Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 616

Gregory to Leander, bishop of Spain. I received the letter of your holiness, written with the pen of charity alone. For the tongue had dipped from the heart what it poured out upon the page of the paper. Now good and wise men were present when it was read, whose inward parts were straightway moved to compunction. Each began with the hand of love to seize you within his heart, because in that letter the sweetness of your mind was not to be heard, but to be seen. Each one was kindled and we marvelled, and the very fire of the hearers showed what had been the ardour of the speaker. For unless the torches first burn in themselves, they do not kindle another. There therefore we saw with how great charity your mind burned, which thus kindled others also.

But your life, which I always call to mind with great veneration, they by no means knew; yet the loftiness of your heart lay open to them from the humility of your speech. But that letter of yours declares my life to be imitable by all: yet, since it is not so as it is said, let it be so because it is said, lest one who is not wont to lie should lie. But to this I briefly speak the words of a certain good woman: Call me not Naomi — that is, beautiful — but call me Mara, for I am full of bitterness (Ruth 1:20). For neither, good man, am I today he whom you knew. Advancing much outwardly, I confess, I have inwardly fallen, and I fear that I am of the number of those of whom it is written: You cast them down while they were being lifted up (Ps. 72:18).

For he is cast down while being lifted up, who advances in honours and falls in morals. For I, following the ways of my own head, had wholly resolved to be the reproach of men and the outcast of the people, and to run in the lot of him of whom it is said again through the Psalmist: He has disposed ascents in his heart, in the vale of tears (Ps. 83:7); so that, namely, I might the more truly burn within, the more humbly I lay outwardly through the vale of tears. But now an onerous honour greatly depresses me, innumerable cares clamour, and when the mind gathers itself to God, they cleave it with their impulses as with certain swords. There is no rest of heart. Prostrate it lies in the lowest depths, depressed by the weight of its own thought.

Either very rarely, or never, does the wing of contemplation lift this on high. The mind grows torpid and sluggish, and with temporal cares barking round about, now brought almost to stupor, it is forced now to transact earthly things, now even to dispense those things which are carnal. Sometimes, indeed, driven by loathing, it is compelled to arrange certain things even with fault. Why say much? Overcome by its own weight, it sweats blood. For unless guilt were reckoned under the name of blood, the Psalmist would not say: Deliver me from bloods (Ps. 50:16). But when we join faults to faults, we also fulfil that which was said through another prophet: Blood has touched blood (Hos. 4:2).

For blood is said to touch blood when fault is joined to fault, so that the heap of iniquity is multiplied. But amid these things I beseech by Almighty God that you hold me, fallen amid the waves of perturbation, with the hand of your prayer. For I was sailing, as it were, with a prosperous breeze, when I led a tranquil life in the monastery; but suddenly, with stormy motions, a tempest arisen has seized me in its perturbation, and I have lost the prosperity of the voyage, because, quiet being lost, I have suffered the shipwreck of the mind. Behold, now I am tossed among the waves, and I seek the plank of your intercession, so that I who did not merit to arrive rich with the ship whole, may at least, after losses, be brought back to shore by a plank.

Your Holiness, as you write, is afflicted by the trouble of gout, by whose constant pain I too have been grievously worn down. But consolation will come easily, if amid the scourges we suffer we recall to memory the faults we have committed; and then we perceive these to be no longer scourges but gifts, if we purge by the pain of the flesh the sins we committed through the delight of the flesh. Furthermore, from the blessing of blessed Peter, prince of the Apostles, we have sent you a pallium, to be used only at the solemn celebration of Mass. Having sent it, I ought greatly to have admonished you as to how you should live; but I suppress my speech, because you go before my words by your conduct.

May Almighty God guard you with His protection, and lead you to the recompense of the heavenly homeland with a manifold harvest of souls. But by how great a load of occupation and by what weakness I am oppressed, this brief letter attests, in which to one whom I greatly love I speak but little. Gregory to Reccared, king of the Visigoths. I cannot express in words, most excellent son, how much I delight in your life and in your work. For having heard in our days of the power of a new miracle—that through your excellency the whole Gothic nation has been translated from the error of the Arian heresy into the soundness of the right faith—I am moved to cry out with the prophet: This is the change of the right hand of the Most High (Psalm 76:11).

For whose heart—even one of stone—would not, on learning of so great a work, at once soften into the praises of Almighty God and into love of your excellency? I confess it delights me to tell these things which have been done through you, often when my sons gather to me, and often to marvel at them together with them. These things also frequently rouse me against myself, that I, slothful and useless, then lie torpid in idle leisure, while kings labour in gathering souls for the gain of the heavenly homeland. What then shall I say at that fearful judgment, when the Judge comes, if I then come thither empty, where your excellency shall lead after you the flocks of the faithful, whom you have but now drawn to the grace of the true faith by zealous and continual preaching?

But this, good man, is to me by God's gift a great consolation: that the holy work which I do not have in myself I love in you. And while I rejoice with great exultation over your deeds, those things which are yours through labour become mine through charity. Concerning the conversion of the Goths, therefore—accomplished by your work and greeted with our exultation—it pleases me to cry out with the angels: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will (Luke 2:14). For we, as I reckon, are the greater debtors to the Almighty Lord in giving thanks, because, even though we did nothing together with you, we are nonetheless made partakers of your work by rejoicing in it.

How gladly blessed Peter, prince of the Apostles, has received the gifts of your excellency, your very life clearly testifies to all. For it is written: The vows of the just are acceptable (Proverbs 15:8). For in the judgment of Almighty God it is not what is given, but from whom it is given, that is regarded. Hence it is that it is written: The Lord had respect to Abel and to his gifts; but to Cain and to his gifts He had no respect (Genesis 4:4-5). For being about to say that the Lord had respect to the gifts, Scripture carefully premised that He had respect to Abel. From this it is plainly shown that it was not the offerer who found favour from the gifts, but the gifts from the offerer.

Thus how acceptable your oblation is, you have shown, who, being about to give gold, first gave the gifts of souls from the conversion of a subject nation. But as to your saying that the abbots you sent, who were bearing your oblation to blessed Peter the Apostle, were worn out by the violence of the sea and returned from the very journey to Spain—your gifts were not rejected, which afterward arrived, but the constancy of those who had been sent was tested: whether they knew how to overcome the perils set against a holy desire, and not in the least to grow weary in mind amid the fatigue of the body. For adversity that is set against good vows is a proof of virtue, not a sentence of reprobation.

For who does not know how prosperous it was that blessed Paul the Apostle came to Italy about to preach, and yet in coming suffered shipwreck (Acts 27)? But the ship of his heart stood whole amid the ocean waves. Furthermore, I make known that there has grown, from your work, to the praise of God, this which I learned from the narration of my most beloved son the priest Probinus: that when your excellency had issued a certain enactment against the perfidy of the Jews, those against whom it had been promulgated attempted to bend the uprightness of your mind by offering a sum of money; which your excellency despised, and, seeking to please the judgment of Almighty God, preferred innocence to gold. In this matter the deed of King David comes to my memory:

When water for which he longed had been brought to him from the cistern of Bethlehem—which lay amid the enemy's ranks—by the soldiers who served him, he straightway said: Far be it from me that I should drink the blood of just men (1 Chronicles 11:19). And because he poured it out and would not drink, it is written: He poured it out to the Lord. If, therefore, water despised was by an armed king turned into a sacrifice of God, let us weigh what a sacrifice that king offered to Almighty God who, for love of Him, despised to accept not water but gold. And so, most excellent son, I will confidently say that you have poured out gold to the Lord, which you would not keep against Him. Great are these things, and to be ascribed to the praise of Almighty God.

But amid these things the snares of the ancient enemy must be guarded against with vigilant zeal, who, the greater the gifts he beholds in men, the more he seeks by subtler snares to take them away. For robbers on the road do not seek to seize empty travellers, but those who carry vessels of gold or silver. The road indeed is the present life. And each one must guard against the ambushing spirits the more, the greater are the gifts he bears. Your excellency, therefore, in so great a gift as it has received from the conversion of a subject nation, ought above all to guard first the humility of heart, and then the cleanness of body. For since it is written: Everyone that exalteth himself shall be humbled, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted (Luke 14:11;

and 18:14), it is plainly clear that he truly loves other things who does not cut off his mind from the root of humility. For often the malignant spirit, in order to destroy the good things which he was not able previously to oppose, comes to the worker's mind after the work has been performed, and shakes it with silent thoughts in certain self-praises, so that the deceived mind admires how great the things are which it has done. And while it is exalted within itself through hidden swelling, it is deprived of the grace of Him who bestowed the gift. Hence it is that by the voice of the prophet it is said against the proud soul: Having confidence in thy beauty, thou hast played the harlot in thy name (Ezekiel 16:15).

For to have confidence in one's beauty is for the soul to presume upon itself concerning a just action. And it commits fornication in its own name when, in that which it has rightly done, it seeks not that the Creator's praise be spread abroad, but requires the glory of its own reputation. Hence again it is written through the prophet: The more beautiful thou art, come down (Ezekiel 32:19). For the soul, from that very source whereby it is more beautiful, thence comes down, when, from the comeliness of virtue by which it ought to have been exalted before God, it falls from His grace through its own elation.

What then is to be done in these matters, except that, when the malignant spirit brings back to us the good things we have done in order to lift up the mind, we should always recall to memory our evils, so that we may both recognize as our own the things we did in sinning, and know the gifts of Almighty God alone when we turn away from our sins? The cleanness of the body must also be guarded in the pursuits of good action, because according to the voice of the preaching Apostle: The temple of God is holy, which you are (1 Corinthians 3:17). Who again says: For this is the will of God, your sanctification (1 Thessalonians 4:3). And showing what he meant by that sanctification, he straightway added:

That you abstain from fornication, that everyone of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour, and not in the passion of lust (1 Thessalonians 4:3-5). The very helm of the kingdom, too, toward your subjects must be tempered with great moderation, lest power snatch away the mind. For then is a kingdom well governed, when the glory of ruling does not lord it over the soul. Care must also be taken lest anger creep in, lest whatever is permitted be done too quickly. For anger, even when it pursues the faults of offenders, ought not to go before the mind as a mistress, but to serve behind the back of reason as a handmaid, so that it may come to the fore at command. For if once it has begun to possess the mind, it deems just even what it does cruelly. Hence it is written:

The anger of man worketh not the justice of God (James 1:20). Hence again it is said: Let every man be swift to hear, but slow to speak, and slow to anger (James 1:19). But I do not doubt that you, by God's authorship, observe all these things. Yet, an occasion for admonition having arisen, I furtively attach myself to your good deeds, so that what you do unadmonished, you may now do not without me, when even one who admonishes is added to you. And may Almighty God, in all your deeds, protect you by the extension of His heavenly arm, and grant you both the prosperity of the present life and, after many courses of years, the joys eternal.

We have sent you, moreover, a small key from the most sacred body of blessed Peter the Apostle, for his blessing, in which is enclosed iron from his chain, so that what had bound his neck unto martyrdom may loose your neck from all sins. I have also given to the bearer of the present letter a cross to be offered to you, in which is the wood of the Lord's cross, and hairs of blessed John the Baptist, that from it you may ever have the solace of our Saviour through the intercession of His precursor. And to our most reverend brother and fellow-bishop Leander we have sent a pallium from the see of blessed Peter the Apostle, which we owe both to ancient custom, and to your good character, and to his goodness and gravity. Likewise in the recitation.

A long time ago your excellency, most sweet to me, when a certain young man of Naples was coming, had taken care to enjoin that I write to the most pious emperor, that he should search out in the record-office the pacts which had long since been issued between the prince Justinian of pious memory and the laws of your kingdom, so that from these he might gather what he ought to observe toward you. But two things vehemently stood in the way of my doing this. One, that the record-office, in the time of the aforesaid Justinian of pious memory, was so suddenly consumed by a spreading flame, that almost no document at all remained from his times.

The other, that—what should be said to no one—the documents which are against you, you must seek out with yourself, and bring these forth into the open on my behalf. Wherefore I exhort your excellency to dispose things fitting to your character, and zealously to carry out whatever pertains to peace, so that the times of your reign may through long courses of years be memorable with great praise. Furthermore, we have sent another key from the most sacred body of blessed Peter the Apostle, which, when laid up with fitting honour, may by blessing multiply whatever it finds among you.