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The Book of Pastoral Rule

St. Gregory the Great · c. 590 AD

4h 16m read
Post-Nicene

Gregory's influential treatise on the duties and qualities required of bishops and pastors, a classic of Christian leadership literature.

Table of Contents

1Prologue2That the unskilful venture not to approach an office of authority3That none should enter on a place of government who practise not in life what they have learnt by study4Of the weight of government; and that all manner of adversity is to be despised, and prosperity feared5That for the most part the occupation of government dissipates the solidity of the mind6Of those who are able to profit others by virtuous example in supreme rule, but fly from it in pursuit of their own ease7That those who fly from the burden of rule through humility are then truly humble when they resist not the divine decrees8That sometimes some laudably desire the office of preaching, while others, as laudably, are drawn to it by compulsion9Of those who covet pre-eminence, and seize on the language of the Apostle to serve the purpose of their own cupidity10That the mind of those who wish for pre-eminence for the most part flatters itself with a feigned promise of good works11What manner of man ought to come to rule12What manner of man ought not to come to rule13How one who has in due order arrived at a place of rule ought to demean himself in it14That the ruler should be pure in thought15That the ruler should be always chief in action16That the ruler should be discreet in keeping silence, profitable in speech17That the ruler should be a near neighbour to every one in compassion, and exalted above all in contemplation18That the ruler should be, through humility, a companion of good livers, but, through the zeal of righteousness, rigid against the vices of evildoers19That the ruler relax not his care for the things that are within in his occupation among the things that are without, nor neglect to provide for the things that are without in his solicitude for the things that are within20That the ruler should not set his heart on pleasing men, and yet should give heed to what ought to please them21That the ruler ought to be careful to understand how commonly vices pass themselves off as virtues22What the ruler's discrimination should be between correction and connivance, between fervour and gentleness23How intent the ruler ought to be on meditations in the Sacred Law24Prologue25What diversity there ought to be in the art of preaching26How the poor and the rich should be admonished27How the joyful and the sad are to be admonished28How subjects and prelates are to be admonished29How servants and masters are to be admonished30How the wise and the dull are to be admonished31How the impudent and bashful are to be admonished32How the forward and the faint-hearted are to be admonished33How the impatient and the patient are to be admonished34How the kindly-disposed and the envious are to be admonished35How the simple and the crafty are to be admonished36How the whole and the sick are to be admonished37How those who fear scourges and those who contemn them are to be admonished38How the silent and the talkative are to be admonished39How the slothful and the hasty are to be admonished40How the meek and the passionate are to be admonished41How the humble and the haughty are to be admonished42How the obstinate and the fickle are to be admonished43How those who use food intemperately and those who use it sparingly are to be admonished44How to be admonished are those who give away what is their own, and those who seize what belongs to others45How those are to be admonished who desire not the things of others, but keep their own; and those who give of their own, yet seize on those of others46How those that are at variance and those that are at peace are to be admonished47How sowers of strifes and peacemakers are to be admonished48How the rude in sacred learning, and those who are learned but not humble, are to be admonished49How those are to be admonished who decline the office of preaching out of too great humility, and those who seize on it with precipitate haste50How those are to be admonished with whom everything succeeds according to their wish, and those with whom nothing does51How the married and the single are to be admonished52How those are to be admonished who have had experience of the sins of the flesh, and those who have not53How they are to be admonished who lament sins of deed, and those who lament only sins of thought54How those are to be admonished who abstain not from the sins which they bewail, and those who, abstaining from them, bewail them not55How those are to be admonished who praise the unlawful things of which they are conscious, and those who while condemning them, in no wise guard against them56How those are to be admonished who sin from sudden impulse and those who sin deliberately57How those are to be admonished who commit very small but frequent faults, and those who, while avoiding such as are very small, are sometimes plunged in such as are grievous58How those are to be admonished who do not even begin good things, and those who do not finish them when begun59How those are to be admonished who do bad things secretly and good things openly, and those who do contrariwise60Concerning the exhortation to be addressed many at once, that It may so aid the virtues of each among them that vices contrary to such virtues may not grow up through it61Of the exhortation to be applied to one person, who labours under contrary passions62That sometimes lighter vices are to be left alone, that more grievous ones may be removed63That deep things ought not to be preached at all to weak souls64Of the work and the voice of preaching65How the Preacher, When He Has Accomplished All Aright, Should Return to Himself, Lest Either His Life or His Preaching Lift Him Up