教牧守則·對話錄與書信 第 617 章

Gregory to Lord Venantius, patrician, and the spouses of Italy. Certain persons coming from Sicily I took care, with the affection I owed, to question concerning the well-being of your excellency. But concerning the persistence of illnesses they gave me sorrowful answers. Saying this, I too find nothing else about myself that I ought to report to you, save that, my sins bringing it about, behold now it is eleven months that it is very rare if I am ever able to rise from my bed. For I am pressed by such and so many pains of gout and of troubles, that my life is to me a most grievous punishment. For daily I fail in pain, and, awaiting the remedy of death, I sigh.

In the clergy indeed of this city and among the people such fevers' languors have rushed in, that scarcely any free man, scarcely any servant has remained who could be fit for any office or ministry. And from the neighbouring cities slaughters of mortality are daily announced to us. But how Africa is being laid waste by mortality and languors, the nearer you are, the more subtly, I believe, you have learned. And they who come from the East report graver desolations. In all these things, therefore, since, as the end of the world draws near, you recognize the general stroke to be present, you ought not to be too greatly afflicted over your own troubles.

But, as befits the wise and noble, bring back the whole heart to the care of souls, and the more the strict judgment draws near, the more fear it. Attend to the pursuits of piety, of which it is written, that it has the promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come (1 Timothy 4:8). And Almighty God is able both to preserve the life of your excellency here for a long time, and, after many courses of years, to lead it to the joys eternal. My most sweet daughters, the lady Barbara and the lady Antonina, I ask to be greeted in my stead; whom I pray that supernal grace may protect, and grant them to prosper in all things.