Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 634

Gregory to Clementina the patrician. It has reached us, from the report of a certain abbot, that it has been announced to your glory by certain slanderers that we harbor — which God forbid — some sting against you. If this is so, whoever have falsely contrived this have shown themselves double-dealers under a semblance of purity, so as to display themselves as though faithful, and to make you wrongly doubt concerning us. But I, glorious daughter, having long known your good qualities, and especially the chastity that has been your companion from adolescence, have always held you in great veneration and love.

But lest even now your glory should suspect that my heart is otherwise, I signify to you that not a single scruple of hatred or wrath toward you is within me, but know that I show you a fatherly love. One thing, however, which has been brought to me, I ought not to keep silent, lest there begin to be less of charity, if what ought to be said for correction be suppressed in silence. For it has been announced to me that whenever anyone offends you, you retain the grievance irremissibly. If this is true, then, since as much as I love you, so much am I saddened, I beg that you nobly exclude this vice from yourself, and that you not allow the enemy's seed to grow up alongside the crop of good work.

Let the words of the Lord's Prayer be recalled to memory, and let not fault prevail with you more than pardon. Let the goodness of your glory overcome the excess, and rather, by more salubriously pardoning, make devoted the one whom persisting harshness can make undevoted. Let there be left to him something whereby he may feel shame, and let not that be kept which causes grief. For very often discreet remission in correction has more force than strictness in exacting punishment; so much so that the former sometimes makes a man more faithful and submissive, while the latter makes him obstinate and hostile. And indeed we say this not to the end that you should withdraw yourself from zeal for rectitude, but that you should not be such in small matters as you ought to be in the greatest.

For if ever the quality of the excess requires severity, one must act so that punishment corrects the fault, and yet grace is not denied to the corrected afterward. This, therefore, since we admonish you at the urging of fatherly love for the sake of your soul, receive with the charity in which it is spoken, and take it up for the benefit of your glory, so that your good qualities may be both more illustrious among men and most pure before the almighty Lord. But concerning us, as of the very truth, most beloved daughter, presume confidently in all things; and since we desire always to hear of your prosperity, relieve us more often with letters passing to and fro.