Abstract
Dispute about the authenticity of the Dialogues attributed to St Gregory the Great is not new. As long ago as 1551, when the New Learning had given birth to the critical study of texts, the Protestant humanist scholar Huldreich Coccius first challenged the traditional ascription of that work to Gregory, on the grounds that it differed from all the other works of the great pope and doctor, ‘in character, style of expression, seriousness and purpose’. There followed more than two centuries of controversy on this subject, coloured by confessional antagonism, with strong opinions expressed on both sides. The Benedictine scholars, Van Haeften, Mabillon, Ceillier and others, were particularly affronted by the challenge to the patristic authority of the Dialogues, which seemed also to be a challenge to their monastic loyalties. All that is known of the person and life of St Benedict, patriarch of Western monasticism, comes from the vivid biography presented in that book, and the book is generally acknowledged to have been a principal factor in the triumph of the Regula Benedicti as the general rule of monastic observance in medieval Europe.
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