Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 826

Gregory to Phocas Augustus. It is fitting to consider, with joys and great giving of thanks, how great praises we owe to the almighty Lord, because, the yoke of sadness having been removed, we have come to times of liberty under the imperial piety of Your Benignity. For that Your Serenity did not find, according to ancient custom, a deacon of the Apostolic See remaining in the palace, this was not owing to my negligence but to most grave necessity, because, when all the ministers of this our Church declined and shunned with dread times so crushing and harsh, none of them could be constrained to go to the royal city to remain in the palace.

But after they learned that Your Clemency, by the disposing grace of almighty God, had attained to the summit of empire, they too, urged on by gladness, hasten to come to your footsteps, who before had greatly feared to approach thither. But since some of them are so enfeebled by old age that they can scarcely bear the labor, and others are vehemently entangled in ecclesiastical cares, and the bearer of the present letter, who was first of all the defensors, is well known to me from long assiduity, and is approved in life, faith, and morals, I have judged him to be fit for the footsteps of Your Piety.

Whence, God being the author, I have made him a deacon, and have been zealous to send him with speed, that he may be able, when an opportune time is found, to suggest to Your Clemency all things which are done in these parts. To him I ask that Your Serenity deign to incline your pious ears, that you may be able to have mercy upon us so much the more quickly, the more truly you shall have come to know our affliction from his report. For by what daily swords, and by how great incursions of the Lombards we are pressed, behold, already through the length of thirty-five years, we are not able to set forth in any words of suggestion. But we trust in the almighty Lord that He will perfect for us those good things of His consolation which He has begun;

and He who has raised up in the republic pious lords will also extinguish the cruel enemies. May the holy Trinity therefore guard your life through long times, that we may the longer rejoice over the good of your piety, which we have received late. (John the Deacon, book IV, chapter 21.)