(NOTE: The electronic text obtained from The Electronic Bible Society was
not completely corrected. EWTN has corrected all discovered errors.)
Transliteration of Greek words: All phonetical except: w = omega; h serves
three puposes: 1. = Eta; 2. = rough breathing, when appearing initially
before a vowel; 3. = in the aspirated letters theta = th, phi = ph, chi =
ch. Accents are given immediately after their corresponding vowels: acute =
' , grave = `, circumflex = ^. The character ' doubles as an apostrophe,
when necessary.
ST. GREGORY THE GREAT
REGISTER OF THE EPISTLES OF SAINT GREGORY THE GREAT, BOOKS III-V.
[Translated by the Rev. James Barmby, D.D., Vicar of Northallerton,
Yorkshire.]
BOOK III
EPISTLE I: TO PETER, SUBDEACON.
Gregory to Peter, Subdeacon of Campania.
What a crime has been committed in the Lucullan fort against our
brother and fellow-bishop Paul(1) the account which has been sent to us has
made manifest. And, inasmuch as the magnificent Scholasticus, judge of
Campania, happens at the present time to be with us here, we have
especially enjoined on him the duty of visiting the madness of so great
perversity with strict correction. But, since the bearer of the aforesaid
account has requested us to send some one to represent ourselves, we
therefore send the subdeacon Epiphanius, who, together with the aforesaid
judge, may be able to investigate and ascertain by whom the sedition was
raised or investigated, and to visit it with suitable punishment. Let thy
Experience then make haste to give aid in this case with all thy power, to
the end both that the truth may be ascertained, and that vengeance may
proceed against the guilty parties. Wherefore, since the slaves of the
glorious Clementina are said to have had to do with this same crime, and to
have used language calculated to stir up the sedition, do thou subject them
strictly to immediate punishment, nor let your severity be relaxed in
consideration of her person, since they ought to be smitten all the more as
they have transgressed out of mere pride as being the servants of a noble
lady. But you ought also to make thorough enquiry whether the said lady was
privy to so atrocious a crime, and whether it was perpetrated with her
knowledge, that from our visitation of it all may learn how dangerous it is
not only to lay hands on a priest, but even to transgress in words against
one. For, if anything should be done remissly or omitted in this case, know
that thou especially wilt have to bear the blame and the risk; nor wilt
thou find any plea for excuse with us. For in proportion as this business
will commend thee to us if it be most strictly investigated and corrected,
know that our indignation will become sharp against thee, if it be smoothed
over.
Moreover, for the rest, if any slaves from the city should have taken
refuge in the monastery of Saint Severinus, or in any other church of this
same fort, as soon as this has come to thy knowledge, by no means allow
them to remain there, but let them be brought to the church within the
city; and, if they should have just cause of complaint against their
masters, they must needs leave the church with suitable arrangements made
for them. But, if they should have committed any venial fault, let them be
restored without delay to their masters, the latter having taken oath to
pardon them.
EPISTLE II: TO PAULUS, BISHOP(2).
Gregory to Paulus, &c.
Although it has distressed us in no slight degree to hear of the injury
that thou hast suffered, yet we have matter of consolation in learning that
the affair is to thy credit, in that, so far as the account sent to us has
disclosed the facts, thou hast suffered in the cause of uprightness and
equity. Wherefore, that it may redound to the greater glory of thy
Fraternity, this occurrence ought neither to shake thy constancy nor turn
thee aside from the way of truth. For it is to the greater reward of
priests if they continue in the path of truth even after injuries. But,
lest the madness of such great impiety should remain unpunished, and
pernicious insubordination break out to a worse degree, we have enjoined
the magnificent Scholasticus, judge of Campania, who is at present here,
that he should avenge what has been done with the repression it deserves.
But, inasmuch as thy men have requested us to commission some One to
represent ourselves, know that we have for this reason sent to Naples the
subdeacon Epiphanius, who may be able, with the judge above named, to
investigate and ascertain the truth, to the end that by his instancy he may
cause worthy vengeance to be executed on those who may be shewn to have
instigated or perpetrated so great a crime.
EPISTLE III: TO JOHN, ABBOT(3)
Gregory to John, &c.
Thy Love has requested me that brother Boniface might be ordained Prior
(proepositus)(4) in thy monastery; as to which request I wonder much why it
has not been done before. For since the time when I caused him to be given
to thee thou oughtest already to have ordained him.
With regard to the tunic of Saint I have been altogether gratified by
thy anxiety to tell me of it. But let thy Love endeavour to send me this
tunic, or (better still) this same bishop who has it, with his clergy and
with the tunic itself, to the end that we may enjoy the blessing thereof,
and be able to derive benefit from this bishop and his clergy. I have been
desirous of putting an end to the cause that is pending with Florianus, and
have already advanced to him as much as eighty solidi, which I believe he
proposes should be given him in compensation for the monastery's debt; and
I am altogether desirous that this cause should be settled, inasmuch as
Stephen the chartularius is said to be urgent that the aforesaid Florianus
should transfer it to public cognizance, and it is distasteful to us to be
engaged in a public lawsuit. Wherefore we must needs make some concession,
so as to be able to bring this same cause to a composition. When this shall
have been done, we will inform your Love of it.
But do thou give thy whole attention to the souls of the brethren. Let
it be now enough that the reputation of the monastery has been stained
through your negligence. Do not often go abroad. Appoint an agent for these
causes, and do thou leave thyself time for reading and prayer.
Be attentive to hospitality; as far as thou art able, give to the poor;
yet so as to keep what ought to be restored to Florianus.
Moreover, among the brethren of thy monastery whom I see I do not find
addiction to reading. Wherefore you must needs consider how great a sin it
is, that God should have sent you alimony from the offerings of others, and
you should neglect learning the commandments of God.
Further, with regard to the six twelfths, unless we see the original
deed, or a copy of it, we can do nothing. But I have sent an order to the
servant of God, Florentinus, that, if the truth should be made apparent to
him, he restore to you the six twelfths; after the restoration of which we
will either grant the remaining six twelfths on lease or commute the
revenue.
EPISTLE V: TO PETER, SUBDEACON.
Gregory to Peter, Subdeacon of Campania.
As we have no wish to disturb the privileges of laymen in their
judgments, so, when they judge wrongfully, we desire thee to resist them
with moderate authority. For to restrain violent laymen is not to act
against the laws, but to support law. Since then Deusdedit, the son-in-law
of Felix of Orticellum, is said to have done violent wrong to the bearer of
these presents, and still unlawfully to detain her property, in such sort
that the dejection of her widowhood is found not to move his compassion,
but to confirm his malice, we charge thy Experience that against the
aforesaid man, as well as in other cases wherein the aforesaid woman
asserts that she suffers prejudice, thou afford her the succour of thy
protection, and not allow her to be oppressed by any one whatever, lest
either thou be found to neglect what without prejudice to equity is
commanded thee, or widows and other poor persons, finding no help where
they are, be put to expense by the length of the journey hither.
EPISTLE VI: TO JOHN, BISHOP.
Gregory to John, bishop of Prima Justiniana(6).
After the long afflictions which Adrian, bishop of the city of Thebae,
has endured from his fellow-priests, as though they bad been his enemies,
he has fled for refuge to the Roman city. And though his first
representation had been against John, bishop of Larissa, to wit that in
pecuniary causes he had given judgment without regard to the laws, yet
after this he complained most grievously rather against the person of thy
Fraternity, accusing thee of having deposed him unjustly from the degree of
priesthood. But we, giving no credence to petitions that have not been
enquired into, perused the acts of the proceedings, whether before our
brother and fellow-bishop John, or before thy Fraternity. And indeed
concerning the judgment of the above-named John, bishop of Larissa, which
was suspended on appeal, both the most pious emperors, in their orders sent
to the bishop of Corinth, have sufficiently decreed, and we have decreed
also, Christ helping us, in our letters directed through the bearers of
these presents to the aforesaid John of Larissa. But having ventilated the
conflicting judgments, the examination of which the imperial commands had
committed to thee, and inspected the series of proceedings held before the
bishop John concerning the incriminated persons, we find that thou hast
investigated almost nothing pertaining to the questions named and assigned
to thee for decision, but by certain machinations hast produced witnesses
against the deacon Demetrius, who were to allege with a view to the
condemnation of this same bishop, that they had heard this Demetrius
bearing testimony concerning the said bishop;--a thing not even lawful to
be heard of. And when Demetrius in person denied having done so, it appears
that, contrary to the custom of the priesthood and canonical discipline,
thou gavest him into the hands of the praetor of the province as a deacon
deposed from his dignity(7). And when, mangled by many stripes, he might
perchance have said some things falsely against his bishop under the
pressure of torment, we find that to the very end of the business he
confessed absolutely nothing of the things about which he was interrogated.
Neither do we find anything else in the proceedings themselves, whether in
the depositions of witnesses or in the declaration of Adrian, to his
disadvantage. But it is only that thy Fraternity, I know not with what
motive, in contempt of law, human and divine, has pronounced an abrupt
sentence against him; which, even though it had not been suspended on
appeal, being pronounced in contravention of the laws and canons, could not
rightly in itself have stood. Further, after, as is abundantly evident, the
appeal had been handed to thee, we wonder why thou hast not sent thy people
to us to render an account of thy judgment according to the undertaking
delivered to our deacon Honoratus by the representatives of thy church.
This omission convicts thee either of contumacy or of trepidation of
conscience. If, then, these things which have been brought before us have
the rampart of truth, inasmuch as we consider that, taking advantage of
your vicariate jurisdiction under us, you are presuming unjustly, we will,
with the help of Christ, decree further concerning these things, according
to the result of our deliberations.
But as regards the present, by the authority of the blessed Peter,
Prince of the apostles, we decree that, the decrees of thy judgment being
first annulled and made of none effect, thou be deprived of holy communion
for the space of thirty days, so as to implore pardon of our God for so
great transgression with the utmost penitence and tears. But, if we should
come to know that thou hast been remiss in carrying out this our sentence,
know thou that not the injustice only, but also the contumacy, of thy
Fraternity will have to be more severely punished. But, as to our aforesaid
brother and fellow-bishop Adrian, condemned by thy sentence, which, as we
have said, was consistent with neither canons nor laws, we order that he be
restored, Christ being with him, to his place and rank; so that neither may
he be injured by the sentence of thy Fraternity pronounced in deviation
from the path of justice, nor may thy Charity remain uncorrected; that so
we may appease the indignation of the future judge.
EPISTLE VII: TO JOHN, BISHOP.
Gregory to John, bishop of Larissa.
Our brother Adrian, bishop of the city of Thebae, has come to Rome,
bitterly complaining of having been condemned, neither lawfully nor
canonically, on certain charges by thy Fraternity, and also by John, bishop
of Prima Justiniana. And, when for a long time we saw no representative of
the opposite party arrive here who might have replied to his objections, we
delivered for perusal(8), with a view to the necessary ascertainment of the
truth, the proceedings which had taken place before you. From these we
ascertained that John and Cosmas, deacons who had been deposed from their
office, one for frailty of the body and the other for fraudulent dealing
with ecclesiastical property, had sent a representation to our most pious
emperors against him, with respect to pecuniary matters and also criminal
charges.
They, in their commands sent to thee, desired thee (that is with strict
observance of law and canons) to take cognizance of the matter so as to
pass a sentence firm in law as to the pecuniary questions, but, as to the
criminal charges, to report to their Clemency after a searching
examination. Now if thy Fraternity had received in a right frame of mind
these such right commands, you would never have accepted for a general
accusation of their bishop men removed from their own office for their
transgressions, and already hostilely disposed; especially as by their
representation addressed to our most pious lords their untruthfulness is
detected, in that they declared that they made it with the consent of all
the clergy.
Yet after this, to touch briefly and summarily on some of the
proceedings before thee, the first head of accusation was concerning the
Theban deacon Stephen, whom the bishop Adrian had failed to deprive of the
dignity of his order, though supposed to have been aware of his most
shameful life As to this head, no witnesses were produced to show that
bishop Adrian had any know ledge of the matter, except that Stephen alone,
a man of shameful life and on his own confession to be condemned, is
alleged to have said so. The second charge made against him appears to have
been concerning infants having been debarred by his order from receiving
holy baptism, and so having died with the filth of sin unwashed away. But
none of the witnesses brought forward against him declared their knowledge
of anything of the kind having come under the notice of bishop Adrian, but
said that they had learnt it from the mothers of the infants, whose
husbands, it is said, had been removed from the church for their crimes.
But even so they did not declare that the hour of death had overtaken those
infants while unbaptized, as was contained in the invidious representation
of the accusers, it being evident that they had been baptized in the city
of Demetrias. So much then for the criminal charges.
But, as to the pecuniary matters, after what manner they were adjudged
by thee is attested by the enquiry of the men deputed by the prince in
pursuance of the most pious order of the most serene princes(9). For, when
the oft- named Adrian had appealed against thy sentence, then, so far as we
have ascertained from the depositions of four witnesses which were laid
before John, bishop of Prima Justiniana, he was thrust into most close
confinement, and forced by thy Fraternity to produce a document in which be
confessed the charges brought against him. And it is true that in the
document so produced by him he is found to have assented to thy sentence as
to pecuniary matters. But the criminal charges he touched on in an
indefinite and dubious sort of way, so that both thy purpose might be
frustrated by the raising of certain clouds, and he might afterwards the
better escape from his confession in the obscurity of a perplexed mode of
speech. And when the appeal handed in by his people, and the rest of the
proceedings under thy cognizance, had been reported to the most pious
princes, and Honoratus, deacon of our See, with the glorious antigraphus(1)
Sebastian having been deputed, as we have said, he was exempted by the most
serene lords from all further orders. But, by what sought out contrivances
I know not, another imperial order was again elicited, requiring John,
bishop of Prima Justiniana, to enquire closely and pass judgment concerning
all the aforesaid charges. In which trial all bishop Adrian's clergy, and
Demetrius the deacon, the latter in the midst of torments, declared that
all this calumny against bishop Adrian had been got up by the contrivance
of thy Fraternity. Nor were any of the criminal charges that had been made
in thy audience against the bishop Adrian proved. But there came up,
contrary to canons and laws, another cruel and crafty enquiry directed
against his deacon Demetrius and other persons, in the course of which
nothing was discovered for which the oft-mentioned Adrian could have been
lawfully condemned, but rather ground for his acquittal. But with respect
to John, prelate of the city of Prima Justiniana, and his most iniquitous
and abominable judgment, we shall take further measures. As to bishop
Adrian, we find both that he has laboured under thy enmity in a way ill-
befitting thy priestly character, and that he has been condemned in
pecuniary matters for no just cause by the sentence of thy Fraternity.
Since then, having been deposed also by the above-said John bishop of
Prima Justiniana in contravention of law and canons, he could not be left
deprived of his rank and honour, we have decreed that he be reinstated in
his church, and recalled to the order of his proper dignity. And, though
thou oughtest to have been deprived of the communion of the Lord's body,
for that, setting at naught the admonition of my predecessor of holy
memory, whereby he exempted him and his church from the jurisdiction of thy
authority, thou hast again presumed to retain some jurisdiction over them,
yet we, decreeing more humanely, and still allowing thee the sacrament of
communion, decree that thy Fraternity shall abstain from all exercise of
the jurisdiction formerly held by thee over him and his church; but that,
according to the written instructions of our predecessor, if any case
should possibly arise, whether touching the faith, or criminal, or
pecuniary, against the aforesaid Adrian our fellow-priest, it be either
taken cognizance of, if the question be a slight one, by those who are or
may be our representatives in the royal city, or, if it be an arduous one,
it be brought hither to the Apostolic See, to the end that it may be heard
and decided before ourselves. But, if thou shouldest attempt at any time,
on any pretext or by any surreptitious device, to contravene these our
ordinances, know that we decree thee to be deprived of holy communion, and
not to partake of it except at the close of thy life, unless upon leave
granted by the Roman pontiff. For this we lay down as a rule, agreeably to
the teaching of the holy fathers, that whosoever knows not how to obey the
holy canons, neither is he worthy to minister or receive the communion at
the holy altars. Moreover let thy Fraternity restore to him without any
delay the sacred property, or any other, movable or immovable, which thou
art said to retain so far; a specification whereof, that has been handed to
us, we append to this letter. Concerning which if any question arises
between you, we desire it to be considered by our representative in the
royal city.
EPlSTLE VIII: TO NATALIS, ARCHBISHOP.
Gregory to Natalis, archbishop of Salona(2).
Whilst every kind of business demands(3) anxious investigation of the
truth, what pertains to deposition from sacerdotal rank should be
considered with especial strictness, since here the matter in hand is not
concerning persons constituted in a humble position, but, as it were,
concerning reversal of divine benediction. This consideration has also
moved us to exhort your Fraternity with respect to the person of
Florentius, bishop of the city of Epidaurus. For indeed we have been told
that he had been accused on certain criminal charges, and that, without any
canonical proof being sought, and without previous sentence of any
sacerdotal council, he has been deposed from his office of dignity, not by
law, but by authority. Inasmuch, then, as no man can be removed from the
rank of episcopacy except for just causes by the concordant sentence of
priests, we exhort your Fraternity to cause the aforesaid man to be
recalled from the banishment into which he has been driven, and his case
enquired into in a consultation of bishops. And, should he be convicted by
canonical proof of the charges brought against him, without doubt he must
be visited with canonical punishment. But, should the facts be found by the
synodical inquisition to be otherwise than had been supposed, it is
necessary both that his accusers should dread the rigour of justice, and
that the incriminated person should have the approbation of his innocence
preserved inviolate. But we have committed by our order the execution of
the above-mentioned business to Antoninus, our subdeacon, to the end that
decisions may be come to in accordance with the laws and canons, and, with
the help of the Lord, be carried into effect.
EPISTLE IX: TO ANTONINUS, SUBDEACON(4).
Gregory to Antoninus, &c.
It has come to our ears that Florentius, bishop of the city of
Epidaurus, his property having first been seized, has been condemned, for
certain crimes not proved, without a sacerdotal council. And, inasmuch as
he ought not to suffer canonical punishment, no canonical sentence having
been pronounced for his condemnation, we enjoin thy Experience to urge upon
our brother and fellow-bishop Natalis that he should cause the aforesaid
man to he recalled from the banishment into which he is said to have been
driven. And a council of bishops having been assembled, if the charges
brought against him should be canonically proved, we will that the sentence
of our aforesaid brother and fellow-bishop Natalis shall take effect
against him. But, should he be absolved by a general judgment, thou must
not permit him to be subject to prejudice on the part of any one, and must
carefully and rigorously insist on his aforesaid property being restored to
him. It is therefore needful that the heavier thou feelest the burden of
such negotiations to be, with the maturer and more vigilant execution thou
take pains to fulfil them.
EPISTLE X: TO SAVINUS, SUBDEACON(5).
Gregory to Savinus, &c.
Bad men have gone forth and disturbed your minds, understanding neither
what they say nor whereof they affirm, pretending that in the times of
Justinian of pious memory something was detracted from the faith of the
holy synod of Chalcedon, which with all faith and all devotion we venerate.
And in like manner all the four synods of the holy universal Church we
receive as we do the four books of the holy Gospel. But concerning the per
sons with respect to whom something had been done after the close of the
synod, there was something ventilated in the times of Justinian of pious
memory: yet so that neither was the faith in any respect violated, nor
anything else done with regard to these same persons but what had been
determined at the same holy synod of Chalcedon. Moreover, we anathematize
any one who presumes to detract anything from the definition of the faith
which was promulgated in the said synod, or, as though by amending it, to
change its meaning: but, as it was there promulgate, so in all respects we
guard it. Thee, therefore, most dear son, it becomes to return to the unity
of Holy Church, that thou mayest end thy days in peace; lest the malignant
spirit, who cannot prevail against thee through thy other works, may from
this cause find a way at the day of thy departure of barring thy entrance
into the heavenly Kingdom.
EPISTLE XII: TO MAXIMIANUS, BISHOP.
Gregory to Maximianus, bishop of Syracuse
I wrote some time ago to your Fraternity desiring you to send to the Roman
city those who had alleged anything against Gregory, bishop of the city of
Agrigentum(6). And we exhort you by this present epistle that this should
be immediately done. Wherefore hasten to send with speed the persons
themselves, and the rest of the documents, that is the reports of
proceedings and the petitions that have been given in. Nor do we allow any
delay or excuse to be sought; to the end that, when they have been sent, as
we have said, with speed to the Roman city, we may know how, with the help
of God, we may most advantageously deal with him
EPISTLE XV: TO SCHOLASTICUS, JUDGE.
Gregory to Scholasticus, judge of Campania.
While we were greatly distressed in our care for the city of Naples,
bereaved of the solace of a priest(7), the arrival of the bearers of these
presents with the decree for the election of our subdeacon Florentius, had
afforded us some relief under so great a burden of thought. But, when it
appeared that our said subdeacon, flying from the very city. had deprecated
his ordination with tears, know ye that our sadness increased, as if from
some heavier dispensation. Wherefore, greeting you well, we exhort your
Greatness to assemble the chief men or the people of the city, so as to
take thought for the election of another, who may be worthy to be promoted
to the priesthood with the consolation of Christ. Then, the decree having
been solemnly passed, and transmitted to this city, let the ordination
proceed, with the help of Christ, among yourselves. But, should you not
find a suitable person on whom you can agree, at any rate choose ye three
upright and wise men, to be sent to this city as representing the
community, and to whose judgment the whole population may assent. Perhaps,
when they come hither, they will find such a one as may be ordained as your
bishop without reproach, to the end that your bereaved city may neither
within itself want an inspector of its deeds, nor, when the care of a
priest is supplied to it, afford entrance to hostile snares from without.
EPISTLE XXII: TO ANTONINUS, SUBDEACON.
Gregory to Antoninus, Subdeacon, Rector of the patrimony in Dalmatia.
It is commonly reported in these parts that our brother and fellow-
bishop, Natalis of the Church of Salona, is dead. If this is true, let thy
Experience with all speed and all care hasten to admonish the clergy and
people of that city that with one consent they elect a priest for
ordination; and, when the nomination of the person who may be elected has
been made, thou wilt take care to transmit it to us, that he may be
ordained with our consent, as has been the case from ancient times. And
this above all things thou must look to, that in this election neither any
bribery in any way whatever come in, nor the patronage of any persons
whatever prevail. For if one is elected through the patronage of certain
persons, he is obliged out of deference to them to comply with their wishes
after his ordination, and so it comes to pass that the possessions of that
church are lessened, and ecclesiastical order. is not maintained. They
must, therefore, under thy superintendence, elect such a person as will not
be unsuitably subservient to the will of any one, but one who in the
adornment of his life and conversation may be found worthy of such a high
degree. But of the possessions or ornaments of the same church cause an
inventory to be faithfully written out in thy presence. And, lest any of
the possessions themselves should be lost. admonish Respectus the deacon
and Stephanus the chief notary (primicerium notariarum) to take sole charge
of these possessions, warning them that they will have to make good out of
their own substance any diminution of them that may have arisen from their
negligence.
Moreover, strictly charge Malchus(8), our brother and fellow-bishop,
that he refrain entirely from intermeddling in this matter. For, should we
learn that anything has been done or attempted by him against our will, let
him know that he will incur no slight guilt and danger. But of this also
take care to warn him, that be mast be careful to set down and complete the
accounts of our patrimony which he has had in charge; for doing which let
him make baste, laying aside all excuses, to come to us from the Sicilian
parts. Let him, then, in no wise presume to meddle with the affairs of the
Church of Salona, lest he should be under further liability to it, and
possibly found culpable. For he is said to have many things belonging to
the aforesaid church; and report goes that he was well-nigh the prime mover
in the sale of its possessions, and in other unlawful doings. And, should
this be found in manifest truth to be as it is said to be, he may be
certain that it will by no means remain unavenged.
Let any necessary expenses be defrayed by the steward who was in office
at the time of the aforesaid bishop's death, that so he may explain his
accounts to the future bishop as he knows them to be. All the things that
we have enjoined on thee to be done it is certainly necessary that thou
shouldest do with the advice of our son, the magnificent and most eloquent
Marcellus(9), to the end that thou mayest be able to carry out carefully
and effectively all that is contained in this paper of directions, and that
no blame for negligence may belong to thee.
EPISTLE XXIX: TO THE PRESBYTERS AND CLERGY OF MEDIOLANUM (Milan)(1).
Gregory to the presbyters, deacons, and clergy of the church of
Mediolanum.
We have received your Love's epistle, which, though it bore no
subscription, was accredited by the persons of the bearers, the presbyter
Magnus and the cleric Hippolytus. Having read it, we find that you are all
agreed in favour of our son Constantius, deacon of your church, who has
been well known to me for long. And, when I represented the Apostolical See
in the royal city, he stuck close to me for a long time; but i never found
anything in him that could at all be found fault with. Nevertheless, since
it has been for long my deliberate determination to interfere in no man's
favour with a view to his undertaking the burden of pastoral care, I can
but follow up your election with my prayers that Almighty God, who is ever
prescient of our future doings, may supply you with a pastor such that in
his tongue and manners you may be able to find pastures of divine
exhortation; one in whose disposition humility may shine forth together
with rectitude, and severity with loving-kindness; one who may be able to
shew you the way of life not in his speaking only but also in his living;
that so from his example your love may learn to sigh with longing for the
eternal country. Wherefore, most dear sons, we, warned by our sense of the
censorship of our office, urge you in this matter of getting yourselves a
bishop that none of you look to your own gain without regard to the common
advantage, lest, if any one is eager after his own individual interest, he
should be deceived by a frivolous estimate: for the mind that is bound by
cupidity does not examine with a free judgment a person's claims to
preference. Considering, therefore, what things are profitable for all, pay
ye ever in all things most complete obedience to him whom Divine grace may
put over you. For, when once put over you, he must not be further judged by
you; though now he ought to be the more thoroughly judged as he may not be
judged hereafter. But, when with God's leave a pastor has been consecrated
for you, commit ye yourselves to him with all your heart, and in him serve
the Lord the Almighty, who has put him over you.
But, inasmuch as supernal judgment is wont to provide pastors for
peoples according to their deservings, do you seek spiritual things, love
heavenly things, despise things temporal and fugitive; and hold it for most
certain that you will have a pastor who shall please God, if you in your
own doings please God. Lo, all the things of this world, which we used to
hear from the sacred page were doomed to perish, we see already ruined.
Cities are overthrown, camps uprooted, churches destroyed; and no tiller of
the ground inhabits our land. Among ourselves who are left, very few in
number, the sword of man incessantly rages along with calamities wherewith
we are smitten from above. Thus we see before our eyes the evils which we
long ago beard should come upon the world, and the very regions of the
earth have become as pages of books to us. In the passing away, then, of
all things, we ought to take thought how that all that we have loved was
nothing. View, therefore, with anxious heart the approaching day of the
eternal judge, and by repenting anticipate its terrors. Wash away with
tears the status of all your transgressions. Allay by temporal lamentation
the wrath that hangs over you eternally. For our loving Creator, when He
shall come for judgment, will comfort us with all the greater favour as He
sees now that we are punishing ourselves for our own transgressions.
We are now sending to you, by the favour of God, John our subdeacon,
the bearer of these presents, to this end;-- that, with the help of
Almighty God, he may see to your bishop-elect being consecrated after the
manner of his predecessor. For, as we demand our rights from others, so we
conserve their several rights to all.
EPISTLE XXX: TO JOHN, SUBDEACON.
Gregory to John, &c
Inasmuch as it is manifest that the Apostolic See is, by the ordering
of God, set over all Churches, there is, among our manifold cares, especial
demand for our attention, when our decision is awaited with a view to the
consecration of a bishop. Now on the death of Laurentius, bishop of the
church of Mediolanum, the clergy reported to us that they had unanimously
agreed in the election of our son Constantius, their deacon. But, their
report not having been subscribed, it becomes necessary, that we may omit
nothing in the way of caution, for thee to proceed to Genua (Genoa),
supported by the authority of this order(2). And, inasmuch as there are
many Milanese at present there under stress of barbarian ferocity, thou
must call them together, and enquire into their wishes in common. And, if
no diversity of opinion separates them from the unanimity of the election--
that is to say, if thou ascertainest that the desire and consent of all
continues in favour of our aforesaid son, Constantius,--then thou art to
cause him to be consecrated by his own bishops, as ancient usage requires,
with the assent of our authority, and the help of the Lord; to the end that
through the observance of such custom both the Apostolic See may retain the
power belonging to it, and at the same time may not diminish the rights
which it has conceded to others.
EPISTLE XXXI: TO ROMANUS,
Gregory to Romanus, Patrician, and Exarch of Italy.
We believe that your Excellency is already aware of the death of
Laurentius, bishop of the church of Mediolanum. And since, so far as we
have learnt from the report of the clergy, all have agreed in the election
of our son Constantius, deacon of the same church, it was necessary for us,
for keeping up old usage, to send a soldier of our church, to cause him in
whose favour he finds the will and consent of all to concur unanimously to
l be consecrated by his own bishops, as ancient usage requires, though
still with our assent. Wherefore, greeting you with fatherly affection as
in duty bound, we request your Excellency to vouchsafe your support,
justice approving, to the aforesaid Constantius, whether elected or not,
whenever need may arise; to the end that this service may both exalt you
here before your enemies, and commend you beforehand in the future life
before God. For he is one of mine, and was once associated with me on very
intimate terms. And you ought to hold as yours, and to love peculiarly,
those whom you know to be ours.
EPISTLE XXXII: TO HONORATUS, ARCHDEACON.
Gregory to Honoratus, Archdeacon of Salona(3).
The mandates of ourselves and of our predecessor had reached thy Love
not long ago, in which thou wert acquitted of the charges calumniously
brought against thee; and we ordered thee to be reinstated without any
dispute in the order of thy rank. But, inasmuch as again after no great
lapse of time, thou camest to the city of Rome complaining of some improper
proceedings among you concerning the alienation of sacred vessels, and as,
while we had persons with us here who might have replied to thy objections,
Natalis, thy bishop, departed this life, we have judged it necessary to
confirm further by this present letter those same mandates, both our
predecessor's and our own, which (as has been said) we sent not long ago
for thy acquittal. Wherefore, acquitting thee fully of all the charges
brought against thee, we will that thou continue without any dispute in the
rank of thy order, so that the question raised by the aforesaid man may not
on any pretext prejudice thee in the least degree. Moreover, as to the
heads of thy complaint, we have straitly charged Antoninus, subdeacon and
rector in your parts of the patrimony of holy Church over which, by God's
providence, we preside, that, if he should find ecclesiastical persons
implicated in them, he decide these cases with the utmost strictness and
authority. But, in case of the business being with such persons as the
vigour of ecclesiastical jurisdiction cannot reach, he is to deposit the
proofs under each particular head among the public acts, and transmit them
to us without any delay, that, being accurately informed, we may know how,
with the help of Christ, to dispose of the matter.
EPISTLE XXXIII: TO DYNAMIUS, PATRICIAN.
Gregory to Dynamius, Patrician of Gaul.
He who administers faithfully what is other's shews how well he
dispenses what is his own. And this your Glory makes manifest to us in
that, intent on your annual offering, you have rendered the blessed Peter,
Prince of the apostles, the fruits of his revenues. In paying him what is
his faithfully, you have made these gifts to him your own. For indeed it
becomes the glorious people of this earth who think of eternal glory so to
act that in virtue of their excelling in temporal power, they may procure
for themselves a reward that is not temporal. Accordingly, addressing to
you the greeting which we owe, we implore Almighty God both to replenish
your life with present good, and to extend it to the lofty joys of
eternity. For we have received through our son Hilarus (al Hilarius) of the
aforesaid revenues of our Church four hundred Gallican solidi(4). We now
send you as the benediction of the blessed apostle Peter a small cross,
wherein are inserted benefits from his chains(5), which for a time bound
his neck: but may they loose yours from sins for ever. Moreover in its four
parts round about are contained benefits from the gridiron of the blessed
Laurence, whereon he was burnt, that it, whereon his body was consumed by
fire for the truth's sake, may inflame your soul to the love of the Lord.
EPISTLE XXXV: TO PETER, SUBDEACON.
Gregory to Peter, subdeacon of Campania(6).
Our brother and fellow-bishop Paul has often requested us to allow him
to return to his own church. And, having perceived this to be reasonable,
we have thought it needful to accede to his petition. Consequently let thy
Experience convene the clergy of the Neapolitan church, to the end that
they may choose two or three of their number, and not omit to send them
hither for the election of a bishop. But let them also intimate, in their
communication to us, that those whom they send represent them all in this
election, so that their church may have its own bishop validly ordained.
For we cannot allow it to be any longer without a ruler of its own. Should
they perchance try in any way to set aside thy admonition, bring to bear on
them the vigour of ecclesiastical discipline. For he will be giving proof
of his own perverseness, whosoever does not of his own accord assent to
this proceeding. Moreover, cause to be given to the aforesaid Paul, our
brother and fellow-bishop, one hundred solidi, and one little orphan boy,
to be selected by himself, for his labour in behalf of the same church.
Further, admonish those who are to come hither as representing all for the
election of a bishop, to remember that they must bring with them all the
episcopal vestments, and also as much money as they may foresee to be
necessary for him who may be elected bishop to have to his own use. But
lose no time in despatching those of the clergy who are selected as we have
said, that, seeing that there are present here divers nobles of the city of
Naples, we may treat with them concerning the election of a bishop, and
take counsel together with the help of the Lord.
EPISTLE XXXVI: TO SABINUS, GUARDIAN (Defensorem).
Gregory to Sabinus, Guardian of Sardinia.
Certain serious matters having come to our ears which require canonical
correction, we therefore charge thy Experience not to neglect to cause
Januarius, our brother and fellow-bishop, together with John the notary, to
appear before us with all speed, all excuses being laid aside, that in his
presence what has been reported to us may be subjected to a thorough
investigation. Further, if the religious women Pompeiana and Theodosia,
according to their request, should wish to come hither, afford them your
succour in all ways, that they may be able, through your assistance, to
accomplish their desires: but especially be careful by all means to bring
with you the most eloquent Isidore, as he has requested, that, the merits
of his case which he is known to have against the Church of Caralis having
been fully gone into, he may be able to have it legally terminated.
Furthermore, some personal misdemeanours having been reported to us of
the presbyter Epiphanius, it is necessary for you to investigate everything
diligently, and to make haste to bring at the same time with you the women
with whom he is said to have sinned, or others whom you suppose to know
anything about the matter; that so the truth may be clearly laid open to
the rigour of ecclesiastical discipline.
Now you will take care to accomplish all these things so efficiently as
to lay yourself open to no blame for negligence, knowing that it will be
entirely at your peril if this our order should in any way be slackly
executed.
EPISTLE XXXVIII: TO LIBERTINUS, PRAEFECT(7).
Gregory to Libertinus, Praefect of Sicily.
From the very beginning of your administration God has willed you to go
forth to vindicate His cause, and of His mercy has reserved for you this
reward, with praise attending it. For it is reported that one Nasas, a most
wicked Jew, has with a temerity that calls for punishment erected an altar
under the name of the blessed Elias, and by sacrilegious seduction has
enticed many Christians to worship there; nay, has also, it is said,
acquired Christian slaves, and devoted them to his own service and profit.
Whilst, then, he ought to have been most severely punished for such great
crimes, the glorious Justinus(8), soothed (as has been written to us) by
the charm of avarice, put off avenging the injury done to God. But let your
Glory institute a strict examination into all these things, and, if it
should be found manifest that such things have been done, make haste to
visit them most strictly and corporally on this wicked Jew, in such sort
that you may thereby both conciliate the favour of God to yourself, and
shew yourself by this example, to your own reward, a model to posterity.
Moreover, set at liberty, without any equivocation, according to the
injunctions of the laws(9), whatever Christian slaves it shall appear that
he has acquired; lest (which God forbid) the Christian religion should be
polluted by being subjected to Jews. Do you therefore with all speed
correct these things most strictly, that not only may we give thanks to you
for this discipline, but also bear testimony to your goodness in case of
need.
EPISTLE XLV: TO ANDREW, BISHOP.
Gregory to Andrew, Bishop of Tarentum [Tarante, in Calabria].
A man may look without alarm to the tribunal of the eternal Judge, if
only, conscious of his own guilt, he strives to pacify Him by befitting
penitence. Now that thou hadst a concubine we find to be manifestly true,
with regard to whom also an adverse suspicion has arisen in the minds of
some. But, since in doubtful cases judgment ought not to be absolute, we
have chosen to leave the matter to thine own conscience. If, then, after
being constituted in sacred orders thou rememberest having been defiled by
carnal intercourse, thou must resign the dignity of priesthood, nor presume
by any means to approach its ministration, knowing that thou wilt
administer it to the peril of thy soul, and without doubt have to render an
account to our God, if, being conscious of this crime, thou shouldest
desire to continue in the order wherein thou art, concealing the truth.
Wherefore we again exhort thee that, if thou knowest thyself to have been
deceived by the craft of the ancient foe, thou hasten to overcome him,
while thou mayest, by adequate penitence, lest, as we hope may not be, thou
be reckoned as partner with him in the day of judgment. If, however, thou
art not conscious of this guilt, thou must needs continue in the order
wherein thou art.
Furthermore, since, against due order, thou didst doom a woman on the
Church-roll(1) to be cruelly beaten with cudgels, although we do not think
that she died eight months after wards, yet. because thou hast had no
regard to thy order, we therefore sentence thee to abstain for two months
from the administration of mass. Meanwhile, being suspended from thy
office, it will become thee to weep for what thou hast done. For it is very
right that, now that the examples of praiseworthy priests do not provoke
thee to the tranquil rectitude befitting thy position, at any rate the
medicine of correction should compel thee.
EPISTLE XLVI: TO JOHN, BISHOP.
Gregory to John, Bishop of Calliopolis [Gallipoli, in Calabria].
From the reports sent to us by thy Fraternity it appears that Andrew,
our brother and fellow-bishop, undoubtedly had a concubine. But, since it
is uncertain whether he has touched her while constituted in sacred orders,
it is necessary that thou shouldest warn him with earnest exhortation that,
if he knows himself to have had intercourse with her while in sacred
orders, he should retire from the office which he holds, and minister no
longer. And if, though conscious of having done this thing, he should
conceal his sin and presume to minister, let him know that peril hangs over
his soul in the divine judgment.
As to the woman on the Church-roll, whom he caused to be chastised with
cudgels, though we do not believe that she died eight months afterwards,
yet, since he caused her to be thus punished inconsistently with his sacred
calling, do thou suspend him for two months from the solemnization of mass,
that at any rate this disgrace may teach him how to behave himself in
future.
Moreover, the clergy of the aforesaid bishop, in a petition presented
to us, which is subjoined below, allege that they endure much ill-treatment
from him. Wherefore let thy Fraternity take care to ascertain all these
things accurately, and so to correct and arrange them in a reasonable way
that they may be under no necessity hereafter of resorting hither on
account of this matter. In the month of July, indiction 11.
EPISTLE XLVII: TO THE CLERGY OF THE CHURCH OF SALONA(2).
Gregory to the clergy, &c.
Having read your letter, beloved, we learn that you have made choice of
Honoratus your archdeacon; and know ye that it is altogether pleasing to us
that you have chosen for the order of episcopacy a man tried of old and of
grave manner of life. We too join with you in approbation of his personal
character, inasmuch as it is already known to us; and it has been our own
wish also that he should be ordained as your priest according to your
desire. For which cause we exhort you to persist in his election without
any ambiguity. Nor ought any circumstances to disincline you from his
person, since, as this laudable choice is now approved, so it will impose
both a burden on your souls and a stain of unfaithfulness on your
reputation, if any one should seduce you (which God forbid) to turn aside
your love from him. But as to those who are not at one with you in this
desired election, we have caused them to be admonished by Antoninus our
subdeacon, that they may be able to agree with you. To him also we have
already given our injunctions as to what ought to be done with respect to
the person of our brother and fellow-bishop Malchus(3). But, inasmuch as we
have ourselves also written to him, we believe that he will without delay
keep himself quiet from disquieting you. If by any chance he should in any
way whatever neglect to obey, his contumacy will in every way be mulcted
with the utmost rigour of canonical punishment.
EPISTLE XLVIII: TO COLUMBUS, BISHOP(4).
Gregory to Columbus, &c.
Even before receiving thy Fraternity's letter, I knew thee from the
report of thy deserved reputation to be a good servant of God. And now that
I have received it, I understand more fully that what fame had already
spread abroad was well founded; and I greatly rejoice in thy deserts, in
that thou exhibitest manners and deeds that testify to a praiseworthy life.
Since, then, I feel that these things are conferred on thee by the Supernal
Majesty, I congratulate thee; and I bless God our Creditor, who denies not
the gifts of His mercy to His humble servants. On this account I declare it
to be true that thy Fraternity so kindles me with the flame of charity to
love thee, and my spirit is so united to thee, that I both desire to see
thee and am also with thee in heart, though absent. Thou perceivest in
thine own thoughts that this is so. For in truth unity of minds in charity
has power to unite more than bodily presence can. Furthermore, that with
thy whole mind, thy whole heart, thy whole soul, thou cleavest and art
devoted to the Apostolic See I am now assured, as, indeed before thy letter
had borne testimony to the fact, I plainly knew. Wherefore, first
addressing thee with the greeting of charity which is due, I exhort thee
not to cease to be mindful of what thou hast promised to the blessed Peter,
Prince of the apostles.
Wherefore be thou urgent with the primate of thy synod(5), that boys be
in no wise admitted to sacred orders, lest they fall by so much the more
dangerously as they hasten more speedily to mount to higher places. Let
there be no venality in ordination: let not the influence or entreaty of
any persons obtain anything in contravention of these our prohibitions. For
without doubt God is offended if any one is promoted to sacred orders, not
for merit, but by favour (which God forbid) or venality.
If, then, thou art aware of these things being done, keep not silence,
but oppose them urgently; since, if perchance thou shouldest neglect them,
or conceal them when known of, the chain of sin will bind not those alone
who do such things, but no light guilt before God will touch thee also in
the matter. If, then, anything of the kind is committed, it ought to be
restrained by canonical punishment, lest so great a wickedness, with sin in
others, acquire strength from connivance.
I have, therefore, the sooner given leave of departure to the bearer of
these presents, Victorinus, thy Fraternity's deacon, whom I think to be thy
imitator, and whom I have received with charity; and by him I have
transmitted to thee for a blessing keys of the blessed Peter, in which
something from his chains is included.
Lastly, with regard to the unity and peace of the council which, under
God, you are taking measures to assemble, let thy Charity rejoice my mind
by informing me of everything particularly.
EPISTLE XLIX: TO ADEODATUS, BISHOP.
Gregory to Adeodatus, Primate bishop of the province of Numidia.
After what manner the charity of affection has bound your Fraternity to
usward the tenour of your letters has evidently shewn; and they bare
afforded us great matter of rejoicing, in that we have found them to be
composed in a spirit of loving-kindness, and to glow with affection well-
pleasing to God. As, then, we have briefly said, the epistle which you have
addressed to us has so laid open your mind that its author might be
supposed not to be absent from us at all. For, indeed, persons are not to
be accounted absent whose feelings are not at variance with mutual charity.
And though, as you say in your letter, neither your strength nor your age
allow you to come to us, that we might be gratified by the bodily presence
of your Fraternity, yet, seeing that we are one with you and you with us in
feeling, we are entirely present one to the other, while we see each other
in a mind made one through love. Furthermore, greeting your Fraternity with
the suitable affection of charity, we exhort you that you study with all
your heart so to acquit yourself wisely in the office of primacy which
under God you hold, that it may both profit your soul to have attained to
this rank, and that you may stand out as a good example for imitation to
others in the future.
Be, then, especially careful with regard to ordination; and by no means
admit any to aspire to sacred orders but such as are somewhat advanced in
age and pure in deeds, lest perchance they cease for ever to be what they
immaturely haste to be. For you must first examine the life and manners of
those who are to be placed in any sacred order; and, that you may be able
to admit such as are worthy to this office, let not the influence or the
entreaty of any persons whatever inveigle you. But before all things it
behoves you to be cautious that no venality may have place in ordination,
lest (which God forbid) the greater danger hang over both the ordained and
the ordainers. If ever, then, there is need for such things to be taken in
hand, call grave and experienced men into your counsels, and consider the
matter in common deliberation with them. And before all others it is fit
that you should in all cases call in Columbus our brother and fellow-
bishop. For we believe that, if you shall have done what is to be done with
his advice, no one will find anything in any way to find fault with in you;
and know ye that it will be as acceptable to us as if it had been done with
our advice; inasmuch as his life and manners have in all respects so
approved themselves to us that it is clearly apparent to all that what is
done with his consent will be darkened by no blot of faultiness. But the
bearer of these presents, Victorians, deacon of our fellow-bishop above-
named, has been such a herald of your merits as exceedingly to refresh our
spirits With regard to your behaviour. And we pray the Almighty Lord to
cause the good that has been reported of you to shine forth more fully in
operation as well-pleasing to Him. When, therefore, the council which you
are taking measures to assemble has, with the succor of God, been brought
to a conclusion, rejoice us by telling of its unity and concord, and give
us information on all points,
EPISTLE LI: TO MAXIMIANUS, BISHOP.
Gregory to Maximinianus, Bishop of Syracuse(6).
My brethren who live with me familiarly urge me by all means to write
something briefly about the miracles of the Fathers done in Italy, which we
have heard of. With this view I am in great need of the assistance of your
Charity, to mention to me shortly what comes back to your memory, and what
you happen to have known. For I remember your telling me something, which I
have now forgotten, about the lord(7) Abbot Nonnosus, who was with the
lord(7) Anastasius of Pentomi(8). And therefore this, or anything else, I
beg thee to communicate to me by letter without delay, if indeed thou art
not intending to come to me thyself shortly.
EPISTLE LIII: TO JOHN, BISHOP.
Gregory to John, Bishop of Constantinople (9).
Though consideration of the case moves me, yet charity also impels me
to write, since I have written once and again to my most holy brother the
lord John, but have received no letter from him. For some one else, a
secular person, addressed me under his name; seeing that, if those were
really his letters, I have not been vigilant, having believed of him
something far different from what I have found. For I had written about the
case of the most reverend presbyter John, and about the questions of the
monks of Isauria, one of whom, being in priest's orders, has been beaten
with clubs in your church; and thy most holy Fraternity (as appears from
the signature of the letter) has written back to me professing ignorance of
what I wrote about. At this reply I was exceedingly astonished, revolving
within myself in silence, if he speaks the truth, what can be worse than
that such things should be done against the servants of God, and even he
who was close at hand should not know? For what. excuse can a shepherd have
if the wolf devours the sheep and the shepherd knows it not? But, if your
Holiness knew both what I referred to in my letter and what had been done,
whether against John the presbyter or against Athanasius, monk of Isauria
and presbyter, and wrote to me, I know not; what can I reply to this, since
the Truth says through His Scripture, The mouth that lieth slayeth the saul
(Wisd. i. 11)? I demand of thee, most holy brother; has that so great
abstinence of thine come to this, that by denial thou wouldest hide from
thy brother what thou knewest to have been done? Had it not been better
that flesh should go into that mouth for food, than that falsehood should
come out of it for deceiving a neighbour; especially when the Truth says,
Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh
out of the mouth, this defileth a man (Matth. xv. 11)? But far be it from
me to believe anything of the kind of your most holy heart. Those letters
were headed with your name, but I do not think they were yours. I had
written to the most blessed lord John; but I believe that that familiar of
yours has replied,--that youngster, who as yet has learnt nothing about
God; who knows not the bowels of charity; who in his wicked doings is
accused by all; who daily lays snares against the deaths of divers people
by means of concealed wills; who neither fears God nor regards men. Believe
me, most holy brother, you must first correct this man, that from the
example of those who are near to you those who are not near may be better
amended. Do not give ear to his tongue: he ought to be directed after the
counsel of your holiness; not your holiness swayed by his words. For, if
you listen to him, I know that you cannot have peace with your brethren.
For I, as my conscience bears me witness, wish to quarrel with no man; and
with all my power I avoid it. And, though I desire exceedingly to be at
peace with all mankind, it is especially so with you, whom I exceedingly
love, if only you are yourself the person whom I knew. For, if you do not
observe the canous, and wish to tear to pieces the statutes of the Fathers,
I know not who you are. So act, then, most holy and most dear brother, that
we may mutually recognize each other, lest, if the ancient foe should move
us two to take offence, he slay many through his most atrocious victory. As
for me, to shew that I seek to do nothing in a haughty spirit, if that
youngster of whom I have before spoken did not hold the topmost place of
evil doing with thy Fraternity, I could meanwhile have passed over in
silence what is ready to my hand from the canons, and have sent back to
thee with confidence the persons who came to me at the first, knowing that
your Holiness would receive them with charity. But even now I say; Either
receive these same persons, restoring them to their orders, and leaving
them in quiet; or, if perchance thou art unwilling to do this, observe in
their case the statutes of the Fathers and the definitions of the canons,
putting aside all altercation with me. But, if thou shouldest do neither,
we indeed are unwilling to bring on a quarrel, but still do not shun one if
it comes from your side. Moreover your Fraternity knows well what the
canons say about bishops who desire to inspire fear by blows. For we have
been made shepherds, not persecutors. And the excellent preacher says,
Argue, beseech, rebuke, with all longsuffering and doctrine (2 Tim. iv. 2).
But new and unheard of is this preaching, which exacts faith by blows. But
I need not speak at length by letter about these things, since I have sent
my most beloved son, the deacon Sabinianus, as my representative in
ecclesiastical matters, to the threshold of our lords; and he will speak
with you about everything more particularly. Unless you are disposed to
wrangle with us, you will find him prepared for all that is just. Him I
commend to your Blessedness, that he at least may find that lord John whom
I knew in the royal city.
EPISTLE LVI: TO JOHN, BISHOP.
Gregory to John, Bishop of Ravenna(8).
It is not long since certain things had been told us about thy
Fraternity concerning which we remember having declared ourselves in full,
when Castorius, notary of the holy church over which we preside, went into
your parts. For it had come to our ears that some things were being done in
your church contrary to custom and to the way of humility, which alone, as
you well know, exalts the priestly office. Now, if your Wisdom had received
our admonitions kindly or with episcopal seriousness, you ought not to have
been incensed by them, but have corrected these same things with thanks to
us. For it is contrary to ecclesiastical use, if even unjust correction
(the which be far from us) is not most patiently borne.
But your Fraternity has been too much moved; and when, in the swelling
of thy heart, as if to justify thyself, thou wrotest that thou didst not
use the pallium except after the sons of the Church had been dismissed from
the sacristy(2), and at the time of mass, and in solemn litanies, thou
madest acknowledgment in words with most manifest truth of having usurped
something contrary to the usage of the Church in general. For how can it be
that at a time of ashes and sackcloth, through the streets among the noises
of the people thou couldest do lawfully what thou hast disclaimed the doing
of as being unlawful in the assembly of the poor and nobles, and in the
sacristy of the Church? Yet this, dearest brother, is not, we think,
unknown to thee; that it has hardly ever been heard of any metropolitan in
any parts of the world that he has claimed to himself the use of the
pallium except at the time of mass. And that you knew well this custom of
the Church in general you have shewn most plainly by your epistles, in
which you have sent to us appended the precept of our predecessor John of
blessed memory, to the effect that all the customs conceded in the way of
privilege to you and your church by our predecessors should be retained.
You acknowledge, then, that the custom of the Church in general is
different, seeing that you claim the right of doing what you do on the
score of privilege. Thus, as we think, we can have no remaining
doubtfulness in this matter. For either the usage of all metropolitans
should be observed also by thy Fraternity, or, if thou sayest that
something has been specially conceded to thy church, it is for your side to
shew the precept of former pontiffs of the Roman City wherein these things
have been conceded to the Church of Ravenna. But, if this is not shewn, it
remains, seeing that you establish your claim to do such things on the
score neither of general custom nor of privilege, that you prove yourself
to have usurped in what you have done. And what shall we say to the future
judge, most beloved brother, if we defend the use of that heavy yoke and
chain on our neck with a view, I do not say to ecclesiastical, but to a
certain secular dignity; judging ourselves to be lowered if we are without
so great a weight even for a short space of time? We desire to be adorned
with the pallium, being, it may be, unadorned in character; whereas nothing
shines more splendidly on a bishop's neck than humility.
It is therefore the duty of thy Fraternity, if thou art firmly
determined to defend thy honours with any kind of arguments, either to
follow the use of the generality without written authority, or to defend
thyself under privileges shewn in writing. Or, if lastly thou doest
neither, we will not have thee set an example of presumption of this sort
to other metropolitans. But, lest thou shouldest perchance think that we,
in thus writing to you, have neglected what belongs to fraternal charity,
know ye that careful search has been made in our archives for the
privileges of thy Church. And indeed some things have been found,
sufficient to obviate entirely the aims of thy Fraternity, but nothing to
support the contentions of your Church on the points in question. For even
concerning the very custom of thy Church which thou allegest against us,
which custom we wrote before should be proved on your side, we would have
you know that we have already taken thought sufficiently, having questioned
our sons, Peter the deacon and Gaudiosus the primicerius(3), and also
Michael the guardian (defensorem) of our see, or others who on various
commissions have been sent by our predecessors to Ravenna; and they have
most positively denied that thou hast done these things in their presence.
It is therefore apparent that what was done in secret must have been an
unlawful usurpation. Hence what has been latently introduced can have no
firm ground to justify its continuance. What things, then, thou or thy
predecessors have presumed to do super-fluously do thou, having regard to
charity, and with brotherly kindness, study to correct. To no degree
attempt--I do not say of thine own accord, but after the fashion set by
others, even thy predecessors,--to deviate from the rule of humility. For,
to sum up shortly what I have said above, I admonish thee to this effect;
that unless thou canst shew that this has been allowed thee by my
predecessors in the way of privilege, thou presume not any more to use the
pallium in the streets, lest thou come not to have even for mass what thou
audaciously usurpest even in the streets. But as to thy sitting in the
sacristy, and receiving the sons of the Church with the pallium on (which
thing thy Fraternity has both done and disclaimed), we now for the present
make no complaint; since, following the decision of synods, we refuse to
punish minor faults, which are denied. Yet we know this to have been done
once and again, and we prohibit its being done any more. But let thy
Fraternity take careful heed, lest presumption which in its commencement is
pardoned be more severely visited if it proceeds further.
Furthermore, you have complained that certain of the sacerdotal order
in the city of Ravenna are involved in serious criminal charges. Their case
we desire thee either to examine on the spot, or to send them hither
(unless, indeed, difficulty of proof owing to the distance of the places
stands in the way of this), that the case may be examined here But if,
relying on the patronage of great people, which we do not believe, they
should scorn to submit to thy judgment or to come to us, and should refuse
contumaciously to answer to the charges made against them, we desire that
after thy second and third admonition, thou interdict them from the
ministry of the sacred office, and report to us in writing of their
contumacy, that we may deliberate how thou oughtest to make a thorough
enquiry into their doings. and correct them according to canonical
definitions. Let, therefore, thy Fraternity know tint we are most fully
absolved from responsibility in this case, seeing that we have committed to
you a thorough investigation of the matter; and that, if all their sins
should pass unpunished, the whole weight of this enquiry redounds to the
peril of thy soul. And know, beloved, that thou wilt have no excuse at the
future judgment, if thou dost not correct the excesses of thy clergy with
the utmost severity of canonical strictness, and if thou allowest any
against whom such excesses shall have been proved to profane sacred orders
any longer.
Further, what you have written in defence of the use of napkins by your
clergy is strenuously opposed by our own clergy, who say that this has
never been granted to any other Church whatever, and that neither have the
clergy of Ravenna, either there or in the Roman city, presumed, to their
knowledge, in any such way, nor, if it has been attempted in the way of
furtive usurpation, does it form a precedent. But, even though there had
been such presumption in any church whatever, they assert that it ought to
be corrected, not being by grant of the Roman pontiff, but merely a
surreptitious presumption. But we, to save the honour of thy Fraternity,
though against the wish of our aforesaid clergy, still allow the use of
napkins to your first deacons (whose former use of them has been testified
to us by some), but only when in attendance upon thee. The use of them, at
any other time, or by any other persons, we most strictly prohibit.
EPISTLE LVII.
From John, Bishop of Ravenna to Pope Gregory(4).
My most reverend fellow-servant Castorius, notary of your Apostolical
See, has delivered to me my lord's epistle, compounded of honey and of
venom; which has yet so infixed its stings as still to leave place for
healing appliances. For my lord, while he reproves pride and speaks of
divine judgment following it, in a certain way professes himself with
reason to be mild and placid.
You have alleged, then, that I, ambitious of novelty, have usurped the
use of the pallium beyond what had been indulged to my predecessors. This
let not the conscience of my own lord, which is governed by the divine
right hand, in any way allow itself to believe; nor let him open his most
sacred ears to the uncertainty of common report. First, because I, though a
sinner, still know how grave a thing it is to transgress the limits
assigned to us by the Fathers, and that all elation leads to nothing but a
fall. For, if our ancestors did not tolerate pride in kings, how much more
is it not to be endured in priests! Then, I remember how I was nourished in
the lap and in the bosom of your most holy Roman Church, and therein by the
aid of God advanced. And how should I be so daring as to presume to oppose
that most holy see, which transmits its laws to the universal Church, for
maintaining whose authority, as God knows, I have seriously excited the
ill-will of many enemies against myself? But let not my most blessed lord
suppose that I have attempted anything contrary to ancient custom, as is
attested by many and nearly all the citizens of this city, and as the
above-written most reverend notary, even though he had taken no part in the
proceedings, might have testified, inasmuch as it was not till the sons of
the Church were descending from the sacristy(5), and the deacons were
coming in for proceeding immediately [to the altar] that the first deacon
has been accustomed to invest the bishop of the Church of Ravenna with the
pallium, which he has also been accustomed in like manner to use in solemn
litanies.
Wherefore let no one endeavour to insinuate anything against me to my
lord, since if any one wishes to do so, he cannot prove that any novelty
has been introduced by me. For in what manner I have obeyed your commands
and served your interests when cause required, may Almighty God make
manifest to your most sincere heart: and I attribute it to my sins that
after so many labours and difficulties which I endure within and without I
should deserve to experience such a change. But again this among other
things consoles me, that most holy fathers sometimes chastise their sons
for the purpose only of advancing them the more, and that, after this
devotion and satisfaction, you will not only conserve to the holy Church of
Ravenna her ancient privileges, but even confer greater ones in your own
times.
For with respect to the napkins, the use of which by my presbyters and
deacons your Apostleship alleges to be a presumption, I confess in truth
that it irks me to say anything on the subject, since the truth by itself,
which alone prevails with my lord, is sufficient. For this being allowed to
the smaller churches constituted around the city, the apostleship of my
lord will also be able in all ways to find, if he deigns to enquire of the
venerable clergy of his own first Apostolical See, that as often as priests
or levites of the Church of Ravenna have come to Rome for the ordination of
bishops or for business, they all have proceeded(6) with napkins before the
eyes of your most holy predecessors without any blame. Wherefore also at
the time when I, sinner as I am, was ordained there by your predecessor,
all my presbyters and deacons used them while proceeding(6) in attendance
on the lord pope. And since our God in His providence has placed all things
in your hand and most pure conscience, I adjure you by the very Apostolical
See, which you formerly adorned by your character, and now govern with due
dignity, that you in no respect diminish on account of my deservings the
privileges of the Church of Ravenna, which is intimately yours; but, even
according to the voice of prophecy, let it be laid upon me and upon my
father's house, according to its deserving. I have, therefore, for your
greater satisfaction, subjoined all the privileges which have been indulged
by your predecessors to the holy Church of Ravenna, though none the less
finding assurance in your venerable archives in reference to the times of
the consecration of my predecessors. But now whatever, after ascertaining
the truth, you may command to be done, is in God's power and yours; since
I, desiring to obey the commands of my lord's Apostleship, have taken care,
notwithstanding ancient custom, to abstain till I receive further orders.
EPISTLE LIX: TO SECUNDINUS, BISHOP.
Gregory to Secundinus, Bishop of Tauromenium. [In Sicily.]
Some time ago we ordered that the baptistery(7) should be removed from
the monastery of Saint Andrew, which is above Mascalae, because of
inconvenience to the monks, and that an altar should be erected in the
place where the fonts now are. But the carrying out of this order has been
put off so far. We therefore admonish thy Fraternity that thou interpose no
further delay after receiving this our letter, but that the fonts
themselves be filled up(8), and an altar at once erected there for
celebration of the sacred mysteries; to the end that the aforesaid monks
may be at liberty to celebrate more securely the work of God, and that our
mind be not provoked against thy Fraternity for negligence.
EPISTLE LX: TO ITALICA, PATRICIAN(9).
Gregory to Italica, &c.
We have received your letter, which is full of sweetness, and rejoice
to hear that your Excellency is well. Such is the sincerity of our own mind
with regard to it that paternal affection does not allow us to suspect any
latent ill- feeling concealed under its calmness. But may Almighty God
bring it to pass, that, as we think what is good of you, so your mind may
respond with good towards us, and that you may exhibit in your deeds the
sweetness which you express in words. For the most glorious health and
beauty on the surface of the body profit nothing if there is a hidden sore
within. And that discord is the more to be guarded against to which
exterior peace affords a bodyguard. But as to what your Excellency in your
aforesaid epistle takes pains to recall to our recollection, remember that
you have been told in writing that we would not settle anything with you
concerning the causes of the poor so as to cause offence, or with public
clamour. We remember writing to you to this effect, and also know, God
helping us how to restrain ourselves with ecclesiastical moderation from
the wrangling of suits at law, and, according to that apostolical sentence,
to endure joyfully the spoiling of our goods. But this we suppose you to
know; that our silence and patience will not be to the prejudice of future
pontiffs after me in the affairs of the poor. Wherefore we, in fulfilment
of our aforesaid promise, have already determined to keep silence on these
questions; nor do we desire to mix ourselves personally in these
transactions, wherein we feel that too little kindness is being shewn. But,
lest you should hence imagine, glorious daughter, that we still altogether
renounce what pertains to concord, we have given directions to our son,
Cyprianus the deacon, who is going to Sicily, that, if you arrange about
these matters in a salutary way, and without sin to your soul, he should
settle them with you by our authority, and that we should be no further
vexed by the business which may thus be brought to a conclusion amicably.
Now may Almighty God, who well knows how to turn to possibility things
altogether impossible, may He inspire you both to arrange your affairs with
a view to peace, and, for the good of your soul, to consult the benefit of
the poor of this Church in matters which concern them.
EPISTLE LXV: TO MAURICIUS AUGUSTUS(1).
Gregory to Mauricius, &c.
He is guilty before Almighty God who is not pure of offence towards our
most serene lords in all he does and says. I, however, unworthy servant of
your Piety, speak in this my representation neither as a bishop, nor as
your servant in fight of the republic, but as of private right, since, most
serene lord, you have been mine since the time when you were not yet lord
of all.
On the arrival here of the most illustrious Longinus, the equerry
(stratore), I received the law of my lords, to which, being at the time
worn out by bodily sickness, I was unable to make any reply. In it the
piety of my lords has ordained that it shall not be lawful for any one who
is engaged in any public administration to enter on an ecclesiastical
office. And this I greatly commended, knowing by most evident proof that
one who is in haste to desert a secular condition and enter on an
ecclesiastical office is not wishing to relinquish secular affairs, but to
change them. But, at its being said in the same law that it should not be
lawful for him to become a monk, I was altogether surprised, seeing that
his accounts can be rendered through a monastery, and it can be arranged
for his debts also to be recovered from the place into which he is
received. For with whatever devout intention a person may have wished to
become a monk, he should first restore what he has wrongly gotten, and take
thought for his soul all the more truly as he is the more disencumbered. It
is added in the same law that no one who has been marked on the hand(2) may
become a monk. This ordinance, I confess to my lords, has alarmed me
greatly, since by it the way to heaven is dosed against many, and what has
been lawful until now is made unlawful. For there are many who are able to
live a religious life even in a secular condition: but there are very many
who cannot in any wise be saved with God unless they give up all things.
But what am I, in speaking thus to my lords, but dust and a worm? Yet
still, feeling that this ordinance makes against God, who is the Author of
all, I cannot keep silence to my lords. For power over all men has been
given from heaven to the piety of my lords to this end, that they who
aspire to what is good may be helped, and that the way to heaven may be
more widely open, so that an earthly kingdom may wait upon the heavenly
kingdom. And lo, it is said in plain words that one who has once been
marked to serve as an earthly soldier may not, unless he has either
completed his service or been rejected for weakness of body, serve as the
soldier of our Lord Jesus Christ.
To this, behold, Christ through me the last of His servants and of
yours will answer, saying; From a notary I made thee a Count of the
bodyguard; from Count of the bodyguard I made thee a Caesar; from a Caesar
I made thee Emperor; and not only so, but also a father of emperors. I have
committed my priests into thy hand; and dost thou withdraw thy soldiers
from my service? Answer thy servant, most pious lord, I beseech thee; what
wilt thou answer to thy Lord when He comes and thus speaks?
But peradventure it is believed that no one among them turns monk with
a pure motive. I, your unworthy servant, know how many soldiers who have
become monks in my own days have done miracles, have wrought signs and
mighty deeds. But by this law it is forbidden that even one of such as
these should become a monk.
Let my lord enquire, I beg, what former emperor ever enacted such a
law, and consider more thoroughly whether it ought to have been enacted.
And indeed it is a very serious consideration, that now at this time any
are forbidden to leave the world; a time when the end of the world is
drawing nigh. For lo! there will be no delay: the heavens on fire, the
earth on fire, the elements blazing, with angels and archangels, thrones
and dominions, principalities and powers, the tremendous Judge will appear.
Should He remit all sins, and say only that this law has been promulgate
against Himself, what excuse, pray, will there be? Wherefore by the same
tremendous Judge I beseech you, that all those tears, all those prayers,
all those fasts, all those alms of my lord, may not on any ground lose
their lustre before the eyes of Almighty God: but let your Piety, either by
interpretation or alteration, modify the force of this law, since the army
of my lords against their enemies increases the more when the army of God
has been increased for prayer.
I indeed, being subject to your command, have caused this law to be
transmitted through various parts of the world; and, inasmuch as the law
itself is by no means agreeable to Almighty God, lo, I have by this my
representation declared this to my most serene lords. On both sides, then,
I have discharged my duty, having both yielded obedience to the Emperor,
and not kept silence as to what I feel in behalf of God.
EPISTLE LXVI: TO THEODORUS, PHYSICIAN.
Gregory to Theodorus, &c.
What benefits I enjoy from Almighty God and my most serene lord the
Emperor my tongue cannot fully express. For these benefits what return is
it in me to make, but to love their footsteps sincerely? But, on account of
my sins, by whose suggestion or counsel I know not, in the past year he has
promulgate such a law in his republic that whoso loves him sincerely must
lament exceedingly. I could not reply to this law at the time, being sick.
But I have just now offered some suggestions to my lord. For he enjoins
that it shall be lawful for no one to become a monk who has been engaged in
any public employment, for no one who is a paymaster(3), or who has been
marked in the hand, or enrolled among the soldiers, unless perchance his
military service has been completed. This law, as those say who are
acquainted with old laws, Julian was the first to promulge, of whom we all
know how opposed he was to God. Now if our most serene lord has done this
thing because perhaps many soldiers were becoming monks, and the army was
decreasing, was it by the valour of soldiers that Almighty God subjugated
to him the empire of the Persians? Was it not only that his tears were
heard, and that God, by an order which he knew not of, subdued to his
empire the empire of the Persians?
Now it seems to me exceedingly hard that he should debar his soldiers
from the service of Him who both gave him all and granted w him to rule not
only over soldiers but even over priests. If his purpose is to save
property from being lost, why might not those same monasteries into which
soldiers have been received pay their debts, retaining the men only for
monastic profession? Since these things grieve me much, I have represented
the matter to my lord. But let your Glory take a favourable opportunity of
offering him my representation privately. For I am unwilling that it should
be given publicly by my representative (responsalis), seeing that you who
serve him familiarly can speak more freely and openly of what is for the
good of his soul, since he is occupied with many things, and it is not easy
to find his mind free from greater cares. Do thou, then, glorious son,
speak for Christ. If thou art heard, it will be to the profit of the soul
of thy aforesaid lord and of thine own. But if thou art not heard, thou
hast profited thine own soul only.
EPISTLE LXVII: TO DOMITIAN, METROPOLITAN(4).
Gregory to Domitian, &c.
On receiving the letters of your most sweet Blessedness I greatly
rejoiced, since they spoke much to me of sacred Scripture. And, finding in
them the dainties that I love, I greedily devoured them. Therein also were
many things intermingled about external and necessary affairs. And you have
acted as though preparing a banquet for the mind so that the offered
dainties might please the more from their diversity. And if indeed external
affairs, like inferior and ordinary kinds of food, are less savoury, yet
they have been treated by you so skilfully as to be taken gladly, since
even contemptible kinds of food are usually made sweet by the sauce of one
who cooks well. Now, while the truth of the History is kept to, what I had
said some time ago about its divine meaning ought not to be rejected. For,
although, since you will have it so, its meaning may not suit my case, yet,
from its very context, what was said as being drawn from it may be held
without hesitation. For her violator (i.e. Dinah's) is called the prince of
the country (Genes. xxxiv. 2), by whom the devil is plainly denoted, seeing
that our Redeemer says, Now shall the prince of this world be cast out
(John xii. 31). And he also seeks her for his wife, because the evil spirit
hastens to possess lawfully the soul which he has first corrupted by hidden
seduction. Wherefore the sons of Jacob, being very wroth, take their swords
against the whole house of Sichem and his country (Genes. xxxiv. 25),
because by all who have zeal those also are to be attacked who become
abettors of the evil spirit. And they first enjoin on them circumcision,
and afterwards, while they are sore, slay them. For severe teachers, if
they know not how to moderate their zeal, though cutting off the bias of
corruption by preaching, nevertheless, when delinquents already mourn for
the evil they had done, are frequently still savage in roughness of
discipline, and harder than they should be. For those who had already cut
off their foreskins ought not to have died, since such as lament the sin of
lechery, and turn the pleasure of the flesh into sorrow, ought not to
experience from their teachers roughness of discipline, lest the Redeemer
of the human race be Himself loved less, if in His behalf the soul is
afflicted more than it should be. Hence also to these his sons Jacob says,
Ye have troubled me, and made me odious to the Canaanites (Ibid. v. 30).
For, when teachers still cruelly attack what the delinquents already mourn
for, the weak mind's very love for its Redeemer grows cold, because it
feels itself to be afflicted in that wherein of itself it does not spare
itself.
So much therefore I would say in order to shew that the sense which I
set forth is not improbable in connexion with the context. But what has
been inferred from the same passage by your Holiness for my comfort I
gladly accept, since in the understanding of sacred Scripture whatever is
not opposed to a sound faith ought not to be rejected. For, even as from
the same gold some make necklaces, some rings, and some bracelets, for
ornament, so from the same knowledge of sacred Scripture different
expositors, through innumerable ways of understanding it, compose as it
were various ornaments, which nevertheless all serve for the adornment of
the heavenly bride. Further, I rejoice exceedingly that your most sweet
Blessedness, even though occupied with secular affairs, still brings back
its genius vigilantly to the understanding of Holy Writ. For so indeed it
is needful that, if the former cannot be altogether avoided, the latter
should not be altogether put aside. But I beseech you by Almighty God,
stretch out the hand of prayer to me who am labouring in so great billows
of tribulation, that by your intercession I may be lifted up to the
heights, who am pressed down to the depths by the weight of my sins.
Moreover, though I grieve that the Emperor of the Persians has not been
converted, yet I altogether rejoice for that you have preached to him the
Christian faith; since, though he has not been counted worthy to come to
the light, yet your Holiness will have the reward of your preaching. For
the Ethiopian, too, goes black into the bath, and comes out black; but
still the keeper of the bath receives his pay.
Further, of Mauricius you say well, that from the shadow I may know the
statue; that is, that in small things I may perpend greater things. In this
matter, however, we trust him, since oaths and hostages bind his soul to
us.
BOOK IV
EPISTLE I: TO CONSTANTIUS, BISHOP.
Gregory to Constantius, Bishop of Mediolanum (Milan).
On receiving the letters of your Fraternity I returned great thanks to
Almighty God, that I was counted worthy to be refreshed by the celebration
of your ordination. Truly that all, by the gift of God, with one accord
concurred in your election, is a fact which thy Fraternity ought with the
utmost consideration to estimate, since, after God, you are greatly
indebted to those who with so submissive a disposition desired you to be
preferred before themselves.
It becomes you, therefore, with priestly benignity to respond to their
behaviour, and with kind sympathy to attend to their needs. If perchance
there are any faults in any of them, rebuke these with well-considered
reproofs, so that your very priestly indignation be mingled with a savour
of sweetness, and that so you may be loved by your subjects even when you
are greatly feared. Such conduct will also induce great reverence for your
person in their judgment; since, as hasty and habitual rage is despised, so
discriminate indignation against faults for the most part becomes the
formidable in proportion as it has been slow.
Further, John our subdeacon, who has returned, has reported many good
things of you as to which we beseech Almighty God Himself to fulfil what He
has begun; to the end that He may shew thee to have advanced in good
inwardly and outwardly both now among men and hereafter among the angels.
Moreover, we have sent thee, according to custom, a pallium to be used
in the sacred solemnities of mass. But I beg you, when you receive it, to
vindicate its dignity and its meaning by humility.
EPISTLE II: TO CONSTANTIUS, BISHOP.
Gregory to Constantius, Bishop of Mediolanum.
My most beloved son, the deacon Boniface, has conveyed to me certain
private information through thy Fraternity's letter; namely that three
bishops, having sought out rather than found an occasion, have separated
themselves from the pious communion of your Fraternity, saying that you
have assented to the condemnation of the Three Chapters(1), and have given
a security(2). And, indeed, whether there has been any mention made of the
Three Chapters in any word or writing whatever thy Fraternity remembers
well; although thy Fraternity's predecessor, Laurentius, did send forth a
most strict security to the Apostolic See, to which most noble men in
legitimate number subscribed; among whom I also, at that time holding the
praetorship of the city, likewise subscribed; since after such a schism had
taken place about nothing, it was right that the Apostolic See should take
heed, with the view of guarding in all respects the unity of the Universal
Church in the minds of priests. But as to its being said that our daughter,
Queen Theodelinda, after hearing this news, has withdrawn herself from thy
communion, it is for all reasons evident that, though she has been seduced
to some little extent by the words of bad men, yet, on the arrival of
Hippolytus the notary, and John the abbot, she will seek in all ways the
communion of your Fraternity(3). To her also I have addressed a letter(4),
which I beg your Fraternity to transmit to her without delay. Further, with
regard to the bishops who appear to have separated themselves, I have
written another letter, which when you have caused to be shewn to them, I
doubt not that they will repent of the superstition of their pride before
thy Fraternity.
Furthermore, you have accurately and briefly informed me of what has
been done, whether by King Ago(5) or by the Kings of the Franks. I beg your
Fraternity to make known to me in all ways what you have so far
ascertained. But, if you should see that Ago, King of the Lombards, is
doing nothing with the Patrician(6), promise him on our part that I am
prepared to give attention to his case, if he should be willing to arrange
anything with the republic advantageously.
EPISTLE III: TO CONSTANTIUS, BISHOP.
Gregory to Constantius, Bishop of Mediolanum.
It has come to my knowledge that certain bishops of your diocese,
seeking out rather than finding an occasion, have attempted to sever
themselves from the unity of your Fraternity, saying that thou hadst given
a security(7) at the Roman city for thy condemnation of the three Chapters.
And the fact is that they say this because they do not know how I am
accustomed to trust thy Fraternity even without security. For if there had
been need for anything of the kind, your mere word of mouth could have been
trusted. I, however, do not recollect any mention between us of the three
Chapters either in word or in writing. But as for them, if they soon return
from their error, they should be spared, because, according to the saying
of the Apostle Paul, They understand neither what they say nor where of
they affirm (1 Tim. i. 7). For we, truth guiding us and our conscience
bearing witness, declare that we keep the faith of the holy synod of
Chalcedon in all respects inviolate, and venture not to add anything to, or
to subtract anything from, its definition(8). But, if any one would fain
take upon himself to think anything, either more or less, contrary to it,
and to the faith of this same synod, we anathematize him without any
hesitation, and decree him to be alien from the bosom of Mother Church. Any
one, therefore, whom this my confession does not bring to a right mind, no
longer loves the synod of Chalcedon, but hates the bosom of Mother Church.
If then those who appear to have been thus dating have presumed thus to
speak in zeal of soul, it remains for them, having received this
satisfaction, to return to the unity of thy Fraternity, and not divide
themselves from the body of Christ, which is the holy universal Church.
EPISTLE IV: TO QUEEN THEODELINDA.
Gregory to Theodelinda, Queen of the Lombards(9).
It has come to our knowledge by the report of certain persons that your
Glory has been led on by some bishops even to such an offence against holy
Church as to withdraw yourself from the communion of Catholic unanimity.
Now the more we sincerely love you, the more seriously are we distressed
about you, that you believe unskilled and foolish men, who not only do not
know what they talk about, but can hardly understand what they have heard.
For they say that in the times of Justinian of pious memory, some
things were ordained contrary to the council of Chalcedon; and, while they
neither read themselves nor believe those who do, they remain in the same
error which they themselves reigned to themselves concerning us. For we,
our conscience bearing witness, declare that nothing was altered, nothing
violated, with respect to the faith of this same holy council of Chalcedon;
but that whatever was done in the times of the aforesaid Justinian was so
done that the faith of the council of Chalcedon should in no respect be
disturbed. Further, if any one presumes to speak or think anything contrary
to the faith of the said synod, we detest his opinion, with interposition
of anathema. Since then you know the integrity of our faith under the
attestation of our conscience, it remains that you should never separate
yourself from the communion of the Catholic Church, lest all those tears of
yours, and all those good works should come to nothing, if they are found
alien from the true faith. It therefore becomes your Glory to send a
communication with all speed to my most reverend brother and fellow-bishop
Constantius, of whose faith, as well as his life, I have long been well
assured, and to signify by your letters addressed to him how kindly you
have accepted his ordination, and that you are in no way separated from the
communion of his Church; although I think that what I say on this subject
is superfluous: for, though there has been some degree of doubtfulness in
your mind, I think that it has been removed from your heart on the arrival
of my son John the abbot, and Hippolytus the notary.
EPISTLE V: TO BONIFACE, BISHOP.
Gregory to Boniface, Bishop of Regium (Reii).
It is a shame for priests to be admonished about matters of divine
worship. For they are then to their disgrace required to do what they ought
themselves to require to be done. Yet lest, as I do not suppose, thy
Fraternity should neglect in any respect the things that pertain to the
work of God, we have thought fit to exhort thee specially on this very
head. We therefore admonish thee that the clergy of the city of Regium be
to no extent released by the indulgence of thy Fraternity in duties
demanded by their office. But in the things that pertain to God let them be
most instantly and most earnestly compelled. We desire thee also to study
the reputation of the aforesaid clergy, that nothing bad, nothing that at
all contravenes ecclesiastical discipline, be heard of them; seeing that it
is to its adornment, not to foulness of deeds, that their office
appertains. Further, we decree that what we determined in the case of the
Sicilians be observed by thy subdeacons(1); nor mayest thou suffer this our
decision to be infringed by the contumacy or temerity of any one whatever;
that so, as we believe will be the case, all that has been said above being
most strictly kept in force by thee, thou mayest neither prove a
transgressor of our admonition, nor be accused as guilty of remissness in
the order of pastoral rule which has been committed to thee.
EPISTLE VI: TO CYPRIAN, DEACON.
Gregory to Cyprian, Deacon and Rector of Sicily.
It has been reported to us that a native of the province of Lucania,
Petronilla by name, was converted through the exhortation of the bishop
Agnellus, and that all her property, though she had it in her own power,
she nevertheless bestowed on the monastery which she entered even by a
special deed of gift: also that the aforesaid bishop died leaving half of
his substance to one Agnellus, his son, who is said to be a notary of our
Church, and half to the said monastery. But, when they had fled for refuge
to Sicily because of the calamity impending on Italy, the above-named
Agnellus is said to have corrupted her morals and defiled her, and, finding
her with child, to have seduced her from the monastery, and to have taken
away with her all her be longings, both those that had been her own and
such as she might have had given her by his own father, and that, after
perpetrating such and so great a crime, he claims these things as his own.
We therefore exhort thy Love to cause the aforesaid man, and the above-
named woman, to be summarily brought before thee, and to institute a most
thorough enquiry into the case. And, if thou shouldest find it to be as
reported to us, determine an affair defiled by so many iniquities with the
utmost severity of expurgation; to the end that both strict retribution may
overtake the above-named man, who has regarded neither his own nor her
condition, and that, she having been first punished and consigned to a
monastery under penance, all the property that had been taken away from the
oft above-named place, with all its fruits and accessions, may be restored.
EPISTLE VII: TO GENNADIUS, PATRICIAN.
Gregory to Gennadius, Patrician and Exarch of Africa.
We are well assured that the mind of your religious Excellency is
inflamed with zeal of divine love against those things especially which are
done in unseemly wise in the churches. We therefore the more gladly impose
on you the correction of faults in ecclesiastical cases as we have
confidence in the bent of your pious disposition. Be it known, then, to
your Excellence that it has been reported to us by some who have come to us
from the African parts that many things are being committed in the council
of Numidia contrary to the way of the Fathers and the ordinances of the
canons. And, being unable to bear any longer the frequent complaints that
have reached us about such things, we committed them to be enquired into to
our brother and fellow-bishop Columbus(3), of whose gravity his very
reputation, which is spread abroad, now allows us not to doubt. Wherefore,
greeting you with fatherly affection, we exhort your Excellence that in all
things pertaining to ecclesiastical discipline you should lend him the
support of your assistance, lest, if what is done amiss should not be
enquired into anti visited, it should grow with greater license into future
excesses through precedent of long continuance. Know moreover, most
excellent son, that if you seek victories, and are dealing for the security
of the province committed to you, nothing will avail you more for this end
than being zealous in restraining as far as possible the lives of priests
and the intestine wars of Churches.
EPISTLE VIII: TO JANUARIUS, BISHOP.
Gregory to Januarius, Bishop of Caralis (Cagliari).
We think indeed that thy position may in itself be enough to compel
thee to be instant in the fulfilment of pious duties. But, lest remissness
of any kind should intervene to abate thy zeal, we have thought it right to
exhort thee especially with regard to them. Now it has come to our
knowledge that your Stephen, when departing this life, by his last will and
testament directed a monastery to be founded. But it is said that his
desire is so far un- accomplished owing to the delay of the honourable lady
Theodosia, his heiress. Wherefore we exhort thy Fraternity to pay the
utmost attention to this matter, and admonish the above-named lady, to the
end that within a year's space she may establish a monastery as has been
directed, and construct everything without dispute according to the will of
the departed. But if she should put off the completion of the design out of
negligence or artfulness (as, for instance, if she is unable to found it in
the place that had been appointed, and it is thought fit that it be placed
elsewhere, and the matter is neglected through the intervening delay), then
we desire that it be built by the diligence of thy Fraternity, and that,
all things being set in order, the effects and revenues that have been left
be appropriated by thee to this venerable place. For so thou wilt both
escape condemnation for remissness before the awful Judge, and, in
accordance with our most religious laws, wilt be accomplishing with
episcopal zeal the pious wishes of the departed, which had been
disregarded(4).
EPISTLE IX: TO JANUARIUS, BISHOP.
Gregory to Januarius, Bishop of Caralis (Cagliari).
Pastoral zeal ought indeed in itself to have sufficiently instigated
thee, even without oar aid, to protect profitably and providently the flock
of which thou hast taken charge, and to preserve it with diligent
circumspection from the cunning devices of enemies. But, since we have
found that thy Charity needs also the written word of our authority for the
augmentation of thy firmness, it is necessary for us, by the exhortation of
brotherly love, to strengthen thy faltering disposition towards the
earnestness of religious activity.
Now it has come to our knowledge that thou art remiss in thy
guardianship of the monasteries of the handmaidens of God situated in
Sardinia; and, though it had been prudently arranged by thy predecessors
that certain approved men of the clergy should have the charge of attending
to their needs, this has now been so entirely neglected that women
specially dedicated to God are compelled to go in person among public
functionaries about tributes and other liabilities, and are under the
necessity of running to and fro through villages and farms for making up
their taxes, and of mixing themselves unsuitably in business which belongs
to men. This evil let thy Fraternity remove by an easy correction; that is,
by carefully deputing one man of approved life and manners, and o such age
and position as to give rise to no evil suspicion of him, who may, with the
fear of God, so assist the inmates of these monasteries that they may no
longer be allowed to wander, against rule, for any cause whatever, private
or public, beyond their venerable precincts; but that whatever has to be
done in their behalf may be transacted reasonably by him whom you shall
depute. But let the nuns themselves, rendering praises to God and confining
themselves to their monasteries, no longer suggest any evil suspicion to
the minds of the faithful. But if any one of them, either through former
license, or through an evil custom of impunity, has been seduced, or should
in future be led, into the gulph of adulterous lapse, we will that, after
enduring the severity of adequate punishment, she be consigned for penance
to some other stricter monastery of virgins, that she may there give
herself to prayers and fastings, and profit herself by penitence, and
afford an example of the more rigorous kind of discipline, such as may
inspire fear in others. Further, let any one who may be detected in any
iniquity with women of this class be deprived of communion, if he be a
layman; but, if he be a cleric, let him also be removed from his office,
and thrust into a monastery for his ever to be deplored excesses.
We also desire thee to hold councils of bishops twice in the year, as
is said to have been the custom of thy province, as well as being ordered
by the authority of the sacred canons; that, if any among them be of moral
character inconsistent with his profession, he may be convicted by the
friendly rebuke of his brethren, and also that measures may be taken with
paternal circumspection for the security of the flock committed to him, and
for the well-being of souls. It has come to our knowledge also that male
and female slaves of Jews, who have fled for refuge to the Church on
account of their faith, are either restored to their unbelieving masters,
or paid for according to their value in lieu of being restored. We exhort
therefore that thou by no means allow so bad a custom to continue; but that
whosoever being a slave to Jews, shall have fled for refuge to venerable
places, thou suffer him not in any degree to sustain prejudice. But,
whether he had been a Christian before, or been baptized now, let him be
supported in his claim for freedom, without any loss to the poor, by the
patronage of ecclesiastical compassion.
Let not bishops presume to sign baptized infants a second time on the
forehead with chrism; but let the presbyters anoint those who are to be
baptized on the breast, that the bishops may afterwards anoint them on the
forehead(5).
With regard also to founding monasteries, which divers persons have
ordered to be built, if thou perceivest that any persons to whom the charge
has been assigned put it off on unjust pretexts, we desire thee to insist
sagaciously according to what the laws enjoin, lest (as God forbid should
be the case) the pious retentions of the departed should be frustrated
through thy neglect. Further, as to the monastery which Peter is said to
have formerly ordered to be constructed in his house, we have seen fit that
thy Fraternity should make accurate enquiry into the amount of the revenues
there. And in case of there being a suitable provision, when all
diminutions of the property and what is said to have been dispersed have
been recovered, let the monastery with all diligence and without any delay
be founded. But, if the means are insufficient or detrimental(6), we desire
thee, after closely investigating everything as has been commanded, to send
a report to us, that we may know how to deliberate with the Lord's help
with regard to its construction. Let, then, thy Fraternity give wise
attention to all the points above referred to, so as neither to be found to
have transgressed the tenour of our admonitions nor to stand liable to
divine judgment for too little zeal in thy pastoral office.
EPISTLE X: TO ALL THE BISHOPS OF DALMATIA.
Gregory to all the bishops through Dalmatia(7).
It behoved your Fraternity, having the eyes of the flesh closed out of
regard to Divine judgment, to have omitted nothing that appertains to God
and to a right inclination of mind, nor to have preferred the countenance
of any man whatever to the uprightness of justice. But now that your
manners have been so perverted by secular concerns, that, forgetting the
whole path of the sacerdotal dignity that is yours, and all sense of
heavenly fear, you study to accomplish what may please yourselves and not
God, we have held it necessary to send you these specially strict written
orders, whereby, with the authority of the blessed Peter, Prince of the
apostles, we enjoin that you presume not to lay hands on any one whatever
in the city of Salona, so far as regards ordination to episcopacy, without
our consent and permission; nor to ordain any one in the same city
otherwise than as we have said.
But if, either of your own accord, or under compulsion from any one
whatever, you should presume or attempt to do anything contrary to this
injunction, we shall decree you to be deprived of participation of the
Lord's body and blood, that so your very handling of the business, or your
very inclination to transgress our order, may cut you off from the sacred
mysteries, and no one may be accounted a bishop whom you may ordain. For we
wish no one to be rashly ordained whose life can be found fault with. And
so, if the deacon Honoratus is shewn to be unworthy, we desire that a
report may be sent us of the life and manners of him who may be elected,
that whatever is to be done in this matter we may allow to be carried out
salubriously with our consent.
For we trust in Almighty God that, as far as in us lies, we may never
suffer to be done what may damage our soul; never what may damage your
Church. But, if the voluntary consent of all should so fix on one person
that by the favour of God he may be proved worthy, and there should be no
one to dissent from his being ordained, we wish him to be consecrated by
you in this same church of Salona under the license granted in this present
epistle; excepting notwithstanding the person of Maximus, about whom many
evil reports have reached us: and, unless he desists from coveting the
higher order, it remains, as I think, that after full enquiry, he should be
deprived also of the very office which he now holds.
EPISTLE XI: TO MAXIMIANUS, BISHOP.
Gregory to Maximianus, Bishop of Syracuse.
It had indeed been committed to thy Fraternity long ago by our
authority to correct in our stead any excesses or unseemly proceedings that
there might be in the Church and other venerable places of Sicily(8). But,
seeing that a complaint has reached us of some things having been so far
neglected, we have thought it fit that thy Fraternity should again be
specially stirred up to correct them.
For we learn that in the case of revenues of Churches that have been
newly acquired the canonical disposition of their fourth parts does not
prevail(9), but that the bishops of the several places distribute a fourth
part of the ancient revenues only, retaining for their own use those that
have been recently acquired. Wherefore let thy Fraternity make haste
actively to correct this evil custom that has crept in, so that, whether in
the case of former revenues or of such as have accrued now or may accrue,
the fourth parts may be dispensed according to the canonical distribution
of them. For it is unseemly that one and the same substance of the Church
should be rated, as it were, under two different laws, namely, that of
usurpation and that of the canons.
Permit not presbyters, deacons, and other clerks of whatever order, who
serve churches, to be abbots of monasteries; but let them either, giving up
clerical duties, be advanced to the monastic order, or, if they should
decide to remain in the position of abbot, let them by no means be allowed
to have clerical employment. For it is very unsuitable that, if one cannot
fulfil the duties of either of these positions with diligence proportional
to its importance, any one should be judged fit for both, and that so the
ecclesiastical order should impede the monastic life, and in torn the rule
of monasticism impede ecclesiastical utility. Of this thing also we have
taken thought to warn thy Charity; that, if any one of the bishops should
depart this life, or (which God forbid) should be removed for his
transgressions, the hierarchs and all the chief of the clergy being
assembled, and in thy presence making an inventory of the property of the
Church, all that is found should be accurately described, and nothing
should be taken away in kind, or in any other way whatever, from the
property of the Church, as is said to have been done formerly, as though in
return for the trouble of making the inventories. For we desire all that
pertains to the protection of what belongs to the poor to be so executed
that in their affairs no opportunity may be left for the venality of self-
interested men.
Let visitors of churches, and their clerks who with them are at trouble
in parishes that are not of their own city, receive according to thy
appointment some subsidy for their labour. For it is just that they should
get payment in the places where they are found to lend their services.
We most strongly forbid young women to be made abbesses. Let thy
Fraternity, there fore, permit no bishop to veil any but a sexagenarian
virgin, whose age and character may demand this being done; that so, this
as well as the above-named points being set right with the Lord's help by
the urgency of thy strict requirement, thou mayest hasten to bind up again
with canonical ties the long loosened state of venerable things, and also
that divine affairs may be arranged, not by the incongruous wills of men,
but with adequate strictness. The month of October, Indiction(12).
EPISTLE XV: TO JANUARIUS, BISHOP.
Gregory to Januarius, Bishop of Caralis (Cagliari).
Theodosia, a religious lady, being desirous of carrying out the
intention of her late husband Stephen by the building of a monastery(1),
has begged us to transmit our letters to your Fraternity, whereby, through
our commendation, she may the more tea lily be counted worthy of your aid.
She asserts that her husband had given directions for the monastery to be
constructed on the farm called Piscenas, which has come into the possession
of the guest-house (Xenodachii) of the late bishop Thomas. Now, though the
possessor of the property would allow her to found it on land that is not
her own, yet seeing that the lord with reason objects(2), we have thought
it right to agree to her petition; which is that she should, with the
Lord's help, construct a monastery for handmaidens of God in a house
belonging to herself, which she asserts that she has at Caralis. But, since
she says that the aforesaid house is burdened by guests and visitors, we
exhort thy Fraternity to take pains to assist her in all ways, and lend the
aid of thy protection to her devotion, so that thy assistance and assiduity
may make thee partaker of the reward of her departed husband's earnestness
and her own. As to the relics which she requests may be placed there, we
desire that they be deposited with due reverence by thy Fraternity.
EPISTLE XVIII: TO MAURUS, ABBOT.
Gregory to Maurus, &c.
The care of churches which is evidently inherent in the priestly office
compels us to be so solicitous that no fault of neglect may appear with
regard to them. Since, however, we have learnt that the church of Saint
Pancratius, which had been committed to presbyters, has been frequently
neglected, so that people coming there on the Lord's day to celebrate the
solemnities of mass have returned murmuring on finding no presbyter, we
therefore, after mature deliberation, have determined to remove those
presbyters, and with the favour of God constitute for the same church a
congregation of monks in a monastery, to the end that the abbot who shall
preside there may give care and attention in all respects to the aforesaid
church. And we have also thought fit to put thee, Maurus, over this
monastery as abbot, ordaining that the lands of the aforesaid church, and
whatever may have come into its possession, or accrued from its revenues,
be applied to this thy monastery, and belong to it without any diminution;
but on condition whatever needs to be effected or repaired in the church
above written may be so effected and repaired by thee without fail.
But lest, after the removal of the presbyters to whom this church had
previously been committed, it should seem to be without provision for
divine service, we therefore enjoin thee by the tenour of this authority to
supply it with a peregrine(3) presbyter to celebrate the sacred solemnities
of mass, who, nevertheless, must needs both live in thy monastery, and have
from it provision for his maintenance.
But let this also above all be thy care, that there over the most
sacred body of the blessed Pancratius the work of God be executed daily
without fail. These things, then, which by the tenour of this precept we
depute thee to do, we will that not only thou perform, but that they be
also so observed and fulfilled for ever by those who shall succeed thee in
thy office and place, that there may be no possibility henceforth of
neglect being found in the aforesaid church.
EPISTLE XX: TO MAXIMUS, PRETENDER (Proesumptorem)(4).
Gregory to Maximus, Pretender in Salona.
Though the merits of any one's life were in other respects such as to
offer no impediment to his ordination to priestly offices, yet the crime of
canvassing in itself is condemned by the severest strictness of the canons.
Now we have been informed that thou, having either obtained
surreptitiously, or pretended, an order from the most pious princes, hast
forced thy way to the order of priesthoods, which is of all men to be
venerated, while being in thy life unworthy. And this without any
hesitation we believed, inasmuch as thy life and age are not unknown to us,
and further, because we are not ignorant of the mind of our most serene
lord the Emperor, in that he is not accustomed to mix himself up in the
causes of priests, lest he should in any way be burdened by our sins. An
unheard-of wickedness is also spoken of; that, even after our interdiction,
which was pronounced under pain of excommunication of thee and those who
should ordain thee, it is said that thou wast brought forward by a military
force, and that presbyters, deacons, and other clergy were beaten. Which
proceeding we can in no wise call a consecration, since it was celebrated
by excommunicated men. Since, therefore, without any precedent, thou hast
violated such and so great a dignity, namely that of the priesthood, we
enjoin that, until I shall have ascertained from the letters of our lords
or of our responsalis, that thou wast ordained under a true and not a
surreptitious order, thou and thy ordainers by no means presume to handle
anything connected with the priestly office, and that you approach not the
service of the holy altar till you have heard from us again. But, if you
should presume to act in contravention of this order, be ye anathema from
God and from the blessed Peter, Prince of the apostles, that your
punishment may afford an example to other catholic churches also, through
their contemplation of the judgment upon you. The month of May, Indiction
12.
EPISTLE XXI: TO VENANTIUS, BISHOP.
Gregory to Venantius, Bishop of Luna (in Etruria).
It has reached us by the report of many that Christian slaves are
detained in servitude by Jews living in the city of Luna(6); which thing
has seemed to us by so much the more offensive as the sufferance of it by
thy Fraternity annoys us. For it was thy duty, in respect of thy place, and
in thy regard for the Christian religion, to leave no occasion for simple
souls to serve Jewish superstition not through persuasion, but, in a
manner, by right of authority. Wherefore we exhort thy Fraternity that,
according to the course laid down by the most pious laws, no Jew be allowed
to retain a Christian slave in his possession. But, if any are found in
their power, let liberty be secured to them by protection under the
sanction of law. But as to any that are on the property of Jews, though
they be themselves free from legal obligation, yet, since they have long
been attached to the cultivation of their lands as bound by the condition
of their tenure, let them continue to cultivate the farms they have been
accustomed to do, rendering their payments to the aforesaid persons, and
performing all things that the laws require of husbandmen or natives,
except that no farther burden be imposed on them. But, whether any one of
these should wish to remain in his servitude, or any to migrate to another
place, let the latter consider with himself that he will have lost his
rights as a husbandman by his own rashness, though he has got rid of his
servitude by force of law. In all these things, then, we desire thee to
exert thyself so wisely that neither mayest thou be a guilty pastor of a
dismembered flock, nor may thy too little zeal render thee reprehensible
before us.
EPISTLE XXIII: TO HOSPITO, DUKE OF THE BARBARICINI(7).
Gregory to Hospito, &c.
Since no one of thy race is a Christian, I hereby know that thou art
better than all thy race, in that thou in it art found to be a Christian.
For, while all the Barbaricini live as senseless animals, know not the true
God, but adore stocks and stones, in the very fact that thou worshippest
the true God thou shewest how much thou excellest them all. But carry thou
out the faith which thou hast received in good deeds and words, and offer
what is in thy power to Christ in whom thou believest, so as to bring to
Him as many as thou canst, and cause them to be baptized, and admonish them
to set their affection on eternal life. And if perchance thou canst not do
this thyself, being otherwise occupied, I beg thee, with my greeting, to
succour in all ways our men whom we have sent to your parts, to wit my
fellow-bishop Felix, and my son, the servant of God, Cyriacus(8), so that
in aiding their labours thou mayest shew thy devotion to Almighty God, and
that He whose servants thou succourest in their good work may be a helper
to thee in all good deeds. We have sent you through them a blessing(9) of
St. Peter the apostle, which I beg you to receive, as you ought to do,
kindly. The month of June, Indiction 12.
EPISTLE XXIV: TO ZABARDAS, DUKE OF SARDINIA.
Gregory to Zabardas, &c.
From the letters of my brother and fellow-bishop Felix, and of the
servant of God, Cyriacus, we have learnt your Glory's good qualities. And
we give great thanks to mighty God, that Sardinia has got such a duke; one
who so knows how to do his duty to the republic in earthly matters as to
know also how to exhibit to Almighty God dutiful regard for the heavenly
country. For they have written to me that you are arranging terms of peace
with the Barbaricini on such conditions as to bring these same Barbaricini
to the service of Christ. On this account I rejoice exceedingly, and,
should it please Almighty God, will speedily notify your gifts to our most
serene princes. Do you, therefore, accomplish what you have begun, shew the
devotion of your heart to Almighty God, and help to the utmost of your
power those whom we have sent to your parts for the conversion of the
Barbaricini 1); knowing that such works may avail much to aid you both
before our earthly princes and in the eyes of the heavenly king.
EPISTLE XXV: TO THE NOBLES AND PROPRIETORS IN SARDINIA.
Gregory to the Nobles, &c.
I have learnt from the report of my brother and fellow-bishop Felix,
and my son the servant of God, Cyriacus(2), that nearly all of you have
peasants (rusticos(3)) on your estates given to idolatry. And this has made
me very sorry, since I know that the guilt of subjects weighs down the life
of their superiors, and that, when sin in a subject is not corrected,
sentence is flung back on those who are over them. Wherefore, magnificent
sons, I exhort that with all care and all solicitude ye be zealous for your
souls, and see what account you will render to Almighty God for your
subjects. For indeed they have been committed to you for this end, that
both they may serve for your advantage in earthly things, and you, through
your care for them, may provide for their souls in the things that are
eternal. If, then, they pay what they owe you, why pay you not them what
you owe them? That is to say, your Greatness should assiduously admonish
them, and restrain them from the error of idolatry, to the end that by
their being drawn to the faith you may make Almighty God propitious to
yourselves. For, lo, you observe how the end of this world is close at
hand; you see that now a human, now a divine, sword rages against us: and
yet you, the worshippers of the true God, behold stones adored by those who
are committed to you, and are silent(4). What, I pray you, will you say in
the tremendous judgment, when you have received God's enemies into your
power, and yet disdain to subdue them to God and recall them to Him?
Wherefore, addressing you with due greeting, I beg that your Greatness
would be earnestly on the watch to give yourselves to zeal for God, and
hasten to inform me in your letters which of you has brought how many to
Christ. If, then, haply from any cause you are unable to do this, enjoin it
on our aforesaid brother and fellow-bishop Felix, or my son Cyriacus, and
afford them succour for the work of God, that so in the retribution to come
you may be in a state to partake of life by so much the more as you now
afford succour to a good work.
EPISTLE XXVI, TO JANUARIUS, BISHOP.
Gregory to Januarius, Bishop of Caralis (Cagliari).
We have ascertained from the report of our fellow-bishop Felix and the
abbot Cyriacus that in the island of Sardinia priests are oppressed by lay
judges, and that thy ministers despise thy Fraternity; and that, so far as
appears, while you aim only at simplicity, discipline is neglected.
Wherefore I exhort thee that, putting aside all excuses, thou take pains to
rule the Church of which thou hast received the charge, to keep up
discipline among the clergy, and fear no one's words. But, as I hear, thou
hast forbidden thy Archdeacon to live with women, and up to this time art
set at naught with regard to this thy prohibition. Unless he obey thy
command, our will is that he be deprived of his sacred order.
There is another tiling also which is much to be deplored; namely, that
the negligence of your Fraternity has allowed the peasants (rusticos)
belonging to lily Church to remain up to the present time in infidelity.
And what is the use of my admonishing you to bring such as do not belong to
you to God, if you neglect to recover your own from infidelity? Hence you
must needs be in all ways vigilant for their conversion. For, should I
succeed in finding a pagan peasant belonging to any bishop whatever in the
island of Sardinia, I will visit it severely on that bishop.
But now, if any peasant should be found so perfidious and obstinate as
to refuse to come to the Lord God, he must be weighted with so great a
burden of payment as to be compelled by the very pain of the exaction to
hasten to the right way(5).
It has also come to our knowledge that some in sacred orders who have
lapsed, either after doing penance or before, are recalled to the office of
their ministry; which is a thing that we have altogether forbidden; and the
most sacred canons also declare against it. Whoso, then, after having
received any sacred order, shall have lapsed into sin of the flesh, let him
so forfeit his sacred order as not to approach any more the ministry of the
altar. But, lest those who have been ordained should ever perish, previous
care should be taken as to what kind of people are ordained, so that it be
first seen to whether they have been continent in life for many years, and
whether they have had a care for reading and a love of almsgiving. It
should be enquired also whether a man has perchance been twice married. It
should also be seen to that he be not illiterate, or under liability to the
state, so as to be compelled after assuming a sacred order to return to
public employment. All these things therefore let your Fraternity
diligently enquire into, that, every one having been ordained after
diligent examination. none may be easily liable to be deposed after
ordination. These things which We have written to your Fraternity do you
make known to all the bishops under you, since I myself have been unwilling
to write to them, lest I might seem to lessen your dignity.
It has also come to our ears that some have been offended by our having
forbidden presbyters to touch with chrism those who are to be baptized. And
we indeed acted according to the ancient use of our Church: but, if any are
in fact hereby distressed, we allow that, where there is a lack of bishops,
presbyters may touch with chrism, even on their foreheads, those who are to
be baptized(6).
EPISTLE XXVII: TO JANUARIUS, BISHOP.
Gregory to Januarius, Bishop of Caralis (Cagliari).
Thy Fraternity ought indeed to have been so attentive to pious duties
as to be in no need at all of our admonitions to induce thee to fulfil
them: yet, as certain particulars that require correction have come to our
knowledge, there is nothing incongruous in your having besides a letter
addressed to you bearing our authority.
Wherefore we apprize you that we have been given to understand that it
has been the custom for the Guest- houses (Xenodochia) constituted in the
parts about Caralis to submit their accounts in detail from time to time to
the bishop of the city; that is, so as to be governed under his
guardianship and care.
Now, as thy Charity is said to have so far neglected this, we exhort, as
has been said, that the inmates who are or have been established in these
Guest-houses submit their accounts in detail from time to time. And let
such persons be ordained to preside over them as may be found most worthy
in life, manners and industry, and at any rate religiosi (7), whom judges
may have no power of annoying, lest, if they should be such as could be
summoned to the courts, occasion might be given for wasting the feeble
resources which they have: concerning which resources we wish thee to take
the greatest care, so that they be given away to no one without thy
knowledge, lest the carelessness of thy Fraternity should go so far as to
let them be plundered.
Moreover, thou knowest that the bearer of these presents, Epiphanius
the presbyter, was criminally accused in the letters of certain Sardinians.
We, then, having investigated his case as it was our will to do, and
finding no proof of what was charged against him, have absolved him, so
that he might be restored to his place. We therefore desire thee to search
out the authors of the charge against him: and, unless he who sent those
same letters be prepared to support his charges by canonical and most
strict proofs, let him on no account approach the mystery of holy
communion.
Further, as to Paul the cleric, who is said to have been often detected
in malpractices, and who had fled into Africa, having returned to a lay
state of life in despite of his cloth, if it is so, we have seen to his
being given up to penance after previous corporal punishment, to the end
that, according to the apostolic sentence, by means of affliction of the
flesh the spirit may be saved, and also that he may be able to wash away
with continual tears the earthly filth of sin, which he is said to have
contracted By wicked works.
Moreover, in accordance with the injunctions of the canons, let no
religious person (religiosus) associate with those who have been suspended
from ecclesiastical communion.
Further, for ordinations or marriages of clerics, or from virgins who
are veiled, let no one presume to receive any fee, unless they should
prefer to offer something of their own accord.
As to what should be done in the case of women who have left
monasteries for a lay life, and have taken husbands, we have conversed at
length with thy Fraternity's aforesaid presbyter, from whose report your
Holiness may be more fully informed.
Further, let religious clerics (religiosi clerici)(7) avoid resort to
or the patronage of laymen; but let them be in all respects subject to thy
jurisdiction according to the canons, lest through the remissness of thy
Fraternity the discipline of the Church over which thou presidest should be
dissolved.
Lastly, as to the men who have sinned with the aforesaid women who had
left their monasteries, and are said to be now suspended from communion, if
thy Fraternity should observe them to have repented worthily for such a
wickedness, we will that thou restore them to holy communion.
EPISTLE XXIX: TO JANUARIUS, BISHOP.
Gregory to Januarius, Bishop of Caralis (Cagliari).
It has come to our knowledge that in the place within the province of
Sardinia called Phausiana it is said to have been once the custom to ordain
a bishop; but that, through stress of circumstances, the custom has for
long fallen into disuse. But, as we are aware that now, owing to scarcity
of priests, certain pagans remain there, living like wild beasts, and
entirely ignorant of the worship of God, we exhort thy Fraternity to make
haste to ordain a bishop there according to the ancient way; such a one,
that is, as may be suitable for this work, and may take pains to bring
wanderers into the Lord's flock with pastoral zeal; that so, while he
devotes himself there to the saving of souls, neither may you be found to
have required what was superfluous, nor may we repent of having re-
established in vain what had been once discontinued.
EPISTLE XXX: TO CONSTANTINA AUGUSTA.
Gregory to Constantina, &c.
The Serenity of your Piety, conspicuous for religious zeal and love of
holiness, has charged me with your commands to send to you the head of
Saint Paul, or some other part of his body, for the church which is being
built in honour of the same Saint Paul in the palace. And, being desirous
of receiving commands from you, by exhibiting the most ready obedience to
which I might the more provoke your favour towards me, I am all the more
distressed that I neither can nor dare do what you enjoin. For the bodies
of the apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul glitter with so great miracles
and terrors in their churches that one cannot even go to pray there without
great fear. In short, when my predecessor, of blessed memory, was desirous
of changing the silver which was over the most sacred body of the blessed
apostle Peter, though at a distance of almost fifteen feet from the same
body, a sign of no small dreadfulness appeared to him. Nay, I too wished in
like manner to amend something not far from the most sacred body of Saint
Paul the apostle; and, it being necessary to dig to some depth near his
sepulchre, the superintendent of that place found some bones, which were
not indeed connected with the same sepulchre; but, inasmuch as he presumed
to lift them and transfer them to another place, certain awful signs
appeared, and be died suddenly.
Besides all this, when my predecessor, of holy memory, was desiring in
like manner to make some improvements not far from the body of Saint
Laurence the martyr, it not being known where the venerable body was laid,
diggings were made in the course of search, and suddenly his sepulchre was
unawares disclosed; and those who were present and working, monks and
mansionarii(8), who saw the body of the same martyr, which they did not
indeed presume to touch, all died within ten days, so that none might
survive who had seen the holy body of that righteous man.
Moreover, let my most tranquil lady know that it is not the custom of
the Romans, when they give relics of saints, to presume to touch any part
of the body; but only a cloth (brandeum) is put into a box (pyxide), and
placed near the most sacred bodies of the saints: and when it is taken up
it is deposited with due reverence in the Church that is to be dedicated,
and such powerful effects are thereby produced there as might have been if
their bodies had been brought to that special place. Whence it came to pass
in the[ times of Pope Leo, of blessed memory, as has been handed down from
our forefathers, that, certain Greeks being in doubt about such relics, the
aforesaid pontiff took scissors and cut this same cloth (brandeum), and
from the very incision blood flowed. For in the Roman and all the Western
parts it is unendurable and sacrilegious for any one by any chance to
desire to touch the bodies of saints: and, if one should presume to do
this, it is certain that this temerity will by no means remain unpunished.
For this reason we greatly wonder at the custom of the Greeks, who say that
they take up the bones of saints; and we scarcely believe it. For certain
Greek monks who came here more than two years ago dug up in the silence of
night near the church of Saint Paul, bodies of dental men lying in the open
field, and laid up their bones to be kept in their own possession till
their departure. And, when they were taken and diligently examined as to
why they did this, they confessed that they were going to carry those bones
to Greece to pass for relics of saints. From this instance, as has been
already said, the greater doubt has been engendered in us whether it be
true that they really take up the bones of saints, as they are said to do.
But what shall I say of the bodies of the blessed apostles, when it is
well known that, at the time when they suffered, believers came from the
East to recover their bodies as being those of their own countrymen? And,
having been taken as far as the second milestone from the city, they were
deposited in the place which is called Catacumbas. But, when the whole
multitude came together and endeavoured to remove them thence, such
violence of thunder and lightning terrified and dispersed them that they on
no account presumed to attempt such a thing again. And then the Romans, who
of the Lord's loving-kindness were counted worthy to do this, went out and
took up their bodies, and laid them in the places where they are now
deposited.
Who then, most serene lady, can there be so venturesome as, knowing
these things, to presume, I do not say to touch their bodies, but even at
all to look at them? Such orders therefore having been given the by you,
which I could by no means have obeyed, it has not, so far as I find, been
of your own motion; but certain men have wished to stir up your Piety
against me, so as to withdraw from me (which God forbid) the favour of your
good will, and have therefore sought out a point in which I might be found
as if disobedient to you. But I trust in Almighty God that your most kind
good will is in no way being stolen away from me, and that you will always
have with you the power of the holy apostles, whom with all your heart and
mind you love, not from their bodily presence, but from their protection.
Moreover, the napkin, which you have likewise ordered to be sent you,
is with his body, and so cannot be touched, as his body cannot be
approached. But since so religious a desire of my most serene lady ought
not to be wholly unsatisfied, I will make haste to transmit to you some
portion of the chains which Saint Peter the apostle himself bore on his
neck and his hands, from which many miracles are displayed among the
people; if at least I should succeed in removing it by filing. For, while
many come frequently to seek a blessing from these same chains, in the hope
of receiving a little part of the filings, a priest attends with a file,
and in the case of some seekers a portion comes off so quickly from these
chains that there is no delay: but in the case of other seekers the file is
drawn for long over the chains, and yet nothing can be got from them. In
the month of June, Indiction(12).
EPISTLE XXXI: TO THEODORUS, PHYSICIAN.
Gregory to Theodorus, Physician to the Emperor.
I myself give thanks to Almighty God, that distance does not separate
the hearts of those who truly love each other mutually. For lo, most sweet
and glorious son, we are far apart in body, and yet are present with each
other in charity. This your works, this your letters testify, this I
experienced in you when present, this I recognize in your Glory when absent
May this make you both beloved of men and worthy for ever before Almighty
God. For, charity being the mother of virtues, you bring forth the fruits
of good works for this reason that you keep in your soul the very root of
those fruits. Now what you have sent me God inspiring you, for the
redemption of captives, I confess that I have received both with joy and
with sorrow. With joy, that is, for you, whom I thus perceive to be
preparing a mansion in the heavenly country; but with exceeding sorrow for
myself, who, over and above my care of the property of the holy apostle
Peter, must now also give an account of the property of my most sweet son,
the lord Theodorus, and be held responsible for having spent it carefully
or negligently. But may Almighty God, who has poured into your mind the
bowels of His own mercy, who has granted to you to take anxious thought for
what is said of our Saviour by the excellent preacher--That, though he was
rich, yet far us he became poor (2 Cor. viii.(9))--may He, at the coming of
the same Saviour, shew you to be rich in virtues, cause you to stand free
from all fault. and giant to you heavenly for earthly joys; abiding joys
for transitory.
As to what you say you desire to be done for you near the most sacred
body of the holy apostle Peter, be assured that, though your tongue were
silent, your charity bids the doing of it. Would indeed that we were worthy
to pray for you: but that I am not worthy I have no doubt. Still, however,
there are here many worthy folk, who are being redeemed from the enemy by
your offering, and serve our Creator faithfully, with regard to whom you
have done what is written; Lay up alms in the bosom of the poor, and it
shall pray for thee (Ecclus. xxix. 15).
But, since he loves the more who presumes the more, I have some
complaint against the most sweet disposition of my most glorious son the
lord Theodorus; namely that he has received from the holy Trinity the gift
of genius, the gift of wealth, the gift of mercy and charity, and yet is
unceasingly bound up in secular causes, is occupied in continual
processions, and neglects to read daily the words of his Redeemer. For what
is sacred Scripture but a kind of epistle of Almighty God to His creature?
And surely, if your Glory were resident in any other place, and were to
receive letters from an earthly emperor, you would not loiter, you would
not rest, you would not give sleep to your eyes, till you had learnt what
the earthly emperor had written.
The Emperor of Heaven, the Lord of men and angels, has sent thee his
epistles for thy life's behoof; and yet, glorious son, thou neglectest to
read these epistles ardently. Study then, I beseech thee, and daily
meditate on the words of thy Creator. Learn the heart of God in the words
of God, that thou mayest sigh more ardently for the things that are
eternal, that your soul may be kindled with greater longings for heavenly
joys. For a man will have the greater rest here in proportion as he has now
no rest in the love of his Maker. But, that you may act thus, may Almighty
God pour into you the Spirit the Comforter: may He fill your soul with His
presence, and in filling it, compose it.
As to me, know ye that I suffer here many and innumerable bitternesses.
But I give thanks to Almighty God that I suffer far less than I deserve.
I commend to your Glory my son, your patient, the lord Narses. I know
indeed that you hold him as in all respects commended to you; but I beg you
to do what you are doing, that, in asking for what I see is being done, I
may by my asking have a share in your reward. Furthermore, I have received
the blessing(9) of your Excellency with the charity wherewith it was sent
to me. And I have presumed to send you, in acknowledgment of your love, a
duck with two small ducklings, that, as often as your eye is led to look at
it, the memory also of me may be recalled to you among the occupations and
tumults of business.
EPISTLE XXXII: TO NARSES THE PATRICIAN.
Gregory to Narses, &c.
Your most sweet Charity has said much to me in your letters in praise
of my good deeds, to all which I briefly reply, Call me not Noemi, that is
beautiful; but call me Mara, that is bitter; far I am full of bitterness
(Ruth (i. 20).
But as to the cause of the presbyters(1), which is pending with my
brother and fellow-bishop, the most reverend Patriarch John, we have, as I
think, for our adversary the very man whom you assert to be desirous of
observing the canons. Further, I declare to thy Charity that I am prepared,
with the help of Almighty God, to prosecute this same cause with all my
power and influence. And, should I see that in it the canons of the
Apostolic See are not observed, Almighty God will give unto me what I may
do against the contemners of the same.
As to what your Charity has written to me, asking me to give thanks for
you to my son the chief physician and ex-praefect Theodorus, I have done
so, and have by no means ceased to commend you as much as I could. Further,
I beg you to pardon me for replying to your letters with brevity; for I am
pressed by such great tribulations that it is not allowed me either to read
or to speak much by letter. This only I say to thee, For the voice of
groaning I have forgotten to eat my bread (Ps. ci. 5(2)). All that are with
you I beg you to salute in my name. Give my salutations to the lady
Dominica, whose letter I have not answered, because, though she is Latin,
she wrote to me in Greek.
EPISTLE XXXIII: TO ANTHEMIUS, SUBDEACON.
Gregory to Anthemius, &c.
Those whom our Redeemer vouchsafes to convert to himself from Judaical
perdition we ought, with reasonable moderation, to assist; lest (as God
forbid should be the case) they should suffer from lack of food.
Accordingly we charge thee, under the authority of this order, not to
neglect to give money every year to the children of Justa, who is of the
Hebrews; that is to Julianus, Redemptus, and Fortuna, beginning from the
coming thirteenth Indiction; and know that the payment is by all means to
be charged in thy accounts.
EPISTLE XXXIV: TO PANTALEO, PRAEFECT
Gregory to Pantaleo, Praefect of Africa.
How the law urgently prosecutes the most abominable pravity of heretics
is not unknown to your Excellency(3). It is therefore no light sin if
these, whom both the integrity of our faith and the strictness of the laws
condemn, should find licence to creep up again in your times. Now in those
parts, so far as we have learnt, the audacity of the Donatists has so
increased that not only do they with pestiferous assumption of authority
cast out of their churches priests of the catholic faith, but fear not even
to rebaptize those whom the water of regeneration had cleansed on a true
confession. And we are much surprised, if indeed it is so, that, while you
are placed in those parts, bad men should be allowed thus to exceed.
Consider only in the first place what kind of judgment you will leave to be
passed upon you by men, if these, who in the times of others were with just
reason put down, find under your administration a way for their excesses.
In the next place know that our God will require at your hand the souls of
the lost, if you neglect to amend, so far as possibility requires it of
you, so great an abomination. Let not your Excellency take amiss my thus
speaking. For it is because we love you as our own children that we point
out to you what we doubt not will be to your advantage. But send to us with
all speed our brother and fellow-bishop Paul(4), lest opportunity should be
given to any one under any excuse for hindering his coming; in order that,
on ascertaining the truth more fully, we may be able, with God's help, to
settle by a reasonable treatment of the case how the punishment of so great
a crime ought to be proceeded with.
EPISTLE XXXV: TO VICTOR AND COLUMBUS, BISHOPS(5).
Gregory to Victor and Columbus, Bishops of Africa.
After what manner a disease, if neglected in its beginning, acquires
strength we have proved from our own necessities, whosoever of us have had
our lot in this life. If, then, it were met by the foresight of skilful
physicians at its birth, we know that it would cease before doing very much
harm from being attended to too late. On this consideration, then, reason
ought to impel us, when diseases of souls are beginning, to make haste to
resist them by all the means in our power, lest, while we neglect applying
wholesome medicines, they steal away from us the lives of many whom we are
striving to win for our God. Wherefore it behoves us so with watchful
carefulness to guard the folds of sheep which we see ourselves to be put
over as keepers that the prowling wolf may find everywhere shepherds to
resist him, and may have no way of entrance thereinto.
For indeed we find that the stings of the Donatists have in your parts
so disturbed the Lord's flock, as though it were guided by no shepherd's
control. And there has been reported to us what we cannot speak of without
heavy sorrow, seeing that very many have already been torn by their
poisoned teeth. Lastly, in order with most wicked audacity to drive
catholic priests from their churches, they are said, in their most
atrocious wickedness, even to have slain many besides, on whom the water of
regeneration had conferred salvation, by rebaptizing them. All this saddens
our mind exceedingly, for that, while you are placed there, it has been
allowed to damned presumption to perpetrate such wickedness.
In this matter we exhort your Fraternity by this present writing, that,
after discussion held and a council assembled, you should eagerly and with
all your power so oppose this still nascent disease that neither may it
acquire strength from neglect nor scatter the woes of pestilence in the
flock committed to your charge. For, if in any way whatever (as we do not
believe will be the case) you neglect to resist iniquity in its beginning,
they will wound very many with the sword of their error. And it is in truth
a most serious thing to allow to be ensnared in the noose of diabolical
fraud those whom we are able to rescue beforehand from being entangled.
Moreover it is better to prevent any one from being wounded than to search
out how one that is wounded may be healed. Considering this, therefore,
hasten ye by sedulous prayer and all the means in your power, to quell
sacrilegious wickedness, so that subsequent news, through the aid of the
grace of Christ, may cause us more joy for the punishment of those men than
sadness for their excesses.
Furthermore, take all possible pains to send to us with all speed our
brother and fellow-bishop Paul(6), to the end that, on learning more
particularly from him the causes of so great a crime, we may be able by the
succour of our Creator to apply the medicine of fitting rebuke to this most
atrocious wickedness.
EPISTLE XXXVI: TO LEO, BISHOP.
Gregory to Leo, Bishop of Catana(7).
We have found from the report of many that a custom has of old obtained
among you, for subdeacons to be allowed to have intercourse with their
wives. That any one should any more presume to do this was prohibited by
the servant of God, the deacon of our see, under the authority of our
predecessor(8), in this way; that those who at that time had been coupled
to wives should choose one of two things, that is, either to abstain from
their wives, or on no account whatever presume to exercise their ministry.
And, according to report, Speciosus, then a subdeacon, did for this reason
suspend himself from the office of
administration, and up to the time of his death bore indeed the office of a
notary, but ceased from the ministry which a subdeacon should have
exercised. After his death we have learnt that his widow, Honorata, has
been relegated to a monastery by thy Fraternity for having associated
herself with a husband. And so if, as is said, her husband suspended
himself from ministration, it ought not to be to the prejudice of the
aforesaid woman that she has contracted a second marriage, especially if
she had not been joined to the subdeacon with the intention of abstaining
from the pleasures of the flesh.
If, then, you find the truth to be as we have been informed, it is
right for you to release altogether the aforesaid woman from the monastery,
that she may be at liberty to return without any fear to her husband.
But for the future let thy Fraternity be exceedingly careful, in the
case of any who may be promoted to this office, to look to this with the
utmost diligence, that, if they have wives, they shall enjoy no licence to
have intercourse with them: but you must still strictly order them to
observe all things after the pattern of the Apostolic See.
EPISTLE XXXVIII: TO QUEEN THEODELINDA.
Gregory to Theodelina, Queen of the Lombards(9).
It has come to our knowledge from the report of certain persons that
your Glory has been led on by some bishops even to the offence against holy
Church of suspending yourself from the communion of Catholic unanimity. Now
the more we sincerely love you, the more seriously are we distressed about
you, that you believe unskilled and foolish men, who not only do not know
what they talk about, but can hardly understand what they have heard; who,
while they neither read themselves, nor believe those who do, remain in the
same error which they have themselves feigned to themselves concerning us
For we venerate the four holy synods; the Nicene, in which Arius, the
Constantinopolitan, in which Macedonius, the first Ephesine, in which
Nestorius, and the Chalcedonians, in which Eutyches and Dioscorus, were
condemned; declaring that whosoever thinks otherwise than these four synods
did is alien from the true faith. We also condemn whomsoever they condemn,
and absolve whomsoever they absolve, smiting, with interposition of
anathema, any one who presumes to add to or take away from the faith of the
same four synods, and especially that of Chalcedon, with respect to which
doubt and occasion of superstition has arisen in the minds of certain
unskilled men.
Seeing, then, that you know the integrity of our faith from my plain
utterance and profession, it is right that you should have no further
scruple of doubt with respect to the Church of the blessed Peter, Prince of
the apostles: but persist ye in the true faith, and make your life firm on
the rock of the Church; that is on the confession of the blessed Peter,
Prince of the apostles, lest all those tears of yours and all those good
works should come to nothing, if they are found alien from the true faith.
For as branches dry up without the virtue of the root, so works, to
whatsoever degree they may seem good, are nothing, if they are disjoined
from the solidity of the faith.
It therefore becomes your Glory to send a communication with all speed
to our most reverend brother and fellow-bishop Constantius, of whose faith
and life I have long been well assured, and to signify by your letters
addressed to him how kindly you accept his ordination, and that you are in
no wise separated from the communion of his Church, so that we may truly
rejoice with a common exultation, as for a good and faithful daughter. Know
also that you and your works will please God, if, before his assize comes,
they be approved by the judgment of his priests.
EPISTLE XXXIX: TO CONSTANTIUS, BISHOP.
Gregory to Constantius, Bishop of Mediolanum (Milan).
Having read the letter of your Holiness, we find that you are in a
state of serious distress, principally on account of the bishops and
citizens of Briscia (Brescia) who bid you send them a letter in which you
are asked to swear that you have not condemned the Three Chapters(1). Now,
if your Fraternity's predecessor Laurentius did not do this, it ought not
to be required of you. But, if he did it, he was not with the universal
Church, and contradicted what he had sworn to in his security(2). But,
inasmuch as we believe him to have kept his oath, and to have continued in
the unity of the Catholic Church, there is no doubt that he did not swear
to any of his bishops that he had not condemned the Three Chapters. Hence
your Holiness may conclude that you ought not to be forced to do what was
in no wise done by your predecessor. But, lest those who have thus written
to you should be offended, send them a letter declaring under interposition
of anathema that you neither take away anything from the faith of the synod
of Chalcedon nor received those who do, and that you condemn whomsoever it
condemned, and absolve whomsoever it absolved. And thus I believe that they
may be very soon satisfied(3)
Further, as to what you write about many of them being offended because
you name our brother and fellow- bishop John of the Church of Ravenna
during the solemnities of mass, you should enquire into the ancient custom;
and, if it has been the custom, it ought not now to be found fault with by
foolish men. But, if it has not been the custom, a tiring ought not to be
done at which some may possibly take offence. Yet I have been at pains to
make careful enquiry whether the same John our brother and fellow-bishop
names you at the altar; and they say that this is not done. And, if he does
not make mention of your name, I know not what necessity obliges you to
make mention of his. If indeed it can be done without any one taking
offence, your doing anything of this kind is very laudable, since you shew
the charity you have towards your brethren.
Further, as to what you write of your having been unwilling to transmit
my letter to Queen Theodelinda on the ground that the fifth synod was named
in it, if you believed that she might thereby be offended, you did right in
not transmitting it. We are therefore doing now as you recommend, namely,
that we should only express approval of the four synods. Yet, as to the
synod which was afterwards held in Constantinople, called by many the
fifth, I would have you know that it neither ordained nor held anything in
opposition to the four most holy synods, seeing that nothing was done in it
with respect to the faith, but only with respect to persons; and persons,
too, about whom nothing is contained in the acts of the Council of
Chalcedon(4) but, after the canons had been promulged, discussion arose,
and final action was ventilated concerning persons. Yet still we have done
as you desired, making no mention of this synod. But we have also written
to our daughter the queen what you wrote to us about the bishops.
Ursicinus, who wrote something to you against our brother and fellow-bishop
John, you ought by your letters addressed to him, with sweetness and
reason, to restrain from his intention. Further, concerning Fortunatus(5),
we desire your Fraternity to be careful, lest you be in any way
surreptitiously influenced by bad men. For I hear that he ate at the table
of the Church with your predecessor Laurentius for many years until now,
that he sat among the nobles, and subscribed, and that with our brother's
knowledge he served in the army. And now, after so many years, your
Fraternity thinks that he should be driven from the position which he now
occupies. This seems to me altogether incongruous. And so I have given you
this order through him, but privately. Still, if there is anything
reasonable that can be alleged against him, it ought to be submitted to our
judgment. But, if it please Almighty God, we will send letters through your
man to our son the lord Dynamius.
EPISTLE XLVI: TO RUSTICIANA, PATRICIAN.
Gregory to Rusticiana, &c.
On receiving your Excellency's letters I was glad to hear that you had
reached Mount Sinai. But believe me, I too should have liked to go with
you, but by no means to return with you. And yet I find it very difficult
to believe that you have been at the holy places and seen many Fathers. For
I believe that, if you had seen them, you would by no means have been able
to return so speedily to the city of Constantinople. But now that the love
of such a city has in no wise departed from your heart, I suspect that your
Excellency did not from the heart devote yourself to the holy things which
you saw with the bodily eye. But may Almighty God illuminate your mind by
the grace of His lovingkindness and give unto you to be wise, and to
consider how fugitive are all temporal things, since, while we are thus
speaking, both time runs on and the Judge approaches, and lo the moment is
even now near when against our will we must give up the world which of our
own accord we will not. I beg that the lord Apio and the lady Eusebia, and
their daughters, be greeted in my behalf. As to that lady my nurse, whom
you commend to me by letter, I have the greatest regard for her, and desire
that she should be in no way incommoded. But we are pressed by such great
straits that we cannot excuse even ourselves from exactions (angariis)(6)
and burdens at this present time.
EPISTLE XLVII: TO SABINIANUS, DEACON(7).
Gregory to Sabinianus, &c.
Thou knowest what has been done in the case of the prevaricator
Maximus(8). For after the most serene lord the Emperor had Sent orders that
he should not be ordained(9), then he broke out into a higher pitch of
pride. For the men of the glorious patrician Romanus(1) received bribes
from him, and caused him to be ordained in such a manner that they would
have killed Antoninus, the sub-deacon and rector of the patrimony, if he
had not fled. But I despatched letters to him, after I had learnt that he
had been ordained against reason and custom, telling him not to presume to
celebrate the solemnities of mass unless I should first ascertain from our
most serene lords what they had ordered with regard to him. And these my
letters, having been publicly promulged or posted in the city, he caused to
be publicly torn, and thus bounced forth more openly into contempt of the
Apostolic See. How I was likely to endure this thou knowest, seeing that I
was before prepared rather to die than that the Church of the blessed
apostle Peter should degenerate in my days. Moreover thou art well
acquainted with my ways, that I bear long; but if once I have determined
not to bear, I go gladly in the face of all dangers. Whence it is necessary
with the help of God to meet danger, lest he be driven to sin to excess.
Look to what I say, and consider what great grief inspires it.
But it has come to my ears that he has sent [to Constantinople] a
cleric, I know not whom, to say that the bishop Malchus(2) was put to death
in prison for money. Now as to this there is one thing that thou mayest
shortly suggest to our most serene lords;--that, if I their servant had
been willing to have anything to do with the death of Lombards, the nation
of the Lombards at this day would have had neither king nor dukes nor
counts, and would have been divided in the utmost confusion. But, since I
fear God, I shrink from having anything to do with the death of any one.
Now the bishop Malchus was neither in prison nor in any distress; but on
the day when he pleaded his cause and was sentenced he was taken without my
knowledge by Boniface the notary to his house, where a dinner was prepared
for him, and there he dined, and was treated with honour by the said
Boniface, and in the night suddenly died, as I think you have already been
informed. Moreover I had intended to send our Exhilaratus to you in
connection with that business; but, as I considered that the case was now
done with, I consequently abstained from doing so.
BOOK V
EPISTLE II: TO FELIX, BISHOP, AND CYRIACUS, ABBOT(1)
Gregory to Felix, &c.
The tenor of the report submitted to you sufficiently explains the
complaint of the religious lady Theodosia, in which we have found on
reading it many heads of accusation, not befitting priestly gentleness,
against our brother and fellow-bishop Januarius; so much so that, after the
foundation by her of a monastery for servants of God, all that pertains to
avarice, turbulence, and wrong is said to have been exhibited at the time
of the very dedication of the oratory. Wherefore, if the case is as we find
in her aforesaid representation, and if you are aware that anything at all
unbecoming has been committed besides, we exhort you that, all wrongs
having first been redressed, you press upon Musicus, the abbot of the
monastery of Agilitanus(2), that he lose no time in giving the greatest
attention to his monks whom he had began to settle there, to the end that,
this venerable place being with the Lord's help set in order by you in a
decent and regular manner, neither may we be disturbed by the frequent
complaints of the aforesaid religious lady that her good desires are not
fulfilled, nor may it be to the detriment of your soul that so pious a
design should languish, as we do not believe it will, through any neglect
of yours.
EPISTLE IV: TO CONSTANTIUS, BISHOP.
Gregory to Constantius, Bishop of Mediolanum (Milan).
If licence to be restored to their rank be granted to the lapsed, the
force of ecclesiastical discipline is undoubtedly broken, while in the hope
of restoration each person fears not to give way to his evil inclinations.
Your Fraternity, for instance, has consulted us as to whether Amandinus,
ex-presbyter and ex-abbot, who was deposed by your predecessor for fault
requiring it, should be called back to his rank; which thing is not
allowable; and we decree that it cannot on any account be done. Yet, if it
should be the case that his manner of life deserves it, seeing that he has
been deprived altogether of his sacred office, assign him a place in a
monastery, as you may see fit, before other monks. Above all things, then,
take care that no one's supplication persuade you in any way to restore the
lapsed to their sacred orders, lest such punishment should be supposed not
to be definitely ordained for them, but only a temporary expedient.
As to Vitalianus the ex-presbyter, about whom you write that he should
be strictly guarded, we will cause him to be sent into Sicily, that, being
deprived of all hope of departure thence, he may then at least constrain
himself to penitential bewailing. Jobinus also, of Portus Veneris, once
deacon and abbot, we have decreed to be deprived of his office, and written
that another should be ordained in his place In like manner also we decree
that the three subdeacons, whom your Fraternity has notified to us as
having lapsed, shall ever cease from and stand deprived of their office,
and that nothing beyond lay communion be allowed them. Further, we have
adjudged the ex-presbyter Saturninus to give security that he will not ever
presume to approach the ministry of his sacred order. And we desire him to
remain, with deprivation of his sacred order, in the same island in which
he was, permitting him to have and exercise care and solicitude with
respect to monasteries; for we believe that, his lapse having made him more
wary, he will now the more carefully keep guard over those who are
committed to him.
Further, concerning John, notary of your church, the charity wherewith
we love you and have long loved you warns us to write, lest you should
order anything with regard to him while you are still provoked by his
fault. Guarding, then, against this, enquire fully by all means in your
power into the possessions of your church; by which melons neither may you
offend God, nor may lie be able to find a ground for accusing you before
men. For we write, not as defending John or commending him personally
without reason, but lest your soul should be in any way burdened with sin
under the incitement of anger. Whence it is needful, as we have, before
said, that you should by no means neglect to enquire, in the fear of God,
with a full investigation into the possessions of your church.
Furthermore, the epistle of your most dear Fraternity has caused us to
wonder much with respect to the person of Fortunatus(3). But either that
letter was not dictated by you, or certainly, if it is yours, we by no
means recognize in it our brother the lord Constantius. For you ought to
have paid, and still ought to pay, attention to the fact that it is in
behalf of your reputation that we write. For, when he asserts that he
suffers wrong among you, and has been unable to procure the guardian's
(defensoris) aid, what else does he intimate but ill-will on your part?
Wherefore, that neither this affair may dim your reputation in some
quarters nor damage possibly ensue in any way with good cause to your
church, you ought to send hither a person instructed by you, that the
nature of the case may be examined, and the matter terminated, without ill-
will on your part. And for this reason especially, that if, after his
complaint, sentence should be pronounced among yourselves in your favour,
he will be believed to have been defeated, not reasonably, but by power
alone. But we, out of the charity wherewith we are bored to you, desist not
from admonishing you to do what will be for your good repute, knowing that,
though this exhortation saddens you for the time, it will afterwards cause
you joy, when the animosity of contention has passed away. In the month of
September, Indiction 13. (In Vatic. The month of December, Indict. 13.)
EPISTLE V: TO DOMINICUS, BISHOP.
Gregory to Dominicus, Bishop of Carthage.
Prosper your delegate (responsalis), the bearer of these presents, has
been with us, and after other expressions of your charity handed us your
second letters with an allegation of the imperial commands, and a paper
giving an account of the synod that has been held among you(4). Having read
all, we rejoiced for your pastoral zeal, and that our most pious lords had
given no ear to the calumnies of venal persons brought against you on the
plea of religion; but especially that your Fraternity has so taken pains to
preserve the African province as in no wise to neglect to restrain with
priestly fervour the devious sects of heretics; concerning the quieting of
whom we remember having laid down the law so fully, even before consulting
the letters of your Charity, that we do not believe that anything needs to
be said again in reply to you about them. Although, however, this is so,
and though we desire all heretics to be repressed always with vigour and
reason by catholic priests, yet, on looking thoroughly into what has been
done among you, we are in fact apprehensive lest offence should thereby be
caused (which thing may the Lord avert) to the primates of other councils.
For at the conclusion of your acts you have promulged a sentence, in which,
while ordering the searching out of those heretics, you have brought in
that those who neglect the duty are to be punished by forfeiture of their
possessions and dignities. It is therefore best, most dear brother, that,
in dealing with matters outside ourselves that require correction, charity
among ourselves should first be preserved, and that we should be subject in
mind (as I judge to be peculiarly proper to your Gravity) even to persons
below us in dignity. For you will then more advantageously meet the errors
of heretics with your whole united powers when, as befits your priesthood,
you study to keep ecclesiastical concord among yourselves.
EPISTLE VIII: TO CYPRIAN, DEACON.
Gregory to Cyprian, deacon and rector of the patrimony of Sicily.
Concerning the Manicheans who are on our possessions I have frequently
admonished thy Love to press them with the utmost diligence, and recall
them to the Catholic faith. If, then, the time requires it, make enquiries
in person, or, if other business does not allow this, through others.
Further, it has come to my ears that there are Hebrews on our possessions
who will not by any means be converted to God. But it seems to me that thou
shouldest send letters through all our possessions on which these Hebrews
are known to be, promising them particularly from me that whosoever of them
shall have been converted to our true Lord God Jesus Christ shall have the
burdens of his holding lightened. And this I wish to have done in such sort
that, if one has a payment to make of one solidus, a third should be
remitted him; if of three or four, that one solidus should be remitted; if
of any more, the remission should still be made in the same proportion, or
at any rate according as thy Love sees fit, so that one who is converted
may have some relief of Iris burden, and the Church may not be put to heavy
expense. Nor shall we do this unprofitably, if by lightening the burdens of
their payments we bring them to the grace of Christ, since, though they
themselves came with little faith, yet those who may be born of them will
now be baptized with more faith: thus we gain either them or their
children. And whatever amount of payment we let them off for the sake of
Christ is nothing serious. Furthermore, some time ago, when John the deacon
came, thy Love wrote something to me, the whole of which I read at the
time, but let many days intervene before replying; and then, after such
delay, replied to all particulars as I recollected them. But now I think
that one point escaped my memory, and suspect that I gave no reply about
it. For thou hadst written that loans were being advanced to peasants
(rusticis) through certain undertakers for their debt(5), lest in borrowing
from others they should be burdened either by exactions or by the prices of
things(6). This particular was to me most acceptable; and, if indeed I have
already written about it, observe what I wrote. But if, as I suspect, I
gave in my reply no definite direction on the subject, thou must not
hesitate to advance money for the advantage of the peasants, since the
ecclesiastical property will not thus be wasted, and out of it the peasants
will derive advantage. And, if there are other things which thou
considerest to be advantageous, thou must carry them out without any
hesitation.
EPISTLE XI: TO JOHN, BISHOP.
Gregory to John, Bishop of Ravenna.
I find that your Fraternity is greatly distressed on account of being
forbidden by the censure of reason to wear the pallium in litanies. But
through the most excellent Patrician, and through the most eminent Prefect,
and through other noble men of your city, you have urgently requested to
have this allowed you. Now we, having made careful enquiry of Adeodatus,
some time thy Fraternity's deacon, have ascertained that it was never the
custom of thy predecessors to use the pallium during litanies, except at
the solemnities of the blessed John the Baptist, the blessed Apostle Peter,
and the blessed martyr Apollinaris. But we were by no means bound to
believe him, since many of our delegates have often been at your
Fraternity's city, who declare that they never saw anything of the kind.
And in this matter credence is rather to be given to many than to one, who
is attesting something in behalf of his own Church. But, since we do not
wish your Fraternity to be distressed, or the petition of our sons to be of
no avail with us, we concede the use of the pallium, until we shall gain
some more accurate knowledge, on the days of the Nativity of the Blessed
John the Baptist, of the blessed Apostle Peter, anti the blessed martyr
Apollinaris, and on the day of the celebration of your ordination. But in
the sacristy, according to former custom, after the sons of the Church have
been received and dismissed, your Fraternity may put on the pallium, and so
proceed to the solemnization of mass, arrogating to yourself nothing more
in the daring of rash presumption; lest, while something is snatched at out
of order in exterior habiliment, what might have been done in due order be
neglected. Given in the month of October; Indiction 13.
EPISTLE XV: TO JOHN, BISHOP.
Gregory to John, Bishop of Ravenna.
In the first place this makes me sad; that thy Fraternity writes to me
with a double heart, exhibiting one sort of blandishment in letters, but
another sort with the tongue in secular intercourse. In the next place, it
grieves me that my brother John even to this day retains on his tongue
those gibes which notaries while still boys are wont to indulge in. He
speaks bitingly, and seems to delight in such pleasantry. He flatters his
friends in their presence, and maligns them in their absence. Thirdly, it
is to me grievous and altogether execrable, that he imputes shameful crimes
to his servants(7), whatever the hour may be, calling them "effeminate;"
and, what is still more grievous, this is done openly. Then there is this
in addition that there is no discipline for keeping guard over the life of
the clergy, but that he exhibits himself only as their lord. The last
thing, but first in importance as evidence of elation, is about his use of
the pallium outside the church, which is a thing he never presumed to do in
the times of my predecessors, and what none of his predecessors ever
presumed to do, as our delegates testify (except it might be when relics
were deposited, though with regard to relics one person only could be found
to say that it was so); yet this in my days, in contempt of me, with
extreme audacity, he not only did, but even made a habit of doing.
From all these things I find that the dignity of the Episcopacy is with
him all in outside show, not in his mind. And indeed I return thanks to
Almighty God that at the time when this came to my knowledge, which had
never; reached the ears of my predecessors, the Lombards were posted
between me and the city of Ravenna. For perchance I had it in my mind to
shew to men hour severe I can be(8).
Lest, however, thou shouldest suppose that I wish thy church to be
depressed or lessened in dignity, remember where the deacon of Ravenna used
to stand in solemnization of mass at Rome, and enquire where he stands now;
and thou wilt recognize the fact that I desire to honour the church of
Ravenna. But that any one whatever should snatch at anything out of pride,
this I cannot tolerate.
Nevertheless I have already written on this matter to our deacon at
Constantinople, that he should enquire of all who have under them even
thirty or forty bishops. And if there is anywhere this custom of their
walking in litanies wearing the pallium, God forbid that through me the
dignity of the church of Ravenna should seem to be in any way lessened.
Reflect, therefore, dearest brother, on all that I have said above:
think of the day of thy call: consider what account thou wilt render of the
burden of episcopacy. Amend those manners of a notary. See what becomes a
bishop in tongue and in deed. Be entirely sincere to thy brethren. Do not
speak one thing, and have another in thy heart. Do not desire to seem more
than thou art, that so thou mayest be able to be more than thou seemest.
Believe me, when I came to my present position, I had such consideration
and charity towards thee that, if thou hadst wished to keep hold of this my
charity, thou still wouldest not have ever found such a brother as myself,
or one so sincerely loving thee, or so concurring with thee in all
devotion: but when I came to know of thy words and thy manners, I confess I
started back. I beseech thee, then, by Almighty God, amend all that I have
spoken of, and especially the vice of duplicity. Allow me to love thee; and
for the present and the future life it may be of advantage to thee to be
loved of thy brethren. Reply, however, to all this, not by words, but by
behaviour.
EPISTLE XVII: TO CYPRIAN, DEACON(1).
Gregory to Cyprian, &c.
I received your letters of most bitter import about the death of the
lord Maximianus(2) in the month of November. And he indeed has reached the
rewards he longed for, but the unhappy people of the city of Syracuse is to
be commiserated as not having been counted worthy to have such a pastor
long. Accordingly let thy Love take anxious heed that such a one may be
chosen for ordination in the same church as may not seem to obtain
undeservedly the same place of rule after the lord Maximianus. And indeed I
believe that the majority would choose the presbyter Trajan, who, as is
said, is of a good disposition, but, as I suspect, not fit for ruling in
that place. Yet, if a better cannot be found, and if there are no charges
against him, he may be condescended to under stress of very great
necessity. But, if my wishes are asked with regard to this election, I
inform thee privately of what I do wish: for no one in this same church
appears to me so worthy after the lord Maximianus as John the archdeacon of
the church of Guiana. And, if his election can be brought about, I believe
that he will be found an exceedingly fit person. But he too must first be
enquired about by thee privately as to any charges against him that may
stand in the way. If he should be found free from any, he may be rightly
chosen. Should this be done, our brother and fellow-bishop Leo(3) will also
have to give him leave to go, that he may be found free to be ordained.
These things, then, I have taken care to intimate to thy Love; and it will
now be thy concern to look round thee on all sides carefully, and arrange
what is pleasing to God.
EPISTLE XVIII: TO JOHN, BISHOP.
Gregory to John, Bishop of Constantinople(4).
At the time when your Fraternity was advanced to Sacerdotal dignity,
you remember what peace and concord of the churches you found. But, with
what daring or with what swelling of pride I know not, you have attempted
to seize upon a new name, whereby the hearts of all your brethren might
have come to take offence. I wonder exceedingly at this, since I remember
how thou wouldest fain have fled from the episcopal office rather than
attain it. And yet, now that thou hast got it, thou desirest so to exercise
it as if thou hadst run to it with ambitious intent. For, having confessed
thyself unworthy to be called a bishop, thou hast at length been brought to
such a pass as, despising thy brethren, to covet to be named the only
bishop. And indeed with regard to this matter, weighty letters were
addressed to your Holiness by my predecessor Pelagius of holy memory; in
which he annulled the acts of the synod, which had been assembled among you
in the case of our once brother and fellow-bishop Gregory, because of that
execrable title of pride, and forbade the archdeacon whom he had sent
according to custom to the threshold of our lord, to celebrate the
solemnities of mass with you. But after his death, when I, unworthy,
succeeded to the government of the Church, both through my other
representatives and also through our common son the deacon Sabinianus, I
have taken care to address your Fraternity, not indeed in writing, but by
word of mouth, desiring you to restrain yourself from such presumption.
And, in case of your refusing to amend, I forbade his celebrating the
solemnities of mass with you; that so I might first appeal to your Holiness
through a certain sense of shame, to the end that, if the execrable and
profane assumption could not be corrected through shame, strict canonical
measures might be then resorted to. And, since sores that are to be cut
away should first be stroked with a gentle hand, I beg you, I beseech you,
and with all the sweetness in my power demand of you, that your Fraternity
gainsay all who flatter you and offer you this name of error, nor foolishly
consent to be called by the proud title. For truly I say it weeping, and
out of inmost sorrow of heart attribute it to my sins, that this my
brother, who has been constituted in the grade of episcopacy for the very
end of bringing hack the souls of others to humility, has up to the present
time been incapable of being brought back to humility; that he who teaches
truth to others has not consented to teach himself, even when I implore
him.
Consider, I pray thee, that in this rash presumption the peace of the
whole Church is disturbed, and that it is in contradiction to the grace
that is poured out on all in common; in which grace doubtless thou thyself
wilt have power to grow so far as thou determinest with thyself to do so.
And thou wilt become by so much the greater as thou restrainest thyself
from the usurpation of a proud and foolish title: and thou wilt make
advance in proportion as thou art not bent on arrogation by derogation of
thy brethren. Wherefore, dearest brother, with all thy heart love humility,
through which the concord of all the brethren and the unity of the holy
universal Church may be preserved. Certainly the apostle Paul, when he
heard some say, I am of Paul, I of Apollos, but I of Christ (1 Cor. i. 13),
regarded with the utmost horror such dilaceration of the Lord's body,
whereby they were joining themselves, as it were, to other heads, and
exclaimed, saying, Was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the
name of Paul (ib.)? If then he shunned the subjecting of the members of
Christ partially to certain heads, as if beside Christ, though this were to
the apostles themselves, what wilt thou say to Christ, who is the Head of
the universal Church, in the scrutiny of the last judgment, having
attempted to put all his members under thyself by the appellation of
Universal? Who, I ask, is proposed for imitation in this wrongful title but
he who, despising the legions of angels constituted socially with himself,
attempted to start up to an eminence of singularity, that he might seem to
be under none and to be alone above all? Who even said, I will ascend into
heaven, I will exalt my throne above the starts of heaven: I will sit upon
the mount of the testament, in the sides of the North: I will ascend above
the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High (Isai. xiv. 13).
For what are all thy brethren, the bishops of the universal Church, but
stars of heaven, whose life and discourse shine together amid the sins and
errors of men, as if amid the shades of night? And when thou desirest to
put thyself above them by this proud title, and to tread down their name in
comparison with thine, what else dost thou say but I will ascend into
heaven; I will exalt my throne above the stars of heaven? Are not all the
bishops together clouds, who both rain in the words of preaching, and
glitter in the light of good works? And when your Fraternity despises them,
and you would fain press them down under yourself, what else say you but
what is said by the ancient foe, I will ascend above the heights of the
clouds? All these things when I behold with tears, and tremble at the
hidden judgments of God, my fears are increased, and my heart cannot
contain its groans, for that this most holy man the lord John, of so great
abstinence and humility, has, through the seduction of familiar tongues,
broken out into such a pitch of pride as to attempt, in his coveting of
that wrongful name, to be like him who, while proudly wishing to be like
God, lost even the grace of the likeness granted him, and because he sought
false glory, thereby forfeited true blessedness. Certainly Peter, the first
of the apostles, himself a member of the holy and universal Church, Paul,
Andrew, John,--what were they but heads of particular communities? And yet
all were members under one Head. And (to bind all together in a short girth
of speech) the saints before the law, the saints under the law, the saints
under grace, all these making up the Lord's Body, were constituted as
members of the Church, and not one of them has wished himself to be called
universal. Now let your Holiness acknowledge to what extent you swell
within yourself in desiring to be called by that name by which no one
presumed to be called who was truly holy.
Was it not the case, as your Fraternity! knows, that the prelates of
this Apostolic See which by the providence of God I serve, had the honour
offered them of being called universal by the venerable Council of
Chalcedon(5). But yet not one of them has ever wished to be called by such
a title, or seized upon this ill-advised name, lest if, in virtue of the
rank of the pontificate, he took to himself the glory of singularity, he
might seem to have denied it to all his brethren.
But I know that all arises from those who serve your Holiness on terms
of deceitful familiarity; against whom I beseech your Fraternity to be
prudently on your guard, and not to lay yourself open to be deceived by
their words. For they are to be accounted the greater enemies the more they
flatter you with praises. Forsake such; and, if they must needs deceive,
let them at any rate deceive the hearts of worldly men, and not of priests.
Let the dead bury their dead (Luke ix. 60). But say ye with the prophet,
Let them be turned back and put to shame that say unto me, Aha, Aha (Ps.
lxix. 4). And again, But let not the oil of the sinner lard my head (Ps.
cxl. 5).
Whence also the wise man admonishes well, Be in peace with many: but
have but one counsellor of a thousand (Ecclus. vi. 6). For Evil
communications corrupt good manners (1 Cor. xv. 33). For the ancient foe,
when unable to break into strong hearts, looks out for weak persons who are
associated with them, and, as it were, scales lofty walls by ladders set
against them. So he deceived Adam through the woman who was associated with
him. So, when he slew the sons of the blessed Job, he left the weak woman,
that, being unable of himself to penetrate his heart, he might at any rate
be able to do so through the woman's words. Whatever weak and secular
persons, then, are near you, let them be shattered in their own persuasive
words and flattery, since they procure to themselves the eternal enmity of
God from their very frowardness in being seeming lovers.
Of a truth it was proclaimed of old through the Apostle John, Little
children, it is the last hour (1 John ii. 18), according as the Truth
foretold. And now pestilence and sword rage through the world, nations rise
against nations, the globe of the earth is shaken, the gaping earth with
its inhabitants is dissolved. For all that was foretold is come to pass.
The king of pride is near, and (awful to be said l) there is an army of
priests in course of preparation for him, inasmuch as they who bad been
appointed to be leaders in humility enlist themselves under the neck of
pride. But in this matter, even though our tongue protested not at all, the
power of Him who in His own person peculiarly opposes the vice of pride is
lifted up for vengeance against elation. For hence it is written, God
resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble (Jam. iv. 6). Hence,
again, it is said, Whoso exalteth his heart is unclean before God (Prov.
xvi. 5). Hence, against the man that is proud it is written, Why is earth
and ashes proud (Ecclus. x. 9)? Hence the Truth in person says, Whosoever
exalteth himself shall be abased (Luke xiv. 11). And, that he might bring
us back to the way of life through humility, He deigned to exhibit in
Himself what He teaches us, saying, Learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in
heart (Matth. xi. 29). For to this end the only begotten Son of God took
upon Himself the form of our weakness; to this end the Invisible appeared
not only as visible but even as despised; to this end He endured the mocks
of contumely, the reproaches of derision, the torments of suffering; that
God in His humility might teach man not to be proud. How great, then, is
the virtue of humility for the sake of teaching which alone He who is great
beyond compare became little even unto the suffering of death! For, since
the pride of the devil was the origin of our perdition, the humility of God
has been found the means of our redemption. That is to say, our enemy,
having been created among all things, desired to appear exalted above all
things; but our Redeemer remaining great above all things, deigned to
become little among all things.
What, then, can we bishops say for ourselves, who have received a place
of honour from the humility of our Redeemer, and yet imitate the pride of
the enemy himself? Lo, we know our Creator to have descended from the
summit of His loftiness that He might give glory to the human race, and we,
created of the lowest, glory in the lessening of our brethren. God humbled
Himself even to our dust; and human dust sets his face as high as heaven,
and with his tongue passes above the earth, and blushes not, neither is
afraid to be lifted up: even man who is rottenness, and the son of man that
is a worm.
Let us recall to mind, most dear brother, this which is said by the
most wise Solomon. Before thunder shall go lightning, and before ruin shall
the heart be exalted (Ecclus. xxxii. 10); where, on the other hand it is
subjoined, Before glory it shall be humbled. Let us then be humbled in
mind, if we are striving to attain to real loftiness. By no means let the
eyes of our heart be darkened by the smoke of elation, which the more it
rises the more rapidly vanishes away. Let us consider how we are admonished
by the precepts of our Redeemer, who says, Blessed are the poor in spirit;
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Matth. v. 3). Hence, also, he says by
the prophet, On whom shall my Spirit rest, but on him that is humble, and
quiet, and that trembleth at my words (Isai. lxvi. 2)? Of a truth, when the
Lord would bring back the hearts of His disciples, still beset with
infirmity, to the way of humility, He said, Whosoever will be chief among
you shall be least of all (Matth. xx.27). Whereby it is plainly seen how he
is truly exalted on high who in his thoughts is humbled. Let us, therefore,
fear to be numbered among those who seek the first seats in the synagogues,
and greetings in the market, and to be called of men Rabbi. For,
contrariwise, the Lord says to His disciples, But be not ye called Rabbi:
for one is your master; and all ye are brethren. And call no man your
Father upon the earth, far one is your Father (Matth. xxiii. 7, 8).
What then, dearest brother, wilt thou say in that terrible scrutiny of
the coming judgment, if thou covetest to be called in the world not only
father, but even general father? Let, then, the bad suggestion of evil men
be guarded against; let all instigation to offence be fled from. It must
needs be (indeed) that offences come; nevertheless, woe to that man by whom
the offence cometh (Matth. xviii. 7). Lo, by reason of this execrable title
of pride the Church is rent asunder, the hearts of all the brethren are
provoked to offence. What! Has it escaped your memory how the Truth says,
Whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were
better for him that a mill stone were hanged about his neck, and that he
were drowned in the depth of the sea (Ib. v. 6)? But it is written, Charity
seeketh not her own (1 Cor. xiii. 4). Lo, your Fraternity arrogates to
itself even what is not its own. Again it is written, In honour preferring
one another (Row. xii. 10). And thou attemptest to take the honour away
from all which thou desirest unlawfully to usurp to thyself singularly.
Where, dearest brother, is that which is written, Have peace with all men,
and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord (Heb. xii. 14)? Where
is that which is written, Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be
called the children of God (Matth. v. 9)?
It becomes you to consider, lest any root of bitterness springing up
trouble you, and thereby many be defiled. But still, though we neglect to
consider, supernal judgment will be on the watch against the swelling of so
great elation. And we indeed, against whom such and so great a fault is
committed by this nefarious attempt,--we, I say, are observing what the
Truth enjoins when it says, If thy brother shall sin against thee, go and
tell him his fault between thee and him alone. If he shall hear thee, thou
hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, take with thee one
or two more, that in the mouth of one or two witnesses every word may be
established. But if he will not hear them, tell it unto the Church. But if
he will not hear the Church, let hint be to thee as an heathen man and a
publican (Matth. xviii. 15). I therefore have once and again through my
representatives taken care to reprove in humble words this sin against the
whole Church; and now I write myself. Whatever it was my duty to do in the
way of humility I have not omitted. But, if I am despised in my reproof, it
remains that I must have recourse to the Church.
Wherefore may Almighty God show your Fraternity how great love for you
constrains me when I thus speak, and how much I grieve in this case, not
against you, but for you. But the case is such that in it I must prefer the
precepts of the Gospel, the ordinances of the Canons, and the welfare of
the brethren to the person even of him whom I greatly love.
I have received the most sweet and pleasant letter of your Holiness
with respect to the case of the presbyters John and Athanasius about which,
the Lord helping me, I will reply to you in another letter; for, being
surrounded by the swords of barbarians, I am now oppressed by such great
tribulations that it is not allowed me, I will not say to treat of many
things, but hardly even to breathe. Given in the Kalends of January;
Indiction
EPISTLE XIX: TO SABINIANUS, DEACON (7)
Gregory to Sabinianus, &c.
In the cause of our brother the most reverend John, bishop of
Constantinople, I have been unwilling to write two letter. But one I have
drawn up briefly, which may seem to combine both requisites; that is to
say, both honesty and kindness.
Let therefore thy Love take care to give him this letter which I have
now addressed to him in compliance with the wish of the Emperor. For in the
sequel another will be sent him such as his pride will not rejoice in. For
he has come even to this; that, taking occasion of the case of John the
presbyter, he transmitted hither the acts, wherein almost in every line he
called himself oikoumeniko`n (oecumenical) patriarch. But I hope in
Almighty God that the Supernal Majesty will confound his hypocrisy. But I
wonder how he could so deceive thy Love as that thou shouldest allow the
Lord Emperor to be persuaded to write to me himself concerning this matter,
admonishing me to have peace with him. For, if the Lord Emperor wishes to
observe justice, he ought to have admonished him to refrain from the proud
title, and then at once there would be peace between us. I suspect,
however, that thou hast not all considered with what cunningness this has
been done by our aforesaid brother John. For it is for this purpose that he
has done it; that the Lord Emperor might be obeyed, and so he himself might
seem to be confirmed in his vanity, or that I might not obey him, and so
his mind might be irritated against me. But we will keep to the right way,
fearing nothing in this cause except the Almighty Lord. Wherefore let thy
Love be in nothing afraid. All things that you see to be lofty in this
world against the truth in behalf of the truth despise; trust in the grace
of Almighty God, and the help of the blessed Apostle Peter. Remember the
voice of the Truth, which says, Greater is he that is in you than he that
is in the world (1 John iv. 4); and in this cause whatever has to be done,
do it with the utmost authority. For now that we can in no wise be
protected from the swords of our enemies, now that for love of the republic
we have lost silver, gold, slaves and clothing, it is too ignominious that
through those men we should lose even the faith. For to assent to that
atrocious title is nothing else than to lose the faith. Wherefore, as I
have written to thee already in former letters, never do thou presume to
proceed with him (8).
EPISTLE XX: TO MAURICIUS AUGUSTUS.
Gregory to Mauricius, &c.
Our most pious and God-appointed lord, among his other august cares and
burdens, watches also in the uprightness of spiritual zeal over the
preservation of peace among the priesthood, inasmuch as he piously and
truly considers that no one can govern earthly things aright unless he
knows how to deal with divine things, and that the peace of the republic
hangs on the peace of the universal Church. For, most serene lord, what
human power, and what strength of fleshly arm would presume to lift
irreligious hands against the lofty height of your most Christian Empire,
if the concordant hearts of priests were studious to implore their Redeemer
for you with the tongue, and also, as they ought to do, by their
deservings? Or what sword of a most savage race would advance with so great
cruelty to the slaughter of the faithful, unless the life of us, who are
called priests but are not, were weighed down by works most wicked. But
while we neglect the things that concern us, and think of those that
concern us not, we associate our sins with the barbaric forces and our
fault, which weighs down the forces of the republic, sharpens the swords of
the enemy. But what shall we say for ourselves, who press down the people
of God which we are unworthily set over with the loads of our sins; who
destroy by example what we preach with the tongue; who by our works teach
unrighteous things, and with our voice only set forth the things that are
righteous? Our bones are worn down by fasts, and in our mind we swell. Our
body is covered with vile raiment, and ill elation of heart we surpass the
purple. We lie in ashes, and look down upon loftiness. Teachers of
humility, we are chiefs of pride; behind the faces of sheep we hide the
teeth of wolves (9). But what is the end of these things except that we
persuade men, but are manifest to God? Wherefore most providently for
restraining warlike movements does the most pious Lord seek the peace of
the Church, and, for compacting it, deigns to bring back the hearts of its
priests to concord. And this indeed is what I wish; and, as far as I am
concerned, I render obedience to his most serene commands. But since it is
not my cause, but God's, since the pious laws, since the venerable synods,
since the very commands of our Lord Jesus Christ are disturbed by the
invention of a certain proud and pompous phrase, let the most pious Lord
cut the place of the sore, and bind the resisting patient in the chains of
august authority. For in binding up these things tightly you relieve the
republic; and while you cut off such things, you provide for the
lengthening of your reign.
For to all who know the Gospel it is apparent that by the Lord's voice
the care of the whole Church was committed to the holy Apostle and Prince
of all the Apostles, Peter. For to him it is said, Peter, lovest thou Me?
Feed My sheep (John xxi. 17). To him it is said, Behold Satan hath desired
to sift you as wheat; and I have prayed for thee, Peter, that they faith
fail not. And thou, when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren (Luke
xxii. 31). To him it is said, Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will
build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I
will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatsoever thou
shalt bind an earth shall be bound also in heaven; and whatsoever thou
shalt loose on earth shall be loosed also in heaven (Matth. xvi. 18).
Lo, he received the keys of the heavenly kingdom, and power to bind and
loose is given him, the care and principality of the whole Church is
committed to him, and yet he is not called the universal apostle; while the
most holy man, my fellow-priest John, attempts to be called universal
bishop. I am compelled to cry out and say, O tempora, O mores!
Lo, all things in the regions of Europe are given up into the power of
barbarians, cities are destroyed, camps overthrown, provinces depopulated,
no cultivator inhabits the land, worshippers of idols rage and dominate
daily for the slaughter of the faithful, and yet priests, who ought to lie
weeping on the ground and in ashes, seek for themselves names of vanity,
and glory in new and profane titles.
Do I in this matter, most pious Lord, defend my own cause? Do I resent
my own special wrong? Nay, the cause of Almighty God, the cause of the
Universal Church.
Who is this that, against the evangelical ordinances, against the
decrees of canons, presumes to usurp to himself a new name? Would indeed
that one by himself he were, if he could be without any lessening of
others,--he that covets to be universal.
And certainly we know that many priests of the Constantinopolitan
Church have fallen into the whirlpool of heresy, and have become not only
heretics, but even heresiarchs. For thence came Nestorius, who, thinking
Jesus Christ, the Mediator of God and men, to be two persons, because he
did not believe that God could be made man, broke out even into Jewish
perfidy. Thence came Macedonius, who denied that God the Holy Spirit was
consubstantial with the Father and the Son. If then any one in that Church
takes to himself that name, whereby he makes himself the head of all the
good, it follows that the Universal Church falls from its standing (which
God forbid), when he who is called Universal falls. But far from Christian
hearts be that name of blasphemy, in which the honour of all priests is
taken away, while it is madly arrogated to himself by one.
Certainly, in honour of Peter, Prince of the apostles, it was offered
by the venerable synod of Chalcedon to the Roman pontiff (1). But none of
them has ever consented to use this name of singularity, lest, by something
being given peculiarly to one, priests in general should be deprived of the
honour due to them. How is it then that we do not seek the glory of this
title even when offered, and another presumes to seize it for himself
though not offered?
He, then, is rather to be bent by the mandate of our most pious Lords,
who scorns to render obedience to canonical injunctions. He is to be
coerced, who does wrong to the holy Universal Church, who swells in heart,
who covets rejoicing in a name of singularity, who also puts himself above
the dignity of your Empire through a title peculiar to himself.
Behold, we all suffer offence for this thing. Let then the author of
the offence be brought back to a right way of life; and all quarrels of
priests will cease. For I for my part am the servant of all priests, so
long as they live as becomes priests. For whosoever, through the swelling
of vain glory, lifts up his neck against Almighty Gold and against the
statutes of the Fathers, I trust in Almighty God that he will not bend my
neck to himself, not even with swords.
Moreover what has been done in this city on our hearing of this title,
I have indicated in full to my deacon and responsalis Sabinianus. Let then
the piety of my Lords think of me as their own, whom they have always
cherished and countenanced beyond others, and who desire to render
obedience to you and yet fear to be found guilty in the heavenly and
tremendous judgment, and, according to the petition of the aforesaid deacon
Sabinianus, let my most pious Lord either deign to judge this business, or
to move the often before mentioned man to desist at length from this
attempt. If then through the most just judgment of your Piety he should
comply with your orders, even though they be mild ones, we shall return
thanks to Almighty God, and rejoice for the peace granted through you to
all the Church. But should he persist any longer in his present contention,
we hold this sentence of the Truth to be already made good; Every one that
exalteth himself shall be humbled (Luke xiv. 11; xviii. 14). And again it
is written, Before a fall the heart is lifted up (Prov. xvi. 18). I
however, rendering obedience to the commands of my Lords, have both Written
sweetly to my aforesaid fellow-priest, and humbly admonished him to amend
himself of this coveting of empty glory. If therefore he be willing to hear
me, he has a devoted brother. But, if he persists in pride, I already see
what will follow:--that he will find Him as his adversary of whom it is
written, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble (Jam.
iv. 6).
EPISTLE XXI: TO CONSTANTINA AUGUSTA (2).
Gregory to Constantina, &c.
Almighty God, who holds in His right hand the heart of your Piety, both
protects us through you and prepares for you rewards of eternal
remuneration for temporal deeds. For I have learnt from the letters of the
deacon Sabinianus my responsalis with what justice your Serenity is
interested in the cause of the blessed Prince of the apostles Peter against
certain persons who are proudly humble and feignedly kind. And I trust in
the bounty of our Redeemer that for these your good offices with the most
serene Lord and his most pious sons you will receive retribution also in
the heavenly country. Nor is there any doubt that you will receive eternal
benefits, being loosed from the chains of your sins, if in the cause of his
Church you have made him your debtor to whom the power of binding and of
loosing has been given. Wherefore I still beg you to allow no man's
hypocrisy to prevail against the truth, since there are some who, according
to the saying of the excellent preacher, by sweet words and fair speeches
seduce the hearts of the innocent,--men who are vile in raiment, but puffed
up in heart. And they affect to despise all things in this world, and yet
seek to acquire for themselves all the things that are of this world. They
confess themselves unworthy before all men, but cannot be content with
private titles, since they covet that whereby they may seem to be more
worthy than all. Let therefore your Piety, whom Almighty God has appointed
with our most serene Lord to be over the whole world, through your
favouring of justice render service to Him from whom you have received your
right to so great a dominion, that you may rule over the world that is
committed to you so much the more securely as you more truly serve the
Author of all things in the execution of truth.
Furthermore, I inform you that I have received a letter from the most
pious Lord desiring me to be pacific towards my brother and fellow-priest
John. And indeed so it became the religious Lord to give injunctions to
priests. But, when this my brother with new presumption and pride calls
himself universal bishop, having caused himself in the time of our
predecessor of holy memory to be designated in synod by this so proud a
title, though all the acts of that synod were abrogated, being disallowed
by the Apostolic See,--the most serene Lord gives me a somewhat distressing
intimation, in that he has not rebuked him who is acting proudly, but
endeavours to bend me from my purpose, who in this cause of defending the
truth of the Gospels and Canons, of humility and rectitude; whereas my
aforesaid brother and fellow-priest is acting against evangelical
principles and also against the blessed Apostle Peter, and against all the
churches, and against the ordinances of the Canons. But the Lord, in whose
hands are all things, is almighty; of Him it is written, There is no wisdom
nor prudence nor counsel against the Lord (Prov. xxi. 30). And indeed my
often before mentioned most holy brother endeavours to persuade my most
serene Lord of many things: but well I know that all those prayers of his
and all those tears will not allow my Lord to be in any thing cajoled by
any one against reason or his own soul.
Still it is very distressing, and hard to be borne with patience, that
my aforesaid brother and fellow-bishop, despising all others, should
attempt to be called sole bishop. But in this pride of his what else is
denoted than that the times of Antichrist are already near at hand? For in
truth he is imitating him who, scorning social joy with the legions of
angels, attempted to start up to a summit of singular eminence, saying, I
will exalt my throne above the stars of heaven, I will sit upon the mount
of the testament, in the sides of the North, and will ascend above the
heights of the clouds, and I will be like the most High (Isai. xiv. 13).
Wherefore I beseech you by Almighty God not to allow the times of your
Piety to be polluted by the elation of one man, nor in any way to give any
assent to so perverse a title, and that in this case your Piety may by no
means despise me; since, though the sins of Gregory are so great that he
ought to suffer such things, yet there are no sins of the Apostle Peter
that he should deserve in your times to suffer thus. Wherefore again and
again I beseech you by Almighty God that, as the princes your ancestors
have sought the favour of the holy Apostle Peter, so you also take heed
both to seek it for yourselves and to keep it, and that his honour among
you be in no degree lessened on account of our sins who unworthily serve
him, seeing that he is able both to be your helper now in all things and
hereafter to remit your sins.
Moreover, it is now even seven years that we have been living in this
city among the swords of the Lombards. How much is expended on them daily
by this Church, that we may be able to live among them, is not to be t
told. But I briefly indicate that, as in the regions of Ravenna the Piety
of my Lords has for the first army of Italy a treasurer (sacellarium) to
defray the daily expenses for recurring needs, so I also in this city am
their treasurer for such purposes And yet this Church, which at one and the
same time unceasingly expends so much on clergy, monasteries, the poor, the
people, and in addition on the Lombards, lo it is still pressed down by the
affliction of all the Churches, which groan much for this pride of one man,
though they do not presume to say anything.
Further, a bishop of the city of Salona has been ordained without the
knowledge of me and my responsalis, and a thing has been done which never
happened under any former princes. When I heard of this, I at once sent
word to that prevaricator, who had been irregularly ordained, that he must
not presume by any means to celebrate the solemnities of mass, unless we
should have first ascertained from our most serene Lords that they had
ordered this to be done; and this I commanded him under pain of
excommunication. And yet, scorning and despising me, supported by the
audacity of certain secular persons, to whom he is said to give many bribes
so as to impoverish his Church, he presumes up to this time to celebrate
mass, and has refused to come to me according to the order of my Lords. Now
I, obeying the injunction of their Piety, have from my heart forgiven this
same Maximus, who had been ordained without my knowledge, his presumption
in passing over me and my responsalis in his ordination, even as though he
had been ordained with my authority. But his other wrong doings--to wit his
bodily transgressions, which I have heard of, and his having been elected
through bribery, and his having presumed to celebrate mass while
excommunicated--these things, for the sake of God, I cannot pass over
without enquiry. But I hope, and implore the Lord, that no fault may be
found in him with respect to these things that are reported, and that his
case may be term hated without peril to my soul. Nevertheless, before this
has been ascertained, my most serene Lord, in the order that has been
despatched, has enjoined me to receive him with honour when he comes. And
it is a very serious thing that a man of whom so many things of such a
nature are reported should be honoured before such things have been
enquired into and sifted, as they ought in the first place to be. And, if
the causes of the bishops who are committed to me are settled before my
most pious Lords under the patronage of others, what shall I do, unhappy
hat I am, in this Church? But that my bishops despise me, and have recourse
to secular Judges against me, I give thanks to Almighty God that I
attribute it to my sins. This however I briefly intimate, because I am
waiting for a little while; and, if he should long delay coming to me, I
shall in no wise hesitate to exercise strict canonical discipline in his
case. But I trust in Almighty God, that He will give long life to our most
pious Lords, and order things for us under your hand, not according to our
sins, but according to the gifts of His grace. These things, then, I
suggest to my most tranquil lady, since I am not ignorant with how great
zeal for rectitude the most pure conscience of her Serenity is moved.
EPISTLE XXIII: TO CASTORIUS, NOTARY.
Gregory to Castorius, &c.
Our hearing of the death of our brother and fellow-bishop John (3) has
greatly saddened us especially as that city at this time has lost the
solace of pastoral care. Wherefore, since very many advantages to the
Church itself demand that, under the guidance of Christ, a priest should be
ordained without delay, we accordingly charge thy Experience to exhort the
clergy and people with all urgency that they delay not to elect for
themselves a priest to be consecrated. This however, and before all things,
we desire thee to press upon them, that in the general cause they regard
not their own private interests. Let there be no venality, then, in this
election, lest, while they covet rewards, they lose their discrimination of
choice and think that man worthy for this office who may have pleased them,
not by his merits, but by his gifts. For let them especially and absolutely
know this, that he is not only unworthy of the priesthood, but will also
certainly become further culpable, whosoever may presume to make
merchandise of the gift of God by thinking to purchase it for a price.
Wherefore let not him that is liberal in bribes, but him that is worthy for
his merits, be chosen. For the penalty will affect both the elected and the
electors, if they attempt with sacrilegious mind to violate the purity of
the priesthood. Moreover, whether one or two may have been elected, by all
means warn five of the senior presbyters and five of the leading people (4)
to come to us together. But with respect to the clergy, if, besides those
who determine to come, you are of opinion that the presence of any others
is necessary, send them to us without delay, that there may be no plea of
excuse, nor any delay ensue, in setting the Church in order.
EPISTLE XXV: TO SEVERUS, BISHOP.
Gregory to Severus, Bishop of Ficulum.
The report that has been sent to us has informed us of the death of the
bishop John (5). Wherefore we solemnly delegate to thy Fraternity the work
of the visitation of the bereaved Church: which work it becomes thee so to
execute that no one may presume to interfere with respect to the promotions
of the clergy, the revenues, ornaments, ministrations, or whatever else
belongs to the patrimony of the same Church. According to custom.
EPISTLE XXVI: TO THE PEOPLE OF RAVENNA.
Gregory to the clergy, gentry, and common people of Ravenna (6).
Having been informed of the death of your bishop, we have taken care to
delegate to our brother and fellow- bishop Severus of Ficulum the
visitation of the bereaved Church, to whom we have given in charge to allow
nothing with respect to the promotions of the clergy, the revenues,
ornaments, and ministrations, to be usurped by any one. It is for you to
render obedience to his assiduous exhortations.According to custom.
EPISTLE XXIX: TO VINCOMALUS, GUARDIAN (Defensorem) (7).
Gregory to Vincomalus, &c.
With a view to the advantage of the Church it is our will and pleasure,
that, if thou art held bound by no condition of, or liability to, bodily
service, and hast not been a cleric of any other city, and if there is no
canonical objection to thee, thou take the office of guardian of the
Church, that thou mayest execute incorruptly and with alacrity whatever may
be enjoined thee by us for the benefit of the poor, using this privilege
which after deliberation we have conferred upon thee, so as to do thy
diligence faithfully in accomplishing all that may be enjoined on thee by
us, as having to render an account of thy doings under the judgment of our
God. This epistle we have dictated, to be committed to writing, to
Paterius, notary of our Church; In the month of March, Indiction 13.
EPISTLE XXX: TO MAURICIUS AUGUSTUS.
Gregory to Mauricius, &c.
The Piety of my Lords, which has been wont mercifully to sustain your
servants, has shone forth here in so kind a supply that the need of all the
feeble has been relieved by the succour of your bounty. On this account we
all with prayers and tears beseech Almighty God, who has moved the heart of
your Clemency to do this thing, that He would preserve the empire of our
Lords safe in His unfailing love, and by the aid of His own majesty extend
their victories in all nations. The thirty pounds of gold which my fellow-
servant Busa brought, Scribo (8) has distributed faithfully to priests,
persons in need, and others. And, since certain females devoted to a
religious life (sanctimoniales foeminae) have come to this city from divers
provinces, having fled hither after captivity, of whom some, so far as
there was room for them, have been placed in monasteries, but others, who
could not be taken in, lead a life of singular destitution, it has been
thought good that what Could be spared from the relief of the blind maimed
and feeble should be distributed to them, so that not only needy natives,
but also strangers who arrive here, might receive of the compassion of our
Lords. Hence it has been brought about that all alike with one accord pray
for the life of our lords, that so Almighty God may give you a long and
quiet life, and grant to the most happy offspring of your Piety to flourish
long in the Roman republic. The pay also of the soldiers has been so
distributed by my aforesaid fellow-servant Scribo (8), in the presence also
of the glorious Castus, magister militum, that all received with thanks the
gifts of our lords under due discipline, and abstained from all murmuring
such as was formerly wont to prevail among them.
EPISTLE XXXVI: TO SEVERUS, Scholasticus.
Gregory to Severus, Scholasticus to the Exarch (9).
Those who assist judges and are bound to them by sincere attachment
ought to-advise them and suggest to them what may both save their souls and
not derogate from their reputation. This being so, since we know with what
sincere loyalty you love the most excellent Exarch, we have been careful to
inform your Greatness of the things that have been done, that, being aware
of them, you may move him to assent to them reasonably.
Know then that Agilulph, King of the Lombards, is not unwilling to
conclude a general peace, if only the lord Patricius will consent to an
arbitration. For he complains that many acts of violence were committed in
his regions during the time of peace. And since, if reasonable grounds for
arbitration should be found, he desires to have satisfaction made to
himself, he also himself promises to make satisfaction in all ways, if it
should appear that any wrong was committed on his side during the peace.
Since then it is no doubt reasonable to agree to what he asks, there ought
to be an arbitration, that, if any wrongs have been done on either side,
they may be adjusted; so that it may be possible, with the protection of
Cool, to establish a general peace; for how necessary for us all this is
you well know. Act therefore wisely as you have been wont to do, that the
most excellent Exarch may consent to this without delay, lest peace should
appear to be refused by him, as should not be. For, should he be unwilling
to consent, he indeed [Agilulph] again promises to conclude a special peace
with us; but we know that divers islands and other places would undoubtedly
in that case be ruined. However, let him [the Exarch] consider these
things, and hasten to make peace, to the end that at any rate during this
cessation of hostilities we may have some degree of quiet, and the forces
of the republic may with the help of God be the better repaired for
resistance.
EPISTLE XXXIX: TO ANASTASIUS, BISHOP (1).
Gregory to Anastasius, Bishop of Antioch.
Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men of good will
(Luke ii. 14), because that great river which once had left the rocks of
Antioch dry has returned at length to its proper channel, and waters the
subject valleys that are near, so as also to bring forth fruit, some
thirty-fold, some sixty-fold, and some an hundred-fold. For now there is no
doubt that many flowers of souls are growing up in its valleys, and that
they will come even to ripe fruit through the streams of your tongue.
Wherefore with voice of heart and mouth from our inmost soul we render due
praise to Almighty God, and rejoice in your Blessedness, not with you only,
but with all who are subject to you. I have received the letters of your
Holiness, to me most sweet and pleasant, while we ourselves, if I may so
speak, are sweating under the same toil with you. And indeed I know how
heavy must be to thee the burden of external cares after those heights of
rest, wherein with the hand of the heart thou wert touching heavenly
secrets. But remember that thou rules an Apostolic See, and assuagest
sorrow the more readily from being, made all things to all men. In the
Books of Kings, as your accomplished Holiness knows, a certain man is
described who used either hand for the right hand (1 Chron. xii. 2). And,
with regard to this, I am not doubtful about tile lord Anastasius, of old
my most sweet and most holy patron, that, while he draws earthly works to
heavenly profit, he turns the left band to the right hand's use; so that
his heavenly intentness may accomplish its work, so to speak, with the
right hand, and also, when he is led in his care of temporal things towards
the interests of justice, the left hand may acquire the strength of the
right.
And indeed these things cannot be without heavy labour and trouble. But
let us remember the labours of those who went before us; and what we endure
will not be hard. For We must through many tribulations enter into the
kingdom of God (Acts xiv. 22). And, We were pressed out of measure, yea and
above strength, insomuch that we were weary even of life. But we ourselves,
too had the answer of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in
ourselves (2 Cor. i. 8, 9). And yet The sufferings of this present time are
not worthy to be compared with the supervening glory which shall be
revealed in us (Rom. viii. 18). How then can we that are weak sheep pass
without labour through the heat of this world wherein we know that even
rams have suffered under heavy toil?
Further, what tribulations I suffer in this land from the swords of the
Lombards, from the iniquities of judges, from the press of business, from
the care of subjects, and also from bodily affliction, I am unable to
express either by pen or tongue. Concerning which things even though I
might say something briefly, I hesitate, lest to your most holy Charity,
while afflicted by your own tribulations, I should add mine also. But may
Almighty God both in the abundance of His loving-kindness fill the mind of
your most holy Blessedness with all comfort, and grant at sortie time, on
account of your intercession, to unworthy me to rest from these evils which
I suffer. Amen. Grace. These words, as you see, taken from what you had
written, I insert in my epistles, that your Blessedness may perceive with
regard to Saint Ignatius that he is not only yours, but also ours(2). For,
as we have his master, the Prince of the apostles in common, so also no one
of us ought to have to himself alone the disciple of this same Prince(3).
Moreover, we have received your blessing(4), which is of sweet smell and of
a good savour, with the feelings that were due to it. And we give thanks to
Almighty God that what you do, what you say, and what you give, is fragrant
and savoury. For your life therefore let us say together, let us say all,
Glory to God in the highest, and an earth peace to men of good will.
EPISTLE XL: TO MAURICIUS AUGUSTUS.
Gregory to Mauricius, &c.
The Piety of my Lords in their most serene commands, while set on
refuting me on certain matters, in sparing me has by no means spared me.
For by the use therein of the term simplicity they politely call me silly.
It is true indeed that in Holy Scripture, when simplicity is spoken of in a
good sense, it is often carefully associated with prudence and uprightness.
Hence it is written of the blessed Job, The man was simple and upright (Job
i. 1). And the blessed Apostle Paul admonishes saying Be ye simple in evil
and prudent in good (Rom. xvi. 19). And the Truth in person) admonishes
saying, Be ye prudent as serpents, and simple as doves (Matth. x. 16); thus
shewing it to be very unprofitable if either prudence should be wanting to
simplicity, or simplicity to prudence. In order, then, to make His servants
instructed for all things He desired them to be both simple as doves, and
prudent as serpents, that so both the cunning of the serpent might sharpen
in them the simplicity of the dove, and the simplicity of the dove temper
the cunning of the serpent.
I therefore, who am denounced in the most serene commands of my Lords
as simple without tile addition of prudence, as having been deceived by the
cunning of Ariulph, am plainly and undoubtedly called silly; which I also
myself acknowledge to be the case. For, though your Piety were silent, the
facts cry out. For, if I had not been silly, I should by no means have come
to endure what l suffer in this place among the swords of the Lombards.
Moreover, in what I stated about Ariulph, that he was prepared with all his
heart to come to terms with the republic, seeing that I am not believed, I
am reproved also as having lied. But, although I am not a priest(3), I know
it to be a grave injury to a priest that, being a servant of the truth, he
should be believed to be deceitful. And I have been for some time aware
that Nordulph is believed before me, and Leo before me, and that now easy
credence is given to those who seem to be in your confidence more than to
my assertions.
And indeed if the captivity of my land were not increasing day by day,
I would gladly pass over in silence contempt and ridicule of myself. But
this does afflict me exceedingly, that from my bearing the charge of
falsehood it ensues also that Italy is daily led captive under the yoke of
the Lombards. And, while my representations are in no wise believed, the
strength of the enemy is increasing hugely. This however I suggest to my
most pious Lord, that he would think anything that is bad of me, but, with
regard to the advantage of the republic and the cause of the rescue of
Italy, not easily lend his pious ears to any one, but believe facts rather
than words. Moreover, let not our Lord, in virtue of his earthly power, too
hastily disdain priests, but with excellent consideration, on account of
Him whose servants they are, so rule over them as also to pay the reverence
that is due to them. For in Holy Writ priests are sometimes called gods,
and sometimes angels. For even through Moses it is said of him who is to be
put upon his oath, Bring him unto the gods (Exod. xxii. 8); that is unto
the priests. And again it is written, Than shall not revile the gods (Ib.
28), to wit, the priests. And the prophet says, The priest's lips shall
keep knowledge, and they skull seek the law at his mouth; for he is the
angel of the Lord of hosts (Malach. ii. 7), Why, then, should it be strange
if your Piety were to condescend to honour those to whom even God Himself
in His word gives honour, calling them angels or gods?
Ecclesiastical history also testifies that, when accusations in writing
against bishops had been offered to the Prince Constantine of pious:
memory, he received indeed the bills of accusation, but, calling together
the bishops who had been accused, he burnt before their eyes the bills
which he had received, saying, Ye are gods, constituted by the true God.
Go, and settle your causes among you, for it is not fit that we should
judge gods. Yet in this sentence, my pious Lord, he conferred more on
himself by his humility than on them by the reverence paid to them. For
before him there were pagan princes in the republic, who knew not the true
God, but worshipped gods of wood and stone; and yet they paid the greatest
honour to their priests. What wonder then if a Christian emperor should
condescend to honour the priests of the true God, when pagan princes, as we
have already said, knew how to bestow honour on priests who served gods of
wood and stone? These things, then, I suggest to the piety of my Lords, not
in my own behalf, but in behalf of all priests. For I am a man that is a
sinner. And, since I offend against Almighty God incessantly every day, I
surmise that it will be some amends for this at the tremendous judgment,
that I am smitten incessantly every day by blows. And I believe that you
appease the same Almighty God all the more as you more severely afflict me
who serve Him badly. For I had already received many blows, and when the
commands of my Lords came in addition, I found consolations that I was not
hoping for. For, if I can, I will briefly enumerate these blows.
First, that the peace which without any cost to the republic I had made
with the Lore bards who were in Tuscany was withdrawn from me. Then, the
peace having been broken, the soldiers were removed from the Roman city.
And some indeed were slain by the enemy, but others were placed at Narnii
and Perusium (Perugia); and Rome was left, that Perusium might be held.
After this a still heavier blow was the arrival of Agilulph, so that I saw
with my own eyes Romans tied by the neck with ropes like dogs, to be taken
to France for sale. And, because we who were within the city under the
protection of God escaped his hands, a ground was thence sought for making
us appear culpable; to wit, because corn ran short, which cannot by any
means be kept in large quantities for long in this city; as I have shewn
more fully in another representation. On my own account indeed I was in no
wise disturbed, since I declare, my conscience bearing me witness, that I
was prepared to suffer any adversity whatever, so long as I came out of all
these things with the safety of my soul. But for the glorious men, Gregory
the praefect, and Castorius the military commander. (magistro militum), I
have been distressed in no small degree, seeing that they n no way
neglected to do all that could be done, and endured most severe toil in
watching and guarding the city during the siege, and, after all this, were
smitten by the heavy indignation of my Lords. As to them, I clearly
understand that it is not their conduct, but my person, that goes against
them. For, having with me alike laboured in trouble, they are alike
troubled after labour.
Now as to the Piety of my Lords holding out over me the formidable and
terrible judgment of Almighty God, I beseech you by the same Almighty God
to do this no more. For as yet we know not how any of us will stand there.
And Paul, the excellent preacher, says, Judge nothing before the time,
until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of
darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts (1 Cor. iv. 5).
Yet this I briefly say, that, unworthy sinner as I am, I rely more on the
mercy of Jesus when He comes than on the justice of your Piety. And there
are many things that men are ignorant of with regard to this judgment; for
perhaps He will blame what you praise, and praise what you blame. Wherefore
among all these uncertainties I return to tears only, praying that the same
Almighty God may both direct our most pious Lord with His hand and in that
terrible judgment find him free from all defaults. And may He make me so to
please men, if need be, as not to offend against His eternal grace(6).
EPISTLE XLI: TO CONSTANTINA AUGUSTA.
Gregory to Constantina, &c.
Knowing how my most serene Lady thinks about the heavenly country and
the life of her soul, I consider that I should be greatly in fault were I
to keep silence on matters that ought to be represented to her for the fear
of God.
Having ascertained that there are many of the natives in the island of
Sardinia who still, after the evil custom of their race, practise
sacrifices to idols, and that the priests of the same island are sluggish
in preaching our Redeemer, I sent thither one of the bishops of Italy, who
with the co-operation of the Lord has brought many of the natives to the
faith. But he has reported to me a sacrilegious proceeding, namely, that
those in the island who sacrifice to idols pay a bribe to the judge for
license to do this. And, when some of them had been baptized and had ceased
sacrificing to idols, the same payment had been exacted by this same judge
of the island, even after their baptism, which they had been previously
accustomed to make for leave to sacrifice to idols. And, when the aforesaid
bishop found fault with him, he replied that he had promised so large a
suffragium(7) that he could not make it up except by aid from cases of this
kind. But the island of Corsica is oppressed by such an excessive number of
exactors and such a burden of exactions, that those who are in it are
hardly able to make up what is exacted except by selling their children.
Hence it ensues that the proprietors of this island, deserting the pious
republic, are forced to take refuge with that most wicked nation of the
Lombards. For what can they suffer from barbarians harder or more cruel
than being so straitened and squeezed as to be compelled to sell their
children? Moreover, in the island of Sicily one Stephen, chartularius of
the maritime parts, is said to practise such illegalities and such
oppressions, invading places that belong to various persons, and without
any legal process putting up titles(8) on properties and houses, that, if I
wished to tell every one of his doings that have come to my ears, I could
not accomplish the task in a large volume.
Let my most serene Lady look to all these things wisely, and assuage
the groans of the oppressed. For I suspect that these things have not come
to your most pious ears. For if they could have reached them, they would by
no means have continued until now. But they should be represented now at a
suitable time to our most pious Lord, that he may remove such and so great
a burden of sin from his own soul, from the empire, and from his sons. I
know he will say that whatever is collected from the aforesaid islands is
transmitted to us for the expenses of Italy. But in reply to this I suggest
that, even though less expenditure were bestowed on Italy, he should still
rid his empire of the tears of the oppressed. For perhaps, too, such great
expenditure in this land profits less than it might do because the money
for it is collected with some admixture of sin. Let therefore our most
serene Lords give orders that nothing be collected with sin. And I know
that, though less is given for the advantage of the republic, the republic
is thereby much aided. And though perhaps it may be less aided by a less
expenditure, yet it is better that we should not live temporally, than that
you should find any hindrance in the way of eternal life. For consider what
must be the feelings, what the state of heart of parents, when they part
with their children lest they should be tormented. But how one ought to
feel for the children of others is well known to those who have children of
their own. Let it then suffice for me to have briefly represented these
things, lest, if your Piety were not to know what is being done in these
parts, I should suffer for the guilt of my silence before the strict judge.
EPISTLE XLII: TO SEBASTIAN, BISHOP.
Gregory to Sebastian, Bishop of Sirmium.
I have received the most sweet and pleasant letter of thy Fraternity,
which, though you are never absent from my heart, has nevertheless made
your Holiness as it were present with me bodily. But I beseech Almighty God
to protect you with His right hand, and to grant you a tranquil life here,
and, when it shall please Him, eternal rewards. But I beg you, if you love
me with that love wherewith you always loved me when we were together, to
pray for me more earnestly, that so Almighty God may loose me from the
bands of my sins, and make me to stand free in His sight, released from the
burden of this corruption. For, however inestimable be the sweetness of the
heavenly country for drawing one towards it, yet there are many sorrows in
this life to impel us daily to the love of heavenly things. And these only
please me exceedingly from the very fact that they do not allow anything to
please me in this world.
For we can by no means describe, most holy brother, what we suffer in
this land at the hands of your friend, the lord Romanus(9). Yet I may
briefly say that his malice towards us has surpassed the swords of the
Lombards; so that the enemies who kill us seem kinder than the judges of
the republic, who by their malice, rapines, and deceits wear us out with
anxiety. And to bear at the same time the charge of bishops and clergy, and
also of monasteries and people, and to watch anxiously against the plots of
the enemy, and to be ever suspicious of the deceitfulness and malice of the
dukes; what labours and what Sorrows all this involves, your Fraternity may
the more truly estimate as you more purely love me who suffer these things
Furthermore, while addressing you with the greeting that I owe you, I
inform you that it has come to my knowledge from the report Boniface the
defensor, that our brother the most holy lord Anastasius the patriarch(1)
has wished to commit to you the government of the Church in one of his
cities, and that you have refused your assent. This your feeling and your
wisdom I most gladly approve of, and strongly commend; and I account you
happy, and myself unhappy in having consented at such a time as this to
undertake the government of the Church. If, however, by any chance, in
condescension to your brethren, and as being intent on works of mercy, you
should ever decide to consent to such a proposal, I beg you by no means to
prefer any one else's love to mine. For there are in the island of Sicily
Churches without bishops, and, if by the guidance of God you are pleased to
take the government of a Church, you will be able to do this better near
the threshold of the blessed apostle Peter, with his aid. But if you are
not so pleased, remain happily as you are, that this resolution may
continue in you; and pray for us unhappy ones. Now may Almighty God keep
you under His protection, in whatever place it be His will that you should
be, and bring you to heavenly rewards.
EPISTLE XLIII: TO EULOGIUS AND ANASTASIUS, BISHOPS.
Gregory to Eulogius, Bishop of Alexandria, and Anastasius, Bishop of
Antioch.
When the excellent preacher says, As long as I am the apostle of the
Gentiles I will honour my ministry (Rom. xi. 13); saying again in another
place, We became as babes among you (1 Thess. ii. 7), he undoubtedly shews
an example to us who come after him, that we should retain humility in our
minds, and yet keep in honour the dignity of our order, so that neither
should our humility be timid nor our elevation proud. Now eight years ago,
in the time of my predecessor of holy memory Pelagius, our brother and
fellow-bishop John in the city of Constantinople, seeking occasion from
another cause, held a synod in which he attempted to call himself Universal
Bishop. Which as soon as my said predecessor knew, he despatched letters
annulling by the authority of the holy apostle Peter the acts of the said
synod; of which letters I have taken care to send copies to your Holiness.
Moreover he forbade the deacon who attended us the most pious Lords for the
business of the Church to celebrate the solemnities of mass with our
aforesaid fellow-priest. I also, being of the same mind with him, have sent
similar letters to our aforesaid fellow-priest, copies of which I have
thought it right to send to your Blessedness, with this especial purpose,
hat we may first assail with moderate force he mind of our before-named
brother concerning this matter, wherein by a new act of pride, all the
bowels of the Universal Church are disturbed. But, if he should altogether
refuse to be bent from the stiffness of his elation, then, with the succour
of Almighty God, we may consider more particularly what ought to be done.
For, as your venerable Holiness knows, this name of Universality was
offered by the holy synod of Chalcedon to the pontiff of the Apostolic See
which by the providence of God I serve(2). But no one of my predecessors
has ever consented to use this so profane a title; since, forsooth, if one
Patriarch is called Universal, the name of Patriarch in the case of the
rest is derogated. But far be this, far be it from the mind of a Christian,
that any one should wish to seize for himself that whereby he might seem in
the least degree to lessen the honour of his brethren. While, then, we are
unwilling to receive this honour when offered to us, think how disgraceful
it is for any one to have wished to usurp it to himself perforce.
Wherefore let not your Holiness in your epistles ever call any one
Universal, lest you detract from the honour due to yourself in offering to
another what is not due. Nor let any sinister suspicion make your mind
uneasy with regard to our most serene lords, inasmuch as he fears Almighty
God, and will in no way consent to do anything against the evangelical
ordinances, against the most sacred canons. As for me, though separated
from you by long spaces of land and sea, I am nevertheless entirely
conjoined with you in heart. And I trust that it is so in all respects with
your Blessedness towards me; since, when you love me in return, you are not
far from me. Hence we give thanks the more to that grain of mustard seed
(Matth. xiii. 31, 32), for that from what appeared a small and despicable
seed it has been so spread abroad everywhere by branches rising and
extending themselves from the same root that all the birds of heaven may
make their nests in them. And thanks be to that leaven which, in three
measures of meal, has leavened in unity the mass of the whole human race
(Matth. xiii. 33); and to the little stone, which, cut out of the mountain
without hands, has occupied the whole face of the earth (Dan. ii. 35), and
which to this end everywhere distends itself, that from the human race
reduced to unity the body of the whole Church might be perfected, and so
this distinction between the several members might serve for the benefit of
the compacted whole.
Hence also we are not far from you, since in Him who is everywhere we
are one. Let us then give thanks to Him who, having abolished enmities, has
caused that in His flesh there should be in the whole world one flock, and
one sheepfold under Himself the one shepherd; and let us be ever mindful
how the preacher of truth admonishes us, saying, Be careful to keep the
unity of the spirit in the bond of peace (Ephes. iv. 3), and, Follow peace
with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see God (Hebr. xii.
14). And he says also to other disciples, If it be possible, as much as
lieth in you, having peace with all men (Rom. xii. 18) For he sees that the
good cannot have peace with the bad; and therefore, as ye know, he
premised, If it be possible.
But, because peace cannot be established except on two sides, when the
bad fly from it, the good ought to keep it in their inmost hearts. Whence
also it is admirably said, As much as lieth in you; meaning that it should
remain in us even when it is repelled from the hearts of evil men. And such
peace we truly keep, when we treat the faults of the proud at once with
charity and with persistent justice, when we love them and hate their
vices. For man is the work of God; but vice is the work of man. Let us then
distinguish between what God and what man has made, and neither hate the
man on account of his error nor love the error on account of the man.
Let us then with united mind attack the evil of pride in the man, that
from his enemy, that is to say his error, the man himself may first be
freed. Our Almighty Redeemer will supply strength to charity and justice;
He will supply to us, though placed far from each other, the unity of His
Spirit; even He by whose workmanship the Church, having been constructed as
it were after the manner of the ark with the four sides of the world, and
bound together with the compacture of incorruptible planks and the pitch of
charity, is disturbed by no opposing winds, by the swelling of no billow
coming from without.
But inasmuch as, with His grace steering us, we ought to seek that no
wave coming upon us from without may throw us into confusion, so ought we
to pray with all our hearts, dearest brethren, that the right hand of His
providence may draw out the accumulation of internal bilgewater within us.
For indeed our adversary the devil, who, in his rage against the humble, as
a roaring lion walketh about seeking whom he may devour (1 Pet. v. 8), no
longer, as we perceive, walks about the folds but so resolutely fixes his
teeth in certain necessary members of the Church that, unless with the
favour of the Lord, the heedful crowd of shepherds unanimously run to the
rescue, no one can doubt that he will soon tear all the sheepfold; which
God forbid. Consider, dearest brethren, who it is that follows close at
hand, of whose approach such perverse beginnings are breaking out even in
priests. For it is because he is near of whom it is written, He is king
over all the sons of pride (Job xli. 25)--not without sore grief I am
compelled to say it--that our brother and fellow-bishop John, despising the
Lord's commands, apostolical precepts, and rules of Fathers, attempts
through elation to be his forerunner in name.
But may Almighty God make known to your Blessedness with what sore
groaning I am tormented by this consideration; that he, the once to me
most modest man, he who was beloved of all, he who seemed to be occupied in
alms, deeds, prayers, and fastings, out of the ashes he sat in, out of the
humility he preached, has grown so boastful as to attempt to claim all to
himself, and through the elation of a pompous expression to aim at
subjugating to himself all the members of Christ, which cohere to one Head
only, that is to Christ. Nor is it surprising that the same tempter who
knows pride to be the beginning of all sin, who used it formerly before all
else in the case of the first man, should now also put it before some men
at the end of virtues, so as to lay it as a snare for those who to some
extent seemed to be escaping his most cruel hands by the good aims of their
life, at the very goal of good work, and as it were in the very conclusion
of perfection.
Wherefore we ought to pray earnestly, and implore Almighty God with
continual supplications, that He would avert this error from that man's
soul, anti remove this mischief of pride and confusion from the unity and
humility of the Church. And with the favour of the Lord we ought to concur,
and make provision with all our powers, lest in the poison of one
expression the living members in the body of Christ should die. For, if
this expression is suffered to be allowably used, the honour of all
patriarchs is denied: and while he that is called Universal perishes per
chance in his error, no bishop will be found to have remained in a state of
truth.
It is for you then, firmly and without prejudice, to keep the Churches
as you have received them, and not to let this attempt at a diabolical
usurpation have any countenance from you. Stand firm; stand secure; presume
not ever to issue or to receive writings with the falsity of the name
Universal in them. Bid all the bishops subject to your care abstain from
the defilement of this elation, that the Universal Church may acknowledge
you as Patriarchs not only in good works but also in the authority of
truth. But, if perchance adversity is the consequence, we ought to persist
unanimously, and show even by dying that in case of harm to the generality
we do not love anything of our own especially. Let us say with Paul, To me
to live is Christ, and to die is gain (Philip. i. 21). Let us hear what the
first of all pastors says; If ye suffer anything for righteousness' sake,
happy are ye (1 Pet. iii. 14). For believe me that the dignity which we
have received for the preaching of the truth we shall more safely
relinquish than retain in behalf of the same truth, should case of
necessity require it. Finally, pray for me, as becomes your most dear
Blessedness, that I may shew forth in works what I am thus bold to say to
you.
EPISTLE XLVIII: TO ANDREW, SCHOLASTICUS(3).
Gregory to Andrew, &c.
We have been desirous of carrying out the wish of the most excellent
the lord Patrician as to the person of Donatus, the archdeacon; but, seeing
that it is very dangerous to the soul to lay hands on any one rashly, we
took care to examine by a thorough investigation into his life and deeds.
And, since many things have been discovered, as we have written to the said
lord Patrician, which remove him far from the episcopate, we, fearing the
judgment of God, have not thought fit to consent to his ordination. But
neither have we presumed to ordain John, the presbyter, who is ignorant of
the psalms, since this circumstance certainly shewed him to be too little
in earnest about himself. These, then, being excluded, when we had urged
the parties to choose some one from among their own people(4), and they
declared that they had no one fit for this office, and when we together
with them were the more distressed, they at length, with one common voice
and consent, repeatedly solicited our venerable brother the presbyter
Marinianus, who they learns had been associated with me for a long time in
a monastery. He, shrinking from the office, was at last, by various means,
with difficulty persuaded to give assent to their petition. And, since we
were well acquainted with his life, and knew him to be solicitous in
winning souls, we did not delay his ordination. Let, therefore, your Glory
receive him as is becoming, and extend to his newness the aid of your
succour. For to all, as you know, newness in any office whatever is very
trying. But I have great confidence that Almighty God, who has vouchsafed
to put him over His flock, will both stimulate him to give heed to what is
inward, and comfort him with the loving-kindness of His grace for
administering what is outward. But, inasmuch as, after his long enjoyment
of quiet, his newness, as we have before said, will without doubt expose
him to perturbation, I beg that, when he shall come to you flying from the
whirlwinds of secular storms, he may always find in your heart a haven of
rest, and be cheered by the boon of your charity. But you will soon learn
how much you will find yourselves able to agree; for he comes unwillingly
to the episcopate(5).
EPISTLE XLIX: TO LEANDER, BISHOP.
Gregory to Leander, Bishop of Hispalis (Seville).
With what ardour I am athirst to see thee thou readest in the tables of
thine own heart, since thou lovest me exceedingly. But since I cannot see
thee, separated as thou art from me by long tracts of country, I have done
what charity towards thee dictated, namely to transmit to thy Holiness, on
the arrival here of our common son Probinus the presbyter, the book of
Pastoral Rule, which I wrote at the commencement of my episcopate, and the
books which thou knewest I had already composed on the exposition of the
blessed Job. Some sheets indeed of the third and fourth parts of that work
I have not sent to thy Charity, having already given those sheets only of
the said parts to monasteries. These, then, which I send let thy Holiness
earnestly peruse, and more earnestly deplore my sins, lest it be to my more
serious blame that I am seen as it were to know what I omit to do. But with
how great tumults of business I am oppressed in this Church the very
brevity of my epistle will signify to thy Charity, seeing that I say so
little to him whom more than all I love.
EPISTLE LII: TO JOHN, ARCHBISHOP.
Gregory to John, Archbishop of the Corinthians.
The equity and solicitude of Secundinus our brother and fellow-bishop,
which had been well known to us of old, is shewn also by the tenor of your
letters. In this matter he has greatly pleased us, and made us glad, in
that in the cause of Anastasius(6), once bishop, which we charged him to
enquire into, he has both exercised his vigilance diligently and judged the
crimes that were discovered as justice required, and as was fight. But in
all these things we return thanks to Almighty God for that, when certain
accusers held back, He brought the truth to his knowledge, lest the
originator of such great crimes should escape detection. But seeing that,
in the sentence wherein it is evident that the above-named Anastasius has
been justly condemned and deposed, our above-named brother and fellow-
bishop has visited the offence of certain persons in such a manner as to
reserve them for our judgment, we therefore have seen fit to signify by
this present epistle what is to be held to and observed concerning them.
As to Paul the deacon then, the bearer of these presents, although his
fault is exceedingly to his shame and discredit--namely, that deluded by
promises, he held back from accusation of his late bishop who has been
lately deposed, and that, in the eagerness of cupidity, he consented,
against his own soul, to keep silence rather than declare the truth--yet,
since it befits us to be more kind than strict, we pardon him this fault,
and decide that he is to be received again into his rank and position. For
we believe that the affliction which he has endured since the time of the
sentence being pronounced may suffice for the punishment of this fault. But
as to Euphemius and Thomas, who received sacred orders for relinquishing
their accusation, it is our will that they be deprived of these sacred
orders, and, having been deposed from them, so continue; and we decree that
they shall never, under any pretext or excuse, be restored to sacred
orders. For it is in the highest degree improper, and contrary to the rule
of ecclesiastical discipline, that they should enjoy the dignity which they
have received, not for their merits, but as the reward of wickedness. Yet,
inasmuch as it is fit for us to incline to mercy more than to strict
justice, it is our will that the same Euphemius and Thomas be restored to
the rank and position, but to that only, from which they had been promoted
to sacred orders, and receive during all the days of their life the
stipends of these positions, as they had been before accustomed. Further,
as to Clematius the reader, I appoint, from a like motive of benignity,
that he is to be restored to his rank and position. To all these also that
is, to Paul the deacon, to Euphemius, Thomas, and Clematius, let your
Fraternity take care to supply their emoluments, according to the rank and
position in which each of them is, as each has been accustomed to receive
them, from this present thirteenth indiction without any diminution.
Inasmuch, therefore, as the above-named Paul the deacon asserts that he
expended much for the advantage of your Church, and desires to be aided by
the succour of your Fraternity for recovery of the same, we exhort that, if
this is so, you should concur with him in all possible ways, and support
him with your aid, for recovering what he has given, since no reason allows
that he should unjustly suffer loss in what he has expended for the
advantage of the generality. Furthermore, let your Fraternity restore
without delay the three pounds of gold which, at the instance of our above-
named brother and fellow-bishop Secundinus, it appears that the said Paul
the deacon gave for the benefit of your Church, lest (which God forbid) you
should seem to burden him, not reasonably, but out of mere caprice.
EPISTLE LIII: TO VIRGILIUS, BISHOP.
Gregory to Virgilius, Bishop of Arelate (Arles).
O how good is charity, which through an image in the mind exhibits what
is absent as present to ourselves, through love unites what is divided,
settles what is confused, associates things that are unequal, completes
things that are imperfect! Rightly does the excellent preacher call it the
bond of perfectness; since, though the other virtues indeed produce
perfectness, yet still charity binds them together so that they can no
longer be loosened from the heart of one who loves. Of this virtue, then,
most dear brother, I find thee to be full, as both those who came from the
Gallican parts and the words also of thy letter addressed to me testify to
me of thee.
Now as to thy having asked therein, according to ancient custom, for
the use of the pallium and the vicariate of the Apostolic See, far be it
from me to suspect that thou hast sought eminence of transitory power, or
the adornment of external worship, in our vicariate and in the pallium.
But, since it is well known to all whence the holy faith proceeded in the
regions of Gaul, when your Fraternity asks for a repetition of the old
custom of the Apostolic See, what is it but that a good offspring reverts
to the bosom of its mother?(7) With willing mind therefore we grant what
has been asked for, lest we should seem either to withdraw from you
anything of the honour due to you, or to have despised the petition of our
most excellent son king Childebert. But the present state of things
requires the greater earnestness, that with increase of dignity solicitude
also may advance, and watchfulness in the custody of others may grow, and
the merits of your life may serve as an example to your subjects, and that
your Fraternity may never seek your own through the dignity accorded you,
but the gains of the heavenly country. For you know what the blessed
apostle says, groaning, For all seek their own, not the things which are
Jesus Christ's (Philip. ii. 21).
For I have learnt from information given me by certain persons that in
the parts of Gaul and Germany no one attains to holy orders except for a
consideration given. If this is so, I say it with tears, I declare it with
groans, that, when the priestly order has fallen inwardly, neither will it
be able to stand outwardly for long. For we know from the Gospel what our
Redeemer in person did; how He went into the temple, and overthrew the
seats of them that sold doves (Matth. xxi. 12). For to sell doves is to
receive a temporal consideration for the Holy Spirit, whom, being
consubstantial with Himself, God Almighty gives to men through the
imposition of hands. From which evil what follows is already intimated. For
of those who presumed to sell doves in the temple of God the seats fell by
God's judgment.
And in truth this transgression is propagated with increase among
subordinates. For he who is promoted to any sacred order for a price, being
already corrupted in the very root of his advancement, is the more ready to
sell to others what he has bought. And where is that which is written,
Freely ye have received, freely give (Matth. x. 8)?
And, seeing that the simoniacal heresy was the first to arise against
the holy Church, why is it not considered, why is it not seen, that whoso
ordains any one for money, causes him in advancing him, to become a
heretic?
Another very detestable thing has also been reported to us; that some
persons, being laymen, through desire of temporal glory, are tonsured on
the death of bishops, and all at once are made priests. In such cases it is
already known what manner of man he is who attains to priesthood, passing
suddenly from a lay estate to sacred leadership. And one who has never
served as a soldier fears not to become a leader of the religious(8). How
is that man to preach who has perhaps never heard any one else preach? Or
bow shall he correct the ills of others who has never yet bewailed his own?
And, where Paul the apostle prohibits a neophyte from coming to sacred
orders, we are to understand that, as one was then called a neophyte who
had been newly planted in the faith, so we now reckon among neophytes one
who is still new in holy conversation.
Moreover, we know that walls after being built, are not made to carry a
weight of timber till they are dried of the moisture of their newness,
lest, if a weight be put on them before they are settled, it bear down the
whole fabric together to the ground. And, when we cut trees for a building,
we wait for the moisture of their greenness to be first dried out, lest, if
the weight of the fabric is imposed on them while still fresh, they be bent
from their very newness, and be the sooner broken and fall down from having
been elevated prematurely. Why, then, is not this scrupulously seen to
among men, which is so carefully considered even in the case of timber and
stones?
On this account your Fraternity must needs take care to admonish our
most excellent son king Childebert that he remove entirely the stain of
this sin from his kingdom, to the end that Almighty God may give him the
greater recompense with Himself as He sees him both love what He loves and
shun what He hates.
And so we commit to your Fraternity, according to ancient custom, under
God, our vicariate in the Churches which are under the dominion of our most
excellent son Childebert(9), with the understanding that their proper
dignity, according to primitive usage, be preserved to the several
metropolitans. We have also sent a pallium for thy Fraternity to use within
the Church for the solemnization of mass only. Further, if any one of the
bishops should by any chance wish to travel to any considerable distance,
let it not be lawful for him to remove to other places without the
authority of thy Holiness. If any question of faith, or it may be relating
to other matters, should have arisen among the bishops, which cannot easily
be settled, let it be ventilated and decided in an assembly of twelve
bishops. But, if it cannot be decided after the truth has been
investigated, let it be referred to our judgment.
Now may Almighty God keep you under His protection, and grant unto you
to preserve by your behaviour the dignity that you have received. Given the
12th day of August, Indiction 13.
EPISTLE LIV: TO ALL THE BISHOPS OF THE KINGDOM OF CHILDEBERT.
Gregory to all the Bishops of Gaul who are under the kingdom of
Childebert(1).
To this end has the provision of the divine dispensation appointed that
there should be diverse degrees and distinct orders, that, while the
inferiors shew reverence to the more powerful and the more powerful bestow
love on the inferiors, one contexture of concord may ensue of diversity,
and the administration of all several offices may be properly borne. Nor
indeed could the whole otherwise subsist; unless, that is, a great order of
differences of this kind kept it together. Further, that creation cannot be
governed, or live, in a state of absolute equality we are taught by the
example of the heavenly hosts, since, there being angels and also
archangels, it is manifest that they are not equal; but in power and rank,
as you know, one differs from another. If then among these who are without
sin there is evidently this distinction, who of men can refuse to submit
himself willingly to this order of things which he knows that even angels
obey? For hence peace and charity embrace each other mutually, and the
sincerity of concord remains firm in the reciprocal love which is well
pleasing to God.
Since, then each single duty is then salubriously fulfilled when there
is one president who may be referred to, we have therefore perceived it to
be opportune, in the Churches that are under the dominion of our most
excellent son king Childebert, to give our vicariate jurisdiction,
according to ancient custom, to our brother Virgilius, bishop of the city
of Arelate, to the end that the integrity of the catholic faith, that is of
the four holy synods, may be preserved under the protection of God with
attentive devotion, and that, if any contention should by chance arise
among our brethren and fellow-priests, he may allay it by the rigour of his
authority with discreet moderation, as representing the Apostolic See. We
have also charged him that, if such a dispute should arise in any cases as
to require the presence of others, he should assemble our brethren and
fellow-bishops in competent number, and discuss the matter salubriously
with due regard to equity, and decide it with canonical integrity. But if a
contention (which may the Divine power avert) should happen to arise on
matters of faith, or any business come up about which there may perchance
be serious doubt, and he should be in need of the judgment of the Apostolic
See in place of his own greatness, we have directed him that, having
diligently enquired into the truth, he should take care to bring the
question under our cognizance by a report from himself, to the end that it
may be terminated by a suitable sentence so as to remove all doubt.
And, since it is necessary that the bishops should assemble at suitable
times for conference before him to whom we have granted our vicariate
jurisdiction as often as he may think it, we exhort that none of you
presume to be disobedient to his orders, or defer attending the general
conclave, unless perchance bodily infirmity should prevent any one, or a
just excuse in any case should allow his absence. Yet let such as are
unavoidably prevented from attending the synod send a presbyter or a deacon
in their stead, to the end that the things that, with the help of God, may
be decided by our vicar, may come to the knowledge of him who is absent by
a faithful report through the person whom he had sent, and be observed with
unshaken steadfastness, and that there be no occasion of excuse for daring
to violate them.
About this also we take the precaution of warning you, that none of you
may attempt in any way to depart to places at any great distance without
the authority of our aforesaid brother and fellow-bishop Virgilius, knowing
that the orders of our predecessors, who granted vicariate jurisdiction to
his predecessors, undoubtedly lay this down.
Furthermore, we exhort that each one of you give careful attention to
his own office, so that he who desires to receive the reward promised for
feeding the sheep may guard the flock committed to him with carefulness and
prayer, lest the prowling wolf should invade and tear the sheep entrusted
to him, and there should be in the retribution punishment instead of
reward. We hope, therefore, most dear brethren, and we entreat Almighty God
with all our prayers, that He would make you to be fervent more and more in
the constancy of His love, and grant you especially to be retained in the
peace of the Church, and in agreement together.
It has been reported to us that some are promoted to sacred orders
through simoniacal heresy; and we have ordered our above-written brother
and fellow-bishop Virgilius that this must be altogether prohibited; and,
that your Fraternity may know and studiously observe this, our letter to
him is to be read in your presence. Given the 12th day of August, Indiction
13.
EPISTLE LV: TO KING CHILDEBERT.
Gregory to Childebert, king of the Franks(2).
The letter of your Excellency has made us exceedingly glad, testifying
as it does that you are careful, with pious affection, of the honour and
reverence due to priests. For you thus shew to all that you are faithful
worshippers of God, while you love His priests with the acceptable
veneration that is due to them, and hasten with Christian devotion to do
whatever may advance their position. Whence also we have received with
pleasure what you have written, and grant what you desire with willing
mind; and accordingly we have committed, with the favour of God, our
vicariate jurisdiction to our brother Virgilius, bishop of the city of
Arelate, according to ancient custom and your Excellency's desire; and have
also granted him the use of the pallium, as has been the custom of old.
But, inasmuch as some things have been reported to us which greatly
offend Almighty God, and confound the honour and reverence due to the
priesthood, we beg that they may be in every way amended with the support
of the censure of your power, lest, while headstrong and perverse doings
run counter to your devotion, your kingdom, or your soul (which God forbid)
be burdened by the guilt of others.
Further, it has come to our knowledge that on the death of bishops some
persons from being laymen are tonsured, and mount to the episcopate by a
sudden leap. And thus one who has not been a disciple is in his
inconsiderate ambition made a master. And, since he has not learned what to
teach, he bears the office of priesthood only in name; for he continues to
be a layman in speech and action as before. How, then, is he to intercede
for the sins of others, not having in the first place bewailed his own? For
such a shepherd does not defend, but deceives, the flock; since, while he
cannot for very shame try to persuade others to do what he does not do
himself, what else is it but that the Lord's people remains a prey to
robbers, and catches destruction from the source whence it ought to have
had a great support of wholesome protection? How bad and how perverse a
proceeding this is let your Excellency's Highness consider even from your
own administration of things. For it is certain that you do not put a
leader over an army unless his work and his fidelity have first been
apparent; unless the virtue and industry of his previous life have shewn
him to be a fit person. But, if the command of an army is not committed to
any but men of this kind, it is easily gathered from this comparison of
what sort a leader of souls ought to be. But it is a reproach to us, and we
are ashamed to say it, that priests snatch at leadership who have not seen
the very beginning of religious warfare.
But this also, a thing most execrable, has been reported to us as well:
that sacred orders are conferred through simoniacal heresy, that is for
bribes received. And, seeing that it is exceedingly pestiferous, and
contrary to the Universal Church, that one be promoted to any sacred order
not for merit but for a price, we exhort your Excellency to order so
detestable a wickedness to be banished from your kingdom For that man shows
himself to be thoroughly unworthy of this office, who fears not to buy the
gift of God with money, and presumes to try to get by payment what he
deserves not to have through grace.
These things, then, most excellent son, I admonish you about for this
reason, that I desire your soul to be saved. And I should have written
about them before now, had not innumerable occupations stood in the way of
my will. But now that a suitable time for answering your letter has offered
itself, I have not omitted what it was my duty to do. Wherefore, greeting
your Excellency with the affection of paternal charity, we beg that all
things which we have enjoined on our above-named brother and fellow-bishop
to be done and observed, may be carried out under the protection of your
favour, and that you allow them not to be in any way upset by the elation
or pride of any one. But, as they were observed by his predecessor under
the reign of your glorious father, so let them be observed now also, by
your aid, with zealous devotion. It is right, then, that we should thus
have a return made to us; and that, as we have not deferred fulfilling your
will, so you too, for the sake of God and the blessed Peter, Prince of the
apostles, should cause our ordinances to be observed in all respects; that
so your Excellency's reputation, praiseworthy and well-pleasing to God, may
extend itself all around. Given the 12th day of August, Indiction 13.
EPISTLE LVI: TO MARINIANUS, BISHOP.
Gregory to Marinianus, Bishop of Ravenna.
Moved by the benevolence of the Apostolical See and the order of
ancient custom, we have thought fit to grant the use of the pallium to thy
Fraternity, who art known to have undertaken the office of government in
the Church of Ravenna(3). And remember thou to use it in no other way but
in the proper Church of thy city, when the sons (i.e. laity) have been
already dismissed, as thou art proceeding from the audience chamber(4) to
celebrate the sacred solemnities of mass; but, when mass is finished, thou
wilt take care to lay it by again in the audience chamber. But outside the
Church, we do not allow thee to use it any more, except four times in the
year, in the litanies which we named to thy predecessor John; giving thee
at the same time this admonition; that, as through the Lord's bounty thou
hast obtained from us the use of an adornment of this kind to the honour of
the priestly office, so thou strive to adorn also the office undertaken by
thee to the glory of Christ with probity of manners and of deeds. For thus
wilt thou be conspicuous for two adornments answering to each other, if
with such a vesture of the body as this the good qualities also of thy soul
agree. For all privileges also which appear evidently to have been formerly
granted to thy Church we confirm by our authority, and decree that they
continue inviolate.
EPISTLE LVII: TO JOHN, BISHOP.
Gregory to John, Bishop of the Corinthians
Now that our God, from whom nothing is hidden, having cast out an
atrocious plague of pollution from the government of His Church(5), has
been pleased to advance you to the rule thereof, there is need of anxious
precaution on your part that the Lord's flock, after the wounds and various
evils inflicted by its former shepherd, may find consolation and wholesome
medicine in your Fraternity. Thus, then, let the hand of your action wipe
away the stain of the previous contagion, so as tO suffer no traces even to
remain of that execrable wickedness.
Let, therefore, your solicitude towards your subjects be worthy of
praise. Let discipline be exhibited with gentleness. Let rebuke be with
discernment. Let kindness mitigate wrath; let zeal sharpen kindness: and
let one be so seasoned with the other that neither immoderate punishment
afflict more than it ought, nor again laxity impair the rectitude of
discipline. Let the conduct of your Fraternity be a lesson to the people
committed to you. Let them see in you what to love, and perceive what to
make haste to imitate. Let them be taught how to live by your example. Let
them not deviate from the straight course through your leading; let them
find their way to God by following you; that so thou mayest receive as many
rewards from the Saviour of the human race as thou shalt have won souls for
Him. Labour therefore, most dear brother, and so direct the whole activity
of thy heart and soul, that thou mayest hereafter be counted worthy to
hear, Well done, thou goad and faithful servant: enter thou into the joy of
thy Lord (Matth. xxv. 21).
As you requested in your letter which we received through our brother
and fellow-bishop Andrew, we have sent you the pallium, which it is
necessary that you should so use as your predecessors, by the allowance of
our predecessors, are proved to have used it.
Furthermore, it has come to our ears that in those parts no one attains
to any sacred order without the giving of a consideration. If this, is so,
I say with tears, I declare with groans, that, when the priestly order has
fallen inwardly, neither will it stand long outwardly. For we know from the
Gospel what our Redeemer in person did; how He went into the temple, and
overthrew the seats of them that sold, doves (Matth. xxi. 12). For to sell
cloves is to receive a temporal consideration for the Holy Spirit, whom,
being consubstantial with Himself, Almighty God gives to men through
imposition of hands. And what follows from this evil, as I have said
before, is intimated; for the seats of those who presumed to sell doves in
the temple of God fell by the judgment of God. And in truth this
transgression is propagated with increase among subordinates. For one who
attains to a sacred dignity tainted in the very root of his promotion is
himself the more prepared to sell to others what he has bought. And where
then is that which is written, Freely ye have received; freely give (Matth.
x. 8)? And, since the simoniacal heresy was the first to arise against holy
Church, why is it not considered, why is it not seen, that whosoever
ordains any one for a price in promoting him causes him to become a
heretic? Seeing, then, that the holy universal Church utterly condemns this
most atrocious wickedness, we exhort your Fraternity in all ways to
repress, with all the urgency of your solicitude, this so detestable and so
huge a sin in all places that are under you. For, if we shall perceive
anything of the kind to be done henceforth, we will correct it, not with
words, but with canonical punishment; and we shall begin to have a
different opinion of you; which ought not so to be.
Further, your Fraternity knows that formerly the pallium was not given
except for a consideration received. But, since this was incongruous, we
held a council before the body of the blessed Peter, Prince of the
apostles, and forbade under a strict interdiction the receiving of
anything, as well for this as for ordinations.
It is your duty then, that neither for a consideration, nor for favour
or the solicitation of certain persons, you consent to any persons being
advanced to sacred orders. For it is a grave sin, as we have said, and we
cannot suffer it to continue without reproof.
I delayed receiving the above named Andrew, our brother and fellow-
bishop, because by the report of our brother and fellow-bishop Secundinus
we learnt that he had forged letters, as to himself from us, in the
proceedings against John of Larissa(6). And, unless your goodness had
induced us, we would on no account have received him. Given the 15th day of
the month of August, Indiction 13.
EPISTLE LVIII: TO ALL THE BISHOPS THROUGHOUT HELLADIA(7).
Gregory to all bishops constituted in the province of Helladia.
I return thanks with you, dearest brethren, to Almighty God, who has
caused the hidden sore which the ancient enemy had introduced to come to
the knowledge of all, and has cut it away by a wholesome incision from the
body of His Church. Herein we have cause both to rejoice and to mourn; to
rejoice, that is, for the correction of a crime, but to mourn for the fall
of a brother. But, since for the most part the fall of one is wont to be
the safeguard of another, whosoever fears to fall, let him give heed to
this, that he afford no way of approach to the enemy, nor think that deeds
done lie hidden. For the Truth proclaims, There is nothing hidden that
shall not be revealed(Matth. x. 26). For this voice is already the herald
of our doings, and He himself, being witness, brings in all ways to public
view what is done in secret. And who may strive to hide his deeds before
Him Who is both their witness and their judge? But, since sometimes, when
one thing is attended to, another is not guarded against, it behoves every
one to be watchful against all the snares of the enemy, lest, while he
conquers in one point he be vanquished in another. For an earthly enemy
too, when he desires to invade fortified places, thus employs the art of
warfare. For indeed he lays ambushes latently; but shews himself as though
entirely bent on the storming of one place, so that, while there is a
running together for defence of that place where the danger is imminent,
other places about which there is no suspicion may be taken. And the result
is, that he who, when perceived, was repulsed by the valour of his
opponent, obtains by stealth what he could not obtain by fighting. But,
since in all these things there is need of the aid of divine protection,
let every one of us cry to the Lord with the voice of the heart, saying,
Lord, remove not Thy help far from me; Look Thou to my defence(Ps. xxi.
20)[8]. For it is manifest that, unless He Himself should help, and defend
those who cry to Him, our enemy cannot be vanquished.
Furthermore, know ye that, having received the letter of your Charity
through Andrew our brother and fellow- bishop, we have transmitted the
pallium to John our brother, the bishop of the Corinthians; whom it is by
all means fitting that you should obey, especially as the order of ancient
custom claims this, and his good qualities, to which you yourselves bear
testimony, invite it. For from the account given me by certain persons I
have learnt that in those parts no one attains to any sacred order without
the giving of a consideration. If this is so, I say with tears, I declare
with groans, that, when the priestly order has fallen inwardly, neither
will it be able to stand long outwardly. For we know from the Gospel what
our Redeemer did in person; how He went into the temple, and overthrew the
seats of them that sold doves. For in truth to sell doves is to receive a
temporal consideration for the Holy Spirit, whom, being consubstantial with
Himself, Almighty God gives to men through imposition of hands. And, as I
have said before, what follows from this evil is intimated; for the seats
of them that presumed to sell doves in the temple of God fell by God's
judgment And in truth this transgression is propagated with increase among
subordinates. For he who is advanced to a sacred order already tainted in
the very root of his promotion is himself more prepared to sell to others
what he has bought. And where is that which is Written, Freely ye have
received; freely give(Matth. x. 8)? And, since the simoniacal heresy was
the first to arise against the holy Church, why is it not considered, why
is it not seen, that whosoever ordains any one for a price in promoting him
causes him to become a heretic? And so we exhort that none of you suffer
this to be done any more; or dare to promote any to sacred orders for the
favour or supplication of any person, except such a one as the character of
his life and actions has shewn to be worthy. For, if we should perceive the
contrary in future, know ye that it will be repressed with strict and
canonical punishment. Given on the 15th day of the month of August,
Indiction 13.
Taken from "The Early Church Fathers and Other Works" originally published
by Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co. in English in Edinburgh, Scotland, beginning in
1867. (LNPF II/XII, Schaff and Wace). The digital version is by The
Electronic Bible Society, P.O. Box 701356, Dallas, TX 75370, 214-407-WORD.
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