The Monk And Politician

Gregory the Great is a household name in Western Europe and known as one of the most famous figures in the early medieval Europe. He inherited the papal position at the time when the whole Church of Rome and the Italian society were faced with serious crises. During his14years tenure of office, Gregory the Great realized extraordinary achievements and therefore was honored as the "Gregory the Great" later.The Western Europe was witnessing a great social transition in the6th century:Although the Western Roman Empire had vanished long ago, the left marks of its domination could still be seen everywhere, the notion of " Empire" was still marked deeply into people’s hearts and the monastery team rapidly developed into an important part of the Christian Church. Possessing two kinds of identities, a descendant of the Roman traditional noble family and a pious monk, Gregory the Great fell into drastic inner conflict. To Gregory the Great I, this was a life-long conflict and how to deal with the conflict also became his life-long pain. The author attempts to explain the reasons for the formation of this conflict by combing the life of the Gregory the Great and the background of the times he lived in.This article is divided into three parts: The first part is the exordium, it analyses the significance of the topic of this article at first, then it introduces something about the chosen original documents, in the end it summarizes the research status on the basis of combing them one by one.The second part is the main body of this article which can be divided into four chapters. The first three chapters use time as links to comb the Gregory the Great’s life. In this way, they respectively summarize the background of the Gregory the Great’s times, his important activities before and during his tenure of office. Chapter IV discussion focuses on the dual identities of the Gregory the Great, it analyses the reason why the Gregory the Great could not combine the secular life and the meditate life these two paradoxical lifestyles perfectly.The third part is the conclusion, it is a summary of the main body. It points out that the Gregory the Great’s inner contradiction is a reflection of how times can influence one person. The author thinks that this effect is not limited to the Gregory the Great, but just being manifested due to his prominent position.