Back to the Library
The Church Fathers · 590
The Book of Pastoral Rule
Regula Pastoralis
Gregory the Great · c. 540–604
Read elsewhere
What it is
Who should take pastoral charge, how he should live, and — in the long third part — how the same truth must be spoken differently to the poor and the rich, the joyful and the grieving, the reticent and the talkative.
Why it lasted
The medieval West's standard manual for bishops, pressed on the English clergy by Alfred the Great and required reading at ordination for centuries.
Scripture it works from
Where to read it
Public domain and free to read in full, though not held here. The archives below have it.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
Read next