Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 225

Gregory to John, bishop of the First Justiniana of Illyricum. It is manifestly a mark of goodness, in the election of a man, for the consent of all to concur. Since therefore the report received of our brothers and fellow-bishops declares that you are summoned to the place of the priesthood by the united consent of the whole council and by the will of the most serene prince, we have with great exultation given thanks to Almighty God our Creator, who has so made your life and acts to be commendable from the things past, that He made you please, which is highly praiseworthy, the judgement of all. To which things we also, in the person of your fraternity, consent in all respects.

And we beseech the Almighty Lord, that even as His grace has chosen your charity, so in all things He may guard it by His protection. The pallium indeed we have, according to custom, transmitted, and we decree by a renewed innovation that you shall discharge the vices of the Apostolic See, admonishing that you should so show yourself favourable toward your subjects, that they may be provoked rather to love your rectitude than to fear it. And if perhaps their fault should require it, you shall so take care to amend their excesses, that you in no way lay aside paternal affection from your mind.

Be watchful and solicitous in the custody of the flock committed to you, and strict in the zeal of discipline, so that the wolf lying in wait may not prevail either to disturb the Lord's sheepfold or to harm the sheep by any occasion of guile. Hasten with the whole intention of your mind to work the gain of souls for our God; know that we have undertaken the name of pastor not for rest, but for labour. Let us therefore exhibit in work what we are signed with in name. If we weigh the prerogative of the priesthood with right consideration, for the solicitous and those who govern well it is an honour, but for the negligent it will assuredly be a burden. As therefore this name leads to eternal glory before God those who labour and are solicitous about the salvation of souls, so it inclines to punishment the slothful and torpid.

Let the people committed to you recognize that there is another life in our manner of speaking. Let there be for them the teaching of your fraternity, the welcome goad of correction, and a life to be a pattern for imitation. For what they ought to love and what to fear, let the discourse of your charity's preaching disclose, and let its efficacy acquire the fruit of your eternal recompense of this kind. But amid these things, let this above all bind you with the care of deliberation: that you never attempt to make unlawful ordinations; but let those whom it may befall to be promoted to the order of clerics, or perhaps to a higher grade, be ordained not by bribes or entreaties, but by merits.

In no ordination let them by any means filch benefits from your fraternity, lest you be ensnared in the toils of the simoniacal heresy — which God forbid. For what shall it profit a man, as the Truth teaches, if he gain the whole world, and cause the loss of his own soul (Matthew XVI, 26)? Whence it is necessary that we should attend to God in all that we do, that we should despise perishable and temporal things, and direct the desire of our heart toward the goods of eternity. But the gifts of your holiness I had been altogether unwilling to receive, because it would be very unbecoming that we should seem to have received presents from brethren who have been plundered and afflicted.

But your representatives overcame me by another argument, bringing those gifts to Him from whom the offerings of your fraternity could not be repelled. For this above all things must you be zealous: that, as we have said before, you procure for the coming Judge of souls not perishable gifts, so that He may regard both you for the working out of your reward, and us likewise for our exhortation. (See above, letter 22.)