Gregory the Great with a papal letter (Register 9.184) of 599, to Constantius, bishop of Milan (northern Italy), sends contact relics (sanctuaria) of *Paul (the Apostle, S00008), *John (probably the Baptist, S00020) and *Pancratius (martyr of Rome, S00307), and sets out how they should be deposited. Written in Latin in Rome.
E06404
Literary - Letters
Gregory the Great (pope)
Pope Gregory the Great, Register of Letters 9.184
Full text of the letter:
GREGORIVS CONSTANTIO EPISCOPO MEDIOLANENSI
Lator praesentium Euentius diaconus fraternitatis uestrae nobis inter alia intimauit sibi a uobis iniunctum ut reliquias beati Pauli apostoli sed et beatorum Iohannis et Pancratii per eum ad uos dirigere deberemus. Quam petitionem uestram curauimus effectui mancipandam. Fraternitas ergo uestra solito studio perscrutari non differat, quatenus in locis quibus recondendae sunt luminaria uel alimonia ibidem seruientium ante dedicationem loci ipsius debeant profligari et tunc in eisdem locis directa sanctuaria sui cum reuerentia collocentur, ne loca deo dicata, si praedicta prouisio omissa nunc fuerit, futuris temporibus destituta, quod absit, seruientium repperiantur obsequiis.
'Gregory to Constantius, bishop of Milan
The bearer of this letter, Eventius, deacon of your Fraternity, intimated to us among other things that you had ordered him that we ought to direct to you through him relics (reliquias) of Saint Paul the apostle and also Saints John and Pancratius. And we have taken care to bring this petition of yours into effect. Therefore, let your Fraternity not put off examining this with your usual keenness, so that in the places where the lamps and food of those servants of God in Milan had to be stored before the dedication of that place they should be removed, and then in the same places the relics (sanctuaria) we have sent should be placed with reverence, in case those places, dedicated to God, might become destitute in future times (Heaven forbid!), if the aforesaid provision should now be omitted, and be used for the burial of servants of God.’
Text: Norberg 1982, vol. 2, 740.
Translation: Martyn 2004, vol. 2, 657, modified.
Martyr shrine (martyrion, bet sāhedwātā, etc.)
Non Liturgical ActivityConstruction of cult buildings
RelicsContact relic - cloth
Transfer, translation and deposition of relics
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - bishops
Cult Related ObjectsOil lamps/candles
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
It is not clear from the letter which Saint John is the saint whose relics are here discussed. The John most venerated was the Baptist; but Rome was not a major repository of his relics. The most significant local saint of Rome named Iohannes was the Iohannes buried on the Caelian hill (S00384), but it is unlikely to be him, since his companion Paulus is not mentioned.The use of the term sanctuaria strongly suggests that the relics mentioned here were contact relics, made by placing a piece of cloth in close contact with the grave of the saint. For more detail about the process, see E00615 and E00617, and on the word, McCulloh 1976, 158-165.
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., S. Gregorii Magni, Registrum epistularum. 2 vols. (Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 140-140A; Turnhout: Brepols, 1982).
English translation:
Martyn, J.R.C., The Letters of Gregory the Great, 3 vols. (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2004)..
Further Reading:
Dal Santo, M., Debating the Saints' Cult in the Age of Gregory the Great (Oxford: OUP, 2012).
McCulloh, J., "The Cult of Relics in the Letters and Dialogues of Gregory the Great," Traditio 32 (1976), 145-184.
Neil, B., and Dal Santo, M. (eds.), A Companion to Gregory the Great (Leiden: Brill, 2013).
Frances Trzeciak
12/12/2020
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00008 | Paul, the Apostle | Paulus | Certain | S00020 | John the Baptist | Iohannes | Uncertain | S00042 | John, the Apostle and Evangelist | Iohannes | Uncertain | S00307 | Pancratius, martyr of Rome | Pancratius | Certain |
|---|
Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL:
Frances Trzeciak, Cult of Saints, E06404 - http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E06404