教牧守則·對話錄與書信 第 817 章

Gregory to Anthemius, subdeacon of Campania. As often as we hear those things concerning our brothers and fellow bishops which both show them to be reprehensible and are able to engender sadness in us, necessity not slightly compels us to think about their amendment. Since therefore it has been reported to us that the bishops of Campania are so negligent

that, unmindful of their honor and dignity, they exhibit the care of fatherly vigilance neither toward their Churches nor toward their sons, nor bear the solicitude of the monasteries, nor expend themselves in the protection of the oppressed and of the poor: therefore by the present authority we command that, they having been convened by you, you should from our command strictly admonish them, that they ought to be slothful no longer, but should show by their work that they have priestly zeal and solicitude, and should so be vigilant in those matters which it is fitting for them justly to do according to God, that no murmur may again exasperate us concerning them.

But if you should come to know any of them to be negligent after these things, send him to us without any excuse, so that they may be able to feel in themselves by regular strictness how grievous it is to be unwilling to be corrected from those things which are reprehensible and greatly to be censured. Gregory to John, bishop of Syracuse. By the report of certain persons it has come to us that Cosmas — who, from a monk of the monastery of holy Lucy, was made a subdeacon in the Church of Syracuse by your predecessor of venerable memory, Maximian, and afterward is said to have been ordained by you a priest in the possession which is called Juliana — is so vehemently afflicted by excessive sadness and by the character of the place, that he reckons life a punishment to himself, and seeks the remedy of his contrition in flight.

And therefore, since we ought to be toward our subjects such as we would have wished our superiors to be toward us, if we had been subjects, it is a matter of great kindness if your Holiness should be willing to bring him back into the Church where he has exercised the office of subdeacon, and there to appoint him a cardinal priest. And this you ought, as we judge, to do, provided there is nothing that justly exasperates your minds against him. But if there is some fault, let your fraternity make it known to us by your letters, so that we may be able to know it. Given in the month of April, in the sixth indiction.