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01-06-2011 | Original Paper

Gregory the Great’s Metaphor of the Physician of the Heart as a Model for Pastoral Identity

Author: Clare McGrath-Merkle

Published in: Journal of Religion and Health | Issue 2/2011

Abstract

The identity of the Roman Catholic priesthood remains in serious crisis. Scholars have called for a return to traditional sources to find possible solutions, including the Early Church Fathers and the Hebrew Bible. Following Oden, this article further explores Pope Gregory the Great’s The Book of Pastoral Rule and his ideals regarding pastoral identity. Of unique importance is his notion of the pastor as a “physician of the heart,” unrecognized previously as central to his project.

With this scriptural quotation, John Paul II (1992, p. 4) begins his Apostolic Exhortation, Pastores Dabo Vobis: On the Formation of Priests.

The phrase used in The Pastoral Rule is “ars artium est regimen animarum.”

Johnson saw some aspects of the priesthood of the Hebrew Bible as being applicable to today’s Protestant pastor, including the call to “come alongside, to console and comfort.” See p. 194.

Taken from Demacopoulos (2007b, 9–10).

The metaphor of the ‘physician of souls’ was not new. For example, Demacopoulos refers to the monk Ammonas referring to Elijah and John, who practiced solitude and virtue and who became “God’s provisioners…(to) cure men of their infirmities. For they were physicians of the soul, able to cure men’s infirmities.” (Ammonas, as cited in Demacopoulos 2007a, p. 8).

See McGuckin (2001), p. 97. “The tools of his ascesis were books, enquiring conversation, and reflection in simple solitude.” This otium or retirement was part of Greco-Roman political theory” (p. 65).

1 here cite the saints’ initials with either paragraph number in the case of Gregory Nazianzen’s work, In Defence of his Flight to Pontus or page number in the case of Gregory the Great’s, The Pastoral rule (trans. 2007).

See Elm, as referenced in Demacopoulos (2007a, p. 71). Elm identified the analogy of the philosopher/physician as logical for Gregory Nazianzen because they were aristocrats who derived their status from not just birth but training.

Nazianzen references I Peter, 3:4.

As mentioned, the theme of the wounded person wounding the world is found in John Paul’s treatment of pastoral care as well (John Paul II 1984, #4, p. 15.).

See Donald Capps’ discussion of the Christian era’s association of the spirit with the heart in A Time to laugh: The religion of humor (New York: Continuum, 2005), pp. 103–134.

“For the priestly office is indeed discharged on earth, but it ranks amongst heavenly ordinances; and very naturally so: for neither man, nor angel, nor archangel, nor any other created power, but the Paraclete Himself, instituted this vocation, and persuaded men while still abiding in the flesh to represent the ministry of angels.” John Chrysostom, On the priesthood. Available from http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/19223.htm; Internet; accessed 1 March 2008, Book 3, no. 64.

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Demacopoulos, G. E. (2007a). Five models of spiritual direction in the early church. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame.

Demacopoulos, G. E. (2007b). Introduction. In Gregory the Great, The book of pastoral rule. In Behr (Series Ed.) & G. E. Demacopoulos (Vol. Trans.), The popular patristic series. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2007. (Original work published c. 590).

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Title: Gregory the Great’s Metaphor of the Physician of the Heart as a Model for Pastoral Identity
Author: Clare McGrath-Merkle
Publication date: 01-06-2011
Publisher: Springer US
Published in: Journal of Religion and Health / Issue 2/2011
Print ISSN: 0022-4197
Electronic ISSN: 1573-6571
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-010-9412-1

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Gregory the Great’s Metaphor of the Physician of the Heart as a Model for Pastoral Identity

Abstract

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