Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 618

Gregory to Donellus the paymaster. We have received the letter of your glory, full of the charity of a good son, from which indeed our mind has been saddened concerning the trouble of your body. Yet concerning the divine mercy we are confident that He who made you love Italy, wretched and cast down, will Himself both restore to you the health of body, and recompense it in the eternal retribution. As for the military stipend, which you have signified you have again taken up against your will by the prince's command, we have altogether embraced it freely, knowing that your greatness meets the military necessity with a more cautious and salutary provision.

But concerning the six hundredweight which had been entrusted in the treasury of the Church of Ravenna—as your letter testifies—they were borrowed by the most excellent exarch for the daily provisioning of the soldiers, for what cause they are up to now not restored you know. For as to what you wrote, that it seemed good to our aforesaid son the exarch, that, as far as the peace holds to its conclusion, from the funds suitable for this purpose, that first he should make the stipend of those parts—let your glory cautiously look whether it ought even to be done, or in any way to be presumed; so that, if the prefecture of those parts neglects to recover the moneys received, these parts on this account should not, through peril, sustain the soldier's nakedness.

But those to whom the said moneys are said to have been lent ought to be constrained by the lender; so that, as they know, they themselves restore the hundredweight expended; and the moneys, which cannot be touched without peril to the paymaster, being withdrawn from those to whom they are owed—the peril which hangs over us being admitted—may not be improperly dispersed to others. And these things indeed we treat neither with a man new to the affair, nor with one ignorant of the Roman parts. For to whom is it not evident that, if the peace be not at all repaired, in time of war, in these places no human remedy avails to bring aid except that of the divine power's majesty alone.

Knowing therefore, your greatness, the will of the lords the princes—how great a care they have, provident especially for the relief of the Roman city, which is evidently recognized from their gifts—but also the peril imminent both to these parts and to the city, it is entirely of your care to come hither with the moneys. But if this be omitted, and anything adverse, which we do not wish, should befall, you would be able in no way to excuse yourselves, on the pretext of any person's authority, either before God or before the lords of affairs. For the Roman city, our sins bringing it about, has been worn down by diverse languors, so that not even those who might be fit for the guarding of the walls persist.