Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 204

Gregory to Laurence, bishop of Milan. Receiving your Fraternity's letter, I gave thanks to almighty God, who relieved me with the desirable news of your safety. But as to what you report—that from the exaction of the patrimony of the province of Sicily a certain fixed quantity of money is being rendered to the right of the holy Church over which, with God as author, you preside, because that exaction of the patrimony of your Church was formerly carried out by the agents of the holy Roman Church—it was necessary, according to the tenor of the writings sent by you, to inspect the sum of the moneys received and paid in, and subtly to trace out the merit of a safer reckoning; which things being examined, nothing has been claimed by the holy Roman Church to be rendered to your Church.

But because, while your deacon Constantius alleged something else against the objections that had been raised by our men, the examination of the business came into doubt, which could be more subtly sifted if some person existed with whom something might be firmly settled: therefore it is necessary that your Holiness appoint a person concerning this matter, with whom the Roman Church may settle something solidly, so that either it may be plain from judgement that it owes nothing, or, if it did owe something and has made restitution, the person whom you appoint may solemnly issue an acquittance. Gregory to Januarius, archbishop of Cagliari in Sardinia. You are found to have gladdened our heart by your writings, in that you testified that you had been mindful of our commands.

And because we retain in memory those things which you mention that we commanded to your Fraternity—namely, how disposition ought to be made where the authority of our will is awaited—we briefly reply by these present writings. Liberatus therefore, concerning whom your Fraternity has informed us, who is said to discharge the office of the diaconate: if he was not made a cardinal by your predecessor, he ought by no reasoning to be preferred above the deacons ordained by you; lest you should seem in some manner, by supposition, to reprobate those whom you are known to have approved by consecrating them.

Therefore restrain the aforesaid Liberatus, whom a spirit of ambition that must be checked puffs up, with all urgency from the depravity of his intent, and appoint him to stand last among the deacons, lest, while he strives to be unlawfully preferred, he be judged unworthy of the place in which he is now set. If, however, you shall be invited by his obedience, and shall after this wish to make him a cardinal, unless he shall have obtained the cession of his own pontiff in solemn manner, remember that you must abstain from every incardination, since you do not doubt that it accords with equity that you should not delay to observe toward others what you also desire to be observed toward yourself.