THE BOOKS OF THE MORALS OF ST. GREGORY THE POPE, OR AN EXPOSITION ON THE BOOK OF BLESSED JOB. THE EPISTLE, Wherein he explains the time, occasion, division, plan, and the method of discourse and of interpretation pursued in his work. To the Most Devout aud Holy Brother^ my fellow Bishop Leander^, Gregory, the servant of God^s servants. 1. When I knew you long since at Constantinople, ray most blessed brother, at the time that I was kept there by the Leander,who ishonoured as a Saint and Doctor in Spain, was a native of Carthagena ; his father Severianus wa8 brother in Uw to Theodoric kin.j; of the Ostrogoths. He early devoted himself to a monastic life, and after a long continuance in it he was made Bishop of Seville, where he maintained the Faith against the Arianism which then prevailed, and received Hermini- gild, who reigned there under hisfather TJuvigild, into the Church. He wenton an embassy to the Emperor Tiberius as presently stated, afterwhich he returned to Spain, but was banished for a time by Liuvigild, who, however, on his deathbed appointed him tutor to his son Recared, whom he converted from ArianiMm, and with bis assistance esta- blished the Catholic Faith amongst the Wisigoths and Suevi. Hi' took part (and perhaps presided, see Baronius An. 689.H.ix. and xliv. Boll. Act. Sanct. Ap. xiii. p. 277.) in the third Council of Toledo, in which the Goths were united to the Catholic Chu-ch, A.D. 589. He died in 51)5. Ht- wrote a ru'e for Virgins to his sister Firrentina, which is extant in Ifjlstein's Codex Regu- larum, a Homily of his, on the con- version of the Goths, accompanies the acts of the Synod of Toledo, and the Mozarabic Missal is said by some to be founded on one arranged by him ; his other works are lost. See Cave, Hist. Lit. an. 585. also the Isidoriana of Are- valus in his edition of St. Isidore, Rome 17y7. There are three tpistles of St. Gregory to Leander. Lib. i. Ep. 4 i. Lib. V. Ep. 49. and Lib. ix. 1-21. ac- companying the Pallium. His brother Fulgcntius, Hp. of Carthagena and Eceja, Bollaud. Jan. xiv. p. 97L and his sister Florentina, A p. xiv. and Jun XX. who devoted herselfto a life of Vir- ginity, are locally honoured as Sainl.<». He was succeeded in the See of Se\ille (then called His/kilis,) by his younger brother St. Isidore. B