Letter 4

From: Leander of Seville, bishop To: Pope Gregory the Great Date: ~592 AD Context: Leander writes to thank Gregory for the Moralia and to share news of the Church in Spain following the Visigothic conversion to Catholicism. To the most blessed Pope Gregory, my dear friend and father in Christ, from Leander, bishop of Seville, The Moralia has arrived and I have read — I should say I have begun to read — it with the wonder and gratitude you might imagine. This is a work of the first order: the kind of commentary on scripture that illuminates not just the text but the life the text is addressing. Job has always seemed to me one of the most important books in the canon for any Christian who has lived long enough to know suffering from the inside, and your reading of it is everything I hoped it would be. I will say one thing in honest criticism, which you asked for: the allegorical method, which you deploy with great skill, sometimes moves too quickly away from the literal and historical sense of the text. There are passages where the literal meaning is itself so powerful that the allegory feels like an intrusion rather than an illumination. This is a small complaint against a great work, and I raise it only because you are the one person who has ever asked me to be honest with you. On the church in Spain: the post-conversion situation is more complicated than the conversion itself. The Arian clergy who converted along with the kingdom need formation in Catholic doctrine and practice that they do not yet have. The laity who were formed in the old faith need patient pastoral care. We are doing what we can. Your affectionate brother and friend, Leander