Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Interesting Point by Gregory the Great


I started Pope St. Gregory the Great's commentary on Job this morning and noticed something most biblical scholars should take note of these days.

St. Greg is going through the authorship debates of Job and makes this comment after summing up all the different possibilities:

"But who was the writer, it is very superfluous to enquire; since at any rate the Holy Spirit is confidently believed to have been the Author. He then Himself wrote them, Who dictated the things that should be written. He did Himself write them Who both was present as the Inspirer in that Saint's work, and by the mouth of the writer has consigned to us his acts as patterns for our imitation." (http://www.lectionarycentral.com/GregoryMoralia/Preface.html)

I was also amazed at his depth of insight into the debates on who wrote Job, the fathers were much smarter than some people give them credit for. This summer, I want to pick a father and just try to read everything he wrote (perhaps St. Gregory as I've read his letters to St. Anselm in the Ven. Bede's English history already).

He had some other great quotes I found as well:

"Holy Scripture is a stream in which the elephant may swim and the lamb may wade."

"Learn the heart of God from the Word of God"

"The Bible is a letter from Almighty God to His creatures."

Which Protestants would jump on to say AHA! he was a proto-protestant...untill you read his other work on purgatory / soteriology.

A very great man though to be sure. Jaroslav Pelikan seemed to paint him as a mindless plagiarist/copyist of St. Augustine, but I'm seeing he goes deeper than that.

1 comment:

  1. Protestants who know their history would never say a church father was a Protestant (or a Tridentine Roman Catholic for that matter).

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