Gregory the Great A Symposium [Paperback]

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.

“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.”

"The list of luminaries contributing to this collection, including Robert Markus, Carole Straw, Conrad Leyser, and James J. O'Donnell, promise to make this publication insightful and valuable, and the reader is not disappointed . . . " —Cistercian Studies Quarterly

“Its scope, not just Gregory but the whole Christian culture he lived in, touches one very important issue for monastics. The book moves us toward a clearer understanding of the ‘transition period’ between the actual writing of the RB and its beginning observance by continental monasteries in the middle of the seventh century. Studying that period more carefully, we might better understand how and why the RB was adapted and modified from the very beginnings of its actual usage.”

John C. Cavadiniis Chairman and Associate Professor of Theology at the University of Notre l·