Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 236

Gregory to John, bishop of Ravenna. By the Lord's commands we are enjoined to love our neighbors as ourselves, and to condole with their languors as with our own infirmities. Mindful of which, your Fraternity, by the manner befitting you, took pains both first, having compassion, to visit our brother and fellow-bishop Castorius, and afterward, on account of the increasing distress of his body, to receive him in the city of Ravenna. Wherefore not only to us by the outlay of charity, but you have without doubt made God your debtor, who are proved to have condoled in the infirmity of a brother, and not only to have visited the sick man in the distress of your own member, but even to have received him.

Him indeed I altogether refused to ordain there, on account of his simplicity, but the importunity of those requesting made it so that I could in no way contradict. But if it can be done, you will greatly counsel both me and him, if you transmit him to me, or through Sicily, if however you judge it not to be grievous to him. But concerning the bishops belonging to us, who nevertheless cannot come hither because of the interposition of the enemy, let your Fraternity take care. Yet so that they be in no way recalled for their own causes to the city of Ravenna, lest we should seem in any way to vex or weary them at this time. But if there are any matters in which they seem justly to be reprehended, they ought always to be admonished through the letters of your Fraternity.

But if indeed (which God forbid) any graver matters should occur, these we wish you to report to us subtly, so that, strengthened by the testimony of your inquiry, we may, by the Lord's help, dispose by wholesome counsel those things which accord with the laws and canons. In the month of July, in the tenth indiction. (Cf. John the Deacon, book IV, chap. 52; above, letter 12; below, letters 41 and 42, indiction 2, letters 24 and 25, indiction 13, letter 44, indiction 15.) Gregory to Eusebius the abbot. Let your Charity believe me, that I have been greatly saddened over your sadness, as if I myself had suffered the injury in you.

But when I afterward learned that even when our most reverend brother and fellow-bishop Maximianus was rendering back grace and communion, your Beloved was unwilling to be communicated with by him, I came to know that even that former thing which was done had been just. The humility of the servants of God ought to appear in the time of affliction. But those who raise themselves against their superiors are assuredly shown to be those who scorn to be the servants of God. And indeed by him that which was done ought by no means to have been done, yet by you it ought to have been received with all humility; and again, when he was rendering back grace, he ought to have been met with thanksgiving. Because this was not so done by you, henceforth I recognize that there is altogether need of tears for us.

For it is no great thing for us to be humble toward those by whom we are honored, since even worldly men do this; but we ought to be humble above all toward those from whom we suffer some injury. For the Psalmist says: 'Behold my humiliation from my enemies' (Ps. IX, 14). Of what manner of life are we, who refuse to be humble even toward our fathers? Therefore, most beloved son, I beg that all bitterness may pass from your heart, lest perhaps it become a stumbling-block to your neighbor, and the ancient enemy, through the iniquity of discord, bar the way of the heavenly kingdom. Moreover, I have caused a hundred solidi to be given to your Charity through Peter the subdeacon, which I ask that he may receive without any wrong done to him. (See above, ep. 34. Cf. John the Deacon, Book II, ch. 55.)