Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 720

Gregory to Rusticiana the patrician lady. I have received your Excellency's writings, which greatly relieved me, laid low in the gravest sickness, by your welfare, your devotion, and your sweetness. One thing, however, I received with pain: that in the same letters to me it was said, more than once—though it might have been said but once—'Your handmaid, and your handmaid.' For I who, through the burdens of the episcopate, have been made the servant of all—by what reasoning does she call herself my handmaid, whose own I was before I took up the episcopate? And therefore I beg, by Almighty God, that I may never at any time find this word in your writings to me.

But those gifts which you sent from a most pure and most sincere heart to blessed Peter, the prince of the apostles, were received in the presence of all the clergy and there suspended. But my son, the magnificent man lord Symmachus, since he found me sick from the pain of gout and almost despaired of, deferred giving me your writings, and gave them a long time after the veils had been received. Afterward, however, in your Excellency's writings we found that they ought to have been carried in litany to the church of blessed Peter. This was not done, for the reason that, as I said before, we received the veils before the writings. Nevertheless the aforesaid man, with all the household of your house, did that which you wished us to do with the clergy.

But even if the voices of men were lacking, your very offering has its own voice before Almighty God. For in His mercy I trust that He whose body you covered on earth, His intercession will protect you from all sins in heaven, and will govern all your house by His providence, and guard it by His watchfulness. But concerning the trouble of gout which you signified had befallen you, I was both vehemently grieved and gladdened. Gladdened, because the noxious humour, seeking the lower parts, has completely deserted the upper; but grieved, because I greatly fear that you should endure excessive pains in so very frail a body. For where the flesh is wanting, what strength can there be to resist pains?

For as to me—you know what sort I have been—bitterness of soul and continual exacerbation, and besides this the trouble of gout, so afflict me that my body is dried up as though in the grave. Hence it happens that I can now rarely rise from my bed. If therefore the pain of gout has reduced the mass of my body to such dryness, what am I to feel about your body, which was less dry before the pains? But concerning the alms which you gave to the monastery of the blessed apostle Andrew, what need is there for me to say anything, since it is written: 'Hide alms in the bosom of the poor, and this shall make entreaty for thee' (Sir. 29:12)?

If therefore before the secret ears of God the good work itself has its voice, then whether we cry out or keep silence, this very thing that you have done well cries out. I inform you, moreover, that there are such miracles, such care, such guardianship of the monks in that same monastery of the said apostle, as if the abbot of the monastery were himself specially there. For, to speak a few things of many which I learned from the narration of the abbot and prior of the monastery: on a certain day two brothers were sent out from there, who were to buy something for the use of the monastery—one younger, who seemed the more prudent; the other older, who was to be the guardian of the younger.

Both set out, and of the money which they had received, the very one who had been sent as guardian of the younger, without the other's knowledge, committed a theft from that money. As soon as they had returned to the monastery, and came before the threshold of the oratory, he who had committed the theft, seized by a demon, fell down and began to be tormented. But being released by the demon, he was questioned by the monks who ran together whether perhaps he had committed a theft from what he had received; he denied it, and again was tormented. Being released and again questioned, he denied it, and again was tormented. So eight times he denied, and eight times was he tormented. But after the eighth denial he confessed how many coins he had taken away by theft.

And doing penance, prostrate, he testified that he had sinned; and when penance had been received, the demon came to him no more. At another time also, when on the birthday of the same apostle the brothers were now resting in the noonday hours, suddenly a certain brother, with his eyes open, was blinded and began to tremble and to emit huge cries, by which cries he testified that he could not bear what he was suffering. The brothers ran together; they saw the blind man trembling with his eyes open, and crying out, and estranged from those present, feeling nothing of what could be done outside. And they raised him in their hands and cast him before the altar of Saint Andrew the apostle, and prostrated themselves in prayer for him.

He, immediately returning to himself, confessed what he had suffered: that a certain old man had appeared to him and had let loose a black dog to tear him, saying: 'Why did you wish to flee from this monastery?' 'And when I could in no way escape the dog's bites, certain monks came and entreated the same old man on my behalf. He straightway commanded the dog to depart, and I returned to myself.' He also often confessed afterward, saying: 'For on that day when I endured these things, I had taken counsel to flee from this same monastery.' Another monk also secretly wished to depart from the same monastery. And when he had turned this over in his mind, he wished to enter the oratory, but immediately, delivered to a demon, he was most vehemently tormented.

But he was left alone by the demon, and if he stood outside the oratory, he suffered nothing adverse; but if he attempted to enter, immediately delivered to the malignant spirit he was tormented. And when this happened rather often, he confessed his fault, that he was thinking of departing from the monastery. Then the brothers, gathered for him, bound themselves in prayers for three days, and thus he was cured, so that afterward the malignant spirit never came to him. And he said that he had seen the same blessed apostle while he was being tormented, and had been rebuked by him because he had wished to depart from the monastery.

Two other brothers also fled from the same monastery, and first, by conversing, gave the brothers signs that they would go down by the Appian Way and make for Jerusalem; but going out, they turned aside from the road. And so that they might by no means be found by their pursuers, finding secluded crypts near the Flaminian Gate, they hid themselves in them. But when at the evening hours they were sought and were by no means found in the congregation, certain brothers, having mounted horses, followed them, going out by the Metronian Gate, to follow them on the Latin or Appian Way. But suddenly a thought arose in them to seek the fugitives on the Salarian Way. Going therefore outside the city, they turned their journey onto the Salarian.

But finding them by no means, they resolved to return by the Flaminian Gate. And as they were returning, as soon as their horses came before those crypts in which the fugitives had hidden themselves, they fixed their step, and, struck and driven on, refused to move a pace. The monks considered that such a thing could not be without a mystery. They turned their attention to the crypts; they saw their entrances closed off by a wall put up, but, with their horses going nowhere, they dismounted. They took down the stones which had been placed at the mouth of the crypts, entered in, and found the fugitives cast down upon the ground in those dark hiding-places. Brought back to the monastery, they were so much improved by that very miracle that it profited them greatly to have fled from the monastery for a little while.

These things I have told, that your Excellency might know of whose oratory you have made an offering of alms. May Almighty God guard you by His heavenly protection in soul, and in body, and in all your house, and grant you, for our consolation, to live long. My most beloved son lord Strategius, together with his glorious parents, your children, I ask to be greeted in my stead. (Cf. John the Deacon, Book IV, chapters 58 and 67.)