Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 639

Gregory to John, provost of Italy. Whatever is given to a poor man, if it be weighed with subtle consideration, is not a gift but a loan, since what is given is without doubt received back with multiplied fruit. Now you wrote to us that we should tell Dulcitius, acting in your stead, not to venture to spend anything beyond the fixed allotment. And although it is praiseworthy to look ahead to the future, yet, since that caution is altogether weak which is not fortified by the help of piety, it is in this solicitude of yours that we find something to sadden us on your behalf. For it is reported that your eminence has withdrawn the provisions and customary allowances of the deaconry which is maintained at Naples.

This would perhaps have been less astonishing, had they not been administered in the time of John, your predecessor. If, therefore, that man — of whom it is known to all how burdensome his administration was — did not deny these things, let your wisdom consider what sort of thing it is, if in even some good work a bad man surpasses you. For by no occasion did it befit you to withdraw this. And even if perchance no one had wished to charge it to your accounts, it ought not to have burdened you to bestow this from your own resources as something given freely, so that a piety of this kind might be a patroness in your assistance, which had been a minister in the work.

This, therefore, your eminence ought to consider with the power in which it is strong, and, as to this which was not taken away by his predecessors, so that it may be administered as customarily, it ought rather to show the generosity of its goodness; so that neither in those things which you do according to the Lord's command may you incur any adversity; and the administration of this office may both prepare praise for you before men and provide a reward before the almighty God. Given in the month of April, in the third indiction. Gregory to Leo, bishop of Catania.

Martianus, a monk of the monastery of Saint Vitus, which is situated on Mount Etna, coming to us — as he says, with the consent of the community of that same monastery — has complained that the said monastery suffers many annoyances and prejudices from certain persons. Among which, this too has moved us with the most vehement exasperation: that the monastery itself has become so notoriously trampled upon and despised that it has even been permitted, without fear, for the monks dwelling there to join themselves to women. If this is so, you yourself will be able to judge how grave a matter it is that regards your fraternity both as a sin before God and as a fault before men, since you can defend yourself by no excuse. For either you did not know that these things were being done, and you are strongly convicted of the fault of negligence;

or you certainly recognized that it was done, and you seem to require an even graver indignation against yourself, in that you did not punish so great a crime with the strictest vengeance. Therefore we admonish your fraternity by these present writings, that it hasten to investigate this with all vigilance. And if it finds an iniquity of this kind perpetrated by certain persons, let it be zealous so to correct the crime of this perversity with worthy amendment, that it may both appease God and be able to show to others a discipline of correction, lest anything similar be perpetrated hereafter.

But as for the annoyances which the aforesaid monastery is said to suffer, or those things which are reported to have been seized from it, let your holiness take cognizance, and so show yourself, insofar as it is just, in the protection of the same, that it may in no way be able to be oppressed in any manner contrary to the order of equity. And the precept of blessed memory of our predecessor Pelagius, given to Elpidius your predecessor, copies of which we have had transcribed below, we wish to be observed without any opposition.