Pastoral Rule

Gregory says in a letter to Leander of Seville that he wrote the book of the Pastoral Rule at the beginning of his episcopate, and its opening words address a fellow bishop who had reproached him for trying to escape the office. The Latin title is Liber regulae pastoralis; it is also known as the Pastoral Care.

The third part, by far the longest, takes pairs of opposite kinds of hearers one after another and says how each is to be admonished, on the principle that one and the same exhortation does not suit everyone. The book is Gregory’s own account of what a bishop is for, written by a man who had just become one against his will. It circulated in his lifetime: he sent it to Spain, and Bede lists it among his works.