教牧守則·對話錄與書信 第 493 章

Gregory to Leo, Bishop of Catania. To this end the order of reason has distinguished the grades of places and has established that there be judgments: that neither may superiors have opportunity in vain to occupy themselves in oppressing their subjects, nor again may subjects have unbridled license to resist their superiors. And therefore, since through the fifteenth indiction lately elapsed the acolytes of your church, having lodged a written complaint against you, have complained of certain things, lest either they should remain under the ill-will of your Fraternity, or we should seem not to hear them in their petitions, we have committed these matters to be subtly inquired into by our most beloved son Cyprian the deacon.

He, taking cognizance of what was enjoined, has more subtly laid open to our inquiry what he decreed concerning each item. And because, among other things, you have decreed concerning the fourth portion that it be so held by the clergy—that those who are placed in the sacred office receive one portion, and the clergy receive the remaining two—the bearers of these presents, Donatus the presbyter, and also Theodosianus and Viator the deacons, bringing to us a report of the others also who are constituted in the sacred order, have complained that this was decreed prejudicially, to their burden, against the ancient custom; inasmuch as they assert that the clergy has always obtained two parts and a third of that same fourth, and they have petitioned that this definition may not remain to their prejudice;

we have judged that this ought to be committed to the disposition of your Fraternity. We wish therefore that whatever may perhaps accrue to your Church, whether from revenue or from any other title, you should set apart from it a fourth portion without any diminution, and that you should discreetly divide it, according to the fear of God, among presbyters, deacons, and clergy, as shall seem good to you; yet so that, as the merit of each one's labor shall require, you may be free, according as you shall foresee, to bestow with liberality, in order that both those who deserve it may be consoled by this temporal benefit, and others, with the Lord's help, may strive to make progress by imitation of them unto better things.