Gregory the Great in a papal letter (Register 8.28) of 598, to Eulogios, patriarch of Alexandria, regrets that there is no copy in Rome of the martyrdom accounts collected by Eusebius of Caesarea, which were requested by Eulogios, but only a book with a few Martyrdoms in it. Gregory does have a book, with a list of saints' martyrdoms arranged by the day of the year, which he uses in the mass to honour them; this book records their names, places of martyrdom and feast days, from many different regions, but gives no further details about the saints. Written in Latin in Rome.
E02794
Literary - Letters
Gregory the Great (pope)
Pope Gregory the Great, Register of Letters 8.28 ('Utilis semper est', JE 1517/JH 2606)
Utilis semper est docti viri allocutio, quia aut discit audiens quod nescire sese noverat aut cognoscit, quod est amplius, id quod se et nescisse nesciebat. Qua in re ex audientum numero ego nunc factus sum, cui sanctissima vestra beatitudo scribere studuit ut cunctorum martyrum gesta, quae piae memoriae Constantini temporibus ab Eusebio Caesariense collecta sunt, transmittere debeamus. Sed haec neque si sic collecta sint neque si sint ante vestrae beatitudinis scripta cognovi. Ago ergo gratias, quia sanctissimae doctrinae vestrae scriptis eruditus coepi scire quod nesciebam. Praeter illa enim quae in eiusdem Eusebii libris de gestis sanctorum martyrum continentur nulla in archivo huius nostrae ecclesiae vel in Romanae urbis bibliothecis esse cognovi, nisi pauca quaedam in unius codicis volumine collecta. Nos autem paene omnium martyrum distinctis per dies singulos passionibus collecta in uno codice nomina habemus atque cotidianis diebus in eorum veneratione missarum sollemnia agimus. Non tamen in eodem volumine quis qualiter sit passus indicatur, sed tantummodo nomen, locus et dies passionis ponitur. Vnde fit ut multi ex diuersis terris atque prouinciis per dies, ut praedixi, singulos cognoscantur martyrio coronati. Sed haec habere uos beatissimos credimus. Ea uero quae transmitti uoluistis quaerentes quidem non inuenimus, sed adhuc non inuenientes quaerimus et, si potuerint inueniri, transmittimus.
'An address from a learned man is always profitable, because the hearer either learns what he had known himself to be ignorant of, or, what is more, comes to know what he did not know he had been ignorant of. A hearer of the latter kind I have now become, your most holy Blessedness having been minded to write to me, asking me to send you the acts (gesta) of all the martyrs, which were collected in the times of Constantine, of pious memory, by Eusebius of Cæsarea. But before receiving the letter of your Blessedness I did not know of these acts, whether they had been collected, or whether not. I therefore give thanks that, instructed by your most holy teaching, I have begun to know what I was ignorant of. For beside what is contained about the acts of the holy martyrs in the books of the same Eusebius, I am not aware of any collections in the archives of this our Church, or in the libraries of the city of Rome, unless it be some few things collected in one single volume. We have however the names of almost all the martyrs, with their martyrdoms assigned to particular days, collected in one volume; and we celebrate the solemnities of mass on such days in their veneration. Yet it is not indicated in this volume who each was, and how he suffered; but only his name, the place, and day, of his martyrdom are put down. Hence it results that many of various countries and provinces are known to have been crowned with martyrdom, as I have said, through their several days. But these we believe you have. That, however, which you wish to have sent to you we have sought for, but have not found; but, though we have not found it, we will still search, and, if it can be found, will send it.'
Text: Norberg 1982, 549-550.
Translation: Barmby 1895, slightly adapted.
Service for the saint
FestivalsSaint’s feast
Non Liturgical ActivityTransmission, copying and reading saint-related texts
Composing and translating saint-related texts
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - bishops
Source
Gregory's Register is a collection of some 854 of his letters as pope, collected into 14 books (each book representing an indictional year of his pontificate, from 1 September to 31 August) of varied length and deriving from the file-copies that were made in Rome and kept in the papal archive. The original copies survived into the 9th century, but were subsequently lost. From the late 8th century onwards, however, because of the exceptional stature that Gregory had by then attained, various collections were assembled from the original copies (the largest under Pope Hadrian I at the end of the 8th century), and these constitute the Register as we have it today.The Register does not contain all the letters that Gregory despatched as pope, since some whose text survives refer to others which are lost; but the collection we have is unique from the late antique period, and only matched in quantity and range of subjects by the registers of high-medieval popes. Recipients range from papal administrators, through prominent churchmen and aristocrats, to kings and the imperial family, and treat a wide variety of topics, from the mundane administrative affairs of the papal patrimony to deep theological and moral considerations.
For the cult of saints, there is much that is of interest in the letters, but two particular concentrations of evidence stand out. The first is a clutch of around a dozen letters that mention requests for relics from Rome, or that accompanied small personal relics as gifts to influential correspondents. The second concentration of evidence relates to the dedications of churches and other ecclesiastical institutions in southern Italy, Sicily and Sardinia. Because the papacy owned extensive estates in these regions, and exercised particular authority there, many of Gregory's letters mention churches and other ecclesiastical institutions by the name of the saint to whom they were dedicated, thereby providing us with a rich panorama of the spread of both local and imported saintly cults.
Gregory's Register has been the subject of two substantial critical editions: the first by Ewald and Hartmann for the Monumenta Germaniae Historica; the second by Dag Norberg for Corpus Christianorum. The numbering of the letters is often the same in both editions, but it can differ, because Norberg removed letters (and other passages) that appear to have been added at a later date to the original Register, assigning them instead to Appendices. We have used Norberg's numbering, which is that now generally used.
(Bryan Ward-Perkins)
Discussion
The request of the Alexandrian bishop may be based on a statement in the Ecclesiastical History (E00014) where it is reported that Eusebius compiled a collection of ancient martyrdom accounts. Gregory's letter would seem to suggest that this collection was lost by the late sixth century. [E. Rizos]In Latin sources, Eulogios' reference to a collection of martyrdom accounts assembled by Eusebius at the time of Constantine recalls similar references found in the prefatory letters of the Martyrologium Hieronymianum ($E###) and in prologues attached to a number of late antique martyrdom accounts, notably the Acts of Silvester (E03229), the Martyrdom of Anthimus and Companions (E02483), and the Martyrdom of Symphorosa (E02095).
The passage is very interesting and important as evidence of the limited knowledge available in late 6th century Rome on the martyrs of the Christian world.
Bibliography
Edition:Ewald, P. and L.M. Hartmann (eds), Gregorii I papae Registrum epistolarum, 2 vols. (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Epistolae I and II, Berlin 1891 and 1899).
Norberg, D., Gregorius Magnus, Registrum Epistularum. Libri VIII-XIV (Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 140A; Turnhout, 1982), 549-550.
Translation:
Barmby, J., in: P. Schaff and H. Wace (eds.), Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, vol. 12 (Buffalo, NY, 1895).
Further reading:
Philippart, G., “Grégoire le Grand et les gesta martyrum”, in: A. Degl’Innocenti, and A. De Prisco, A. (eds.), Gregorio Magno e l’agiografia fra IV e VII secolo (Florence, 2007), 257-283.