Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 343

Gregory to Fantinus, the defensor. The bearer of these presents, Cosmas the Syrian, has stated that in the business he was conducting he had contracted a debt, which we believed to be true both by many other testimonies and by his tears. And since he owed 150 solidi, I wished that his creditors would come to some agreement with him, since the law also holds that a free man should by no means be held for a debt if goods are lacking which could be adjudged toward that debt. His creditors, therefore, as he asserts, could possibly consent to 80 solidi.

But since it is much to demand 80 solidi from a man who has nothing, we have transmitted to you 60 solidi through your notary, so that you may speak subtly with those same creditors and render account, since they cannot, according to the laws, hold the son of him whom they are said to hold. And if it can be done, let them condescend to something less than the sum we have named. And whatever remains of those same 60 solidi, hand over to him, so that he may be able thereby to live with his son. But if nothing remains, or the debt falls to that same sum, so that he may afterwards be able to labour freely for himself. Yet do this cautiously, so that, the solidi being received, they may make full quittance to him in writing. (Compare John the Deacon, Book I, no. 55.) Gregory to Rusticiana, the patrician lady.

Receiving your Excellency's letters, I gladly learned how you had journeyed to Mount Sinai. But believe me, I too would have wished to go with you — but by no means to return with you. Although it is very difficult for me to believe that you were at that holy place and saw many Fathers. For, I believe, if you had seen them, you could by no means so quickly have returned to the city of Constantinople, after the love of such a city had in no way departed from your heart. I suspect that your Excellency did not attend with the heart to the holy things which you saw bodily. But may Almighty God illumine your mind with the grace of His mercy, and grant

you to be wise, and to weigh how fleeting are all temporal things; for while we speak of these things, both time runs on, and the Judge draws near, and this world, which we willingly love, behold, it is already near that we should unwillingly relinquish it. I ask that the lord Apion and the lady Eusebia, and their daughters, be greeted in my stead. As for that nurse of mine whom you commend to me by letters, I love her altogether, and wish her burdened in nothing. But we are pressed by such great straits that at this time we cannot even excuse ourselves from forced services and burdens. Gregory to Sabinianus, the deacon. You have learned what has been done concerning the case of the blessed Maximus the prevaricator.

But after the most serene lord emperor sent commands that he ought by no means to be ordained, then he burst forth into a yet loftier pride. For men of the glorious patrician of Rome received bribes from him, and caused him to be ordained in such a way that they would have slain the subdeacon and rector of the patrimony Antonius, had he not fled. But I sent letters, after I learned that he had been ordained against reason and against custom, that he should not presume to celebrate the solemnities of the Mass until I should first learn from the most serene lords what they had commanded concerning his person. These writings of mine, being publicly recited or posted in the city, he caused to be publicly torn up, and more openly broke forth into contempt of the Apostolic See.

How I bear this, you know, who am rather ready to die than to see the Church of blessed Peter the apostle degenerate in my days. But you have my character well known to you, that I long bear with things; yet if once I shall have resolved not to bear, I go joyfully against all perils. Whence it is necessary, with God's help, to succour the danger, lest one be compelled by yielding to sin. See what I say, and weigh from how great a grief they are. But it has come to me that he has sent some cleric or other, who was to say that Bishop Malchus was slain in custody on account of solidi.

Concerning this matter, there is one thing which you should briefly suggest to our most serene Lords: that if I, their servant, had wished to mix myself in the death of the Lombards, today the nation of the Lombards would have neither king, nor dukes, nor counts, and would be divided in utter confusion. But because I fear God, I dread to mix myself in the death of any man whatsoever. But Bishop Malchus was neither in custody nor in any affliction, but on the day he pleaded his cause and was condemned, unknown to me, he was led by Boniface the notary into his house, where a meal was also prepared, and there he dined, and was honoured by him, and in the night suddenly died — which I think your Beloved has already learned.

I wished to send our Exhilaratus on this account. But since I judged that the same case had already been transacted, I therefore held myself back. But to the lord Romanus let your Beloved say that concerning Felix, as he wrote to the most excellent man the magister, I am making letters, if God shall command, and I transmit them through my man. For now, since I write to no one else, it was hard for me to write to the magister alone. To whom it must also be said that Garellus the palatine is wickedly squandering his substance, as much as Virigantinus says. Upon whom I could scarcely impose that he should give some little from his mother's substance for the expenses of the same Virigantinus in the monastery where he devotes himself to reading and cannot labour.