Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 391

Gregory to Marinianus, bishop of Ravenna. Moved by the benevolence of the apostolic see and by the order of ancient custom, we have seen fit to grant to your Fraternity—who, it is established, have undertaken the office of governing that Church of Ravenna—the use of the pallium. Remember that you are to use it in no other way than this: within the Church proper to your own city, after the children of the Church have already been dismissed, proceeding from the salutatorium to celebrate the solemn rites of Mass; but when the Masses are over, take care to lay it aside again in the salutatorium. Outside the Church, however, we permit you to use it no more than four times a year, in the litanies which we appointed for your predecessor John—this too I admonish, that just as from us

you have received the use of an adornment of this kind for the honor of the priestly office, the Lord bestowing it, so also may you strive to adorn the office you have received, by the uprightness of your morals and acts, unto the glory of Christ. For thus you will be conspicuous with a mutual and reciprocal comeliness, if to a bodily attire of this kind the good things of your mind also correspond. All the privileges, too, which it is established were formerly granted to your Church, we confirm by our authority, and decree that they remain inviolate. Gregory to John, bishop of Corinth.

After our God, from whom nothing is hidden, casting off the abominable pestilence of pollution from the governance of his Church, willed to bring you to its rule, you must with great solicitude take care that, after the wounds and the divers evils of the former shepherd, the Lord's flock may find in your Fraternity consolation and a wholesome remedy. So then, let the hand of your action wipe away the stain of the preceding contagion, so as not to allow any traces of that execrable depravity to remain. Let there be, therefore, a praiseworthy solicitude toward those subject to you. Let discipline be exercised with gentleness. Let correction be with discretion. Let kindness temper wrath, let zeal sharpen kindness;

and so let the one be seasoned by the other, that neither immoderate punishment afflict more than is fitting, nor again let leniency break the rectitude of discipline. Let the instruction of the people committed to you be the very action of your Fraternity. Let them see in you what they may love, let them discern what they may hasten to imitate. Let them be taught by your example to live. Let them not stray from the right path with you as guide; let them, by following you, come through to God, so that you may receive as many recompenses from the Savior of the human race as you shall have wrought gains of souls for him. Labor therefore, most dear brother, and so direct the whole efficacy of your mind and heart to this, that in the future you may deserve to hear: Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord (Luke 19:17).

But the pallium, as you requested through your letter which we received by our brother and fellow-bishop Andrew, we have sent, which it is necessary that you use just as your predecessors are approved to have used it, our predecessors granting it. Moreover, it has come to us that in those regions no one attains to a sacred order without a payment of money. If this is so, weeping I say it, groaning I declare it, that when the priestly order has fallen within, it cannot long stand upright without as well. For we know from the Gospel what our Redeemer did by his own act, when, entering the temple, he overturned the seats of those who sold doves (Matt. 21:12).

For to sell doves is to receive temporal gain from the Holy Spirit, whom Almighty God, consubstantial with himself, bestows upon men through the laying on of hands. From which evil, as I said before, it is already intimated what follows, for those who presumed to sell doves in the temple of God—their seats, with God as judge, fell down. And this error is propagated among their subordinates with increase. For the very man who is brought to a sacred honor is, being already corrupted in the very root of his advancement, the more ready to sell to others what he bought. And where is that which is written: Freely you have received, freely give (Matt. 10:8)?

And since the first heresy, the Simoniac, arose against the holy Church, why is it not weighed, why is it not seen, that in advancing to office the man whom one ordains for a price, he makes him become a heretic? Since, therefore, the holy universal Church wholly condemns this most abominable depravity, we exhort your Fraternity that you restrain so detestable and so monstrous a sin, by every means of your solicitude's insistence, in all the places which are under it. For if we shall hereafter perceive any such thing to be done, we will correct it not with words, but with canonical vengeance, and we will begin to hold another judgment concerning you, which ought not to be. But your Fraternity knows that formerly the pallium was not given unless a payment were made.

Because this was unfitting, a council having been held before the body of blessed Peter, prince of the apostles, we forbade under strict interdict to receive anything, both for this and for ordinations. It behooves you, therefore, that you consent to have no one brought to sacred orders either for a payment, or through favor, or through the entreaty of certain persons. For it is, as we said, a grave sin, and we do not suffer it to remain without correction. But as for our aforesaid brother and fellow-bishop Andrew, we received him late for this reason: because, on the report of our brother and fellow-bishop Secundinus, we learned that he had forged our letters to himself in the matter of the execution against John, bishop of Larissa.

And had not the good things we have heard of you persuaded us, we should have had no reason at all to receive him. Given on the 15th day of the month of August, in the 13th indiction.