professor of medicine in King’s College^ Aberdeen, was born at Aberdeen, June 3, 1724. After studying at the grammar school of Aberdeen, and completing his literary course at King’s College in that city, he attended the medical classes at Edinburgh university. In 1745 he went to Leyden to complete his medical studies, and during his stay there he received without solicitation the degree of doctor of medicine from King’s College, Aberdeen. On his return from Holland he was elected professor of philosophy at King’s College, but in 1749 he resigned his professorship on account of its duties interfering too much with his practice as a physician. In 1754 he proceeded to London, where he made the acquaintance of many persons of distinction, and the same year was chosen fellow of the Royal Society. On the death in November 1755 of his brother Dr James Gregory, who had succeeded his father as professor of medicine in King’s College, Aberdeen, he was appointed to that office. In 1764 he removed to Edinburgh in the hope of obtaining a more extended field of practice as a physician, and in 1766 he was appointed professor of the practice of physic in the university of Edinburgh, to whose eminence as a medical school he largely contributed. From his eighteenth year Dr Gregory had been subject at irregular intervals to attacks of gout, and on the morning of February 10th, 1773, he was found dead in bed apparently from the results of this disease.
He is the author of A Comparative View of the State and Faculties of Man with those of the Animal World, 1765; Observations on the Duties, Offices, and Qualifications of a Physician, 1772; Elements of the Practice of Physic, 1772; and A Father s Legacy to his Daughters, 1774. His Whole Works, with a life by Mr Tytler (afterwards Lord Woodhouselee), were published at Edinburgh in 1788.
V. James Gregory (1753-1821), professor of the practice of medicine in the university of Edinburgh, eldest son of the preceding, was born at Aberdeen in 1753, and received there the rudiments of his education. He accompanied his father to Edinburgh in 1764, and after going through the usual course of literary studies at that university, he was for a short time a student at Christ Church, Oxford. It was there probably that he acquired that taste for classical learning which afterwards distinguished him. He then entered on the study of medicine at Edinburgh, and, after graduating doctor of medicine in 1774, spent the greater part of the next two years in Holland, France, and Italy. Shortly after his return to Scotland he was appointed in 1776 to the chair his father had formerly held, and in the following year he also entered on the duties of teacher of clinical medicine in the Royal Infirmary. On the illness of Dr Cullen in 1790 he was appointed joint-professor of the practice of medicine; he became sole professor on the death of Dr Cullen in the same year; and he continued to deliver lectures on that subject, to audiences almost regularly increasing, until his last illness in 1821. He died on the 2d April of that year. As a medical practitioner Dr Gregory was for the last ten years of his life decidedly at the head of the profession in Scotland; and as a professor his quickness and commanding energy of intellect, his power of perspicuous and elegant exposition, and his genuine sense of humour gave him a remarkable ascendency over the minds of his pupils.
Besides his Conspectus Mcdicinae Thcoreticae, published in 1788 as a text-book for his lectures on the institutes, Dr Gregory was the author of “A Theory of the Moods of Verbs,” published in the ∙E ’ <‰. Phil. Trans., 1787, and of Literary and Philosophical Essays, published in two volumes in 1792.
VI. William Gregory (1803-1858), son of the preceding, was born 25th December 1803. In 1837 he became professor of chemistry at the Andersonian Institution, Glasgow, in 1839 at King’s College, Aberdeen, and in 1844 at Edinburgh University. He died April 24, 1858. Gregory was one of the first in England to advocate the theories of Liebig, and translated several of his works. He is also the author of Outlines of Chemistry, 1845, and an Elementary Treatise on Chemistry reprinted from the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1855.
VII. Duncan Farquharson Gregory (1813-1844), brother of the preceding, was born 13th April 1813. After studying at the university of Edinburgh he in 1833 entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was for a time assistant professor of chemistry, and was one of the founders of the chemical society. He latterly devoted his chief attention to mathematics, in which he made some important discoveries. He died 23d February 1844.
The Cambridge Mathematical Journal was originated, and for some time edited, by Gregory; and he also published a Collection of Examples of Processes in the Differential and Integral Calculus, 1841. A Treatise on the Application of Analysis to Solid Geometry, which he left unfinished, was completed by W. Walton, and published posthumously in 1846. His Mathematical Writings, edited by W. Walton, with a biographical memoir by Robert Leslie Ellis, appeared in 1865.
GREGORY, Olinthus, LL.D. (1774-1841), was born 29th January 1774 at Yaxley, in Huntingdonshire. He was only nineteen when he published Lessons Astronomical and Philosophical (1793), and soon after, by a manuscript on the “Use of the Sliding Rule,” he was fortunate enough to excite the interest of Dr Hutton, professor of mathematics at the Royal Military Academy of Woolwich. Having settled at Cambridge in 1798, Gregory first acted as subeditor of a provincial newspaper, and then opened a bookseller’s shop; but before long he found that he would be better off as a private teacher of mathematics. In 1802 he obtained an appointment as mathematical master at Woolwich through the influence of Hutton; and when Hutton resigned in 1807, Gregory succeeded him in the professorship. Failing health obliged him to retire in 1838, and he died at Woolwich 2d February 1841.
Of Gregory’s numerous mathematical works it is enough to mention Hints for the Use of Teachers of Elementary Mathematics (1840; new edition, 1853), and Mathematics for Practical Men (1825), which was revised and enlarged by Henry Law in 1848, and again by J. R. Young in 1862. His Letters on the Evidences of Christianity (1815) have been several times reprinted, and an abridgment was published by the Religious Tract Society in 1853. He will probably be longest remembered for his Biography of Robert Hall, which first appeared in the collected edition of Hall’s works, was published separately in 1833, and has since passed through several editions. The minor importance of his Memoir of John Mason Good (1828) is due to the narrower fame of the subject. Gregory was one of the founders of the Royal Astronomical Society. In 1802 he was appointed editor of the Gentlemen's Diary, and in 1818 editor of the Ladies' Diary and superintendent of the almanacs of the Stationers’ Company.
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GREGORY II., St, pope from 715 or 716 to 731, succeeded Constantine I., his election being variously dated May 19, 715, and March 21, 716. Having, it is said, bought off the Lombards for thirty pounds of gold, he used the tranquillity thus obtained for vigorous missionary effort in Germany, and for strengthening the papal authority in the churches of England and Ireland. By excommunicating Leo the Isaurian, he prepared the way for a long series of revolts and civil wars, which tended greatly to the establishment of the temporal power of the popes. He died in 731, and subsequently attained the honour of canonization, February 13th being the day consecrated to his memory in the Martyrology.
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GREGORY III., St, pope from 731 to 741, a Syrian by birth, succeeded Gregory II. in March 731. His pontificate, like that of his predecessor, was disturbed by the iconoclastic controversy, in which he vainly invoked the intervention of Charles Martel. During his reign also it was that Boniface in Germany, on whom he conferred the pallium, Wilibald in Bohemia, and Bede in England carried on their most successful missionary labours. He died 29th November 741, and was succeeded by Zacharias I.
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GREGORY IV., pope from 827 to 844, was chosen to succeed Valentinus in December 827, on which occasion he recognized the supremacy of the Frankish emperor in the most unequivocal manner. His name is chiefly associated with the quarrels between Lothaire and Louis the Debonaire, in which he espoused the cause of the former, for whom, in the Campus Mendacii, as it is usually called (833), lie secured by his treachery a temporary advantage. The institution of the feast of All Saints is usually attributed to this pope. He died January 25, 844, and was succeeded by Sergius IE.
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GREGORY IX., pope from 1227 to 1241, the successor of Honorius III., fully inherited the traditions of Gregory VII. and of his uncle Innocent III., and zealously gave himself up to the perpetuation of their policy. One of the first acts of his pontificate was to suspend the emperor Frederick II., then lying sick at Otranto, for dilatoriness in carrying out his promised crusade; the suspension was followed by excommunication and threats of deposition after Frederick had written to the sovereigns of Europe complaining of his treatment, A consequent invasion of the patrimony of St Peter at the instance of Frederick in 1228 having proved unsuccessful, the emperor was constrained to give in his submission and beg for absolution. Although peace was thus secured (August 1230) for a season, the Roman people were far from satisfied; driven by a revolt from his own capital in July 1232, the pope was compelled to take refuge at Anagni and invoke the aid of Frederick. A new outbreak of hostility led to a fresh excommunication of the emperor in 1239, and to a prolonged war which was only terminated by the death of Gregory (August 22, 1241). This pope, who was a remarkably skilful and learned lawyer, caused to be prepared in 1234 the well known Nova Compilatio Decretalium, printed at Mainz in 1473. He it was who canonized Saints Elizabeth, Dominic, and Antony of Padua, and also Francis of Assisi, of whom he had been a personal friend. His encroachments upon the rights of the English Church during the ignominious reign of Henry III. are well known; but similar attempts against the liberties of the national church of France only served to call forth the celebrated Pragmatic Sanction of St Louis. Gregory IX. was succeeded by Celestine IV.
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GREGORY V., pope from 996 to 999, a grandson of the emperor Otho the Great, succeeded John XV. when only twenty-four years of age, and until the council of Pavia (997) had a rival in the person of the antipope John XVI., whom the people of Rome in revolt against the will of the youthful emperor Otho III., Gregory’s cousin, had chosen. The most memorable acts of his pontificate were those arising out of the contumacy of the French king, Robert, who was ultimately brought to submission by the rigorous infliction of a sentence of excommunication. He died suddenly, and not without suspicion of foul play, 18th February 999. His successor was Silvester II.
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GREGORY VI., pope from 1044 to 1046, who as Johannes Gratianus had earned a high reputation for learning and probity, succeeded Benedict IX., having bought off the antipopes Sylvester III. and John XX. In a council held by the emperor Henry III. at Sutri, in 1046, he was accused of simony, and his election was found to have been informal. This led to his degradation, and was followed by his withdrawal into Germany, where he died in the following year (1047). He was succeeded by Clement II.
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GREGORY VII., St, one of the greatest of the Roman pontiffs, was born about the year 1015 at Soana or Saona, a small town in Tuscany, where his father, Bonic or Bonizon, is said to have followed the trade of a carpenter. His own name, Hildebrand or Hellebrand, is suggestive of a German extraction; but of his remoter ancestry nothing is recorded. Hie youth was passed at Rome in the monastery of St Mary on the Aventine, where a relative was at that time prior; here the archpriest Johannes Gratianus (afterwards Gregory VI.) was one of his instructors, and the youthful scholar early attracted the attention of such visitors as Laurentius of Amalfi and Odilon of Clugny. There is some reason to believe that, after passing his novitiate in Rome, Hildebrand removed for some years to the great Burgundian cloister, at that time under the charge of the last-named ecclesiastic; but all the earlier years of his life are involved in considerable obscurity. In 1046 he became one of the chaplains of the newly elected pope, Gregory VI., whom he shortly afterwards accompanied into his German exile; and on the death of that pontiff, some two years later, he retired to Clugny, where his learning and sanctity made a deep impression, and where, according to some accounts, he was ultimately promoted to the office of prior. As a monk of Clugny he appears to have oftener than once visited the imperial court for the transaction of ecclesiastical business; and in 1049 he is said in a very special way to have come under the notice of Bruno, bishop of Toul, then on his way to Rome to take possession of the chair of St Peter, which be occupied fur some years under the title of Leo IX. It was at Hildebrand’s instance that Bruno, who had been nominated by the emperor merely, consented to refrain from ...assuming the pontifical vestments, and to present himself to the Romans in the garb of a simple pilgrim, until he should have been elected in a more regular manner. The ascendency which Hildebrand had thus acquired over this pope he never afterwards lost; in 1050 he became cardinal subdeacon, and in following years he was entrusted with various missions of great importance, taking also a prominent part in the important synods of Rheims and Mainz, as well as in those of Rome. On the death of Leo IX. in 1054 the Roman people had signified a desire that the subdeacon should succeed him; this honour and responsibility however Hildebrand declined; but he was one of three legates who went to Germany to consult with the emperor about the choice of a successor. The negotiations, which lasted eleven months, ultimately issued in the election of Gebhard of Eichstädt, a relative of the emperor, who up to that time had followed a distinctly antipapal policy, but who, immediately after his reception and consecration at Rome as Victor II. (13th April 1055), became as entirely a tool in the hand of Hildebrand as Leo had been. It was during this pontificate that Hildebrand, as papal legate, attended the French synods held for the purpose of repressing the heresy of Berengarius. On the election of Pope Stephen IX. (X. ), Hildebrand was again sent to Germany to defend the choice before the empress Agnes; in this mission, which was ultimately successful, several months were spent. Again, in 1058, he succeeded in defeating the hostile party of Benedict X. and in securing the tiara for Nicholas II.; and once more, in 1061, he successfully laboured for the election of Alexander II. to the papal chair. At length, in 1073, on the death of Alexander, Hildebrand was himself as it were compelled by the tumultuous demands of the mob to accept the vacant tiara (22d April); but he refused to receive consecration until the sanction of the emperor had been obtained. This did not arrive for more than a month, although meanwhile he had been practically exercising many of the papal functions; finally, however, he was ordained to the priesthood, and some days afterwards (30th June) solemnly consecrated pope by the title of Gregory VIL, a name which he chose in testimony of his veneration for the memory and character of his earliest patron, Gregory VI. Once firmly established on the papal throne, Gregory lost no time in giving the utmost possible practical effect to the two leading ideas of his life, the establishment of the supremacy of the papacy within the church, and the effective assertion of the supremacy of the church over the state. In March 1074 a synod was held in Rome which condemned the simony that had grown so prevalent throughout the church, and also enacted the old stringent laws of celibacy which had become almost a dead letter, especially in Germany and in the north of Italy; simoniacal or married priests were declared to be deposed and their priestly functions invalid. The resistance of the clergy to these decrees w⅛ utterly in vain; papal legates visited every country, and, supported by the popular voice, compelled submission. At a second synod held in Rome in February 1075 the decrees of the first were confirmed, and the first blow was struck which afterwards resulted in the long protracted wars of investitures. At that synod it was determined that any ecclesiastic who in future should accept office from the hands of a layman incurred the penalty of deposition, while the secular lord who bestowed investiture wa3 to be excommunicated. The decree was aimed immediately at certain German bishops, Henry’s personal advisers, but hardly less directly at Henry himself. The emperor, finding his hands at the moment fully occupied with the suppression of a revolt among the Saxons, was politic enough to conceal his resentment for the time, and to dismiss his advisers; but as soon as the war had been brought to a close, his defiance found ample expression. Meanwhile Gregory was not unopposed even in Italy, and during the Christmas festivities of 1075 a revolt in Rome itself was organized by Cencius, who had placed himself at the head of those nobles who were opposed to reform; the pope, however, had the popular enthusiasm on his side, and ultimately the insurgents were compelled to fly. A papal embassy was next sent, early in 1076, to Henry at Goslar, citing him to appear personally at Rome at a council to be held in the second week of Lent, and there answer for his simony, sacrilege, and oppression. Henry’s rage at this knew no bounds; he dismissed the legates with insult, and at a diet held at Worms (24th January 1076) replied by declaring Gregory deposed on charges of tyranny, magic, and adultery, by sending notification of this fact to the Roman clergy, and by taking steps for appointing a successor to the dethroned pontiff. Gregory now lost no time in excommunicating all the bishops who had attended the diet of Worms, in solemnly deposing and excommunicating the emperor, and in absolving his subjects from their oath of allegiance (22d February 1076). This counter action produced a powerful effect upon the German princes and people, many of whom had had good cause to resent Henry’s tyrannies; one by one the bisαops who had announced their withdrawal from Gregory’s obedience now signified their contrition, and at a diet held at Γribur (September 1076) the election of a new emperor began to be discussed. Resistance being in the meantime impossible, Henry resolved upon humbling himself to the utmost; in the dead of winter he set out to make his submission; Gregory was in waiting for him at Canossa, where (25th to 27th January 1077) that famous penance which Europe has not yet forgotten was imposed (see vol. x. p. 488). Absolved only on condition of his not assuming the royal dignity till his case had been investigated and decided, Henry had no sooner left the papal presence than he began to plot his revenge. Throwing himself upon the generosity of his Lombard vassals, he took courage to face the papal excommunication which was renewed in November 1078; and in the wars which ensued his arms were finally successful. Rudolf of Swabia having died soon after the battle of Merseburg in 1080, the emperor proceeded with a powerful army to escort into Italy Guibert of Ravenna, who had been chosen at Brixen (June 1080) as Gregory’s successor. In three successive summers the attack on Rome was renewed, but it was not until 1084 (March 21) that the treachery of some of the nobles of the city opened the gate to the invader. Gregory was now at last compelled to take refuge in the castle of St Angelo, while Guibert was established on the pontifical throne as his successor with the title of Clement III. After receiving coronation from Clement, Henry determined to return at once to Germany, especially as Robert Guiscard was known to be approaching. Released accordingly by the arrival of the Norman duke, Gregory excommunicated once more both Henry and Clement; but not deeming himself secure at Rome, where he had reason to know that his power was no longer what it once had been, he in May 1084 placed himself under Robert’s protection at Salerno, where he died, May 25, 1085, after a comparatively brief pontificate of not much more than ten years. His last words are reported to have been, “I have loved righteousness and hated iniquity, and therefore I die in exile.” His festival (duplex) is observed throughout the Roman Church on the anniversary of his death. His successor was Victor III.
The lifework of Hildebrand may be thus summed up in the words of Sir James Stephen :—“He found the papacy dependent on the empire; he sustained her by alliances almost commensurate with the Italian peninsula. He found the papacy electoral by the Roman people and clergy; he left it electoral by a college of papal nomination. He found the emperor the virtual patron of the holy see; he wrested that power from his hands. He found the secular clergy the allies and dependants of the secular power; he converted them into the inalienable auxiliaries of his own. Ho found the higher ecclesiastics in servitude to the temporal sovereigns; he delivered them from that yoke to subjugate them to the Roman tiara. He found the patronage of the church the mere desecrated spoil and merchandize of princes; he reduced it within the dominion of the supreme pontiff. He is celebrated as the reformer of the impure and profane abuses of his age; he is more justly entitled to the praise of having left the impress of his own gigantic character on the history of all the ages which have succeeded him.”
Unlike Gregory the Great, Hildebrand was no author; his literary remains are all comprised in eleven books or “Registers” of letters, which have often been printed. The XXVII dictatus often attributed to him are not now regarded as genuine. Among the numerous earlier biographies may be mentioned those of Paul of Bernriet, Pandulf of Pisa, Nicolas of Aragon, and Cardinal Bruno; among later monographs the most important are those of Voigt {Hildebrand als Gregor VII. u. sein Zeitalter, 1815; 2d ed. 1846; French translation, with introduction and notes, by Jager, 1834; 4th ed. 1854), Bowden (The Life and Pontificate of Gregory VII., 1840), Solti (Gregor VII., 1847), Helfenstein (Gregor's VII. Bestrebungen nach den Streitschriften seiner Zeit, 1856), Gfrörer (Papst Gregor VII. u. sein Zeitalter, 7 vols., 1859-61), Villemain (Histoire de Gregoire VII., 1873; English translation by Brockley, 1874), Langeron (Gregoire VII. et les origines de la politique ultramontane, 1874), and Meltzer (Gregor VII. u. die Βischofsιvahlen, 1876). The events of the period are also very fully treated by W. Giesebrecht in his Geschichte der deutschen Kaiserzeit, and in other works. For the epistles, see Ä Gregorii VII. epistoloe et diplomata pontificia, acc. vita ejusdem pontificis et appendices amplissimae veterum et recentiorum monumenta perplurima Gregorii VII. apologetica complectentes (1877).
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GREGORY VIII. (Albert de Mora), who as papal legate had in 1172 attended the council of Avranches, which absolved Henry II. of England from the guilt of the murder of Thomas à Beckett, was consecrated pope in room of Urban III. October 25th, 1187, and died of fever on December 17th of the same year. Clement III. was his successor.
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GREGORY X., pope from 1271 to 1276, succeeded Clement IV. after the papal chair had been three years vacant; his election occurred while he was engaged in a pilgrimage to Saint Jean-d’Acre. On his arrival at Rome his first act was to summon the council which met at Lyons in 1274 for the purpose of considering the Eastern schism, the condition of the Holy Land, and the abuses of the Catholic Church. It was while returning from that council that he died at Arezzo on the 10th of January 1276. To him is due the bull which, subsequently incorporated into the code of canon law, continues to regulate all conclaves for papal elections. He was succeeded by Innocent V.
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GREGORY XI. (Pierre Roger de Beaufort), pope from 1370 to 1378, born in Limousin in 1336, succeeded Urban V. in 1370 as one of the Avignon popes. During his pontificate vigorous measures were taken against the “heresies” which had broken out in Germany, England, and other parts of Europe; a sincere effort was also made to bring about a reformation in the various monastic orders. The nineteen propositions of Wickliffe and the thirteen articles of the “Sachsenspiegel” were formally condemned by him in 1373. His energy was largely stimulated by the stirring words of Catherine of Siena (see vol v. p. 231), to whom in particular the transference of the papal see back to Italy, January 27, 1377, was almost entirely due. He did not long survive this removal, dying on March 27, 1378. His successor was Urban VI., but the antipope Clement VII. also received much support, and the schism lasted forty years.
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GREGORY XII. (Angelo Corario or Corraro), pope from 1406 to 1409, born at Venice about 1326, succeeded Innocent VII. on 30th November 1406, having been chosen at Rome by a conclave consisting of only fifteen cardinals, under the express condition that, should Benedict XIII. of Avignon renounce all claim to the papacy, he also would renounce his, so that a fresh election might be made by the no longer divided church. Along with Benedict he was deposed by the council of Pisa in March 1409 as schismatical, heretical, perjured, and scandalous; but it was not till after the council of Constance had set aside John XXIII. (1415) that through his ambassador he formally renounced the title and dignity of lawful pope. The rest of his life was spent in peaceful obscurity as cardinal-bishop of Porto and legate of the mark of Ancona. He died October 18, 1417, having been succeeded in 1409 by Alexander V.
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GREGORY XIII. (Ugo Buoncompagno), pope from 1572 to 1585, was born February 7, 1502, at Bologna, where he studied law and graduated in 1530, and afterwards taught jurisprudence for some years, Alexander Farnese and Charles Borromeo being among his pupils. At the age of thirty-six he was summoned to Rome by Paul III., under whom he held successive appointments as first judge of the capital, abbreviator, and vice-chancellor of the campagna; by Paul IV. he was attached as datarius to the suite of Cardinal Carafa; and by Pius IV. he was created cardinal priest and sent to the council of Trent. On the death of Pius V. in May 1572, the choice of the conclave fell upon Buoncompagno, who assumed the name of Gregory XIII. His intervention in the affairs of Britain through Ireland and by means of his tool Philip II., and also the league which he sought to cement against France (the massacre of the St Bartholomew had taken place in September 1572), are matters which belong to the history of those countries. In order to raise funds for these and similar objects, he confiscated a large proportion of the houses and properties throughout the states of the church,—a measure which enriched his treasury, indeed, for a time, but by alienating the great body of the nobility and gentry, revived old factions, created new ones, and ultimately plunged his temporal dominions into a state bordering upon anarchy. Such was the position of matters at the time of his death, which took place on the 10th of April 1585. He was a liberal patron of the Jesuit order, for which he founded many new colleges; the new and greatly improved edition of the Corpus juris canonici was also due to his care; but the work with which the name of Gregory XIII. is most intimately and honourably associated is that of ...the reformation of the calendar, which has been already described under that heading (vol. iv. p. 671). Gregory XIII. was succeeded by Sixtus V.
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GREGORY XIV. (Niccolo Sfondrato), pope from 1590 to 1591, a native of Cremona, succeeded Urban VII., 5th December 1590. As a monk he had been eminent for the decency and sobriety of his life; but his brief pontificate was marked by no important occurrence, except that, instigated by the king of Spain and the duke of Mayenne, he excommunicated Henry IV. of France, declaring him, as a heretic and persecutor, to be deprived of his dominions, and also levied an army for the invasion of France. The history of that country records how this proceeding was regarded alike by clergy, parliament, and people. The biographers mention as a curious personal trait of Gregory XIV. a nervous tendency to laughter which occasionally became irresistible, and which manifested itself even at his coronation. He was succeeded by Innocent IX.
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GREGORY XV. (Alessandro Ludovisio), pope from 1621 to 1623, born at Bologna in 1554, succeeded Paul V. on the 9th of February 1621. Beyond assisting the German emperor against the Protestants, and the king of Poland against the Turks, he interfered little in European politics. He was a learned divine and manifested a reforming spirit; and his pontificate was marked by the canonization of St Theresa, Francis Xavier, Ignatius Loyola, and Philip Neri. He died on the 18th of July 1623, and was succeeded by Urban VIII.
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GREGORY XVI. (Bartolommeo Alberto Cappellari), pope from 1831 to 1846, was born at Belluno on September 18, 1765, and at an early age entered the order of the Camaldoli, among whom he rapidly gained distinction for his theological and linguistic acquirements. His first appearance before a wider public was in 1799, when he published against the Italian Jansenists a controversial work entitled Trionfo della Santa Sede, which, besides passing through several editions in Italy, was translated into several European languages. In 1800 he became a member of the Academy of the Catholic Religion, founded by Pius VII., to which he contributed a number of memoirs on theological and philosophical questions. When Pius VII. was carried off from Rome in 1809, Cappellari withdrew to the monastery of San Michele at Murano, near Venice, and in 1814, with some other members of his order, he removed to Padua; but soon after the restoration of the pope he was recalled to Rome, where he received successive appointments as vicar-general of the Camaldoli, councillor of the Inquisition, prefect of the Propaganda, and examiner of bishops. In March 1825 he was created cardinal by Leo XII., and shortly afterwards was entrusted with an important mission to adjust a concordat regarding the interests of the Catholics of Belgium and the Protestants of Holland. On the 2d February 1831 he was, after sixty-four days’ conclave, unexpectedly chosen to succeed Pius VIII. in the papal chair. The revolution of 1830 had just inflicted a severe blow on the ecclesiastical party in France, and it seemed as if similar disasters to the papal cause were imminent in other parts of Europe, when Gregory XVI. entered upon his fifteen years’ pontificate. Almost the first act of the new Government of France was to ...unfurl the tricolor at Ancona; and the immediate effect was to throw all Italy, and particularly the Papal States, into a state of excitement such as seemed to call for strongly repressive measures. In the course of the struggle which ensued, the temporal reign of Gregory was marked accordingly by executions, banishments, imprisonments, to an extent which makes it impossible for the candid reader to absolve him from the charges of cruelty and bigotry which were so frequently raised at the time. The embarrassed financial condition in which he left the States of the Church also makes it doubtful how far his lavish expenditure in architectural and engineering works, and his magnificent patronage of learning in the hands of Mai, Mezzofanti, and others, were for the real benefit of his subjects. The years of his pontificate were marked by the steady development and diffusion of those ultramontane ideas which were ultimately formulated under the presidency of his successor Pius IX. by the council of the Vatican. He died 1st June 1846.
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