ABSTRACT
Pope Gregory was one of the great Western mystics, a fervent believer in contemplation as the best and purest way of reaching the eternal truth. Gregory loved the crumbling, depopulated, fever-ridden city, where all about him were the reminders of both the Christian and the imperial past. Rome was the city of the Caesars and of the Apostles, whose world-views intertwined to form the Sancta Respublica, the Holy Empire whose twin characteristics were its Romanitas and its Christianitas. He defined the two lives as the vita activa and the vita contemplativa describing them in detail: The Regula Pastoralis was in large part devoted to describing how to reconcile the two types of life. Gregory stood by the Constantinian settlement and conceded that the duty of the secular ruler was to protect the church and preserve the unity of the faith. Despite Gregory's clear articulation of his world-view; he was, like all great men, pulled in contrary directions.
