Читать книгу Crises in the History of the Papacy. Lives and Legacy of the Most Influential Popes Who Shaped the Development & History of Church онлайн

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In other parts of Italy, he had grave ecclesiastical abuses to correct, and some strange bishops are immortalized in his letters. In 599, he had to issue a circular letter,96 forbidding bishops to have women in their houses, and ordering priests, deacons, and subdeacons to separate from their wives. Sicily, controlled by his agents, gave him little trouble, but his informers reported that in Sardinia and Corsica the clergy and monks were very corrupt, and the pagans, who were numerous, bribed the officials to overlook the practice of their cult. The metropolitan at Cagliari was an intemperate and avaricious man, and Gregory, after repeated warnings, summoned him to Rome; but there is a curious mixture of indulgence and sternness in the Pope's letters, and Januarius did not go to Rome or alter his wicked ways. As to the pagans, Gregory, at first, merely urged the Archbishop to raise the rents and taxes of those who would not abandon the gods.97 When this proved insufficient, he ordered physical persecution. If they were slaves, they were to be punished with "blows and tortures"; if they were free tenants, they were to be imprisoned. "In order," he says, in entirely mediæval language, "that they who disdain to hear the saving words of health may at least be brought to the desired sanity of mind by torture of the body."98