教牧守則·對話錄與書信 第 351 章

Gregory to Cyprian, deacon and rector of the patrimony of Sicily. Concerning the Manichaeans who are on our estates, I have frequently admonished your Beloved that you ought to pursue them with all diligence, and to recall them to the catholic faith. But if time allows, inquire diligently through yourself; if, however, on account of other matters it is not permitted, then through others. It has moreover come to me that there are Hebrews on our estates who by no means wish to be converted to God. But it seems to me that you ought to send letters throughout all the estates on which these Hebrews are known to be, promising them specially on my behalf that whoever of them shall be converted to the true Lord our God Jesus Christ, the burden of his holding shall be diminished in some part.

This too I will to be done thus: that if any of them shall be converted, if he has a rent of a solidus, a tremissis is to be remitted to him; if of three or four, one solidus is to be remitted. If anything more, the remission ought to be made according to the same measure, or certainly according as your Beloved foresees, so that both the burden may be relieved for him who is converted, and ecclesiastical profit be not weighed down by grievous loss. Nor do we do this unprofitably, if for the sake of lightening the burdens of their rents we lead them to the grace of Christ; for although they themselves come less faithfully, yet those who shall be born of them will already be baptized more faithfully. Either them, therefore, or their children we gain. And so whatever we remit of the rent for Christ's sake is no grievous thing.

Moreover, before this time, when John the deacon came, your Beloved wrote me some things, all of which, reading them over at that same hour, I let many days pass, and after a delay of many days, as one keeping in memory the matter I had read, I answered each point. But now, as I think, one chapter has slipped from me, and I suspect that I have replied nothing concerning it. For you had written that loans of solidi should be given to the peasants through the hands of certain fit contractors, lest, taking from others, they be burdened either in forced labors or in the prices of goods. This chapter was most pleasing to me. And if indeed I have already written about it, keep to those things that were written.

But if, as I suspect, I wrote back nothing about it, then with a sure reminder you ought not to delay in giving the solidi for the benefit of the peasants, since both the ecclesiastical property does not perish, and that benefit is provided to the peasants. But also if there are any other things which you consider to be useful, laying aside all ambiguity, you ought to carry them out. Gregory to Peter, notary in Regium. The vessels of the Church of Miria, which Severinus, once bishop of Squillace, had carried off with him, the bearers of the present letter requested to be restored to them. Since therefore ecclesiastical goods ought to be safeguarded with careful solicitude, this has seemed good to us: that in that same city a bishop should be ordained to whom those vessels may be handed over.

But since they mention that Leo the archdeacon and other clergy of that same Church are there, we charge your Experience that you admonish them to set out to their own Church, and to choose a bishop to be ordained for themselves, so that, when he has there by God's favor been consecrated, he himself may receive the goods of his Church without any ambiguity.