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Gregory the Great was pope from 590 to 604, a time of great turmoil in Italy and in the western Roman Empire generally because of the barbarian invasions. Gregory’s experience as prefect of the city of Rome and as apocrisarius of Pope Pelagius fitted him admirably for the new challenges of the papacy. The Moral Reflections on the Book of Job were first given to the monks who accompanied Gregory to the embassy in Constantinople.
This third volume, containing books 11 through 16, provides commentary on twelve chapters of Job, from 12:6 through 24:20. Whereas volume 1 concentrated largely on the moral reading of the first four chapters of Job and volume 2 on the mystical interpretation of the next seven, volume 3 offers a rapid overview of nearly thirteen chapters in their original oral format, including a brief comment at the beginning of each of the six books to explain its contents.
Br. Brian Kerns has been a Trappist for fifty-eight years: seventeen years at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky, and the rest at the Abbey of the Genesee in upper New York state, interrupted by a year at Oxford, North Carolina, and five years at Genesee’s foundation of Novo Mundo in Parana, Brazil. He hails originally from Pottsville, in the anthracite coal region in Pennsylvania. For many years he worked in the library at Genesee and Novo Mundo and he has interested himself in various translation projects, including translating a book about the Abbot General of the Trappists in the early 1960’s titled, Dom Gabriel Sortais: An Amazing Abbot in Turbulent Times.
