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True doctrine dispels arrogance

From the Moral Reflections on Job by Saint Gregory the Great, pope (c.540-604)

True doctrine dispels arrogance

Listen, Job, to what I say and ponder all my words. The teaching of the arrogant has this characteristic: they do not know how to introduce their teaching humbly and they cannot convey correctly to others the things they understand correctly themselves. With their words they betray what they teach; they give the impression that they live on lofty heights from which they look down disdainfully on those whom they are teaching; they regard the latter as inferiors, to whom they do not deign to listen as they talk; indeed they scarcely deign to talk to them at all – they simply lay down the law.

To teachers of this kind the Lord through the prophet says rightly: But you will rule them with severity and with power. There is no doubt that such as are prone not to correct their subjects with quiet reasoning, but to compel them to change by rough and domineering methods, rule with severity and power.

On the contrary true doctrine all the more effectively shuns the voice of arrogance through reflection, in which it pursues the arrogant teacher himself with the arrows of its words. It ensures that the pride which it attacks in the hearts of those listening to the sacred words will not in fact be preached by arrogant conduct. For true doctrine tries both to teach by words and to demonstrate by living example – humility, which is the mother and mistress of virtues. Its goal is to express humility among the disciples of truth more by deeds than by words.

Accordingly, when addressing the Thessalonians, Paul is oblivious of his own eminent dignity as an apostle; he actually says: We became as little children in your midst. Similarly, the apostle Peter enjoins: Be always prepared to satisfy everybody who asks a reason for the hope which is in you, and by adding the words, with a good conscience, speak gently and respectfully, Peter draws attention to the manner in which sacred doctrine should be taught.

When he tells his disciples: These things command and teach with all power, Paul really recommends the credibility that goes hand in hand with good behavior rather than the domineering exercise of power. When one practices first and preaches afterwards, one is really teaching with power. Doctrine loses credibility, if conscience tethers the tongue. Paul, therefore, in the saying quoted above, does not refer to the power of lofty rhetoric but to the confidence elicited by good deeds. Of the Lord, too, it is said: He taught with authority unlike the Scribes and the Pharisees. He alone in a unique and sovereign way spoke from the power of his goodness because no evil weakness led him into sin. For he had from the power of his own divine nature what he gave to us through the sinlessness of his human nature.

Source: The Liturgy of the Hours – Office of Readings

Gregory the Great – Born the son of a wealthy patrician, Gordianus, he was educated at Rome. He was prefect of Rome when the Lombard invasion of Italy was threatening Rome in 571. Attracted to the religious life, he converted his home into St. Andrew’s Monastery and became a monk there under Valentius and founded six monasteries on his estates in Sicily. He was ordained a priest by Pope Pelagius II and served as papal nuncio to the Byzantine court 579-85 but then resumed his monastic life and became abbot of St. Andrew’s.

A plague struck Rome in 589 taking the life of Pope Pelagius and Gregory was elected Pope on September 3, 590. He established many reforms and disciplines among the clergy and ransomed captives from the invading Lombards and protected Jews from unjust coercion and fed victims of a famine. Remarkably, he confronted the Lombards at the gates of Rome, and through the eloquence of his discourse, he was able to persuaded them to spare Rome.

Gregory was responsible for ending injustices imposed by the Byzantine Emperor and for the conversion of England to Christianity and dispatched St. Augustine of Canterbury there with forty monks. He commissioned the structure of sacred music to sing the Psalms of the Divine Office, now called ‘The Gregorian Chant”. He referred to himself as the “Servant of the Servants of God”, a title used by Popes to this day. He wrote treatises, notably his Dialogue, a collection of visions, prophecies, miracles and lives of the Italian saints. He is the last of the traditional Latin Doctors of the Church, and justly called, “The Great.” He died in Rome in 604 and was canonized by acclamation immediately after his death.