[**]
[* Bede, lib. i. cap. 25. Brompton, p. 729.]
[** Bede, lib. ii. cap. 1. Spell. Concil. p. 91.]
The controversy between the pagans and the Christians was not entirely
cooled in that age; and no pontiff before Gregory had ever carried to
greater excess an intemperate zeal against the former religion. He had
waged war with all the precious monuments of the ancients, and even with
their writings, which, as appears from the strain of his own wit, as
well as from the style of his compositions, he had not taste or genius
sufficient to comprehend. Ambitious to distinguish his pontificate by
the conversion of the British Saxons, he pitched on Augustine, a Roman
monk, and sent him with forty associates to preach the gospel in this
island. These missionaries, terrified with the dangers which might
attend their proposing a new doctrine to so fierce a people, of whose
language they were ignorant, stopped some time in France, and sent back
Augustine to lay the hazards and difficulties before the pope, and crave
his permission to desist from the undertaking. But Gregory exorted them
to persevere in their purpose, advised them to choose some interpreters
from among the Franks, who still spoke the same language with the
Saxons,[*] and recommended them to the good offices of Queen Brunehaut,
who had at this time usurped the sovereign power in France.
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