Gregory to Theoderic and Theodebert, kings of the Franks. Since the name of your kingdom has of old shone forth among the rest by the grace of the Christian religion, it is greatly to be striven for, that whence you are more glorious and eminent than the other nations, thence you may more perfectly please the Almighty Lord, who gives salvation to kings, and may have the faith which you worship as a helper in all things. We had indeed wished, most excellent sons, to direct our word to you by a bare visitation only, that by the offices of charity we might show a paternal affection. But because an unlawful matter saddens us too much, it is fitting so to display the one, that we may by no means leave the other under silence, which stands in need of amendment.
Which if you diligently attend to, you will recognize altogether that we speak for the safety of your salvation. Now it is reported that the simoniacal heresy — which first crept in against the Church of God by diabolical planting, and in its very rising was struck and condemned by the dart of apostolic vengeance — is prevailing in the borders of your kingdom, whereas in priests the faith is to be chosen together with the life. If the life is lacking, the faith has no merit, blessed James attesting, who says: 'Faith without works is dead' (James 2:26). For what works can there be of a priest who is convicted of obtaining the honour of so great a sacrament by a price?
From which matter it comes about that even those very men who seek sacred orders are zealous not to correct their life, not to compose their morals, but to gather together riches by which the sacred honour is bought. Hence it comes also that the innocent and the poor, forbidden and despised, recoil from sacred orders. And while the innocence of the poor man is displeasing, there is no doubt that a bribe there commends the offenses, because where gold pleases, there vice too pleases. Hence, therefore, not only is a lethal wound inflicted upon the soul of the ordainer and the ordained, but also the kingdom of your excellency is weighed down by the fault of your bishops, by whose intercessions rather it ought to have been aided.
For if he is believed worthy of the priesthood to whom not the merits of action, but an abundance of rewards, gives support, it remains that neither gravity nor industry defends anything for him unto ecclesiastical honours, but the profane love of gold obtains it all. And while vices are rewarded with honour, into the place of the avenger is brought in the very one who perhaps ought to have been avenged; and hence priests are shown not to profit, but rather to perish. For when the shepherd is wounded, who shall apply medicine to the healing of the sheep? Or when shall we protect the people with the shield of prayer, who exposes himself to be struck by the enemy's darts? Or what fruit shall he be about to produce of himself, whose root is infected with a grievous pestilence?
A greater calamity, then, is to be feared to befall those places where such intercessors are brought to the place of governance — men who rather provoke God's wrath against themselves than, by their own selves, ought to have pleased the peoples. But we have heard that the estates of the Churches now render tribute, and we are held in great amazement at this, that unlawful things should be sought to be received from those to whom even lawful things are relaxed. Nor does our solicitude suffer this evil also to be negligently passed over, that certain men, allured by the instigation of vain-glory, suddenly from a lay habit seize the honour of the priesthood, and — what it is shameful to say and grievous to be silent about — the rulers who are to be ruled, and the leaders who ought themselves to be taught, neither blush to be seen so, nor fear it.
They shamelessly take up the guidance of souls, to whom every road of a guide is unknown, and who are ignorant even of the way by which they themselves may walk. How wrong and how rash this is, is shown even by the order and discipline of the world. For while the commander of an army is chosen only when proved by toil and diligence, let those who, by a premature haste, desire to climb the summit of the episcopate consider, at least by comparison with this matter, what kind of leaders of souls they ought to be; and let them refrain from taking up all at once labours in which they have no experience, lest the blind ambition of honour become both a snare to themselves and cast among others the pestilent seeds of error, seeing that they have not learned the very thing they are to teach.
Therefore, greeting you with fatherly affection, we ask, most excellent sons, that you take pains to forbid this so detestable an evil from the borders of your kingdom, and that no excuse, no suggestion against your own soul, find place with you; for without doubt he bears the guilt of the doer who neglects to amend what he is able to correct.
Wherefore, that you may be able to offer a great gift to the Almighty Lord, command a synod to be gathered, in which — as we have charged our brethren and fellow-bishops — under the obligation of anathema, with our most beloved son the abbot Cyriacus presiding, it may be decreed that no one ever give anything for an ecclesiastical office, that no one receive anything, and that no layman pass suddenly to the priesthood; so that our Redeemer, whose priests you do not suffer to perish inwardly by the enemy, may recompense you with this reward both here and in the life to come. Moreover, we have been altogether amazed that in your kingdom you permit Jews to possess Christian slaves. For what are all Christians but members of Christ?
Quorumvidelicetmembrorumcaputcunctinovimusquiafideliterhonoralis; sedquamdiversumsitexcellentiavestraperpendatcaputhonorare, etmembraipsiushostibuscalcandapermittere. Atqueideopetimusutexcellentiævestræconstitutioderegnosuohujuspravitatismalaremoveat, utiNhocvosampliusdignoscultoresomnipotentisDominidemonstretis, quodfidelesilliusabinimicisejusabsolvitis. (CfJoan. Diac. I. III, c. 2.)
We all know that you faithfully honour the Head of these members; but let your excellency weigh how inconsistent it is to honour the Head and yet to permit His members to be trampled by enemies. And therefore we ask that your excellency's decree remove the evils of this depravity from your realm, so that in this you may show yourselves the more worthy worshippers of the Almighty Lord, in that you set His faithful free from His foes.