Gregory the Great: A Symposium

Description

A group of renowned North American scholars gathered at the University of Notre Dame in 1993 for a symposium on Pope Gregory the Great (550–604). This volume presents essays delivered at the conference, together with additional contributions. In these essays Gregory emerges as a figure both interpreting and interpreted: interpreting the past, receiving, synthesizing, and developing the teachings of earlier writers, and, by this very process, presenting a persuasive theological and pastoral agenda which has inspired projects of interpretation and development in later periods up to and including our own. Review “The Gregory that emerges from these essays is one who, while not speculative or systematic in his thought, responded creatively to the changed circumstances of Christianity in the sixth century, formulating the gospel message in ways his contemporaries found compelling. The essays . . . are a helpful guide to this enigmatic theologian whose influence on western Christian spirituality was―and still is―profound.” ―Pro Ecclesia About the Author John C. Cavadini is Chairman and Associate Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame and is editor of Miracles in Jewish and Christian Antiquity (Notre Dame Press, 2000). Contents List of Abbreviations ix Preface Xl 1 . The Jew as a Hermeneutic Device: The Inner Life of a Gregorian Topos R O B E R T A . M A R K U S 1 2. Purity and Death C A R O L E S T R A W 1 6 3 . Expertise and Authority in Gregory the Great: The Social Function of Peritia C O N R A D L E Y S E R 3 8 4 . The Holiness o f Gregory J A M E S J. O ' D O N N E L L 62 5. La dialectique Parole-Chair dans la christologie de Gregoire le Grand R O D R I G U E B E L A N G E R 82 6. A Letter of Pelagius II Composed by Gregory the Great P A U L M E Y V A E R T 94 7. Pope Gregory the Great's Knowledge of Greek G . J . M . B A R T E L I N K Translated by p A u L M E y v A E R T 117 Translator's Appendix: Gregory the Great and Astronomy 137 8. Contemplation in Gregory the Great B E R N A R D M C G I N N 146 9. Exegesis and Spirituality in the Writings of Gregory the Great G R O V E R A . Z I N N , J R . 168 10. Memory, Instruction, Worship: Contents " Gregory's" Influence on Early Medieval Doctrines of the Artistic Image C E L I A C H A Z E L L E 181 11. Gregory the Great in the Twelfth Century: The Glossa Ordinaria E . A N N M A T T E R 216