Sin and Self-knowledge According to Gregory the Great

Dealing with the eligibility of various classes of people to receive and celebrate the Eucharist, Pope Gregory the Great (590-604) suggested that they themselves were the only people able to judge whether they should. This paper traces the importance of self-knowledge in his thought, laying particular emphasis on the stages by which people come to commit particular sins. A suggestion will be offered as to the source of his theory, and comments made on how it operated in his own life.