Gregory to Rufinus, bishop of Ephesus. The ancient charity of your friendship has moved us to visit Your Fraternity by these present writings. For we are relieved with great joy that from the token of your welfare we have learned that all is prosperous with you; but in these things we beseech the Almighty Lord that, just as He has granted you in the present life—which is in a manner the shadow of the life to come—to rejoice in the transitory soundness of the body, so in that heavenly fatherland, in which is the true life, He may cause you to rejoice over the salvation of the soul made perfect, and to be glad with common exultation. The bearer of these letters, therefore, desiring to be commended to you by our letters, being questioned by us whether, as befits a cleric, he had learned letters, answered that he was ignorant of them.
What further commendation we should make of him before Your Fraternity, therefore, I know not, save that you ought to be solicitous for his soul, and to keep watch over it with pastoral zeal, so that, to him who knows not how to read, your tongue may be a book, that in the good of your preaching or of your work he may behold something to imitate. For the most part the living voice is wont to draw the heart more strictly than a reading spoken in passing. But while this inner teaching of spiritual mastery is imparted to him by you, let the outer solicitude also not be lacking; so that by its aid he may attain to the seeking of spiritual things; lest, if this be despised, there be lacking one to whom preaching may be ministered.