Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3: A series of pen and pencil sketches of the lives of more than 200 of the most prominent personages in History
History
Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3: A series of pen and pencil sketches of the lives of more than 200 of the most prominent personages in History
Biography
Having so far succeeded in his mission, Augustine went to Arles and was
consecrated archbishop of the English by the Metropolitan Virgilius.
[Baeda says (i., 27): "Archiepiscopus genti Anglorum ordinatus est," the
actual see probably being then undetermined.] On his return he
despatched Lawrence and Peter to Rome to tell Gregory that the Angli had
been converted to the faith, and that he himself (Augustine) had been
made a bishop. They were also to bring back the Pope's answers to sundry
questions respecting the conduct of the mission which Augustine proposed
to him. Both the questions and the answers are highly suggestive. The
first question was as to the division of the offerings of the faithful.
The second as to differences of "Use" in the celebration of Mass and
other divine offices. The answer of Gregory is almost classical, and may
well be repeated here: "You know, my brother," he says, "the custom of
the Roman Church.... But it pleases me that if you have found anything,
whether in the Roman Church, or the church of the Gauls
["Galliarum"], or any church whatever, which may be more pleasing to
Almighty God, you carefully make choice of the same and diligently teach
the church of the English, which as yet is new in the faith ... whatever
you have been able to collect from many churches. For things are not to
be loved for the sake of places, but places for the sake of good
things." The fourth and fifth questions of Augustine refer to prohibited
degrees of marriage, and Gregory replies, as to the marriage of
first-cousins, among other objections, "we have learned by experience
that no offspring can come of such marriage." To Augustine's inquiry as
to his relations with the bishops of Gaul and Britain ["Galliarum
Brittaniarumque,"] Gregory replies that Augustine has no authority
whatever within the jurisdiction of the metropolitan of Arles; but he
adds: "As for all the bishops of Britain ["Brittaniarum"], we commit
them to your care, that the unlearned may be taught, the weak
strengthened by persuasion, and the perverse corrected by authority."
Considering the context--Augustine had been asking whether, under the
circumstances, he could consecrate bishops without the presence of any
other bishops; and, moreover, he had not as yet come into any kind of
contact with the Celtic bishops--it seems probable that "the bishops of
Britain" here placed under Augustine's jurisdiction were the bishops to
be afterward consecrated by himself, with or without the presence and
witness of Gallic or other bishops. Gregory's advice to Augustine,
conveyed through the Abbot Mellitus, may well be pondered by the
managers of modern missions. He says: "The temples of the idols in that
nation [the English] ought not to be destroyed; but let the idols that
are in them be destroyed; let holy water be made and sprinkled in the
said temples, let altars be erected, and relics placed. For if those
temples are well built it is requisite that they be converted from the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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