Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 390

Gregory to Childebert, king of the Franks. Your Excellency's letter has made us exceedingly glad, testifying that you are, with pious affection, solicitous for the honor and reverence of the priesthood. For hence you show to all that you are a faithful worshipper of God, since you love his priests with fitting and due veneration, and with Christian devotion hasten to do whatever pertains to their advancement. Wherefore we have gladly received what you wrote, and have with a willing heart granted what you desired;

and therefore, God favoring, we have committed our vicariate to our brother Virgilius, bishop of the city of Arles, according to ancient custom and your Excellency's desire, to whom also we have granted the use of the pallium, as ancient custom held. But since certain things have been brought to us which both greatly offend Almighty God and exceedingly confound the honor and reverence of the priesthood, we beseech that by the effort of your Excellency's censure we may in all ways be amended, lest, while rash and perverse deeds war against your praiseworthy devotion, either your kingdom or your soul be burdened—which God forbid—by the fault of others.

It has come to us, moreover, that when bishops die, certain men from among the laity are tonsured, and mount to the episcopate by a headlong leap. And one who was not a disciple is, by inconsiderate ambition, made a master. And since he did not learn what he might teach, he bears the priesthood in name only, for as a layman he persists in his former speech and deed. How then shall he intercede for the sins of others, who has not first wept over his own?

For such a shepherd does not fortify the flock, but deceives it, since, while out of shame he cannot persuade others to that which he himself does not do, what else is this but that the Lord's people remain to be plundered by robbers, and take their destruction from that very source whence they ought to have had the great help of a saving protection? How depraved and perverse this is, let your Excellency's Highness weigh even from your own ordering. For it is certain that you do not set a general over your army unless his labor and fidelity are established to you, unless the virtue and diligence of his former life have shown him to be fit.

But if the army to be governed is entrusted to none but men of this kind, then from this apt comparison it may be gathered what sort of leader of souls ought to be. Yet it is shameful to us, and it grieves us to say, that men snatch to themselves the leadership as priests who have not seen the beginning of the religious warfare. And likewise this too has been reported to us as most execrable: that sacred orders are conferred through the Simoniac heresy, that is, upon receipt of a reward. And since it is exceedingly pestilent, and contrary to the universal holy Church, that anyone be placed in a sacred order not by merits but for a price, we exhort that your Excellency command so detestable a crime to be forbidden from your kingdom.

For a man shows himself wholly unworthy of that office who has not been ashamed to buy the gift of God with money, and presumes to seek by profit what he does not deserve to have by grace. These things, therefore, most excellent son, I admonish, because I desire that your soul be saved. Which things I would also have written long since, had not innumerable occupations in no way hindered my intention. But after a suitable time for writing back presented itself, I did not omit to do what it behooved me to do.

Greeting therefore your Excellency, with the affection of fatherly charity we ask that all the things which we have mandated to our aforesaid brother and fellow-bishop to observe and keep be fulfilled by the safeguard of your favor, that you permit them in no way to be torn apart by anyone's arrogance or pride. But just as they were preserved by our predecessor under the reign of your glorious father, so too, by your help, let them now be kept with solicitude and devotion.

It behooves us, therefore, that this be repaid to us in turn, and that just as we did not delay to fulfill your will, so too you, for the sake of God and blessed Peter the prince of the apostles, cause our statutes in all things to be observed, so that the praiseworthy and God-pleasing repute of your Excellency may extend itself on every side. Given on the twelfth day of the month of August, in the thirteenth indiction.