Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 835

Gregory to Vitalis, defender of Sardinia. From your experience's report, we have learned that the hospices established in Sardinia suffer grave neglect. On this account our most reverend brother and fellow-bishop Januarius would have had to be most vehemently rebuked, did not his old age and simplicity, and the supervening illness which you yourself reported, hold us back. Since, therefore, he is so placed that he cannot be fit for any administration, admonish by our strict authority the steward of his Church, and Epiphanius the archpriest, that they take care to order those same hospices carefully and at their own peril.

For if any neglect shall thereafter exist there, let them know that they can by no reasoning at all excuse themselves in this before us. But since the landholders of Sardinia have petitioned us that, because they are afflicted by divers burdens, you ought to set out for Constantinople for their remedy, we grant you license of going. But we have also written to our most beloved son Boniface, that he take care to afford you his help for the remedy of that province. And concerning the Churches which you indicated to be vacant of priests, we have written to the aforesaid most reverend brother and fellow-bishop of ours, Januarius, that he ought to ordain them; yet in such wise that not all be chosen to the episcopate from his own Church.

For it is fitting that he ordain others in such a way that he not create a necessity for his own Church of persons who could be of profit in it. That, therefore, which you indicated — that persons have been set as superiors over the governance of certain monasteries, who beforehand, while they were still in the monastic and lesser order, had lapsed — they ought by no means to have undertaken the office of abbot, unless with life wholly corrected and worthy penance preceding. But since, as you say, they have already undertaken the office of abbots, care must be taken concerning their life, manners, and diligence. And if their acts be not found against their office, let them persevere in the order in which they are; otherwise, they being removed, let others be ordained who may be able to profit the souls committed to them.

Moreover, as to the case of the monastery of Saint Hermes, which was built in the house of Pomponiana, a religious woman, by our brother — since it is to be dealt with by blandishments rather than by strictness — let your experience take care to deal with the same woman with sweetness, so that neither ought she, to her own sin, to set aside the will of its founder, and you may be able healthfully to procure the advantages of the monastery. But the girls whom the aforesaid Pomponiana, herself once changed by the religious habit, converted in the monastery, suffer them in no way to be drawn away from her or disquieted, but let them, God protecting, remain in the manner of life in which they are.

But as to what you wrote concerning the recovery of the goods of Churches, or of monasteries, or of pious causes: first indeed those whom it concerns are to be admonished, that by them — you insisting and urging — those goods be by all means recovered. But if perhaps either they themselves prove negligent, or indeed those who ought to recover them be not found, then do you yourself seek out all things, and thus gather in what you find, that you may in no way seem to inflict any judgment upon anyone by force. As to the hospices, therefore, of Hortulanus and of Thomas, we have hitherto learned nothing of those things which you indicated. Wherefore let your experience diligently inspect the emperor's command given hence, and dispose all things according to its tenor, and let it be made known to us whatever it shall have done.

As for what you wrote, namely that our brother and fellow-bishop Januarius, at the time when he celebrates the Sacrifice, often suffers such distress that only after long intervals is he scarcely able to return to the place in the canon which he left, and that on this account many are in doubt whether they ought to receive Communion from his consecration—these men are to be admonished that they should in no way be afraid, but should communicate with all faith and confidence, since the bodily infirmity of the person neither changes nor pollutes the blessing of the sacred mystery. Nevertheless our same brother is to be exhorted, more privately, that whenever he feels any such affliction he should not proceed to celebrate, lest by this he both offer himself to contempt and cause scandal to the minds of the weak.

Moreover Pomponiana, a religious woman, has complained to us concerning the inheritance once belonging to her son-in-law Epiphanius, in which Epiphanius had appointed his wife Matrona, the daughter of the aforesaid Pomponiana, as usufructuary, decreeing that it should pass to the monastery which he had determined to found on his own estate, and thereafter, once the usufruct was extinguished, should in every way be for its benefit—together with other things which are shown by right of ownership to belong to Matrona's good title. These, she says, have been unjustly taken away by Your Experience and by our most reverend brother and fellow-bishop Januarius, and from them nothing has hitherto been either returned to her daughter or profited the monastery. If then the truth is thus, and you recognize that you have done anything improperly, restore without any delay what has been taken away;

but if indeed you think it is otherwise, so that the opposing party may not appear to be prejudicially burdened, by no means put off submitting in this cause to the judgment of chosen arbiters together with her, so that whether her complaint is true and just may be declared by the determination of the judgment.