Die 'Moralia in Job' Gregors des Großen

To the modern reader, Pope Gregory the Great's (590-604) comprehensive interpretation of Job often seems to be an arbitrary allegorization which is not backed up by the text and the historical situation at the end of the 6th century. Katharina Geschat shows however that Gregory interpreted the biblical text completely from the standpoint of the requirements of church office-holders in the post-Justinian period. In continuation of Augustinian theology and based on neo- Chalcedonian imperial theology, he sees the figure of Job as a symbol of Christ and his body, the church. Christ's two natures are for Gregory the key to the connection between the vita contemplativa and the vita activa, which the office-holders of the church are supposed to live in imitation of Christ.