Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Book in excellent unread/unused condition. Small gift message in front otherwise like new. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> Who would not read with consolation a book which if meditated on perseveringly is a medicine for the soul and which by inspiring contempt for the decrepit fluctu- ating and ever changing things of this world opens the eyes of the mind to the stability of the life eternall Your book is a school for all virtues.” 1 These are the words which Licinianus bishop of Cartagena wrote to St. Gregory after he had received and read the treatise which is here presented in English. Since its first translation into English in the ninth century we have continued to call this book Pastoral Care a title which is most prob- ably derived from its opening words: Pastoralis curae me pondera. But the author Gregory the Great in a letter to Leander of Seville 2 refers to it as Liber Regulae Pas- toralis the Book of Pastoral Rule and this title corre- sponds more precisely to its contents. On the death of Pope Pelagius II in the year 590 Gregory abbot of St. Andrew’s Monastery at Rome was acclaimed his successor by the clergy and people of the Eternal City. He sought to decline the office and dignity and in this he was utterly sincere. His own statements in the matter are too spontaneous and humble to leave any doubt about his deep-rooted disinclination for the honour. He wrote that he “undertook the burden of the dignity with a sick heart” that he was “so stricken with sorrow that he could hardly speak. (SP)