Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 415

Gregory to the presbyters, deacons and clergy, the nobles and the people dwelling at Jadera, and to those who had communicated with Maximus the transgressor. It has come to me that some of you, deceived by ignorance or by necessity, have communicated with those who—as you know, their fault demanding it—have been deprived of communion by the Apostolic See; but that certain others, with the Lord protecting, have by a wholesome discretion suspended themselves. And as much as I rejoice over the steadfast, so much do I groan over those who have gone astray, since the mysteries of the sacred communion, which by divine mercy have been granted to us for absolution, they have received rather to the detriment of their own soul.

And because, as Almighty God knows, I compassionate your charity vehemently and from the very marrow, with all my heart, I adjure and urge you with fatherly affection that each one suspend himself from unlawful communion, and altogether shun those whom the Apostolic See does not receive into the fellowship of its communion, lest thereby he stand guilty before the sight of the eternal Judge in the very place where he could have been saved. Moreover, I have discovered that certain men of perverse mind have endeavored to insinuate there that I am moved against Maximus by a kind of hatred, and desire to pursue, not those things that are canonical, but rather those that are of fury. But far be this, far be it from a priestly mind, that in any cause it should be moved by private zeal.

But I, providing both for the people dwelling in those parts and for my own soul, and dreading the judgment of Almighty God, wish that the causes of this same Maximus be examined, and with all sincerity, the Lord revealing it, to define what is canonical. Since we have frequently written to him not to celebrate the sacred solemnities of the Mass before we could ascertain his cause—otherwise he would be deprived of communion—and from this his very fault of pride is now shown openly, that, though (as I have said) admonished more often to come to us, he resists with diverse excuses, flees, and is afraid. Whence, then, does he tremble, if his conscience does not accuse him of the things that have been alleged?

Knowing these things, therefore, since you can assume no excuse of ignorance, I ask, exhort and admonish that you suspend yourselves in all respects from fellowship in the forbidden communion, and that none of you presume, against his own soul, to communicate with any priest who communicates with the aforesaid Maximus.

Yet because I hear, as I said before, that some of you have lapsed through ignorance, and that some also have been violently forced into communicating, I beseech the Almighty Lord that He may both guard, with the perpetual protection of His grace, those who by no means consented to this depravity, and answer them with the bounty they desire; and that those whom either eagerness, or ignorance, or any other cause has drawn into fault, He may absolve from every guilt of their sins and from all bonds of another's obligation, and may grant to all in the present life the grace of His protection, and permit us to rejoice over you in the eternal fatherland.

That this intercession, therefore, may profit you before God our Saviour, show obedience to our exhortations for the salvation of your soul, and receive the sacred communion from those whom you know to have abstained or to be abstaining from communion with the aforesaid Maximus.