Gregory to Bertha, queen of the Angles. He who, after earthly power, desires to acquire the glory of the heavenly kingdom, ought to labour the more earnestly for his Creator, in order to make gain, that by the steps of his own working he may be able to ascend to those things which he desires — even as we rejoice that you have done. For when our most beloved son Laurence the presbyter and Peter the monk were returning, they related what glory your Excellency had shown toward our most reverend brother and fellow-bishop Augustine, and how great a zeal, and what manner of charity, you had bestowed upon him. And we blessed Almighty God, who has been graciously pleased to reserve for your reward the conversion of the nation of the Angles.
For as through Helena of revered memory, mother of the most pious emperor Constantine, He kindled the hearts of the Romans to the Christian faith, so also through the zeal of your Excellency we trust that His mercy is at work in the nation of the Angles. And indeed you ought long since, by the good of your prudence — being, as it were, a Christian — to have bent the mind of our glorious son your husband, so that for the salvation of his kingdom and of his own soul he might follow the faith which you hold; whereby both concerning him and, through him, concerning the conversion of the whole nation, a worthy recompense might arise for you in the heavenly joys. For after, as we have said, your Excellency was both fortified with right faith and instructed in letters, this ought to have been neither slow nor difficult for you.
And since, God willing, it is now a fitting time, act so that, with divine grace cooperating, you may with increase be able to repair what has been neglected. Therefore strengthen the mind of your glorious husband by constant exhortation in the love of the Christian faith; let your solicitude pour into him an increase in the love of God, and so inflame his heart, even for the fullest conversion of the nation subject to him, that he may both offer to the Almighty Lord a great sacrifice from the zeal of your devotion, and that the things which have been reported concerning you may both grow and be proved true in every way;
because your good deeds have already reached not only the Romans, who have prayed the more earnestly for your life, but also, through diverse places, and even as far as Constantinople to the most serene emperor. Whence, just as gladness has come to us from the comforts of your Christianity, so likewise may joy come to be among the angels in heaven over your perfect work. So, with the help of the aforesaid most reverend brother and fellow-bishop of ours, and of the servants of God whom we sent thither, show yourself devoutly and with all your strength in the conversion of your nation, that both here you may reign happily with our glorious son your husband, and after long spans of years may also receive the joys of the life to come, which know no end.
And we pray Almighty God that He may kindle the heart of your Excellency, both for the doing of the things we have spoken of, with the fire of His grace, and that He may grant you the fruit of eternal reward through a working pleasing to Himself. Gregory to Venantius, the former monk, patrician of Syracuse. Rendering the address of salutation that is due, I have wished to speak of the things I suffer. But I think it unfitting to relate what you already know. For I am tormented by the pains of gout, which are hurtful to me and to you not unequally; while among you they grow exceedingly strong, they have caused us to decrease from life. Among which pains, what else ought we to do but always recall our sins to memory, and give thanks to Almighty God? Since we who have sinned greatly through the flattery of the flesh are purged through the affliction of the flesh.
It must also be known by us that the present penalty, if it converts the mind of the afflicted, is the end of the preceding fault; but if it does not at all convert him to the fear of the Lord, it is the beginning of the penalty to follow. Therefore we must take care, and above all watch in tears with a total conversion of mind, lest we pass from torment to torments. It must also be considered with how great a dispensation of loving-kindness our Creator deals with us, in that He continually strikes us who are worthy of death, and yet as yet does not slay us. For He threatens what He is about to do, and yet does not do it, so that the pains going before us may terrify us, and, when we are converted to the fear of the strict Judge, may hide us from His chastisement at the term of our life.
For who could tell, who could enumerate, how many, given over to their own luxury, breaking out also into blasphemies and pride, persisting in robberies and iniquities until the day of their death, so lived in this world that they never suffered even a headache, but were suddenly struck and delivered over to the fires of hell? We, therefore, have a token that we are not forsaken, we who are continually scourged, as Scripture testifies, which says: Whom the Lord loves He chastises, and He scourges every son whom He receives (Hebrews 12:6). In these very strokes of God, then, let us recall to memory both His gifts and the losses of our own guilt. Let us weigh how great good the Lord has done upon our malice, and how great evils we have committed under His goodness.
Let us fulfil what the Lord says through the prophet: Bring me back to remembrance, that we may be judged together (Isaiah 43:26). Let us now be judged in our own thought with God, lest afterward we be strictly judged by God. For what does Paul say? If we would judge ourselves, we should not indeed be judged by the Lord (1 Corinthians 11:31). Whosoever, therefore, hastens to escape the strictness of the sentence of the judgment to follow, let him by the bitterness of penitence put to death within himself all the sweetness of the present life. But whatever goods of this kind there are, whose gifts are they, save the Creator's?
But the gift of God, which through delight in itself separates us from the love of God, ought not to be freely ours, lest we prefer the gift to the Giver, and, while we receive good things, being also evil, we be sundered from His fear from that very source whence we ought to have grown in His fear. But may the Creator of all, that is, Almighty God, pour into your mind by the inspiration of His Spirit these things which we speak to you in our letters, and cleanse you from all defilements of fault, and grant you both here the joy of His consolation and one day with Himself eternal rewards. My sweetest daughters, the lady Barbara and the lady Antonina, I ask to be greeted in my stead.