Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 749

Gregory to Mellitus, abbot in Francia. After the departure of our company that is with you, we were left in great suspense, because it befell us to hear nothing of the prosperity of your journey. But when Almighty God shall have brought you to our most reverend brother Augustine the bishop, tell him what, long pondering with myself concerning the cause of the English, I have determined: namely, that the temples of the idols among that people ought by no means to be destroyed, but only the idols that are in them.

Let holy water be made and sprinkled in those same temples, let altars be constructed and relics placed there; for if those temples are well built, it is necessary that they be converted from the worship of demons to the service of the true God, so that, while that people sees that its own temples are not destroyed, it may put away error from its heart, and, coming to know and adore the true God, may gather more familiarly at the places to which it has been accustomed.

And because they are wont to slay many oxen in sacrifice to demons, some solemnity ought on this account to be changed for them into another practice, so that on the day of dedication or the birthdays of the holy martyrs whose relics are placed there, they may make themselves booths of tree branches around those same churches which have been converted from temples, and may celebrate the solemnity with religious feasts. Nor let them any longer immolate animals to the devil, but let them slay animals for their own eating to the praise of God, and render thanks to the Giver of all things for their abundance; so that, while some outward joys are reserved for them, they may be the better able to consent to inward joys. For there is no doubt that it is impossible to cut away all things at once from hardened minds.

For he who strives to ascend to the highest place must needs be raised by steps or paces, not by leaps. Thus to the people of Israel in Egypt the Lord indeed made Himself known; yet He reserved for them, in their proper worship, the use of the sacrifices which they had been wont to offer to the devil, commanding that in His sacrifice they should immolate animals; so that, changing their heart, they might lose one part of the sacrifice and retain another; so that, although the animals were the same which they had been accustomed to offer, yet by immolating these to God and not to idols, they were no longer the same sacrifices. These things, therefore, your Beloved must needs say to the aforesaid brother, so that he himself, being present there, may weigh how he ought to dispose all things.

May God keep you unharmed, most beloved son. Given the fifteenth day before the Kalends of July, in the nineteenth year of the reign of our lord Maurice Tiberius, most pious Augustus, in the eighteenth year after the consulship of the same our lord, in the fourth indiction.