In which is set forth how the holy Gregory lived in the pontificate. Argument. 1. Gregory, writing himself the servant of the servants of God, is clothed in modest garments. 2. He dictates an irreproachable symbol of his faith. 3. He directs his synodal letter to the patriarchal thrones. 4. He confesses that he venerates five councils. 5. Having convened a synod, he condemns depraved customs. 6. Compiling an antiphonary from selections, he establishes a school of cantors. 7. Why the Westerners corrupt the sweetness of the chant. 8. Through John the Roman cantor they were corrected. 9. King Charles, offended by the dissonance of the chant, sent two of his clerics to Rome to be instructed. 10.
The same king, offended by the dissonance of the chant, received two Roman cantors again from Adrian. 11. Gregory, having expelled the laymen, chose clerics to be his intimates. 12. He presented such a Roman Church as it first was under the apostles. 13. How great and of what kind were the studies then flourishing again at Rome. 14. That he summoned to his council not the rich, but the wise. 15. For what reason laymen first began to be tonsured. 16. He does not admit laymen to ecclesiastical office, but only to the monastic habit. 17. He abridges the Gelasian codex. 18. Establishing the stations, he delivers discourses on the Gospels. 19. Together with the food of the word he ministers nourishment to the poor. 20. He introduces new customs. 21.
To those who murmur about these same things he gives satisfaction humbly. 22. In place of a guest he receives the Lord. 23. Having invited twelve, he recognizes a thirteenth, an angel divinely assigned to him. 24. He judges that distribution should be made four times a year by the register. 25. He bestows gold pieces and foreign garments. 26. Month by month he dispenses various kinds of goods. 27. To three thousand handmaids of God he provides eighty pounds annually. 28. Day by day he sends the gathered stipends by couriers. 29. For a dead pauper he laments most vehemently. 30. How many and of what kind, to be rewarded, are the pints kept in the strongbox. 31. He dedicates to the Lord the basilica of the Arians in the Suburra. 32. How many and what kind of miracles were there shown by divine power. 33.
For the conversion of the Angles and Saxons he sends Augustine with others. 34. Those wishing to return without accomplishing anything, he exhorts to proceed. 35. As they preach, they work miracles and convert many. 36. Augustine, consecrated bishop, requests helpers. 37. Gregory transmits to him the pallium, and various necessary things, and likewise several responses. 38. Questioned concerning degrees of kinship, he sets forth the reasoning peaceably. 39. How many and what kind of things Gregory proclaims concerning the conversion of the Saxons and the signs of his disciples. 40. He warns Augustine not to swell with pride over the miracles. 41. He reformed a fragment of bread into flesh, and again the flesh into the first substance of bread. 42. He pricked a cloth, and blood flowed out. 43.
He punished sorcerers with blindness. 44. In what way it should be understood that Gregory freed the soul of Trajan from the torments of hell. 45. He miraculously loosed a monk who had died under excommunication. 46. He purchases pagan boys, that he may make them Christians. 47. On behalf of the pagan peasants he threatens the bishops. 48. He relieves converted Jews of their rents. 49. He bestows garments upon those to be baptized. 50. He preaches that the children of the Arians be aided. 51. He appoints rectors over the individual diaconies and hospices. 52. Establishing a hospice at Jerusalem, he assigned annual stipends to monks both there and on Mount Sinai. 53. He appoints individual rectors over the individual patrimonies. 54.
He determines that two ministries should by no means be committed to one person. 55. He orders almsgiving by locality and by person. 56. That he willingly gave to everyone who asked of him. 57. That he ministered necessities even to one who did not ask. 58. The innocence of his liberality is proved. 59. For the making of alms he purchases grain with fifty pounds of gold. 60. What kind of dream a hermit came to know concerning him. 1. Come now, then, since—the aforesaid little book having been set forth—the sinewy limbs of Christ's athlete Gregory, sweating manfully in the wrestling-school of His holy Church, have been described, let it be brought forward, by the Lord's inspiration, in what manner he also contended in the palaestra.
Indeed, as soon as, by the counsel of Christ for mortals, he obtained the supreme pontificate of the most blessed Roman city, he refused, after the manner of his predecessor pontiffs, under the sentence of the strictest interdiction, the superstitious title of Universal, which John, bishop of Constantinople, was at that time insolently usurping to himself; and he first of all defined, quite humbly, that he should be written at the beginning of his letters as the servant of the servants of God, and left to all his successors, as a hereditary document of his humility, both in this and in his modest pontifical vestments—which indeed is preserved to this day in the holy Roman Church. 2.
Finally, standing on the watchtower of the holy universal Church—a man of all humility, authority, and orthodoxy—whence the evangelical herald might be more clearly seen and heard, with the most divine sword of his mouth he both fortified the right faith and dissipated all heresies with a single symbol. This symbol of the sacred confession is as follows: I believe in one God almighty, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, three persons, one substance: the Father unbegotten, the Son begotten, but the Holy Spirit neither begotten nor unbegotten, but coeternal, proceeding from the Father and the Son.
I confess the only-begotten Son to be consubstantial, and begotten of the Father without time, the Creator of all things visible and invisible, light from light, true God from true God, the splendor of glory, the figure of the substance; who, remaining the Word before the ages, was created a perfect man at the end of the ages, conceived and born of the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary, who took upon Himself our nature without sin; and under Pontius Pilate He was crucified, and being buried, on the third day rose again from the dead; and on the fortieth day ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father. Whence He is to come to judge the living and the dead, about to set before the eyes of all the hidden things of each.
about to give to the saints the perpetual rewards of the heavenly kingdom, but to the wicked the punishments of eternal fire, about to renew the world by fire in the resurrection of the flesh. I confess one faith, one baptism, one apostolic and universal Church, in which alone sins can be loosed in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. 3. Gregory also directed his synodal letter, according to the ancient custom of his predecessors, to John of Constantinople, Eulogius of Alexandria, Gregory of Antioch, John of Jerusalem, and Anastasius, patriarch of Antioch, which is as follows:
To me, considering that, unequal in merits and resisting with my whole soul, I have been compelled to bear the burdens of pastoral care, the mist of sorrow comes over me, and my sad heart sees nothing but those shadows which permit nothing to be seen. For what is a prelate chosen for before the Lord, if not as an intercessor for the sins of the people? With what confidence, then, do I come as an intercessor for the sins of others to Him with whom I am not secure concerning my own? If perchance someone should seek to make me his intercessor before a powerful man who was both angered against him and unknown to me, I would straightway reply: I cannot come to intercede, since I have no acquaintance with him from close familiarity.
If, then, I should rightly blush to become an intercessor before a man for someone of whom I had presumed too little, how great is the audacity that before God I hold the place of an intercessor for the people, when I do not recognize myself, by the merit of my life, to be one of His familiars? In this matter there is yet another, and graver, thing for me to dread; for, as we all clearly know, when one who is displeasing is sent to intercede, the mind of the angered party is provoked to worse things. And I greatly fear lest the people of the faithful committed to me should perish by the addition of my own guilt, whose offenses the Lord until now has borne with an even mind.
But when I somehow suppress this fear, and gird my consoled mind for the labours of the pontifical office, I am deterred when I consider the very immensity of the task. For I weigh how it must be watched over with all care, that the ruler be pure in thought, foremost in action, discreet in silence, useful in speech, near to each in compassion, above all others uplifted in contemplation, an ally of the well-doing through humility, upright against the vices of sinners through zeal for righteousness — and the rest which he afterwards pursues in the book of the Pastoral Rule. 4. Moreover, since, as it is said, with the heart one believes unto righteousness, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation (Rom. 10:10),
— even as the four books of the holy Gospel, so I confess that I receive and venerate the four councils: namely the Nicene, in which the perverse dogma of Arius is destroyed; the Constantinopolitan also, in which the error of Eunomius and Macedonius is refuted; the first Ephesine likewise, in which the impiety of Nestorius is judged; and the Chalcedonian, in which the depravity of Eutyches and Dioscorus is reproved. These I embrace with total devotion, I guard with most complete approval, because upon these, as upon a squared cornerstone, the structure of the holy faith rises; and whoever, of whatever life or action, does not hold to their solidity, even if he seems to be a stone, nevertheless lies outside the building.
The fifth council likewise I venerate, in which the letter said to be Ibas's, full of error, is reproved, and Theodore, who divided the person of the Mediator of God and men into two subsistences, is convicted of having fallen into the perfidy of impiety. The writings of Theodoret also, through which the faith of blessed Cyril is impugned, put forth by an audacity of madness, are refuted. Indeed, all the persons whom the aforesaid venerable councils reject, I reject; those whom they venerate, I embrace. For since they were established by universal consent, whoever presumes either to loose those whom they bind, or to bind those whom they loose, destroys himself and not them. Whoever therefore thinks otherwise, let him be anathema. (Book i, chap. 25.) 5.
In this manner, after Gregory had brilliantly set forth the foundation of his faith to the apostolic thrones, according to the ancient custom of his predecessor pontiffs, perceiving that he had for this reason been appointed by the Lord as supreme pontiff over the nations and kingdoms, that, according to that prophetic word (Jerem. 1:10),
— that he might pluck up the roots of vices, tear them down and scatter them, and so at last build up and plant the virtues — all the customs which he had learned had newly sprung up against the ancient apostolic tradition (namely concerning the minister-cantors; concerning laymen adhering too familiarly to the pontiff; concerning the prejudicial claiming of any goods whatsoever by title; concerning the covering of the apostolic bier with dalmatics; concerning the burial-fee; and concerning the not admitting of laymen indiscriminately to an office of ecclesiastical right, in place of the pallium or the consecration of pontiffs) — these he first separated by the Roman Church, and afterward, having gathered the bishops of the provinces situated round about, from the body of the whole holy universal Church, and condemned them, under the interposition of a terrible anathema, as generally as perpetually.
6. Then in the house of the Lord, after the manner of the most wise Solomon, on account of the compunction of musical sweetness, that most zealous man very usefully compiled a compendium-Antiphonary of the cantors; he also established the school of cantors, which up to this day sings by those same institutions in the holy Roman Church;
and for it he built, along with several estates, two dwellings — namely, one beneath the steps of the basilica of the blessed apostle Peter, the other beneath the buildings of the Lateran patriarchate — where to this day his bed, on which he reclined while chanting, and his rod, with which he used to threaten the boys, are preserved with fitting veneration together with the authentic Antiphonary; which places indeed, by the terms of an ordinance under the interposition of an anathema, he divided out on account of the daily grace of the ministry in either place. 7.
The sweetness of this melody, among the other peoples of Europe, the Germans or Gauls were notably able to learn and often to relearn; yet they were by no means able to preserve it uncorrupted, both by lightness of mind — since they mingled certain things of their own with the Gregorian chants — and also by their natural savagery.
For the Alpine bodies, thundering forth on high with the roar of their voices, do not properly render back the sweetness of the melody they have received, because the barbarous savagery of their drink-soaked throats, while it strives to bring forth the gentle chant with inflections and repercussions, casts out rigid tones with a certain natural crashing, like wagons confusedly sounding down over steps; and thus, by exasperating and drowning out, it disturbs rather the minds of the hearers, which it ought to have soothed. 8. Hence it is that in the time of this Gregory, when Augustine was then going to Britain, the cantors of the Roman institution, dispersed also throughout the West, notably instructed the barbarians.
When these had died, the Western Churches so corrupted the melodic organ they had received, that a certain John, a Roman cantor, together with Theodore — likewise a Roman citizen, but archbishop of York — was sent by pope Vitalian through Gaul into Britain; who, recalling the sons of the Churches situated round about to the pristine sweetness of the chant, both by himself and through his disciples, preserved the rule of Roman teaching for many years. 9.
But also our patrician Charles, king moreover of the Franks, being offended at Rome by the discord between the Roman and the Gallican chant — when the boldness of the Gauls argued that the chant had been corrupted by certain wailing tunes of our people, and ours on the contrary plausibly displayed the authentic Antiphonary — is said to have asked who was accustomed to keep the clearer water, between a stream and a spring. When they answered, the spring, he prudently added: Therefore we too, who have hitherto drunk the corrupted water from the stream, must needs run back to the principal streams of the perennial spring.
And so presently he left two of his diligent clerics with Hadrian, then bishop; and when these had at length been quite elegantly instructed, he recalled the metropolis of Metz to the sweetness of the pristine melody, and through it corrected his whole Gaul. But when, long afterward, those who had been educated at Rome having died, that most prudent of kings saw that the chant of the Gallican Churches differed from that of Metz, and observed each side boasting that the other's chant was corrupted, he said: Let us return again to the spring.
Then pope Hadrian, moved by the king's entreaties — as some to this day truthfully attest — sent two cantors into Gaul; by whose judgment the king learned that all indeed had corrupted the sweetness of the Roman chant through a certain lightness, but foresaw that the men of Metz differed only a little, and by natural savagery alone. Finally, to this day, by how much Metz yields to the Roman chant, by so much the chant of the Gallican and German Churches yields to the Church of Metz — as is attested by those who love the pure truth. These things, then, I have related by anticipation, lest I should seem to have passed over unexamined the lightness of the Gauls. 11.
For the rest, that most prudent ruler Gregory, having removed worldly men from his chamber, chose for himself the most prudent of the clergy as counsellors and intimates; among whom was Peter the Deacon, his contemporary, disputing with whom he afterward composed the four books of the Dialogues; also Aemilianus the notary, who together with his companions took down forty homilies on the Gospel; likewise Paterius the notary, who, made by him secundicerius, culled some most useful things from his books; and John the defensor, who by his command was sent as inquisitor into the Spains, and restored Januarius, bishop of the city of Malaga, deposed by his fellow-countrymen bishops,
restored to his proper see, and with equal sentence condemned his deposers together with the one who had crept into his place. Of the monks, moreover, he chose the most holy as his intimates; among whom were Maximian, abbot of his own monastery, whom he afterward made bishop of Syracuse, and committed to him his vicariate throughout Sicily; Augustine, the prior of that same monastery of his, and Mellitus, through whom he summoned the peoples of the Angles to the grace of Christianity; Marinianus, a monk of that same monastery of his, whom he consecrated bishop in the metropolis of Ravenna; Probus, whom, suddenly appointing abbot by the Spirit's revelation, he sent to Jerusalem for the building of a hospice;
and likewise Claudius, abbot of the city of Classis, who — the pope disputing — composed much on the Proverbs, on the Song of Songs, on the Prophets, on the books of Kings, and on the Heptateuch, though not in the same sense (Book xii, epistle 24). 12. Living with these day and night, Gregory left nothing of monastic perfection undone in the palace, nothing of pontifical order undone in the Church. Everywhere the most religious monks were seen to cleave to the pontiff along with the most learned clerics, and in diverse professions a common life was maintained, so that such then was the Church under Gregory at Rome as Luke records it to have been under the apostles, and as Philo records it to have been under Mark the evangelist at Alexandria. 13.
Then the Wisdom of things was in a manner visibly building for herself a temple at Rome, and was propping the atrium of the apostolic see with the seven arts, as with columns of just so many most noble stones. None of those serving the pontiff, from the least to the greatest, displayed anything barbarous in speech or dress; but a toga-clad Latinity, after the manner of the Quirites, or a trabea-clad one, singularly maintained its own Latium in the very Lateran palace. There flourished anew the studies of the diverse arts, and whoever chanced to lack either holiness or prudence had by his own judgment no confidence of standing before the pontiff. 14. To the deep pontifical councils prudent men were summoned — such as I have described — rather than powerful ones;
and while a poor philosophy inwardly, by artful argumentations, reasonably inquired what in each affair should rather or most of all be followed, rich sloth — which now avenges itself upon the wise with an equal lot — remained despicable before the doors of the chamber. Only the skill of interpreting in two tongues was lacking, and that most eloquent maiden Cecropia, who once, when Varro robbed her of her celibacy, had handed on to the Latins the keenness of her mind, was claiming for herself the deceptions of impostures, as he himself complains in his epistles. 15.
No layman managed any ministry of the palace, or any ecclesiastical patrimony; but ecclesiastical men undertook all the offices of ecclesiastical right, laymen of course being assigned only to the soldiery of arms, or to the continual care of the fields. On this account certain of the nobles, under the pretext of religion, first began to tonsure themselves. Prudently meeting their evasion, the emperor Maurice, by a law given through Longinus the Strator, decreed that whoever had been involved in public administrations should not be permitted to come to an ecclesiastical office. Gregory greatly praised this law on this point, saying:
He who, forsaking the secular habit, hastens to come to ecclesiastical offices, does not desire to relinquish the world, but to change it. (Book iii, epistle 65.) 16. But since to the clerical profession, from both the ecclesiastical and the secular soldiery, by diverse occasions a daily and almost innumerable multitude was flowing together, the pastor, provident in all things, judged that they were by no means to be received to an office of ecclesiastical dignity, but only to the taking up of the monastic purpose, saying: We know that many from the ecclesiastical or secular soldiery hasten to the service of Almighty God, that, freed from human servitude, they may be seen to dwell more intimately in the divine service in monasteries.
But if we dismiss this indiscriminately, we afford to all an occasion of fleeing the dominion of ecclesiastical or secular right. Yet if we incautiously retain those hastening to the service of Almighty God, we are found to deny certain things to Him who has given all. Whence it is necessary that whoever, from the servitude of ecclesiastical or secular soldiery, desires to be converted to the service of God, be first proved while established in the lay habit; and if his morals and manner of life bear witness to that good desire, let him be permitted, without any retraction, to serve Almighty God in a monastery, so that he may depart free from human service, who longs to undergo a stricter servitude in the divine obedience.
But if in the monastic habit also he shall have conducted himself irreproachably according to the rules of the Fathers, then, after the times prefixed by the sacred canons, let him now lawfully be advanced to any ecclesiastical office — provided, however, that he has not been stained by those crimes which in the Old Testament are punished with death. 17. Moreover, the Gelasian Codex concerning the solemnities of the Masses he compressed into the volume of a single book, subtracting much, altering a few things, but superadding some, for the expounding of the Gospel readings. In the canon he added: And dispose our days in Thy peace, and command that we be snatched from eternal damnation and numbered in the flock of Thine elect. 18.
He carefully arranged the stations through the basilicas or the cemeteries of the blessed martyrs, in the manner in which the Roman people up to now runs to and fro, as it were vying, as though he were living; through which, running about at the same time himself, while he was yet strong enough to speak, he delivered before the Church, at diverse times, twenty homilies on the Gospel; but the remaining ones of the same number he indeed dictated, yet, his stomach failing with continual weakness, he committed them to others to be pronounced. 19.
The army of the Lord followed Gregory as he went before, on this side and on that; and, to hear the word of teaching, innumerable cohorts of every sex, age, and profession flocked together from all sides voluntarily, to all of whom he, as a teacher of the heavenly soldiery, supplied at least spiritual arms; but to the poor and the strangers, who by the condition of the times had flowed into Rome, he administered daily stipends. 20. He decreed that the solemnities of the Masses should be celebrated over the bodies of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, having acquired very numerous olive-groves, the sum of which he noted on marble tablets before the doors of that same basilica. He added lamps, and appointed assiduous services.
He forbade the hope of gain from burial next to the Church. He directed that seven of the defensores be honoured with the dignity of a regionary. He caused the Alleluia to be said at the Masses outside the season of Pentecost. He appointed that the subdeacons should go forth stripped. He commanded the Kyrie eleison to be sung, and judged that the Lord's Prayer should be recited over the host immediately after the canon. 21. When afterward he perceived certain men murmuring about these things, as though he were following the customs of the Church of Constantinople, the most pious Father did not disdain to render an account, saying: In none of these have we followed another Church.
For as to the Alleluia's being said here — it is handed down as having been drawn from the Church of Jerusalem, from the tradition of blessed Jerome, in the time of pope Damasus of blessed memory; and therefore we have rather cut off, in this see, that custom which had been handed down here from the Greeks. But as for my making the subdeacons go forth stripped — it was the ancient custom of the Church; but it pleased a certain pontiff of ours, I know not whom, who commanded them to go forth clothed. For the Churches of Sicily — did they by any chance receive the tradition from the Greeks? Whence, then, do they have it today that the subdeacons go forth in linen tunics, except that they received this from their mother the Roman Church?
But the Kyrie eleison we have neither said nor do we say as it is said by the Greeks; for in Greece all say it together, but with us it is said by the clerics together, and answered by the people. And just as many times Christe eleison is also said, which among the Greeks is in no way said. But in daily Masses we are silent as to other things which are wont to be said, and say only Kyrie eleison and Christe eleison, that in these voices of supplication we may be occupied a little longer. The Lord's Prayer, moreover, we say immediately after the prayer for this reason: because it was the custom of the apostles to consecrate the host of oblation at that prayer alone.
And it seemed to me very unfitting that we should say over the oblation the prayer which some scholastic had composed, and should not say over His body and blood that very tradition which our Redeemer composed. But among the Greeks the Lord's Prayer is said by all the people, whereas with us it is sung by the priest alone. In what, then, have we followed the customs of the Greeks — we who have either restored our old usages, or established new and useful ones, in which nevertheless we are not proved to imitate others?
Therefore, let your charity, when occasion is given for going to the city of Catania, or to the Church of Syracuse, having held a conversation, teach those whom you believe or understand to have been able to murmur about this matter, and cease not, as it were from another occasion, to instruct them. For as to what they say about the Church of Constantinople — who could doubt that it is subject to the apostolic see? Which both the most pious lord emperor, and our brother the bishop of that same city, constantly profess. Yet if that Church, or any other, has anything of good, I — and my inferiors, whom I restrain from unlawful things — am ready to imitate it in the good. For he is a fool who esteems himself first in this, that he disdains to learn the good things which he has seen. (Book ix, epistle 12.)
22. Gregory persisted in such great hospitality, even in the patriarchate itself, that — besides those whom he mercifully nourished with ecclesiastical alms, fleeing the swords of the Lombards' perfidy both through the diverse regions and at Rome as well — he daily invited to his own table any pilgrims whatsoever. Among whom on a certain day one drew near, into whose hands, while he himself, out of the ministry of humility, wished to pour water, turning to take up the pitcher, he suddenly did not find the one into whose hands he had wished to pour the water. And when he marveled to himself at this thing done, that same night the Lord said to him through a vision: On the other days you have received Me in My members, but yesterday you received Me in My very self. 23.
At another time also, this same Gregory, according to his custom, commanded the treasurer to invite twelve pilgrims to dinner. He, going forth, fulfilled the commands, and arranged them likewise at the table. But while they were reclining together, the pope, gazing intently, counted thirteen; and, summoning the treasurer, inquired why he had presumed, contrary to his command, to invite a thirteenth. He, dumbfounded, counted the banqueting pilgrims more carefully, and finding only twelve, secure in himself, answered the old man: Believe me, honourable Father, there are none but twelve, just as you yourself commanded.
So then, while the guest counted the twelve again and again, and did not see the thirteenth whom the pope alone could see, the spiritual Father Gregory noticed that the man reclining nearer turned his countenance frequently, and now feigned a youth, now an old man with a certain venerable hoariness. When the banquet was finished, he permitted the twelve indeed to depart; but taking the thirteenth by the hand, he led him into his chamber, vehemently adjuring him that he would deign to disclose to him plainly himself and his name. Who, answering, said: And why do you ask about my name, which is wonderful?
Nevertheless know, recognizing it by memory, that I am that shipwrecked man who once came to you, when you were writing in the cell of your monastery at the Scaurus slope, to whom you gave twelve coins and a silver dish, which your blessed mother Silvia had sent you with pulse poured into it. And let this be known to you for certain: that from that day on which you bestowed these things on me with a cheerful mind, the Lord destined you to become prelate of His holy Church, for which He also poured out His own blood, and to be the successor and vicar of Peter, the prince of the apostles — whose virtue also you have imitated, when he divided the substance of the offerers, as each had need. Hearing these things, Gregory said:
And how do you know that the Lord then destined me to preside over His holy Church? But he said: Because I am His angel, and was then sent by Him to inquire into your purpose. Then Gregory, because he had not yet manifestly seen an angel, was utterly terrified, and heard this one speaking to him thus: Fear not, neither be dismayed; for behold, the Lord has sent me to be your guardian as long as you shall be in this mortal world, so that whatever thing you shall ask, through me you may confidently avail to obtain it from Him. Immediately Gregory fell upon his face, saying:
If for the little gift of my smallness the most omnipotent Lord repays me so much, that He both makes me pontiff of His holy Church, and appoints His angel as my guardian — how much do I think will be restored to me, if, remaining with all my strength in His precepts, I shall have striven to disburse more things out of my more abundant means? 21.
Therefore, beginning to be just so much the more bountiful in the temporal advantage conferred upon him, as he was the more assured concerning the eternal reward to be received, he assessed in cash the revenues of all the patrimonies and estates out of the Gelasian polyptych, of which indeed he was seen to be a most zealous follower; and out of their payments in gold and silver (all things being collected together for all the ecclesiastical or palatine orders, for the monasteries, churches, cemeteries, deaconries, hospices — urban or suburban), he ordained through the polyptych, by which it is disbursed to this day, how many solidi should be distributed to each, four times in the year: namely at Easter, at the birthday of the apostles, at the birthday of Saint Andrew, and on his own anniversary. 25.
Besides these, first at the dawn of the Lord's resurrection, sitting in the basilica of the once most learned pope Vigilius — beside which he customarily dwelt — to impart the kiss of peace, he disbursed gold pieces to all the bishops, presbyters, deacons, and other dignitaries. But on the birthday of the apostles, or his own, offering mixed solidi, he none the less bestowed foreign garments. 26. On all the Kalends without exception, he generally disbursed to the poor those same kinds of goods which were gathered from the revenues: and in its season the wheat, in its season the wine, in its season the cheese, in its season the pulse, in its season the bacon, in its season the edible animals, in its season the fish or the oil — the most discerning householder of the Lord divided them all.
But the spices and other more delicate wares he honourably offered to the leading men, so that the Church was thought to be nothing other than certain common storehouses — a common Church. 27. To three thousand handmaids of God, whom the Greeks call monastriae, he gave fifteen pounds of gold for couch-coverings, and conferred on them yearly eighty pounds for daily stipends. Writing about these to the patrician lady Theoctista, he says: Such is the life of these women, and so strict in tears and abstinence, that we believe that, had they not existed, none of us could now, through so many years, have subsisted in this place amid the swords of the Lombards. (Book vi, epistle 26.) 28.
On each and every day, through the streets and crossroads of all the regions, he sent out cooked stipends by appointed couriers to the sick or to those weak in any part of the body. But to the more bashful ones, before he himself took food, he took care to direct from his own table, door by door, a dish of the apostolic blessing, so that the benevolence of that most merciful provider utterly excepted no one whom the knowledge of the Almighty Creator had drawn to the faith. 29.
When it happened that one of these poor men was found dead by the corpse-bearers in the narrow recesses of the alleys, and Gregory judged that he had perished for want of alms, he was so grieved—abstaining, as it is said, from the celebration of Mass for several days—as though, a thing dreadful to say, he had slain the man with his own hands. 30. There survives to this very day, in the most sacred archive of the Lateran palace, a huge volume of paper compiled in his time, in which the names of persons of both sexes, of every age and calling, dwelling both at Rome and throughout the suburbs or neighboring cities, as well as in distant coastal towns, are set down more fully together with their surnames, their dates, and the sums bestowed upon them.
As for their total sum, lest I be found tediously overreaching, I decline to transcribe it, and I direct my reader's eye to the fullness of that venerable archive, whose authority I myself have followed in nearly all matters, by the Pope's leave. 31. Moreover, since the basilica of the Arians in the district of this city called Suburra had remained shut until the days of Gregory's pontificate, it pleased him that, once the relics of the blessed martyrs Sebastian and Agatha had been brought thither, it should be dedicated in the Catholic faith; and this was done. For Gregory, arriving with a great multitude of people singing praises, entered the aforesaid basilica;
and when the venerable pontiff was already celebrating the solemnities of the Mass, and, because of the narrowness of that place, the crowds of people were pressing upon one another, certain of those who stood outside the sanctuary suddenly felt a pig running to and fro between their very feet. And as each one felt it and pointed it out to those standing beside him, that same pig made for the doors of the church and turned all those past whom it ran into amazement; yet nothing could be seen, though it could be felt. Divine mercy showed this for the purpose that it might be made plain to all that, at the coming of Gregory with the relics of the saints, the unclean occupant was departing from that place. 52. So when the celebration of Mass was finished, the Pope withdrew with the people;
but that very night a great crashing arose in the roofs of that same church, as if someone were rushing about within it in confusion. On the following night the noise grew still more grievous, when suddenly so great a terror resounded, as though that whole church were being overthrown from its very foundations; and forthwith it withdrew, and no further disturbance of the ancient enemy appeared there. Yet by the sound of terror which it made, it was made known that, being compelled by the invocation of Gregory, it was going forth from the place it had long held.
Then, a few days later, in a great serenity of the air, a cloud descended from heaven over the altar of that same church and covered it with its veil, and filled the whole church with such awe and with such sweetness of fragrance that, though the doors stood open, no one dared to enter there; and the priests and guardians, or those who had come to celebrate the solemnities of the Mass and beheld the thing, were quite unable to go in, yet drew in the sweetness of the marvelous fragrance. But on another day the lamps in it were kindled without any flame.
Again, a few days later, when, the solemnities of the Mass being ended and the lamps extinguished, the guardian had gone out from that same church, after a little while he came back in and found the lamps which he had extinguished shining; and, believing that he had negligently put them out, he now extinguished them more carefully, and going out, shut up the church. But returning after the space of three hours, he found the lamps which he had extinguished shining—so that, plainly, from that very light it might shine forth openly that through the blessed Gregory that place had passed from darkness into light. 33.
But when Gregory was being driven by unceasing surging thoughts to convert the Angles and Saxons—even as he had purposed in his monastic life—as soon as, the state of the Church being settled, he entered upon the fourth year of his pontificate, he sent Augustine, with other monks of the monastery of his own house, into Britain for the sake of preaching the Gospel. But they, after some days, weighed down by a sluggish weariness of the pilgrimage they had undertaken, resolved rather to return home than to approach a barbarous, savage, and unbelieving people, whose very language they did not understand.
Without delay they sent back to Rome Augustine—whom Gregory had appointed to be consecrated their bishop if they were received by the Angles—beseeching the supreme pontiff to remove from them a pilgrimage so laborious, so uncertain, and so perilous, lately laid upon them, and to permit them to return to their own. To them he wrote back, saying: 34. Gregory, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to the servants of our Lord Jesus Christ. Since it had been better not to begin good things than, after those which have been begun, to turn back in thought, it behooves you, most beloved sons, to complete with the highest zeal, the Lord helping, the good work which you have begun. Let neither the toil of the journey, then, nor the tongues of slandering men affright you;
but with all persistence and all fervor, God being your author, carry through what you have begun, knowing that a greater glory of eternal recompense will follow great labor. And to Augustine your provost, whom we also constitute your abbot upon his return, be humbly obedient in all things, knowing that whatever is fulfilled by you at his admonition will profit your souls in every respect. May Almighty God protect you with His grace, and grant me to see the fruit of your labor in the eternal fatherland, so that, even if I cannot labor together with you, I may yet be found together with you in the joy of the recompense—because assuredly I do desire to labor. (Book VI, Letter 51.) 35.
Strengthened by these exhortations, Augustine, together with his brethren, made for Britain through the hospitality of Aetherius, the prelate of Arles, and of the other bishops of Gaul, and of the kings to whom the most devout Father had commended them by his own letters. Coming to Ethelbert, king of the men of Kent, by the cooperating grace of God he easily obtained not only leave to preach, but also provisions and lodgings in the city of Canterbury, which was the metropolis of his kingdom. As Augustine drew near to it with his companions, with the cross, or the image of the Saviour, carried before them, he chanted, saying: We beseech Thee, O Lord, in all Thy mercy, that Thy fury and Thy wrath be turned away from this city, and from Thy holy house, for we have sinned.
And as they preached and worked miracles in the name of Jesus, many believed and were baptized, marveling at the simplicity of their innocent life and embracing the sweetness of the heavenly teaching. 36. Wherefore Augustine came to Arles and, according to Gregory's command, was consecrated bishop by Aetherius, and returned to Britain. Thereupon, through the priest Laurence and the monk Peter, he made known to Pope Gregory the conversion of the English nation and his own consecration, suggesting that he should send him many ministers of the word, since the harvest was indeed plentiful, but the laborers few. 37.
Rejoicing in Christ at these reports, Gregory sent to Augustine many ministers of the word, chief among whom were Mellitus, Justus, Paulinus, and Rufinianus; and by them all things necessary for the worship of the Church—namely, sacred vessels, and coverings for the altars, ecclesiastical ornaments, clerical vestments, relics of the apostles and of many saints, and many codices.
He also sent him the pallium, commanding that under his own metropolis of Kent he should ordain twelve bishops, and should send single bishops to London and to York, who, likewise consecrating twelve bishops under themselves, should receive the pallium from the Apostolic See; and that after Augustine's death, he among them should be held first who had first deserved to be consecrated. He charged also that in the English nation he should not destroy the temples of the idols, but should sprinkle them with sanctified water and dedicate them into churches.
And because the Saxons were wont to slay many oxen in sacrifice to demons, he commanded that on the day of dedication, or on the feasts of the holy martyrs whose relics were to be placed there, they should make for themselves, round about those same churches which had been converted from temples, tabernacles of tree-branches, and should celebrate the due solemnities with religious feasts. And because Augustine, questioning him upon certain chapters, had inquired how a bishop ought to conduct himself with his clergy, that most humble teacher, among other things, wrote back thus:
Since your Fraternity, being trained in the rules of the monastery, ought not to live apart from your clergy, in the Church of the Angles, which, God being its author, has lately been brought to the faith, you ought to institute that manner of life which was, in the beginning of the nascent Church, among our fathers, among whom none of them said that anything of what they possessed was his own, but all things were common to them. When the faith is one, why does the Gallican Church differ from the Roman concerning the celebration of the Mass? To Augustine's question Gregory says: Your Fraternity knows the custom of the Roman Church, in which it remembers that it was nurtured.
But it pleases me that, whether in the Roman or in any other Church you have found something which can be more pleasing to Almighty God, you carefully choose it, and pour it, as a chief institution, into the Church of the Angles, which is still new to the faith—that institution which you have been able to gather from many Churches. For things are not to be loved for the sake of places, but places for the sake of good things. From each and every Church, therefore, choose the things that are devout, that are religious, that are right, and, having gathered them as it were into a little vessel, turn them into a custom at the table of the Angles. Being asked also how those things which thieves have taken away from the churches ought to be restored, the most gentle Father replied:
Far be it, he said, that the Church should receive with increase what it seems to lose of earthly things, and should seek vain gains. Being duly asked by the same Augustine up to what degree of generation the faithful ought to be joined in marriage, Gregory, by way of dispensation, wrote back thus: A certain earthly law in the Roman commonwealth permits that either a brother and a sister, or the son and daughter of two brothers german, or of two sisters, be joined. But we have learned by experience that offspring cannot spring up from such a union; and the sacred law forbids to uncover the shame of kindred. Whence it is necessary that already in the third or fourth generation the faithful may lawfully be joined to one another.
For in the second generation, as we said before, they ought by all means to abstain. (Book XI, Letter 64.) 38. But after much time, being asked by Felix, prelate of Messina in Sicily, whether he had written to Augustine that marriages contracted by the Angles in the fourth generation should by no means be dissolved, the most humble Father Gregory, among other things, gave this account: Know that what I wrote to Augustine, bishop of the English nation—your own foster-son, indeed, as you have recalled—concerning the joining of blood, I wrote specially and not generally to the rest, for him and for the English nation, which had lately come to the faith, lest by fearing sterner measures it should draw back from the good which it had begun.
Whence the whole city of Rome stands as my witness that I did not enjoin these things upon them in those writings with the intention that, after they should have been firmly rooted and grounded in the faith, if they were found within their own consanguinity, they should not be separated, or should be joined within the line of affinity—that is, up to the seventh generation; but that, while they are still neophytes, it behooves us most often first to teach them to shun what is unlawful, and to instruct them by words and examples, and afterward to exclude reasonably and faithfully whatever they may do in such matters. For according to the Apostle, who says: I gave you milk to drink, not meat (1 Cor. 3:2),
we have indulged these things to them for the present time, not to their posterity, as was set forth above—lest the good which had been planted with a still weak root should be plucked up, but that, being somewhat purchased, it might be strengthened a little and be preserved unto perfection. (Book XIV, last letter.) These things, therefore, I have taken care to touch upon, that those who, on the occasion of this new dispensation, contract unlawful marriages, may recognize that the most learned Pope Gregory did not sanction the joining of the fourth generation as a rule, but rather permitted it venially and only for a time.
Assuredly, at his prayers Almighty God bestowed on Augustine and his companions so great a grace of working signs, that they confirmed by the efficacy of the signs the word of life which they preached with their mouth. Whence it came to pass that, within the space of a few years, even the outlying kings of Saxony came to the faith of Christ the Lord through his disciples. 39. Concerning the conversion of that nation, together with the prodigies of miracles which were wrought there, Gregory bears witness in his books of the Morals, saying thus: Behold, the tongue of Britain, which had known nothing else but to gnash barbarously, has for some time now begun to resound Hebrew words in the praises of God.
Behold, the Ocean, once swelling, now lies prostrate and serves at the feet of the saints, and its barbarous motions, which earthly princes had not been able to subdue with the sword, these the lips of priests bind with simple words for fear of God; and he who, unbelieving, had by no means dreaded the throngs of fighters, now, being faithful, fears the tongues of the humble. For because, upon the reception of heavenly words, with miracles also shining forth, the power of divine knowledge is poured into him, he is restrained by the terror of that same Godhead—so that he fears to act wickedly, and with all his desires longs to attain to the grace of eternity. (Book XXVII of the Morals, sect. 21.)
To Eulogius also, patriarch of Alexandria, who was reporting laudable things concerning the teaching of his Church, the conversion of heretics, and the concord of the faithful, Gregory wrote back thus: Since in the good things which you do, I know that you rejoice together with others also, I too render in turn the like to your Grace: for while the English nation, set in a corner of the world, remained until now faithless in the worship of wood and stones, it pleased me, by the help of your prayer, that I ought, God being its author, to send a monk of my own monastery for the preaching of the Gospel to it; who, license being given by me, was made a bishop by the bishops of the Germanies, and, with their aid also, was brought to the aforesaid nation at the world's end.
And now writings have come to us concerning his welfare and his work, that with so great miracles either he himself, or those who were sent with him, shine forth in that same nation, that they seem to imitate the powers of the Apostles in the signs which they display. Now on the solemnity of the Lord's Nativity, which passed by from the first indiction, more than ten thousand Angles were reported to have been baptized by that same brother and fellow-bishop of ours. This I have narrated for the purpose that you may recognize what you accomplish by speaking among the people of Alexandria, and what you accomplish by praying at the ends of the world. For your prayers are in the place where you are not, whose holy operations are shown in the place where you are. (Book VIII, Letter 30.) 40.
None the less he writes to the same Augustine concerning those same miracles, among other things, saying: I know that Almighty God, through thy love, shows great miracles in the nation which He willed to be chosen. Whence it is necessary that concerning that same heavenly gift thou shouldest both rejoice with fear and fear with joy: rejoice, namely, because the souls of the Angles are drawn through outward miracles to inward grace; but fear, lest amid the signs which are wrought, the weak mind should lift itself up in its own presumption, so that whence it is exalted outwardly by honor, thence it may inwardly fall through vainglory, etc. (Book XI, Letter 28.) 41.
But the things which are commonly read concerning Gregory's miracles among those same Churches of the Angles, I judge ought not to be omitted, lest the mind of the studious reader should suspect me either of having stubbornly defrauded him, or of having negligently passed over a fitting knowledge. A certain matron had offered her accustomed oblations to the blessed Gregory while he celebrated the solemnities of the Mass at the public stations. To her, when he was about to deliver the mysteries after them, as he said: May the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve thy soul, she smiled wantonly. He straightway turned his right hand back from her mouth and laid that portion of the Lord's Body upon the altar.
But when the solemnities of the Mass were ended, he inquired of the matron before the people for what reason she had presumed to laugh while about to receive the Lord's Body. And she, muttering long, at last burst out, saying: Because the bread which I knew I had made with my own hands, thou wast calling the Lord's Body. Then Gregory, for the woman's unbelief, prostrated himself in prayer with the whole people; and after a little, rising up, he found the particle of bread which he had placed upon the altar turned into flesh: which, showing it before all to the unbelieving matron, he was able both to recall her to the grace of belief, and took care to confirm the whole people. And so again, prostrated in prayer with them, he restored the morsel of flesh into the first form of bread. 42.
At another time also the man of God, Gregory, performed a miracle almost like this one. For when, at the request of certain Westerners through their envoys, he was enclosing in the customary manner a piece of consecrated cloth in separate little boxes under the names of the martyrs sought, and had sealed them on top, he bestowed them upon the envoys. They, bearing the received relics with fitting veneration, after they had traversed certain miles of the journey, began foolishly to murmur that they had procured for themselves so much travel-provision only to know not whether they had received the bones of the saints, or rather mere flesh, from the Roman pontiff. And so, by common counsel, the pontifical seal being removed and the boxes unlocked, they found little pieces of the consecrated cloth.
Soon returning to the walls of the city in exceeding fury, they tearfully complained through the archdeacon that they had been mocked by Gregory, in that they had received a paltry cloth instead of relics, saying that their lords abounded in most beautiful palls, and therefore had no need of the Romans' worthless bits of cloth. As it chanced, Gregory was then celebrating the solemnities of the Mass. When these were ended, receiving the consecrated cloth from those same envoys before all, he laid it upon the altar, and gave himself with all present to prayer, that Almighty God might most speedily show whether that which was sent, according to custom, from the thresholds of the apostles ought to be venerated as relics of the martyrs. Then, rising from prayer, he bade the unbelieving envoys stand nearer.
He asked for a small knife, and after the manner of the most holy Pope Leo, pricked the consecrated cloth, from whose prickings blood forthwith flowed. At which miracle the envoys were as confounded as all who were present were struck with trembling, and at Gregory's command they prostrated themselves with him upon the ground, nor did they cease from prayer before all the punctures of the consecrated cloths were divinely closed up. 43. Moreover, a certain one of the wealthy Romans, having forsaken his wife, had been deprived of communion by the Roman pontiff. Bearing this most grievously, and unable to make void the authority of so great a pontiff, he sought the assistance of magicians.
They, persuaded by great gifts, confidently promised that they could, by their incantations, so contrive that, a demon being sent in, the pontiff's horse should be tormented until it, together with its rider, should be brought into peril. Delighted by this promise, the unchaste judge suffered the magicians to stand on high beside the road along which the pontiff was to proceed to the station, so that they might see those passing by, and not be seen by those passing. And when the magicians, from the processions of the standard-bearers and the napkin-bearers, had recognized the great pontiff, a demon being sent in, they made his horse to be tormented so violently that it seemed it could by no means be held by its rider or by the grooms.
Then Gregory, by the revelation of the Holy Spirit recognizing the demonic assault, by the holy sign of the cross both delivered the horse from its present frenzy, and, commanding that the sorcerers be taken down from their hidden height, punished them with perpetual blindness. When they confessed their guilt at the suggestion of the unchaste judge, and after much time came to the grace of holy baptism, he was unwilling indeed to restore to them their sight, lest they should read magic again, yet he ordered that they be nourished by the ecclesiastical dole. 44. It is also read among those same Churches of the Angles that Gregory, proceeding through the Forum of Trajan, which Trajan had once adorned with most beautiful buildings, recalled and marveled at that judgment of his by which he had consoled a widow:
which judgment, as is handed down from those of old, was of this sort. At a certain time, when Trajan was hastening most vehemently to the array of an imminent war, a certain widow came forth, tearfully saying: My innocent son, in thy reign, has been slain; I beseech that, since thou canst not restore him to me, thou wouldest deign lawfully to avenge his blood. And when Trajan replied that he would avenge this in every respect, if he returned sound from the battle, the widow said: If thou shalt be slain in the battle, who will render it to me? Trajan said: He who shall reign after me. The widow said: And what will it profit thee, if another does me justice? Trajan replied: Nothing whatever. And the widow:
Is it not, she said, better for thee that thou thyself do me justice, and receive thy reward for this, than that thou transmit it to another? Then Trajan, moved alike by reason and by piety, dismounted from his horse, and did not depart before he had, by a single act, discharged the judgment pressing upon the widow. This gentleness of the judge, then, they assert that Gregory recalled, and came to the basilica of the holy Apostle Peter; and there wept so long over the error of so most-clement a prince, until on the following night he received an answer that he had been heard on Trajan's behalf—only that he should henceforth pour out no prayers for any pagan.
But whereas concerning the foregoing miracles there is no Roman who doubts, concerning this which is read among the Saxons—that at his prayers the soul of Trajan was delivered from the torments of hell—it seems to be doubted for this reason above all: that so great a teacher would by no means presume to pray outright for a pagan; he who in the fourth book of his Dialogues taught that the same cause exists why the saints do not pray at the future judgment for sinners condemned to eternal fire, which is now also the cause that holy men do not pray for unbelieving and impious departed; they not observing that it is not read that Gregory prayed for Trajan, but only that he wept.
For thus, when Gregory did not pray, he could yet by lamenting be heard, even as Moses, when he was silent with grief, could be seen to have cried out—to whom, though silent in lips, the Lord said: Why criest thou to me? (Exod. 14:15). Doubtless Almighty God searches hearts and reins, and often, having compassion, grants those things which a man, though as carnal he desires them, yet does not presume to ask. Whence the Psalmist: The Lord hath heard the desire of the poor, and thine ear hath heard the longing of their heart (Ps. 10:17). And it is to be noted that it is not read that by Gregory's prayers the soul of Trajan was delivered from hell and placed in paradise, which seems altogether incredible on account of that which is written:
Unless one be born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven (John 3:5); but it is simply said to have been delivered from the torments of hell only. Which indeed can seem credible, since a soul can so exist in hell and, through God's mercy, not feel the torments of hell, just as one fire of Gehenna avails to hold all sinners alike, yet by God's justice does not avail to burn all equally. For according as each one's fault has deserved, by the just judgment of God so much will both the torment and the penalty be felt. 45.
None the less, from the book which by the Greeks is called Leimon, but by the Latins is understood as 'field' or 'meadow,' my preceptor, among other miracles now noised abroad throughout the whole world, interpreted this one, writing to me: A priest, named Peter, related to us concerning the holy Gregory, the Roman pope (for this most reverend priest was from there): He, said he (Spiritual Meadow, ch. 192), being made pope, built a great monastery of men, and gave the mandate that no one of the monks should have anything of his own, even to a single obol. A brother, then, of the monastery had a brother in the world, and asked him, saying: I have no cloak, but do this act of charity, buy me one. The secular brother says to him:
Lo, take three coins and purchase such as pleases thee. And so the monk, having received the three coins, keeps them by him. But another brother, seeing him having three coins, went and reported it to the abbot. And the abbot, hearing it, related it to the most blessed pope. And the most blessed Gregory, learning this from the abbot, separated him from communion, as one who had broken the rule of the monastery. Therefore, after a little time, the separated brother dies, the pope not knowing it. After two or three days, then, the abbot went and reported to him that the brother had gone to his rest. Whereat he was grieved not a little, because, before he departed from this life, he had not loosed him from the penalty of excommunication;
and writing a prayer on a tablet, he gave it to one of his deacons, bidding him go and read it over the brother. Now the prayer was one loosing the deceased from excommunication. So the deacon goes, as had been commanded him, and reads over the brother's tomb the tablet containing the prayer. And that very night the abbot saw that departed brother, and said to him: Art thou not dead, brother? He answered: Yea. And again the abbot asked him: Where wast thou until today? The brother answered: Truly, lord, in custody, and until yesterday I was not absolved.
And so it became known to all that at the very hour in which the deacon said the prayer over the tomb, at that same hour he was absolved from excommunication, and his soul was set free from that domination. 46. Therefore Gregory not only consecrated to Christ the Lord the Saxons dwelling in their own homelands, but also, purchasing at his own cost year by year their children scattered abroad through foreign regions, he led them to the knowledge of the faith. Whence he admonishes the priest Candidus, saying:
With the help of our Lord God Jesus Christ, as you set out to administer the patrimony which is in Gaul, we wish that your Charity should, from the solidi you receive, purchase clothing for the poor, or English boys of about seventeen or eighteen years of age, so that, being given to God, they may make progress in the monasteries; to the end that the solidi of Gaul, which cannot be spent in our land, may be usefully spent in their own place. But if you are able to recover anything from the moneys of the revenues which are said to have been carried off, from these too we wish you to purchase clothing for the poor; or, as we said before, boys who may make progress in the service of Almighty God.
But since those who may be found there are pagans, I wish that a priest be sent with them, lest any sickness befall on the way, so that he may baptize any whom he sees about to die. (Book VI, letter 7.) 47. The most gentle ruler Gregory grieved likewise that the peasants of Sardinia should remain so long in the error of ancient time, that, rebuking Januarius, bishop of Cagliari, for his negligences, he writes among other things: Another thing has happened greatly to be lamented, namely that the very peasants whom the Church possesses have been permitted by the negligence of your Fraternity to remain until now in unbelief. And why do I urge you to bring strangers to the Lord, when you neglect to correct your own from unbelief?
Wherefore it is necessary that you watch in all things over their conversion. For if I find in Sardinia a pagan peasant belonging to any bishop, I will punish that bishop severely. But if now a peasant be found of such perfidy and obstinacy that he in no way consents to come to the Lord, he is to be burdened with so heavy a weight of tribute that by the very penalty of his exaction he may be compelled to hasten to uprightness. (Book IV, letter 26.) 48. And when Gregory recognized that this had proceeded fruitfully and at the same time wholesomely among the peasants of Sardinia, he endeavoured to extend it in like manner even to the Jews who were peasants of his patrimonies. Whence he writes to the deacon Cyprian, saying:
It has come to me that there are Hebrews on our estates who in no wise wish to be converted to God. But it seems good to me that you should send letters throughout all the estates in which these same Hebrews are known to dwell, promising them specially on my behalf that whoever among them shall be converted to the true Lord our God Jesus Christ, the burden of his holding shall be diminished in some part. And I wish this to be done in such a way that if any of them be converted, if he owes a solidus in tribute, a third of a solidus (a tremissis) shall be remitted to him; if he owes three or four, one solidus shall be remitted;
if anything more, the remission is to be made according to the same proportion, or certainly according to what your Charity foresees, so that both the burden may be lightened for him who is converted, and the profit of the Church may not be pressed by grievous loss. Nor do we do this unprofitably, if for the sake of lightening the burdens of tribute we lead them to the grace of Christ; because even if they themselves come with less faith, yet those who are born of them will thereafter be baptized more faithfully. We gain therefore either themselves or their children, and so whatever we remit of the tribute for Christ's sake is no grievous thing. (Book V, letter 8.) 49.
Indeed, by both the lightening of imposts and the promises of the kingdom of heaven, the Jews in divers places began to come to Christ, whom their fathers had denied. And upon these, together with the salvation of their souls, he also bestowed clothing suitable for those to be baptized. Whence to Fantinus the defensor: The lady abbess, he says, of the monastery of Saint Stephen, which is situated in the territory of Agrigentum, informing us, we have learned that many of the Jews, by the inspiration of divine grace, wish to be converted to the Christian faith, but that it is necessary that someone should go thither by our order.
Therefore by the tenor of this our authority we charge you that, all excuse set aside, you hasten to proceed to the aforesaid place, and, God being favourable, to aid their desire by your exhortations. Yet if it seem to them long or grievous to await the Paschal solemnity, and you recognize that they are now hastening to baptism, then—lest, which God forbid, a long delay be able to call their minds back—speak with the bishop of that place, that, a penance and abstinence of forty days being enjoined, he may baptize them either on the Lord's Day, or if perchance some most celebrated festival should occur, the mercy of Almighty God protecting them;
because the character of the times, on account of the calamity which threatens, urges that their desires ought to be put off by no delay. But whomsoever of them you shall recognize to be poor, and unable to suffice to buy clothing for themselves, we wish you to purchase and provide for them the garment which they may have for baptism, and in these things you shall know that the price which you have given is to be reckoned to your accounts. But if they choose to await holy Easter, speak again with the bishop that they may indeed become catechumens for the time being, and that he may come to them frequently, and take care and kindle their minds by the admonition of his exhortation;
so that the more the awaited festival is prolonged, the more they ought to prepare themselves and to await it with fervent desire. (Book VIII, letter 23.) Likewise to Peter, bishop of Corsica, among other things: We have transmitted, he says, to your Fraternity fifty solidi for the purchasing of clothing for those who are to be baptized. (Book VIII, letter 1.) 50. Nonetheless, for the joining of the little children of the Arians to the catholic faith, Gregory extended the solicitude of his pastoral care to the utmost. Wherefore, writing to all the bishops of Italy, he says:
Since that most impious Autharith, at this Paschal festival lately concluded, forbade the children of the Lombards to be baptized in the catholic faith—for which fault the divine Majesty so extinguished him that he did not see the solemnity of the next Easter—it befits your Fraternity to admonish all the Lombards throughout your regions that, since a grievous mortality everywhere threatens, they should bring back to the catholic faith those very children of theirs who were baptized in the Arian heresy, that so they may appease the wrath of Almighty God over them. Likewise to Praejectus, bishop of Narni: It has come to us, our sins pressing upon us, that a mortality is altogether raging in your city, which thing has grieved us exceedingly.
Wherefore, greeting your Fraternity, we most urgently persuade you that by no reasoning you cease from the admonition of the Lombards, or of the Romans, who dwell in that same place, and above all of the heathen and the heretics, that they may be converted to the true and right catholic faith. For thus either the divine mercy, on account of their conversion perhaps, will succour them even in this life; or, if it should befall them to depart, they pass, absolved from their crimes—which is even more to be desired. (Book II, letter 2.) 51.
Therefore Gregory, the most prudent steward of Christ's household, appointed suitable men to the several deaconries and hospices, and decreed that these too, so that they might labour more securely, nay more sagaciously, in the work of piety and mercy, should be fortified with privileges of this kind: Although the devotion of those who with pious intent of solicitude bestow care upon the weak and needy may avail to protect them before all men, yet it is better if, for their own quiet, they be safeguarded concerning what they have done, lest thence should arise for them an occasion of disquiet whence rather they are to be praised.
Since therefore, provoked by the zeal of your intention, we have chosen you, a religious man, to be set over the deaconry which is to furnish the tables of the poor, lest any doubt should arise to you from this administration, we have provided that you be supported by this safeguard, establishing that concerning what you have received to be dispensed for the tables of the poor or the furnishing of the deaconry, or shall hereafter receive, you shall never be compelled by any man, in any manner or by any device, to render account, nor ought you to undergo any molestation.
But since we wish you to be thus absolved from all human accounts, in such wise that you may know you will render to our God an account of those things which we have committed to you, we exhort that sincerity of faith may flourish in you, that your mind may be more intent upon the matters, your care more inclined, your zeal more watchful, your devotion more clear, your dispensing more effectual; to the end that, when, aided by divine help, you shall have skilfully fulfilled this work, both those for whom you bear solicitude may be usefully comforted by the solace of your diligence, and you yourself may receive the good of your reward in eternal life, the grace of our Redeemer recompensing you. (Book XI, letter 27.) 52. These things indeed Gregory practised within and without the city with zeal for piety.
Moreover he sent the religious abbot Probus with much money to Jerusalem, by whose diligence he established a venerable hospice; and, for the servants of God set both there and on Mount Sinai near Arabia under the governance of Palladius, he took care to send yearly, as long as he was able to live, an abundance of daily food and clothing. 53. Nonetheless, throughout divers provinces, for the safeguarding of holy religion and for the vigorous administering of the affairs of the poor, he enrolled industrious men, rectors of the patrimonies, for his Church.
Among these were: Cyprian the deacon of the Sicilian patrimony, Pantaleon the notary of the Syracusan, Fantinus the defensor of the Panormitan, Sergius the defensor of the Calabrian, Romanus the notary of the Apulian, Benenatus the defensor of the Samnite, Anthemius the subdeacon of the Neapolitan, Peter the subdeacon of the Campanian, Candidus the defensor of the Tuscan, Urbicus the defensor of the Sabine, Optatus the defensor of the Nursine, Benedictus the notary-defensor of the Carseolan, Felix the subdeacon of the Appian, Castorius the chartulary of Ravenna, Castorius the notary of Istria, Antonius the subdeacon of Dalmatia, John the notary of Illyricum, Symmachus the defensor of Sardinia, Bonifacius the notary of Corsica, Pantaleon the notary of Liguria, Hieronymus the defensor of the Cottian Alps, Hilarius the notary of the Germanician, and Candidus the priest of the Gallican.
But this most prudent Father Gregory judged should be perpetually observed not only in the Roman Church, but throughout divers Churches. Whence he writes to Januarius, bishop of Cagliari, among other things, saying: It has been indicated to us that, having committed the care of your patrimony to certain laymen, these were afterwards caught in plunderings of your peasants and, through this, in exhausting them; and that they postpone to render back the property which they unbecomingly retain—holding it as though of their own dominion, being of course not subject to your care—and disdain to render you an account of their doings.
But if this is so, it behoves that the matter be strictly examined by you, and that the case between them and the peasants of your Church be more subtly investigated, so that whatever fraud shall be found in them, they may be compelled to render it back with the penalty appointed by the laws. But for the future, your Fraternity must beware lest the goods of the Church of any kind be committed to secular men, and to men not living under our rule, but to approved clerics of your own office; among whom, if anything of depravity can be found, that you may be able to amend in your subjects what has been unlawfully done—men, that is, whom the character of their office among you should rather befit than excuse. (Book X, letter 65.)
He commanded that the several offices of ecclesiastical jurisdiction ought to be committed one by one to several particular persons, asserting that just as in one body we have many members, yet all the members have not the same function (Romans 12), so in the body of the Church, according to the truthful sentence of Paul, in one and the same Spirit, to one this office is to be conferred, to another that is to be committed; nor are the offices of two things to be committed at one time to a single person, however practised, because if the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing?
For just as the variety of the members through their divers functions both preserves the strength of the body and displays its beauty, so the variety of persons, distributed likewise through divers offices, manifests both the fortitude and the comeliness of the holy Church of God. And just as it is unseemly that in the human body one member should discharge the function of another, so it is assuredly hurtful and at the same time most base, if the several ministries of things be not distributed to as many persons. Hence it is that upon certain ambitious men—as may be found in his letters, which for the sake of brevity I have omitted—he frequently imposed the reins of moderation.
Whence to Anthemius the subdeacon, concerning bishop Paschasius, who remained by himself his own major-domo and vicedominus, he charged among other things, saying: But we wish that our brother Paschasius should both ordain for himself a vicedominus and a major-domo, so that he may be able to be fit and ready either for guests arriving or for cases which occur. But if you perceive him negligent, or delaying to fulfil the things we say, all his clergy ought to be employed, so that by common counsel they themselves may choose those whose persons may be fit to be ordained to the offices we have aforesaid. (Book
XI, letter 71.) Likewise he resisted the clerics of Ravenna, who were importunately aiming at the governance of monasteries, writing to John, bishop of Ravenna: It has come to me that in the Churches of your Fraternity certain places long ago consecrated to monasteries have now been made dwellings of clerics, or even of laymen; and while those who are in the Churches feign that they live religiously, they seek to be set over the monasteries, and through their manner of life the monasteries are destroyed. For no one is able both to serve the ecclesiastical offices, and to persist in orderly fashion in the monastic rule, so that he should hold the strictness of the monastery who is daily compelled to remain in the ecclesiastical ministry.
Therefore let your Fraternity hasten to amend this, in whatever place it has been done, because I in no way endure that holy places be destroyed through the ambition of clerics. (Book V, letter 1.) Likewise to Marinianus, bishop of Ravenna: Some time ago it had come to us by the report of many that monasteries established in the parts of Ravenna are altogether oppressed by the lordship of your clerics, so that on the occasion, as it were, of governance, they possess them—grievous it is to say—as though in ownership. Condoling with these not a little, we sent a letter to your predecessor, that he should have amended this in all things. But since he was too soon overtaken by the term of life, lest this burden should remain upon the monasteries, we recall that we wrote the same things to your Fraternity.
And because, as we have learned, in the correction of this matter there has hitherto been a ceasing, we have foreseen to direct these writings to you again. We exhort therefore that, all delay and all excuse set aside, you strive so to relieve those monasteries from oppression of this kind, that henceforth neither clerics nor those who are constituted in holy orders may have, on any other account, licence of access into them, except only for the sake of praying, or if perchance they should be invited to perform the sacred mysteries of the Masses.
But lest, on the occasion of the promotion of any monk or abbot, they should perchance bear any burden, we must take care that if any of the abbots or monks from any monastery whatsoever should proceed to the office of the clericate or to a sacred order, he may not there have any further power, as we have said, lest the monasteries, under the veil of this occasion, be compelled to endure the burdens which we forbid. Let your Holiness therefore not delay, now admonished a second time, to amend all these things with vigilant care, lest, if after this we should perceive you to be negligent—which we do not believe—we be compelled otherwise to provide for the quiet of the monasteries.
For be it known to you that we do not suffer the congregation of the servants of God to be subjected any longer to so great a necessity. (Book VII, letter 45.) Likewise to Maximianus, bishop of Syracuse, after some other things: Presbyters, deacons, and the other clerics of whatsoever order, who in any way serve in the Churches, you shall not permit to be made abbots over the monasteries; but either, the warfare of the clericate being laid aside, let them be promoted to the monastic orders; or if they shall have determined to remain in the place of abbot, let them in no wise be permitted to hold the warfare of the clericate.
For it is quite incongruous that, when one cannot diligently fulfil one of these on account of its greatness, one should be judged fit for both; and thus in turn both the ecclesiastical order be impeded by the monastic life, and the rule of monkhood be impeded by the ecclesiastical business. (Book IV, letter 11.) 55. In what manner indeed Gregory, through the procurators of the ecclesiastical patrimonies, like a certain most luminous Argus, carried round the eyes of his pastoral solicitude through the whole breadth of the world, I have thought perhaps not out of place to touch upon briefly. For he says in a letter to Anthemius the subdeacon:
When you were departing, we gave you a command, and afterwards, I remember, I enjoined it upon you by precepts sent in succession, that you should take care of the poor, and that if you recognized any there to be in want, you should indicate it by writings sent back; and scarcely concerning a few have you cared to do this. But I wish that to the lady Pateria, my aunt, as soon as you receive the present order, you offer forty solidi for the footwear of her servants and four hundred measures of wheat; to the lady Palatina, widow of Urbicus, twenty solidi and three hundred measures of wheat;
to the lady Viviana, widow of Felix, twenty solidi and three hundred measures of wheat—all which together, eighty solidi, are to be reckoned to your accounts. But bring in the whole sum of the tribute with haste, and, the Lord aiding, present yourself on the Paschal day. (Book I, letter 39.) Likewise to the same: It has been intimated to us that certain handmaids of the Lord of the city of Nola, dwelling in the house of Aboridana, endure too great a scarcity of food and clothing. It behoves us, by the precept of God, to succour these, and, as much as we can, the Lord granting, to relieve their want.
Therefore by the present order we have commanded your Experience that in this present ninth indiction you should give them forty solidi in gold, and thereafter, in the succeeding indictions, minister to them twenty solidi yearly, which may be reckoned to your accounts. Moreover to Paulinus, presbyter of the monastery of Saint Erasmus, which is situated on the side of Mount Soracte, and also to two monks serving in the oratory of Saint Archangel, which is known to be in the fortress of Lucullanum near the basilica of Saint Peter, we bid you give two solidi only, which likewise are to be reckoned to your accounts. Do therefore in such wise that you too may obtain a share of the reward of the outlay. (Book I, letter 24.) Likewise to the same:
If, having compassion, we run with kindly mind to the necessities of our neighbours, we shall without doubt find the Lord clement to our petitions. Palatina indeed, an illustrious woman, has intimated by continual pressure that she is subject to very many necessities. Therefore by the present authority we charge your Experience that you do not delay to give her, for her sustenance, thirty solidi yearly, which may afterwards be reckoned to your accounts. Do therefore in such wise that both you may receive the profit of a well-ministered reward, and you may bring our precepts to perfection. (Book I, letter 67, indiction 9.) Likewise to Peter the subdeacon:
It has been intimated to us that Marcellus of the Barunitan Church, there in the city of Palermo, in the monastery of Saint Adrian, assigned to penance, suffers not only need of food, but also endures too great trouble of nakedness. For which reason we find it necessary to charge your Strenuousness by the present order that for his food and clothing, and bedding for his continence, and an allowance for his servant boy, as much as you shall foresee to be enough, you should establish, so that his want and nakedness may by such provision be able to have relief; and that what you shall have assigned to that man may afterwards be able to be reckoned to your accounts.
Do therefore in such wise that you both fulfil our order, and you too, by well disposing this very thing, may be able to share in this same reward. (Book I, letter 18, indiction 9.) Likewise to the same: We have learned, the bearer of these presents informing us, that the monastery of Saint Archangel, which is established in Tropaea, has need of food. Therefore let your Experience diligently keep watch, so that if you shall recognize that the monks of that place conduct themselves well, in whom by manifest truth it shall be evident that they are in need, you shall hasten by all means, supported by this authority, to succour them, knowing that whatever you shall furnish by our precept is to be reckoned to your accounts.
But also the little plot of land belonging to our Church near it, which they assert is assessed at one solidus and two tremisses—if it is so—grant them to hold, under lease title, at the sum of one tremissis. Let it therefore be of your zeal to accomplish all these things thus, if, as we have said, its monks persist diligent in the service of God, as is fitting. (Book II, letter 1.) Likewise to the same: The divine precepts admonish us to love our neighbours as ourselves; and since we are bidden to love them with this charity, how much more ought we to succour them with aids in the necessities of their carnal wants, that we may relieve their straits, if not by all, at least by some supports?
Since therefore we have beheld the son of a most worthy man suffer need, not only by the loss of sight, but also by the poverty of want of food, we have judged it necessary, as far as possibility supplies, to furnish him with relief. Therefore by the present order we charge your Experience that year by year you should minister twenty-four measures of wheat, twelve measures of beans also, and twenty tithe-measures of wine, for the sustenance of his life, which may afterwards be reckoned to your accounts. Do therefore in such wise that the bearer of these presents may suffer no delays in receiving the gifts of the Lord [Another reading: may report to me no delays], and that you, on the day of the Lord, may be found a partaker of a well-dispensed reward. (Book I, letter
46.) Likewise Gregory to Cyprian the deacon: Cosmas says that, out of divers necessities of perils, he is bound by many debts, so that on account of them his sons, he says, are being detained by his creditors. Which matter, if it is so, has altogether moved us. Wherefore we exhort your Charity that, since it is a question of goods to be given to the poor, you investigate his case with the utmost subtlety; and if you find him truly so entangled by the aforesaid debts that there is no substance from which he can pay these very things off, you should see his aforesaid creditors, and, for the sake of recovering his sons, settle the matter for whatever amount you shall have ascertained.
And because he himself, as he says, has nothing wherewith to make restitution, pay it off from the goods of the poor by our present authority, knowing that whatever shall there be given, by your provision, is to be reputed to the tributes of our patrimony. (Book III, letter 58.) The same to the same: Zeno, our brother and fellow-bishop, has made known that some in his city are suffering need of nourishment. And since, as far as is possible, we desire to bring them some relief, therefore by these present writings we assign your Charity to give to our aforesaid brother a thousand measures of wheat, or, if he shall be able to bear away more, up to two thousand.
We exhort therefore that in furnishing these you bring no delay or excuse, to the end that, while time permits, he may both, with God's aid, return to his own without peril, and be able the sooner to succour those suffering need. (Book VI, letter 4, indiction 14.) Likewise Gregory to Eusebius, the religious abbot: Let your Charity believe me, that I was greatly saddened at your sadness, and the rest. Moreover we have caused a hundred solidi to be given to your Charity through Peter the subdeacon, which I beg you to receive without offence. (Book II, letter 36, indiction 10.) Likewise Gregory to Candidus the defensor: It befits the pontifical subsidy to be present to those suffering need.
For which reason we charge your Experience by the present authority that to Albinus, deprived of sight, the son of the late Martinus, a colonus, you cease not to furnish two tremisses each year without any delay, not doubting that this is without question to be reckoned to your accounts. (Book IV, letter 28.) Likewise Gregory to Fantinus the defensor: The bearer of these presents, Cosmas the Syrian, has declared that in the business which he was transacting he contracted a debt; which we believe to be true, both by the testimony of many others, and by his tears.
And because he owed one hundred and fifty solidi, I wished that his creditors should come to some agreement with him, since the law too holds that a free man is in no way to be held for a debt if there be no property that can be adjudged toward that debt. It is possible, then, as he asserts, to bring his creditors to consent to eighty solidi. But since it is much to demand eighty solidi from a man who has nothing, we have sent you sixty solidi through your notary, that you may speak subtly with those same creditors and give the reason why they cannot, according to the laws, hold his son whom they are said to hold. And if it can be done, let them come down to something less than we have given;
and whatever remains of those sixty solidi, hand it over to him, that with his son he may be able thereby to live. But if nothing remains, then strive to reduce that same sum of his debt, so that he may afterwards be free to labour for himself; yet do this so carefully that, once the solidi are received, they draw up for him in writing a full discharge. (Book IV, letter 45.) Likewise Gregory to Castorius, deacon and chartulary of Ravenna, among other things: The monk Valerianus, whom you handed over reformed to the monastery of blessed John situated in Classis, we without doubt wish to remain in that monastery.
Moreover, lest your Experience suffer any want in expenses, out of the revenues of the holy Roman Church which have there been gathered by your provision, we wish you to make all your expenses; and if anything be left over, bring it to us when you come. (Book V, letter 28.) Likewise Gregory to Romanus the defensor: The oracles of the divine precepts admonish us to furnish ecclesiastical assistance to those who are suffering want.
Since therefore our most beloved son the deacon Cyprianus has asserted that Gaudiosus, defensor of our see, who is proved to dwell at Syracuse, is constrained by the want of poverty, we therefore charge your Experience by the authority of these presents, that from the present second indiction you do not delay to give him six solidi each year; so that both he may enjoy the solace of this remedy, and you may know without doubt that what you have given is to be credited to your accounts. (Book IX, letter 39, second indiction.) Likewise Gregory to Libertinus, ex-praetor: How great is the straitness of this world that presses upon you, we are not unaware.
But since for those set in the utmost tribulation the only consolation is the mercy of the Creator, place your hope in Him, turn yourselves to Him with your whole mind—He who both justly permits whom He wills to be afflicted, and mercifully sets free him who trusts in Him. To Him therefore give thanks, and patiently endure whatever has been brought upon you. For it is the mark of a right mind to bless God not only in prosperity, but also to praise Him in adversities. In these things therefore which you suffer, let no murmur against the Lord creep into your heart, for to what end our Creator works this is unknown. For perhaps, noble son, set in prosperity you offended Him in something, whence He wishes to purge you with a merciful bitterness.
And therefore let neither temporal affliction break you, nor let the loss of goods torment you, for if in adversities, rendering thanks, you make God propitious to you by your patience, both the things that have been lost will be restored multiplied, and above these eternal joys are bestowed. But I beg you not to reckon it an injury that we have written that twenty yearly garments be provided for your servants through Romanus the defensor, for concerning the goods of blessed Peter the Apostle, though what is offered be small, they are ever to be received as a great blessing, since He will be able both here to bestow greater things upon you, and with almighty God to grant eternal benefits. (Book X, letter 31.) Likewise Gregory to Philip the presbyter:
I have received the letters of your Charity, in which you took care to make known to me that the venerable man Andreas the presbyter has departed from this light. At his release I rejoiced, because he has attained to the eternal joys which he ever sought. But concerning the solidi which were left at Jerusalem by our son the abbot Probus for the building of a xenodochium (hospice), that which had been resolved as to what ought to be done I could not change, but I have sent as a small blessing to your Holiness fifty solidi. (Book XIII, letter 29.) 56. It would be long and exceedingly difficult if I were to recount even after this manner the works of his almsgiving;
this I briefly affirm: that he both distributed unbidden to those who did not ask, and cheerfully ministered to all who asked of him. Whence to Elias, presbyter and abbot of the province of Isauria: 'The Gospels,' he says, 'as you commanded, we have sent.' And a little after: 'But you wished fifty solidi to be sent to you for the needs of your cell, which, thinking them to be much, you gave back ten of them to us, that we might send forty. But lest perchance even this should be too much, you deigned still to bestow yet others of them upon us. Yet because we found you exceedingly kind in your continence, responding in like manner to that same kindness, we have sent fifty. And lest perchance it should be too little, we add another ten.'
And lest indeed even this should be too little, we have caused another twelve to be joined thereto. In this moreover we recognize your charity, that you presume of us just as you ought to presume. (Book V, letter 37.) 57. Likewise to Julianus: Receiving the writings of your Glory, I opened them gladly to be read, but sadly folded them up again when read through. For in them it was said that out of a sense of shame you had for a long time kept silent to me the things that ought to have been spoken. And it is certain that he is loved less who is still blushed at. But now I am grieved, because I have learned that I am loved by you less than I had reckoned. In this, however, you greatly restrain me, if by diligently providing you assiduously seek out for me occasions of reward.
Nor ought it to be a matter of bashfulness for anyone to speak inopportunely of alms, when it is clear that he holds the goods not as his own but for dispensing to the poor. Concerning the occasions of reward, therefore, you ought to have acted freely with the bishop, even if you did not know what my mind might be in its love for you. For since we both wholly love your Glory, and hold, as you know, the place of dispensation in the goods of the poor, your bashfulness, I confess, was very blameworthy. This I therefore pursue by rebuking it with so many words, that I may utterly drive it out from your heart, and may have in occasions of reward great solace from your provision.
To your monastery, therefore, which was built by you in the city of Catania, we have appointed, by a page of precept issued through Adrianus, notary and rector of the patrimony, that ten solidi be given yearly. These we ask to be received without offence, for this is offered to you not as our oblation, but as the blessing of holy Peter, prince of the Apostles. (Book XIII, letter 19.) 58. Truly, because there are some who indeed bestow the things they have, but do not cease to snatch the goods of others which they do not possess, and while they eagerly desire to appear very munificent, they violently take away from those who have what they may bestow as if mercifully upon those who have not—here I insert two letters of Gregory, by which the innocence of his liberality may be wonderfully shown.
For he says in the letter to Pantaleo the notary: Your Experience is mindful of what and of what sort an oath he furnished at the most sacred body of blessed Peter the Apostle. Whence we too, being secure, have committed to him the cases of inquiry in the patrimony of the Syracusan region. It behoves you therefore always to have before your eyes your own faith and the fear of that same blessed Peter the Apostle, and so to act that you may be reprehensible neither by men in the present life, nor by almighty God in the last judgement.
Indeed, from the narration of Valerius our chartulary, we have learned that you found a modius (measure) of twenty-five sextarii, with which the coloni (tenant-farmers) of the Church were being compelled to give their grain—which we have utterly abhorred, and we grieved that you performed that same inquiry so tardily. But because you record that you have broken that same modius and made a just one, we rejoiced. Yet since the aforesaid chartulary also took care to indicate to us the sum which has already been collected in your Experience's hands from the frauds of the lessees in two territories, just as we rejoice that you have diligently acted, breaking the unjust modius;
so we also think concerning our past sins in this way, lest, if those things which the lessees fraudulently took from the rustics should come to us, the sins which were committed by them should be drawn upon us. And therefore we wish, with all faith and all purity, with the fear of almighty God considered, and the strictness of blessed Peter the Apostle recalled to memory, that your Experience should register through each estate the poor and needy coloni, and out of those moneys which were found in the frauds should purchase cows, sheep, and pigs, and distribute them to the individual poor coloni. This we wish you to do with the counsel of the most reverend man the lord bishop John and of Adrianus our chartulary and rector.
But if, for the sake of counsel, it be necessary, my son the lord Julianus too ought to be called in, in such wise that no other should know of this, but that it be altogether secret. You therefore among yourselves consider carefully whether the same continence (allowance) ought to be given to those same poor coloni in gold, or indeed in moneys. But whatever shall have been jointly resolved, first make a registration, as I said before, and afterwards strive to distribute to each according to the quality of his poverty. For I, as the Teacher of the Gentiles testifies, have all things, and abound; nor do I seek moneys, but a reward (Philippians iv). So then act, that on the day of judgement, concerning the same matter of reward which has been committed to your Experience, you may show me the fruit which you have produced.
But if you shall have acted purely and faithfully and vigorously, both here you will receive it in your sons, and afterwards you will have full recompense at the examination of the eternal Judge. (Book XI, letter 3.) Likewise the same to Peter the subdeacon: That we sent back your responsalis (agent) tardily—being entangled with the occupations of the Paschal festivity—we were not able to release him more speedily. But examining subtly all the matters concerning which you took care that determination should be made, how we have arranged them you shall learn below. We have learned that the rustics of the Church are grievously burdened in the prices of grain, so that the fixed sum is not observed for them at a time of abundance in the comparison.
And we have willed that, according to the public prices, at every time—whether the grain grows less or more—the measure of comparison be maintained for them. But the grain that perishes by shipwreck we wish to be reckoned (as lost) in all respects, yet in such wise that no negligence in transmitting be made by you, lest, while the time for transmitting is neglected, loss be generated from your fault.
But we have perceived it to be very iniquitous and unjust that anything be taken from the rustics of the Church for the sextariatica (measuring-fee), and that they be compelled to give by a larger modius than is brought into the granaries of the Church. Wherefore by the present admonition we command that grain never ought to be received from the rustics of the Church by a modius of more than eighteen sextarii, unless perchance there be something which the sailors, according to custom, take in addition, which they themselves attest is lost in the ships. We have learned also that in some places or manses of the Church a most unjust exaction is made, so that from seventy-three and a half (per hundred)—which is a shame to say—the lessees are exacted.
And still not even this suffices, but besides, something is said to be exacted according to a usage now of many years. Which thing we utterly detest, and wish to be cut off from the patrimony to the very root. But let your Experience weigh both this—what is taken over by the pound-weight—and, in other small burdens, whatever is received from the rustics beyond the equity of reason, and let it reduce all into the sum of the rent; and, as far as the strength of the rustics can bear, let them pay the full and weighty rent at seventy per (measure of) wine, and let them not be obliged to exact either carob-pods beyond the pounds, nor a larger pound, but by your estimation, so far as their capacity suffices, let it grow into the sum of the rent, and so let no foul exaction at all be made.
But lest after my death these same burdens which we now withdraw from the imposition, and have caused to grow into the head (principal) of the rent, should again be added under any pretext, and the sum of the rent be found increased, and the rustics be compelled besides to pay the burdens of the addition—we wish that you make the receipts of security concerning the rents in such wise that, first, you state that each one ought to pay so much rent, the carob-pods, the vegetables, or the grain-dues being there set aside. But what used to accrue from these small items to the use of the rector, we wish that from the present order it come to your use. Above all, we wish you to attend carefully to this, that unjust weights be not employed in exacting the rents;
but if you find any such, break them, and set up new and correct ones; for my son the deacon Servusdei has already found such things as displeased him, but he had not license to change these. Above just weights, therefore, apart from the excepted and cheap victuals, we wish nothing else to be exacted from the coloni of the Church. Moreover, we have learned that the first payment of the burdatio (land-tax) grievously straitens our rustics, so that before they are able to sell their produce, they are compelled to pay the tributes. And while they receive loans of this from public tax-collectors, since they have nothing of their own whence to give, they pay heavy interest from that same benefit. Whence it comes to pass that they are straitened by grievous losses.
Whence by the present admonition we command that no more than eighteen sextarii ever be exacted, and that whatever they were able to receive as a loan from strangers for that same cause be given by your Experience out of the public (funds), and be received from the rustics of the Church little by little, as they shall have the means; lest, while they are straitened at the (due) time, that which could afterwards have sufficed them for payment, being first compelled, they sell too cheaply, and this in no way suffice them. It has also come to us that from the marriages of the rustics immoderate fees are received. Concerning which we command that every marriage-fee in no way exceed the sum of one solidus. If any are poor, they ought to give even less.
But if any are rich, let them by no means transgress the aforesaid sum of one solidus. This marriage-fee we in no way wish to be reckoned in our account, but to profit to the advantage of the lessees. We have learned also that, when certain lessees die, their kinsfolk are not permitted to succeed, but their goods are drawn to the uses of the Church. Concerning which matter we determine that the kinsfolk of the dying who dwell in the possession of the Church ought to succeed them as heirs, nor should anything of the substance of the dying be withdrawn. But if anyone leave little children behind, until they come to such an age that they are able to govern their own substance, let cautious persons be chosen to whom the goods of their parents ought to be handed over for safekeeping.
We have learned also that if anyone of the household (familia) commits a fault, vengeance is taken not on himself, but on his substance. Concerning which matter we command that whoever commits a fault be indeed punished in himself, as is fitting, but let there be complete abstention from his goods, unless perchance some small thing which can profit to the use of the executor who shall have been sent to him. We have learned also that, whenever a lessee has unjustly taken away anything from his colonus, this indeed is exacted from the lessee, but is not restored to him from whom it was taken.
Concerning which matter we command that whatever has been violently taken from anyone of the household be restored to that same one from whom it was taken, and not profit to our advantage, lest we ourselves seem to be authors of the violence. Moreover, we wish that whenever you send those who are in the service of your Experience on any matters which are outside the patrimony, they should indeed receive small fees from these, yet in such wise that these profit to their advantage, so that they seek no fees of gain thence for themselves under the appearance of our advantage, for we do not wish the purse of the Church to be defiled with foul gains.
We command also that your Experience take the utmost care to observe this: that lessees on the estates of the Church never be (appointed) for a fee, lest, while a fee is sought, the lessees be frequently changed. From which changing what else is brought about, but that the ecclesiastical estates are never cultivated? But let even the leaseholds themselves be moderated according to the sum of the rent. Through cells and cellars we do not wish more to be received from the estates of the Church than is customary. But those things which we ordered to be procured, let them be procured from strangers. It has moreover come to us that three pounds of gold were unjustly taken from Peter, lessee of Subpatriana:
concerning which matter make subtle inquiry of Fantinus the defensor, and if they were manifestly, unjustly, and improperly taken, restore them without any delay. We have learned also that the rustics again paid the burdatio (land-tax) which Theodosius, though already exacted from them, had by no means paid over, so that they were exacted twice over. This was done because his substance did not suffice for the debt to the Church. But since we have been informed through our son the deacon Servusdei that this same loss can be sufficiently made good out of the goods of his substance, we wish that five hundred and seven solidi be restored to those same rustics without any diminution, lest they seem to have been exacted twice over.
But if above the loss of the rustics there also remain forty solidi from the goods of Theodosius, which you are said to have in your keeping, we wish that they be returned to his daughter, so that she may recover her own goods which she had given in pledge. To her also we wish her father's little casket to be restored. Campanianus, the glorious Master of Soldiers, had left twelve solidi yearly to John his notary from the Varronian estate: these we command to be given without any doubt each year to the granddaughter of Euplus the lessee, although he has received all the movables of that same Euplus, save only the solidi. We wish you also to give from that man's solidi twenty-five solidi.
Some silver salver is said to have been pledged for one solidus, and a chalice is said to have been pledged for six solidi. Having questioned Dominicus the secretary, or others who can know, receive the debt (payment), and restore the aforesaid vessels. We give thanks, moreover, to your solicitude, because concerning the affair of my brother I charged you that you should send back his silver, and you consigned it to oblivion, as if something were being said to you by the lowest slave of yours. Let now, or at least at once, not your Experience but your negligence strive to fulfil this, or whatever of his you shall have learned to have been in the keeping of Antoninus, send it back with all speed.
Concerning the affair of Salpingus the Jew a certain letter has been found, which we have had transmitted to you, that reading it over, and subtly learning his case, or that of a certain widow who is said to be entangled in the same business, concerning the fifty-one solidi which are known to be repayable, you may make a response as shall seem just to you, in such wise that the goods of others be in no way unjustly defrauded from the creditors. To Antoninus half of his legacy has been given, half shall be redeemed: which half we wish to be fulfilled to him from the common substance; and not only to him, but also to the defensores, and to the pilgrims, to whom he left anything under the title of legacy, and to the household we wish the legacy to be paid, which nevertheless pertains to us.
Having reckoned up the account, therefore, pay for our part, that is, for nine ounces (of the inheritance). Concerning the solidi of the Church of Canusium, we wish that you bestow something on the clergy of that same Church, so that both those who now suffer want may have some sustenance, and, if God shall have willed a bishop to be ordained there, he may have whence to subsist. Concerning lapsed priests or any others of the clergy, we wish you to observe that you mix yourself with no contamination in their goods, but seek out the poorest regular monasteries, which know how to live according to God;
and to those same monasteries hand over the lapsed for penance, and let the goods of the lapsed profit in that place in which they are handed over to do penance, so that they themselves may have support from their goods, who bear the care of their correction. But if they have kinsfolk, let their goods be given to their lawful kinsfolk, yet in such wise that the stipend of those who have been given over to penance ought to be sufficiently provided. But if any of the ecclesiastical household—priests, or levites (deacons), or monks, or clerics, or any others whatever—have lapsed, we wish them to be given over to penance, but their goods not to be withdrawn from ecclesiastical right, yet let them receive to their own use that whereby they may subsist for doing penance;
lest, if they be stripped bare, they be burdensome to the places in which they have been given over. If any have kinsfolk in the possession (of the Church), their goods are to be handed over to those same kinsfolk, so that by them they may be preserved for the right of the Church. Three years ago the subdeacons of all the Churches of Sicily had been forbidden to have any intercourse with their wives, after the manner of the Roman Church. This seems to me harsh and improper: that one who has not found the practice of that same continence, nor beforehand proposed chastity, should be compelled to be separated from his wife, and through this—which God forbid—fall the worse.
Whence it seems to me that from the present day it be said to all bishops that they presume to make no one a subdeacon, save him who shall have promised that he will live chastely, so that both the past things, which were not sought by a purpose of the mind, be not violently exacted, and future things be cautiously guarded against. But those who, after that same prohibition which was made three years ago, have lived continently with their spouses, are to be praised and rewarded, and to be exhorted that they may remain in their good. But those who, after the prohibition was made, were unwilling to contain themselves from their wives, we do not wish to come to the sacred order, because no one ought to approach to the ministry of the altar, save he whose chastity
shall have been approved before the ministry was undertaken. To Liberatus the trader, who has commended himself to the Church, and who dwells on the estate of Cinciana, we wish a yearly allowance to be made by you. Let him himself estimate the sum of that allowance, of what sort it ought to be, so that, being reported to us, it may be credited in your accounts. Concerning the present indiction, I have already received through our son the deacon Servusdei that a certain monk John, dying, left Fantinus the defensor his heir to six ounces (of his estate). To him indeed hand over what has been left, but adjure him that he presume not to do this further, but appoint for his labour what he may receive, so that his labour may not be for him in vain;
and let him remember this, that he who subsists on the stipends of the Church should not pant after his own gains. But if anything, without sin and without the appetite of covetousness, shall have come to the Church through those who conduct the Church's affairs, it is fitting that they themselves ought not to be empty of the fruit of their labour, but let it be reserved to our judgement how they ought to be rewarded. Concerning the silver of Rusticiana make subtle inquiry, and execute what seems just to you. Admonish Alexander, the magnificent man, that he ought to settle his affair with the holy Church. But if perchance he neglect to do this, execute that same affair with the fear of God, honesty being preserved, as you can.
In which matter we wish you also to bestow something, and, if it can be done, that what is to be given to others be remitted to him, provided only that the case which he has with us be concluded. The donation of the handmaid of God who has lapsed, and (whose goods were) given to the monastery, restore with all delay set aside, so that that same place, as I said above, may have the stipends of her goods, which bears the labours of her care. But also whatever is held by others from her substance, gather it up again, and hand it over to the aforesaid monastery. The pensions of the hospices on the New Way (via nova), as many as you indicated to me—because you have them in your keeping—direct to us. But to the agent (actionarius) whom you have appointed in that same patrimony, as seems good to you, bestow something.
Concerning the handmaid of God who was with Theodosius, named Extranea, it seems to me that you should either make her an allowance, if you perceive it useful, or else certainly return the donation which she made. The house of the monastery which Antonius, having given thirty solidi, had taken from the monastery, the solidi being received back, restore with all delay set aside. The onyx flasks, the truth being subtly inquired into, restore—which I have sent back through the bearer of these presents. Saturninus, if he is free and not occupied with you, direct to us. Felix, the lessee of the lady Campana, whom she had left free, or whom she had ordered to be unexamined (as to his accounts), said that seventy-two solidi were taken from him by Maximus the subdeacon;
for the giving of which he asserted that he either sold or pledged all his property which he had in Sicily. But the scholastici (advocates) said that he cannot be unexamined as to the frauds; yet while he was returning to us from Campania, a storm having arisen, he died. His wife and children we wish you to seek out, and whatever he had pledged or sold, release what was pledged, and from what was sold restore the price; and besides, furnish them some sustenance, because Maximus had sent him into Sicily, and there had taken from him what he asserted. Ascertain therefore what things were taken away, and to his wife and children restore them without any delay. Read over all these things carefully, and lay aside all that familiar negligence of yours.
My writings to the rustics which I have directed, cause to be read over throughout all the estates, that they may know what they ought to defend against their acts of violence by our authority, and let there be given to them either the authentic copies or the exemplars thereof. See that you keep all things without diminution, for concerning those things which I write to you for the preserving of justice, I am absolved, and you, if you are negligent, are bound. Consider the terrible Judge who is coming, and let your consideration now tremble at His advent, lest then it fear without cause too late, when before Him heaven and earth shall have trembled. You have heard what I wish; see what you do. (Book I, letter 44.) 59. Let it suffice that I have thus far recounted concerning the innocence of Gregory's liberality.
Moreover, I shall by no means pass over the fact that, in a time of famine, he was eager to procure grain, so that he might have the means to relieve the poor of Christ. For in another letter he writes to the same subdeacon Peter, among other things: 'Purchase new grain from abroad with fifty pounds of gold, and store it in Sicily in places where it will not spoil, so that in the month of February we may dispatch there as many ships as we can, and the same grain may be brought to us. But even if we fail to send them, do you yourself provide the ships, and, with the Lord's help, send us this same grain in the month of February, excepting only the grain which we now, in the month of September or October, according to custom, expect to be sent.'
So then let your diligence see to it that the grain of the ecclesiastical tenants be gathered without any harassment of anyone; for the harvest here has been so meagre that, unless by God's help grain be gathered from Sicily, a severe famine threatens. (Book I, letter 72.) 60. A certain hermit, a man of great virtue, who possessed nothing in the world save a single she-cat which, often caressing it, he cherished in his bosom as though a companion of his dwelling, came to know of the abundance of this generosity. He is said to have prayed to the Lord that He would deign to show him what mansion of future reward he ought to hope for, who, for love of Him forsaking the world, possessed nothing of its riches.
And when he was sleeping one night, he learned that it had been revealed to him that he ought to hope for a mansion prepared for himself together with Gregory, the Roman pontiff. But he, groaning mightily, thought that his voluntary poverty of possessions and the fasts of his great withdrawal had profited him little, if he were to receive a mansion together with one who overflowed with such worldly riches. But when day and night, sighing, he compared the Gregorian riches with his own poverty, resting on another night, he heard the Lord saying to him in his sleep:
'Since it is not the possession of riches that makes a man rich, but greed, why do you dare to compare your poverty with Gregory's riches? For you are shown to love, by daily stroking and sharing with no one, that she-cat which you have, more than he loves those great riches which, not by loving but by despising, and by bestowing them liberally upon all, he scatters abroad.' Thus rebuked, the solitary gave thanks to God; and he who had thought his own merit diminished if it were compared with Gregory's, began to pray more earnestly that he might one day be worthy to obtain a mansion together with him. But now let the end of this second book arrive, so that the third, with the Lord's help, may pursue what follows.