Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 747

Gregory to Eusebius, bishop of Thessalonica. The bearer of the present letter, Theodore, lector of your Church, coming to the thresholds of the holy Apostles, while, being indeed a new man, he held all men unknown to him, innocently deposited the goods and documents which he had brought with Andrew the monk, who had been enclosed at Saint Paul's, as one truly not knowing him of old, believing indeed that his enclosure, as we too had formerly held, was in accord with his habit. But that youth was found to be of such depravity that, had it been permitted to his folly under the appearance of enclosure to go on a little further still, he would have deceived the souls of many by the falsehood of his malice, and would have generated no light scandals wherever he could.

For among other things which this same Andrew most wickedly devised and did, that letter also which you sent to us, while it was deposited with him by the aforesaid bearer, he so falsified, that whoever should read it would plainly convict you of holding views neither catholic nor right. From which it came about that, while we diligently sought the truth, the iniquity of him which lay hidden was made public, and such things were found in him as would not be believed even of any wicked layman whatever. And since among his divers evils he also wrote certain discourses, and entitled them under our name, and we are suspicious lest he have transmitted them somewhere, let your Fraternity exercise solicitude;

and if he shall have found any such thing, let him cause them both to be cut up and utterly abolished, so that what a man unskilled in letters and ignorant of divine Scripture entitled, as we have said, under our name, may not be able to infect the minds of some. For we neither know Greek, nor have we ever at any time composed any work in Greek. His other evils, or what has been decreed concerning him by us in council, you shall learn from the report of the aforesaid bearer, whom we commend to your Fraternity in all things, because he is a youth present at hand.

We exhort and admonish, moreover, that you charge our common son Luke the presbyter—concerning whom the people, as it is said, are gnawed by no small suspicion—to give satisfaction publicly concerning himself, and to confess his faith, and by all means to profess that he receives and follows the holy synods which the apostolic Church venerates, and among other things, specially anathematizing Nestorius and Severus and their followers, that he despise them; so that by this satisfaction no scandal may be able to remain in the hearts of your sons on his account against you.

But if perchance—which we do not believe—he shall defer to do this by any excuse, let there be nothing common between you and him, but he is to be separated in all things from your familiarity and communion. For, as we have already written before, it is better to cast the diseased sheep out of the Lord's fold than by the fault of one to lose the sound ones. These things, therefore, dearest brother, diligently attend to; and so strive, that you may be able to have your sons united and devoted, as is fitting, and that on this account no complaint may come back to us again.

But the bearer of the present letter, as we have aforesaid, we commend in all things, who, since he was first innocently deceived by the wicked monk, and afterward stood firmly in his conviction, may here find with your Fraternity the recompense of his labour, although we are certain that it will be requited to him in the eternal fatherland. But if again he shall wish to come hither to the holy Apostles for prayer, let your Fraternity transmit him without any delay.