if such is the case, we wish that your fraternity restrain himself from contention of this sort and that, as we have stated, the place which they acquired with your knowledge for their gatherings be allowed them for their meetings just as was the custom. For those who disagree with the Christian religion one must join to the unity of the faith by means of clemency, kindness, warning, and persuasion, so that those whom the charm of preaching and the foreseen terror of future judgment could have induced to believe might not be repelled by threats and fears. It is fitting, then, that they freely convene to hear the word of God from you rather than be terrified by excessive harshness.6
Gregory evinced determination to redress the injustice done the Jews, and several months later he appointed two other bishops to join with Peter in assuring the Jews a house of worship and putting their complaint to rest. “We forbid that these said Hebrews be oppressed or afflicted in unreasonable fashion; but, just as they are permitted by Roman law to live, so may they maintain their observances as they have learnt them without any hindrance, as justice would dictate.”7 Later in 591, a report from southern France elicited similar instruction to the bishops of Aries and Marseilles:
Many of the Jews dwelling in those areas have been led to the baptismal font more through the use of force than by preaching. I grant that intention of this sort is worthy of praise, and I admit that it derives from love for our Lord. But unless sufficient support of Holy Scripture follows this same intention, I fear that either nothing worthwhile will proceed from it or, additionally, that those souls which we wish to be saved might eventually— may it never happen—be lost. For, when anyone approaches the baptismal font not as a result of the sweetness of preaching but under duress, he returns to his earlier superstition, and then dies in a worse state inasmuch as he seemed to be reborn. Therefore, your Fraternity may arouse such men through frequent preaching, so that on account of the pleasantness of their instructor they might wish even more to change their old life. For thus is our intention correctly actualized, and the soul of the convert is not then driven to its erstwhile vomit.8
Later in the decade, when a Jewish convert to Christianity brought a crucifix into the synagogue of Cagliari, seeking to prevent Jewish worship, Gregory cited the Roman statute permitting Jews to maintain their old synagogues despite their inability to erect new ones. Even if Christian missionaries should claim to act out of zeal for the faith, they should deal with the Jews in moderation, “so that the wish [to convert] may be elicited from them, and not that they be led against their will.”9 In 602., similarly minded Christian zealots in Naples received more outspoken condemnation: “Those who sincerely wish to usher strangers to the Christian religion toward the proper faith should apply themselves gently, not harshly, so that antagonism might not drive far away the disposition of those whom reason, clearly presented, could attract. For whoever do otherwise, and under such a pretext seek to remove them from the accustomed practice of their rite, are proven to tend to their own concerns more than God's.”10 In 598, with words that would have critical impact on ecclesiastical policy toward the Jews centuries hence, Gregory encapsulated the rationale for these various rulings in a letter to the bishop of Palermo, against whom the Jews had also lodged a complaint with the pope. “Just as the Jews should not [Sicut ludaeis non…] have license in their synagogues to arrogate anything beyond that permitted by law, so too in those things granted them they should experience no infringement of their rights.”11
Although Gregory's opposition to baptizing the Jews under duress acknowledges the rightfulness of their presence in his Christian society, one finds little evidence that he deemed that presence a necessity. On the contrary, Gregory's correspondence also alludes to an additional priority of his policy, no less important: undermining that presence through the conversion of the Jews to Christianity. In his letter quoted above, Gregory did not merely command his bishops to desist from anti-Jewish violence; he directly instructed them to preach to the Jews and thus win their souls for the church.12 He frequently prescribed that baptized Jews receive special protection and financial rewards, because “we should, with reasonable moderation, aid those whom our Redeemer deems worthy to convert from the Jewish perdition to himself.”13 Nor did the danger of insincere conversion, which informed Gregory's insistence that Jews not be baptized against their will, militate otherwise in this case; as he wrote to a Sicilian deacon in 594, at least the souls of subsequent generations would be protected: “We do not work pointlessly, if by easing the burdens of their financial obligation we lead them to Christ's grace, because, even if they themselves come with little faith, those who shall be born of them will already be baptized with more faith. So do we gain either them or their children. And however much we remove from their financial obligations for Christ's sake is not serious.”14 Gregory's apocalyptic expectations rendered the task of converting the Jews an urgent one, and he therefore proposed to dispense with the normally required period of the cate-chumenate for prospective proselytes, “because, owing to the impending destruction, the nature of the time demands that [the fulfillment of] their desires not be postponed at all.”15
If the exigencies of history motivated Gregory to bend ecclesiastical rules and expedite the conversion of Jews, how much the more so did he stand by the restrictive half of his Sicut ludaeis formula and endeavor to prevent encroachments of Jews and Judaism on Christianity. He objected to the sin (nefas) of the sale of sacred objects to a Jew, ordering the vessels restored,16 and he responded vehemently to reports of Judaizing among Christians; Romans who advocated refraining from work on the Jewish Sabbath Gregory labeled “preachers of Antichrist,” who, at the end of days, will observe both Saturday and Sunday as days of rest. Because the Antichrist “feigns his death and resurrection from the grave, he wishes Sunday to be kept holy; and, because he compels the people to Judaize—in order to restore the exterior observance of the law and subordinate the perfidy of the Jews to himself—he wishes Saturday to be observed.”17 At least ten of Gregory's letters prohibit Jewish ownership of Christian slaves, “so that the Christian religion, might not be defiled through its subjugation to the Jews—may it never happen.”18 Once again, the pope took care that his decrees comported with the protective provisions of Roman law, and he upheld the rights of Jews to sell slaves acquired expressly for resale and to retain Christian serfs (coloni) on their estates.19 Yet, as he explained to the kings and queen of the Franks, the ownership of Christian slaves by Jews subverted the very integrity of Christ and his church:
For what are all Christians if not the members of Christ? All of us know that you faithfully revere the head of these members; but your excellency should ponder how contradictory it is to honor the head and to permit the members to be oppressed by its enemies. We therefore request that your excellency's decree remove the evil of this abuse from her/his kingdom, so that you might better prove yourself to be a worthy devotee of Almighty God, insofar as you release his faithful from his foes.20
Relative to the standards of his day, Gregory may indeed have “pursued a manifestly pro-Jewish policy,”21 but tolerance did have its limits. Gregory held firm on the issue of slaves, and his commitment to proselytizing among the Jews strayed from the logic of Augustinian doctrine. His attempt to forge a balanced policy notwithstanding, Gregory harbored no love for the Jews.
ADVERSUS IUDAEOS
Gregory's exegetical works, and his Moralia on Job above all, also make frequent reference to the Jews and Judaism; just as his administrative policy toward the Jews claimed to maintain the precedents of imperial and ecclesiastical legislation, so too did his theological instruction offer a patchwork of traditional patristic anti-Jewish motifs. These pertained primarily to the Jews of first-century Judea, who, blinded by the clouds of ignorance, their hearts frozen in jealousy and infidelity, victimized Jesus and his followers and were consumed by the fire of their malice as a result.22 Gregory laid particular blame on the Jewish leadership, the priests, and the Pharisees, who pressed for Jesus' execution and persecuted even those three or five thousand Jews who converted to