He was prætor of Rome in 574, under the emperor Justin; next year he became a monk, and by fasting and study so weakened his stomach, that he swooned if he did not frequently eat. “What gave him the greatest affliction,” says Butler, “was, his not being able to fast on an Easter-eve; a day on which, says St. John the deacon, ‘every one, not even excepting little children are used to fast;’ whereupon, by praying that he might be enabled to fast, he not only fasted, but quite forgot his illness.” He determined to come to Britain to propagate the faith; but the whole city rose in an uproar to prevent his departure, and the pope constrained him to remain. Pope Pelagius II. sent him as nuncio to Constantinople, where Eutychius fell into an error, importing that after the resurrection glorified bodies would not be palpable, but of a more subtile texture than air. Whereupon, says Butler, St. Gregory was alarmed, and clearly demonstrated that their bodies would be the same which they had on earth, and Eutychius retracted his error: on his return to Rome he took with him an arm of St. Andrew, and the head of St. Luke. Pelagius made him his secretary, and after his death was elected pope himself. To escape from the danger of this elevation, he got himself carried out of Rome in a wicker basket, and lay concealed in woods and caverns for three days. He was afterwards consecrated with great pomp, and on that occasion sent a synodal epistle to the other patriarchs, wherein he declared that “he received the four councils as the four gospels.” Butler says, he extended his charity to the heretics, and “to the very Jews,” yet he afterwards adds, that in Africa “he extirpated the Donatists.” He subscribed himself in his letters, “Servant of the Servants of God.” He sent to the empress Constantina a veil which had touched the relics of the apostles, and assured her that miracles had been wrought by such relics, and promised her some dust-filings of the chains of St. Paul. He sent St. Austin and other monks to convert the English. (See February 24, _St. Ethelbert_.) He died on the 25th of January, 604.[18] His devotion to the church was constant; he was learned, enterprising, sincere, and credulous, and, for the times wherein he lived, charitable, and merciful. It should be observed, that he was the author of the church-singing called the Gregorian chaunt.