Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 302

Gregory to Priscus, patrician of the East. If we truly attend to the course of this life, we find nothing firm in it, nothing stable; but just as a traveler passes now over level ground, now over rough, so to us who remain in this life there befalls now prosperity, now adversity; in short, they succeed one another in alternating times, and confound one another by mutual exchange. Since therefore the order of mutability corrupts all things in this world, we ought neither to be elated by prosperous things nor broken by adverse. With our whole mind therefore it befits us to pant after that place where whatever exists remains firm, where prosperity is not changed by adversity.

In this life therefore, by the wondrous governance of God almighty, it is brought about that either adversity follows prosperity, or prosperity adversity, so that both, being humbled, we may learn to weep for whatever we have transgressed, and again, being exalted, we may hold in our mind the memory of adversity as an anchor for the humbled. This therefore is not to be reckoned the wrath of our Creator, but grace; through which we learn to keep His gifts the more truly the more humbly we hold them. Since therefore we have learned that you have, the almighty God being its author, recovered the perfect grace of your masters, we rejoice with great exultation on your behalf, wishing that the Governor of all things may both make your life happy with good things ever present, and extend it to perpetual joys.

I say these things to you for this reason, because I love you much, and know that I am loved by you. But show this love by which you love me toward the bearer of these presents, the deacon Sabinianus, so that where occasion shall require, he may obtain your patronage. Now the glorious man Castus is a herald of your praises in the Roman parts, whom I commend to your Excellency with fatherly love.