Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 417

Gregory to Marinianus, bishop of Ravenna. We wonder why your Fraternity's discretion has been so changed in a short time, that it does not attend to the very things it asks. From which matter we grieve, because you give a manifest indication that the words of those who ill-advise you have prevailed more with you than the study of divine reading has profited you. And whereas it behooves you to defend the monasteries, and to gather religious men there most diligently, that you may be able to gain profit from the gathering of souls, you desire, on the contrary—as your letters attest—to harass them with burdens;

and—what is worse—you strive that we should be made partakers of your fault, namely, while with our consent you desire to burden the monastery which your predecessor founded, under the name of managing its property and affairs. For you ought to recollect that, with you present, and with diverse presbyters and deacons and your clerics also present, we granted, contrary to his testament, the injunction, as they requested. Yet there the disposition which the same predecessor of yours had made concerning that very monastery was confirmed; and you now, dissembling these things, ask that we ought to command the contrary. And these things indeed, we know, are not your own; but while you do not refuse to hear those who say unfitting things, you burden not only your reputation, but also souls.

Because, therefore, I love you much, I earnestly admonish you—consider this strictly—that you should be zealous not more for money than for souls. That is to be regarded as by the way; but toward this, on the other hand, one must labor with the whole intention of the mind, and strive the more vehemently. Bestow watchfully your labor and solicitude upon this business, because our Redeemer seeks from the office of a priest not gold, but souls. Moreover, it has come to us that the monasteries which are established under your Fraternity are burdened by the importunities of clerics and by their diverse molestations. That this may not happen henceforth, restrain it by a strict interdiction, so that the monks living there may be free to exult in the praises of our God.

But as for the clerics Romanus and Dominicus, who by rash daring presumed to depart from this city without our leave—although they were to be punished with a greater chastisement—nevertheless they ought, by the zeal of kindness, to be released to them, so that each may be urged to return to his own office. In the month of April, the fourteenth indiction.