Augustine is spoken of by some historians as a devout Christian, and his missionary enterprise as one of the greatest in the annals of the church. But, without wishing to detract in the least degree from the greatness of the man or his mission, we must not forget that scripture is the only true standard of character and works. There we learn that the fruit of the Spirit is "love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." And certainly the great churchman did not manifest towards his brethren, the British Christians, the grace of love, peace, or conciliation; on the contrary, he was proud, imperious, haughty, and vain-glorious.
These serious defects in his character were not unknown to Gregory, as he says, in a letter addressed to himself: "I know that God has performed, through you, great miracles among that people; but let us remember that when the disciples said with joy to their divine Master, "Lord, even the devils are subject to us through Thy name,' He answered them, 'Rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven." While God thus employs your agency without, remember, my dear brother, to judge yourself secretly within, and to know well what you are. If you have offended God in word or deed, preserve those offenses in your thoughts to repress the vainglory of your heart, and consider that the gift of miracles is not granted to you for yourself, but for those whose salvation you are laboring to procure." In another letter he cautioned him against "vanity and personal pomp;" and reminded him "that the pallium of his dignity was only to be worn in the service of the church, and not to be brought into competition with royal purple on state occasions."
He was most unsuited for a mission which required patience, and a tender consideration of others. The British church had existed for centuries, her bishops had taken part in great ecclesiastical councils and signed their decrees. The names of London, York, and Lincoln are found in the records of the Council of Arles (A.D. 314), so that we cannot but respect in the Britons their desire to adhere to the liturgy transmitted from their ancestors, and to resist the foreign assumption of the spiritual supremacy of Rome. Augustine utterly failed to profit by the lessons of humility which he received from his great master, and has less claim upon our esteem and admiration.
The great prelate, like his great missionary, did not long survive the spiritual conquest of England. Worn out at length by his great labors and infirmities, he died in the year 604, assuring his friends that the expectation of death was his only consolation, and requesting them to pray for his deliverance from bodily sufferings.
The conduct of Gregory, during the thirteen years and six months that he was bishop of Rome, displays a zeal and a sincerity which have scarcely been equaled in the history of the Roman church. He was laborious and self-denying in what he believed to be the service of God, and in his duty to the church and to all mankind. The collection of his letters, nearly eight hundred and fifty in number, bears ample testimony to his ability and activity in all the affairs of men, and in every sphere of life. "From treating with patriarchs, kings, or emperors on the highest concerns of Church and State, he passes to direct the management of a farm, or the relief of some distressed petitioner in some distant dependence of his See. He appears as a pope, as a sovereign, as a bishop, as a landlord. He takes measures for the defense of his country, the conversion of the heathen, the repression and reconciliation of schismatics," etc.
But notwithstanding the varied excellencies of Gregory, he was deeply infected with the principles and spirit of the age in which he lived. The spirit of Jezebel was evidently at work, though yet in its youth. We look in vain for anything like christian simplicity in the church of God at this time. The piety of Gregory himself we cannot doubt; but, as an ecclesiastic, what was he? Poisoned to the heart's core by the gross delusion of the universal claims of the chair of St. Peter, he could brook no rival, as we see in his determined and bitter opposition to the pretensions of John, bishop of Constantinople; and, what was darker still, we see the same spirit in his triumphing over the murder of the Emperor Maurice and his family by the cruel and treacherous Phocas, merely because he suspected Maurice of what he called heresy. It appears that Maurice countenanced what Gregory thought the usurpation of John in assuming the title of universal bishop. But even to sanction such a claim was no small crime in the mind of a Roman pontiff. And so it was with Gregory. When the intelligence of the bloody tragedy reached him, he rejoiced; it appeared to him in the light of a providential dispensation for the deliverance of the church from her enemies. The very well-springs of charity seem to have been dried up in the hearts of all who ever sat on a papal throne, towards all ecclesiastical rivals. Justice, candor, humanity, and every right feeling of Christianity, must yield to the dominant claims of the false church. Even Gregory bowed before, and was fearfully corrupted by, "that woman Jezebel."