Gregory the Great: A Symposium

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. Review “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.” ―Pro Ecclesia About the Author John C. Cavadini is Chairman and Associate Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame and is editor of Miracles in Jewish and Christian Antiquity (Notre Dame Press, 2000).