HistoricalChristian.Faith

Gregory the Great on the Old Testament Canon

Dates: c. 540–604 AD (Pope Gregory I — Roman aristocrat, monk, and from 590 bishop of Rome; the last of the traditional Latin Doctors of the Church and, with his Pastoral Rule and Morals on the Book of Job, one of the most-read authorities of the entire Middle Ages. His pontificate (590–604) reformed the liturgy, sent the mission that converted Anglo-Saxon England, and consolidated the practical authority of the Roman see) · Wikipedia
Verdict on the deuterocanon: YES, graded — cites Wisdom, Tobit, and Sirach as Scripture, yet of 1 Maccabees withholds the word "canonical." Gregory is the single sharpest "graded standing" datapoint on the whole timeline. In his letters and his Pastoral Rule he quotes the deuterocanon with the plain formulae of Scripture — the Wisdom of Solomon as what "the Truth says through His Scripture," Tobit and Sirach together under "what is written." But in the Morals on the Book of Job, about to adduce a story from 1 Maccabees, he stops to qualify it: the books he is quoting, though "not Canonical," are "brought out for the edifying of the Church." That is precisely the tiered posture this timeline traces across the Hebrew-conscious Fathers — the disputed books read, used, and cited, but not reckoned canonical on a par with the Hebrew table — only here it falls from the mouth of a reigning pope whose works set the standard for Latin Christendom. He neither rejects these books nor levels them fully into the canon; he holds them, as his predecessors had, in a middle rank.

Claims & evidence

Wisdom of Solomon cited as "His Scripture"

Writing to John, bishop of Constantinople, Gregory anchors a point about the tongue's power to destroy the soul in a sentence of the deuterocanonical Wisdom of Solomon (1:11), introduced with the fullest possible inspiration formula — the words are what God's own Truth speaks "through His Scripture":¹

For the Truth says through His Scripture, The mouth that lies slays the soul.

The line is Wisdom 1:11 (“the mouth that belieth slayeth the soul”). Gregory does not flag it as a lesser or merely “read” book; he ascribes it directly to the Lord (“the Truth”) speaking in “His Scripture,” on exactly the footing he would give a protocanonical text.

Tobit and Sirach ranged together under "what is written"

In the Book of Pastoral Rule — the manual on the cure of souls that became the standard handbook for the medieval Western episcopate — Gregory instructs the almsgiver whom to help and whom to withhold from, and stacks four scriptural proofs under one formula, “what is written.” Two of the four are the deuterocanonical Sirach and Tobit, set indistinguishably beside Luke and Matthew:²

Lest they should give something, however little, to those on whom they ought to bestow nothing at all, let them hear what is written, Give to the good man, and receive not a sinner: do well to him that is lowly, and give not to the ungodly. And again, Set out your bread and wine on the burial of the just, but eat and drink not thereof with sinners.

The first sentence is Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) 12:4–5; the second is Tobit 4:17 (Vulgate), which reads “bread and wine” where the Greek has only bread. The governing formula — “let them hear what is written” — is the standard introduction to Scripture, and Gregory applies it to a chain whose other links are Luke 6:30 and Matthew 6:25: the disputed books carry the same evidential weight as the Gospels in his argument.

The same in his letters: Sirach and Tobit chained under "it is written"

The Pastoral Rule is not the only place Gregory reaches for the disputed books under a Scripture-formula. Writing to Theodore, physician at Constantinople, to thank him for alms sent for the redemption of captives and the poor, Gregory gathers Sirach and Tobit into a chain of proofs headed “it is written,” braided in with Luke and Paul:³

For this same deed of yours has a voice of its own, which calls to the secret ears of God, as it is written, Hide thy alms in the bosom of the poor, and it shall entreat for thee… you carefully attend to and observe what the Truth says; Give alms, and behold, all things are clean unto you; and this which is written, Even as water quencheth fire, so alms quench sin… Tobias admonishes his son, saying, If thou hast much, give abundantly; but if thou hast little, of that little impart willingly.

The three deuterocanonical links in the chain are Sirach 29:15 (“Hide thy alms…”), Sirach 3:33 (“as water quencheth fire, so alms quench sin”), and Tobit 4:9 (“If thou hast much…”), set indistinguishably beside Luke 11:41 and 2 Corinthians 8:14 under “it is written” and “what the Truth says.” The correspondence corroborates the Pastoral Rule: Gregory's working Bible, in the give-and-take of argument, ran to the longer Greek text — the “using” half of the graded posture his Moralia caveat qualifies.

Of 1 Maccabees: "though not Canonical … for the edifying of the Church"

The counterweight, and the reason Gregory is the timeline's best graded datapoint, comes in the Morals on the Book of Job. About to illustrate a point with the death of the Maccabean hero Eleazar, he pauses to label the source — and what he says is that he may quote it precisely because, though it is “not Canonical,” it is read for the Church's edification:⁴

With reference to which particular we are not acting irregularly, if from the books, though not Canonical, yet brought out for the edifying of the Church, we bring forward testimony. Thus Eleazar in the battle smote and brought down an elephant, but fell under the very beast that he killed.

The Latin is de qua re non inordinate agimus, si ex libris licet non canonicis, tamen ad aedificationem ecclesiae editis, testimonium proferamus, and the story that follows is 1 Maccabees 6:42–47. This is the single most-cited sentence in the whole patristic debate over the deuterocanon: a reigning bishop of Rome, in the commentary that would become the West's standard reading of Job, expressly declining to call 1 Maccabees “canonical” even as he quotes it for edification. It supplies the Reformation its sharpest patristic proof-text — and supplies this timeline its clearest case that “graded” meant used but not canonical, not rejected.

Notes

• The two postures are one posture. The tension between Gregory citing Wisdom, Tobit, and Sirach as Scripture and calling 1 Maccabees “not Canonical” is the same list-versus-usage strain weighed across this timeline in Origen, Cyril, Epiphanius, Rufinus, and Jerome: the disputed books read, used, and quoted with Scripture-formulae, yet ranked below a canon measured by the Hebrew table. Gregory simply makes both halves explicit in one author — the using in the letters and the Pastoral Rule, the tiering in the Morals.
• Why it weighs so heavily. The remark is prized by the “rejecter” camp because of who makes it: not a Hebrew-learned outlier like Jerome but the bishop of Rome himself, c. 600, after the African councils, Rome (382), and Innocent I had already listed the longer canon. Catholic writers answer that the Moralia are Gregory's private exegesis (begun before his accession), that “canonical” still carried a narrow Hebrew-canon sense alongside a broad “read in church” sense, and that Gregory elsewhere cites Maccabees and the other disputed books as Scripture without the caveat — so the datapoint shows an unsettled, graded canon, not a settled rejection. Both readings are weighed on the “did the early church reject the deuterocanon?” argument (assessment: contested), where Gregory is among the strongest single witnesses on the “graded standing” side.
• A “Yes, graded” on the verdict tally. Because he both quotes the books as Scripture and files one below the canon, Gregory belongs with the using majority on practice while conceding the tier in principle — the honest middle the timeline keeps surfacing, and the posture the Eastern Synod of Jerusalem (1672) would later put into words: these books “not always … considered on the same level as the rest,” yet received and read.

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