Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 457

Gregory to John, bishop of Syracuse. The blessing which Your Fraternity sent for the poor, Candidus your man, the bearer of these presents, dispensed to us and paid out with his own hands—which perhaps seemed to you, according to your mind, too little. We, however, according to the measure of your substance, esteem it to be very much and beyond measure, that you, who there among yourselves have countless poor, for the fulfilling of the bounty of mercy should seek out also other places, even far distant.

But concerning other matters, I remember that I have already replied to you in earlier writings, and you owe nothing else, save that you do all things under the consideration of Almighty God alone, and that no man's person may soften you away from the vigour of discipline, nor, on the other hand, may vehement indignation harden you—which God forbid—into any severity of immoderate strictness in your rigour. Moreover, I hear that some of those things which I remember having written, Your Fraternity causes to be read at your table in the presence of strangers; which does not seem to me to be done, because what you do out of charity, some, as far as I am concerned, may impute to vainglory. Therefore in the presence of strangers read the sayings of the ancients, by whose authority those who hear may be instructed. (Cf. John the Deacon, Bk.

IV, n. 76.) Gregory to Agnellus, abbot of Ariminum. From our son Secundus, servant of God, reporting to us, we have learned that your Love, having no prior, labours altogether alone in ruling the brethren. If therefore he who follows you in order is such that he can be found diligent concerning the ordering of the monastery and the custody of the brethren, and also in winning souls, he ought without delay to advance to this office. But if he is not such as the office demands, then even from any lowest rank, if such a one be found among the brethren—the Lord protecting—who by the merits of his life may afford proof of his manner of living, and in whom the vigour of divine fear keeps watch, of this man surely not the rank but the usefulness is to be provided for;

so that by such an example all the brethren may stretch themselves toward the standard of good imitation, and that the lower rank may not still render them lukewarm toward doing good, while in him who has advanced they behold something present which they may imitate. Wherefore in this ordination let there be no doubt for your Love that not the place but fitting action is sought; for even before God he holds the place of the first who, in His eyes, even if here he be abject, has pleased by the instrument of good action. For around the brethren it befits you, as we trust, to keep watch with solicitous custody, lest by wandering through unlawful thoughts they stray from the right path of conversation, and by slothful custody afford the enemy an opening of inroad. But it befits them

to cleave more earnestly to prayer, so that the Lord by the gift of His propitiation may perfect their pious beginnings, and may cause their imperfect things to advance to the fullness of perfection.