Forty Gospel Homilies (review)

The translator has proceeded in a rather unorthodox fashion which necessitates some explanation. Since there is no modern critical edition of Gregory's Forty Gosepl Homilies, David Hurst has created an "interim critical edition" (p. 3). Five items form the basis of the "interim critical edition": (1) the Maurist text reprinted in Migne's Patrologia Latina 76, which the translator has judged insufficient, (2) Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 69, (3) Barcelona, Archivo Capitular de la Catedral 120, (4) Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. 12254, (5) quotations from Gregory's homilies found in the commentaries of Bede the Venerable. In other words, Hurst has translated the text of PL 76, supplemented and corrected in light of the three manuscripts and the subsequent quotations in Bede. In his very brief introduction of four pages he has offered no criteria for his selection of manuscripts. Since the "interim critical edition" exists nowhere but in the mind of the translator, the original text cannot be consulted. The normal method of procedure is rather simple, plain, and straightforward. First, one established the text. Second, one translates the established text. The present translation attempts both at the same time. Of course, in defense of Hurst one may legitimately assert that we now have the translation of a work that was previously unavailable to the English-speaking public.

Scholars generally agree that the gospel homilies were preached during the liturgical year 590-591 and published in the following year. Gregory dictated the first twenty homilies which were read to the congregation by some official. Since the congregation was less inclined to listen to a bureaucrat, Gregory delivered the second twenty homilies personally, as he himself discloses in Homily 21: "Hence I want to depart from my usual custom and carry out myself this explanation of the lessons of the holy Gospel during the sacred solemnity of the mass, not dictating but addressing you in person" (p. 157). The homilies appear to have been circulated originally in two codices with each containing twenty homilies. The two volumes were later combined into one during the ninth century by scribes of the Carolingian period. Since PL 76 presents the homilies out of their original order, Hurst used several medieval Gospel Books to reconstruct the original sequence according to the then current Roman liturgical calendar: British Museum, Cotton. Nero D. IV (The Lindisfarne Gospels), British Museum, Regius I. B. VII., and Würzburg, Mp. th. The process was also facilitated by Gregory's occasional reference to a saint or a feast day. Hurst's reconstruction appears to have been as successful as possible given the data available.

Gregory's exegetical method is rigorous and usually consistent. He stands in the Augustinian tradition which allows the allegorical interpretation of a passage as long as the literal sense is not violated. In Homily 13, which deals with the miracle of the blind man being restored to sight, Gregory explains his approach: "We must understand the miracles of our Lord and Saviour, dearly beloved, so as to believe that they have been truly done, and that their meaning still signifies something to us. His works show one thing by their power, and speak to us another by their mystery" (p. 95). Gregory, while insisting on the existence of a historical blind man, interprets the figure allegorically to represent the human race, which lost its sight through the fall of the first parents and received it again through the redeemer, Jesus Christ. Gregory also permits himself to be subjected to the discipline of the text. He does not conveniently manipulate the gospels. For example, when Luke 13:6-13 combines the parable of the fig tree and the miracle of the infirm woman, Gregory feels himself obligated to combine the two in his Homily 31, which explains the pericope. Both the tree and the woman are symbolic of human nature. The tree may be made to bear fruit through fertilization while the woman is bent over and cannot look upwards. Repentance allows the Christian...