better  than  from  himself.  But  first  let  us  recall  some  well-
known  facts  in  his  life,  related  partly  by  others,  including
Bede,i  and  partly  by  himself.^  S.  G-regory  twice  visited
Constantinople  as  diplomatic  envoy  of  Benedict  II.  and
Pelagius  II.,  his  predecessors  in  the  see  of  Eome  to  the
Imperial  Court,  and  on  the  second  occasion  he  spent  three
years  there.  During  those  three  years  he  commenced,  at
the  instigation  of  Leander,  Bishop  of  Seville,  then  also
there,  and  must  have  made  considerable  progress  in,  his
celebrated  work  on  morals,  otherwise  called  his  '  Exposition
of  the  Book  of  Job,'  besides  making  great  friends  with  the
Constantinopohtan  patriarch  Eutychius,  whose  views  he
corrected  on  a  point  to  which  we  shall  be  soon  brought  back
again.  In  the  ninth  year  of  his  pontificate  no  small  light
is  thrown  upon  a  further  subject  that  must  have  engrossed
his  thoughts  also  during  his  stay  there  from  the  correspond-
ence which  it  had  evidently  caused.
