The term "world," as used in the Christian religion, does not necessarily mean the planet Earth, or the nations of the world; rather, "worldly" is the opposite of "godly." In a tradition that went back at least to Augustine (see entry), Christians considered things of the world—even things such as earning a living, which few people believed to be morally bad—as less important than things of the spirit.
Gregory would spend his entire career torn between the sacred and the secular, which comes from a Latin word meaning "world." As a monk, he favored a regimen of austerity, sleeping on hard beds, eating and sleeping little, and focusing his attention on God. However, as bishop of Rome, or pope, he had to be concerned with matters such as protecting and feeding the people under his charge.
The hardships Gregory forced on himself made him physically weak throughout his reign as pope, a fact that makes his accomplishments all the more great. Gregory is remembered as one of four "Doctors of the Church," or church fathers, along with Augustine, Ambrose (339-397), and Jerome (c. 347-c. 419). The other three were roughly contemporaries of each other, all living at a time when the Western Roman Empire was entering its final decline. Yet Gregory's era, some 250 years later, was an even more frightening time.
In the year he became pope, there was a famine and flood in Rome, as well as a plague in various parts of Europe. Gregory and other Christians took such events as evidence that the world was coming to an end, and for support they pointed to passages in the New Testament that seemed to say the end would be sooner rather than later. Thus he felt a sense of mission to bring as many people as possible into the Christian fold before Christ returned to judge the world, as predicted in the Bible.
World History
