Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 658

Gregory to Eusebius, archbishop of Thessalonica. If, dearest brother, we consider how great is the virtue of peace, we recognize with what zeal it is to be cultivated by us. For our Lord and Redeemer deigned to leave and to give this to His disciples as a great gift, that those who cleaved to Him by firmness of faith He might, through it, make His partners by a holy participation. For it is written: 'Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God' (Matthew V, 9). Whosoever therefore desires to be the heir of the Father, let him not refuse to exist as a son by keeping this. For he who gives place to discord thereby assuredly constitutes himself without share in so great a gift.

Since therefore the sincerity of your faith has, by God's favor, been declared to us with catholic rectitude as it ought, we are held in exceedingly great astonishment that you should suffer those whom you know to believe well and to think rightly to be scandalized in vain by the vice of certain persons, so that by the fault of others the reputation of your fraternity may be darkened. For how can he be without suspicion of error who grants patience to one erring? Or what estimation of himself does he present, if he does not provide that those things which the fervor of faith demands be purged by open satisfaction? For it is reported that your presbyter Lucas and Peter refuse to receive the synod of Chalcedon, and that from this the hearts of your orthodox sons are disturbed by no light scandal.

Since their zeal is not only to be praised but altogether to be fostered, we exhort that your fraternity, with all liveliness and solicitude, cease not to make it its care to investigate this. And if it find them innocent of this depravity, let it, having received their satisfaction, remove the scandal from the minds of its sons, and among all heresies let it especially anathematize Severus and Nestorius, so that in those in whom sinister suspicion concerning them begot dissension out of love of faith, purification may beget charity. And may one affection of concord healthfully bind together those whom the sincere and single confession of catholic truth holds. Nor let satisfaction be deemed unworthy for those in doubt, for by the Lord's own voice it is commanded: 'Despise not one of these least ones' (Matthew

XXVIII, 18). He therefore who desires not to despise the one who commands, let him not refuse the words of the preceptor, since he too whom our Redeemer testified to be a vessel of election admonished us to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace (Ephesians IV). Whence whoever refuses not to be held by this bond of salvation, let him strive after the things that are of peace, and let him give no place to the enemy, so that he may be more strongly trodden down by a unity accomplished, who in the savage division of the brethren was able to rage.

But if, which we do not wish, they are found wounded by the dart of this error, the remedy of ecclesiastical exhortation is to be applied to them, so that either they may remain among the Lord's sheep, if they are healed, or they may be cut off from the unity of the ecclesiastical body, so that great gain may come from a small loss, and the lost part may make the whole free. For it is the care of a provident shepherd not to defer to cast out the ailing sheep which does not receive healing from the company of the sound, lest it contaminate the others by the taint of its ailment; knowing that he cannot preserve the health of the rest otherwise than by the casting out of this one.

Therefore again with brotherly charity I admonish you that you ought to scrutinize this with the utmost vigilance, and to keep what we have written with the utmost zeal, lest by the company of others you make dubious the right faith which you bear. For he who corrects not what should be cut away, commits it himself. And so with great solicitude, with altogether great provision, it must be weighed by you, that neither may the person of these be a scandal to others, nor the opinion be harmful to you; so that the shepherd's gains from the sheep committed to you may profit your fraternity as greatly as both sincere love and the entrusted care shall have made you solicitous for their keeping.