'Felix the deacon, the bearer of these presents, though he has in no way lapsed into the doctrines of heretics nor departed from the catholic faith, had, being lured by depraved suspicions, withdrawn himself into the schism of the Istrians against the synod of Constantinople. When he had come to Rome, and had received from us, by the Lord's help, an account of the matter, he corrected his error by resuming communion in the Lord's Body. Therefore, since, as has been said, he did not fall into heresy, but strayed from the sacred ministries of the universal Church as it were out of zeal for a right intention, we, taking counsel for his weakness and his needs, and providing above all, out of regard for piety, for his sustenance, have determined that he be incardinated in your church of Syracuse.' (Register, book
iv, letter 14.) Likewise to Fortunatus, bishop of Naples: 'We recall that your Fraternity requested of us that we should grant Gratian, a deacon of the church of Venafro, to your church to be incardinated. And since he has neither a bishop whom he may serve, nor a church of his own — the enemy, that is, preventing it — in which he ought to exercise his ministry, we have judged that your petition should not be deferred. Therefore, by these present writings, we have deemed it necessary to grant him to you, you being at liberty, our authority intervening, to establish that deacon, God being favourable, as a cardinal of your church.' (Register, book vi, letter 11.) Likewise to Cyprian the deacon:
'As your Charity has diligently laboured on behalf of the person of our brother and fellow-bishop John, that he might, God being the author, be ordained in the church of Syracuse, so now it is necessary that through the endeavours of your Charity the aids of governance also be ministered to him. For he asserts that he had a certain presbyter of his own, who, however, is said to have been ordained by our brother and fellow-bishop Leo in the church of Catania.
And since he is going to a new church, and it is necessary that he have his own men there, so that, when he is hard pressed by the tumults of affairs, he may find in his own privacy a place where he may rest, you ought gently and sweetly to persuade the aforesaid brother and fellow-bishop Leo that he ought to yield the aforesaid presbyter to him, lest he seem perhaps to abandon one already ordained, whom he so kindly conceded for ordination.' (Register, book vi, chapter 20.) 21.
Gregory so most zealously maintained that most ancient order of ecclesiastical custom, handed down from the apostles and solemnly preserved even to his own times, that he set no one, however much he might excel in sanctity, wisdom, or nobility, before the senior clergy in assembly, in seating, in station, or in signature. Whence, writing to Januarius, bishop of Cagliari, he says: 'Liberatus, of whom your Fraternity has informed us, who is said to discharge the office of a deacon, if he was not made a cardinal by your predecessor, ought by no reasoning to be preferred to the deacons ordained by you; lest you seem in a certain manner, by supplanting them, to reject those whom you are known to have approved by consecrating them.
Therefore restrain the aforesaid Liberatus, whom a spirit of ambition that must be checked puffs up, with all urgency from the depravity of his purpose, and appoint him to stand last among the deacons; lest, while he contends to be unlawfully preferred, he be judged unworthy of the place in which he is now set. Yet if you shall be prompted by his obedience, and shall afterward wish to make him a cardinal, unless he shall have merited, by solemn usage, the cession of his own bishop, remember that you must abstain from his incardination; since you do not doubt that it accords with equity that you should not delay to observe toward others that which you yourself also desire to be observed toward you.' (Register, book i, letter 83.) 22.
Prompted, namely, by the order of this most ancient custom, Gregory used to commend the churches of deceased bishops to neighbouring bishops, for the making of an inventory and the choosing of a bishop of lawful reputation, writing in this manner to John of Squillace: 'A report sent directly has disclosed the death of that prelate. Wherefore we solemnly delegate to your Fraternity the task of the visitation of the bereaved church; which it befits you so to fulfil that nothing concerning the promotions of the clergy, the revenue, the ornaments, the ministries, or whatever it may be in the patrimony of that same church, be presumed upon by anyone.
And therefore your Fraternity shall hasten to go to the aforesaid church, and make haste to admonish its clergy and people with assiduous exhortations, that, laying aside partisanship, with one and the same consent they may seek out for themselves such a priest to be set over them as may be found worthy of so great a ministry, and may in no way be rejected by the venerable canons. And when he has been requested, with the solemnity of a decree strengthened by the signatures of all, and with the testimony of your Charity's letter, let him come to us to be consecrated;
admonishing your Fraternity also that you permit no one to be chosen from another church, unless perchance among the clergy of those same cities in which you bestow the office of visitation no one worthy of the episcopate — which we do not believe will happen — could be found: providing above all things that they do not presume to aspire to the merit of any conversation of a lay person, and that you incur not the peril of your order, which God forbid. But the monasteries, if any are established in that parish, we grant to be under your care and disposition, until a proper bishop shall have been ordained there: that the vigilance of your solicitude may, God helping, respond by action befitting its resolve.' (Register, book ii, letter
38.) Likewise to the clergy, the order, and the people: 'Learning of the death of your prelate, we made it our care solemnly to delegate the visitation of the bereaved church to our brother and fellow-bishop John: to whom we gave it in charge that he suffer nothing concerning the promotions of the clergy, the revenue, the ornaments, or the ministries to be usurped by anyone; whom it befits you to obey with assiduous exhortations; so that in ecclesiastical service a priest may be sought out who differs by no reasoning from the venerable canons. And when he has been requested, with the solemnity of a decree strengthened by the signatures of all, and with the visitor's page accompanying, let him come to us to be ordained;
providing above all things that you do not presume to choose a lay person of whatever life or merit: for know that not only is such a one by no reasoning to be advanced to the summit of the episcopate, but also that you can by no intercessions merit pardon; but know without doubt that all among you who shall be found to have aspired on behalf of a lay person are to be made strangers to their office and to communion.' (Register, book ii, letter 29.) 23. On no occasion would Gregory suffer anything of the offerings or estates of any churches whatever to be taken away. Therefore he writes to Maximian, bishop of Syracuse, among other things, saying:
'We have taken care to admonish your Charity that, if any of the bishops shall depart from this light, or, which God forbid, shall be removed for his own excesses, the assembled clergy of the hierarchy and all the elders of the clergy, making in his presence an inventory of the church's goods, all that shall be found be minutely described; and that, not as was formerly said to be done, any species, or anything else of the church's goods, be taken away as though for the labour of making the inventory. For thus do we desire that those things which pertain to the maintenance of the resources of the poor be discharged, that absolutely no occasion of venality be left, in their goods, to grasping men.
Let the visitors of the churches, and their clergy also, who are wearied together with them through the parishes of a city not their own, receive some subsidy for their labour, by your arrangement. For it is just that they should there obtain a stipend, who are found for the time to lend their service.' (Register, book iv, letter 1.) 24. Gregory shrank with all the effort of his mind, as from a certain pestilential burden, from accepting from his bishops the customary gifts or presents. Whence to Felix, bishop of Messina: 'It befits us, by our consideration, to remit those customs which are known to bring a burden upon the churches, lest they be compelled to render that on account of which they ought rather to expect something to be rendered to them.
To your own clergy indeed, or to those of others, you ought to observe custom inviolate, and to transmit to them yearly what is customary: but as for us, henceforth we forbid that anything be transmitted. And since we take no delight in presents, the little palm-branches which your Fraternity sent we have received with thanksgiving; but lest you might have felt any loss therefrom, we caused them to be sold at a worthy price, and have transmitted that to your Fraternity under seal. But because we have learned that your Charity wishes to come to us, we admonish you by these present writings that you ought not to undertake the labour of coming;
but pray for us, that the more the intervals of the journey separate us, the more we may be joined together in mutual charity in our souls, Christ helping; so that, aiding one another by mutual entreaty, we may render up the office we have undertaken, entire, to the Judge who is to come.' (Register, book i, letter 66, indiction 9.) Likewise to John, bishop of Prima Justiniana, to whom he both sends the pallium and commits his own vicariate, he writes after much: 'The gifts of your Sanctity I had been altogether unwilling to accept, because it would be very unfitting that we should seem to have received presents from brethren who are despoiled and afflicted; but your envoys overcame me by another argument, bringing them to one from whom the offerings of your Fraternity could not be refused.'
(Book ii, letter 23.) 25. Hence it is that Gregory, taking no pleasure in wearying any of the bishops by a journey to the city, committed his own vicariate throughout all Sicily to Maximian, bishop of Syracuse; commanding that all the bishops should come to Rome once in five years. (Register, book ii, letter 7.) Whence, writing to Cyprian the deacon, he says: 'Your Charity knows that this custom formerly obtained, that our brethren and fellow-bishops should assemble at Rome from Sicily once in three years; but we, taking counsel for their labour, know that we have established that they should present themselves here once in five years,' and the rest. (Register, book vii, letter
22.) Here it is to be noted that, if the blessed Gregory panted after presents — which it is impious to believe — he would not have protracted the coming of the bishops from three years to five, but would rather, without doubt, have hastened it from three years to two. 26. But how would he gladly accept presents, who, although he feared to refuse the alms of another that were to be dispensed, yet both accepted them with fear and dispensed them with the greatest caution: who was so accustomed to give his own and not to accept another's, that he even utterly refused the prices of certain things. Whence he writes to Eulogius, patriarch of Alexandria, among other things, saying: 'As to what you write concerning the timbers, that they were short, the quality of the ship by which they were transmitted caused it:
for if a larger ship had come, I could have transmitted even larger timbers. But as to what you say, that if we transmit larger ones, you will give a price: we indeed give thanks for your bounty, but we are forbidden to accept a price, the Gospel interdicting it. For we did not buy those timbers which we transmit: and how can we accept a price, when it is written: Freely you have received, freely give? Now therefore, according to the capacity of the ship, we have transmitted small timbers by the shipmaster: but in the following year, if it shall please Almighty God, we prepare larger ones.' (Register, book viii, letter 29.) 27.
It is no wonder if this most liberal pontiff took no customary payments and no presents from his suffragans, to whom he himself, if anything seemed necessary, ministered right cheerfully. Whence he writes to Venantius, bishop of Perugia, saying: 'We have learned that our brother and fellow-bishop Ecclesius suffers greatly from cold, for the reason that he has no winter garment. And since he asked that something ought to be transmitted to him from us, we have transmitted to your Fraternity for this purpose, by the bearer of these presents, a woollen cloak, a tunic, and a breast-covering, that they ought to be transmitted to him from you without delay. And therefore study to transmit to the aforesaid brother of ours, with all speed;
and do not omit to report to us by your letters this very thing, that you have transmitted it; but so act that, since the cold is severe, you make no delay whatever in transmitting it.' (Register, book x, letter 55, indiction 5.) Likewise to the same Ecclesius, bishop of Chiusi: 'Receiving the writings of your Fraternity, we were saddened that we learned through them that you were both grievously infirm and still weak. And although we had the desire of seeing your Sanctity, yet you did well to keep yourself there at this time: lest, coming hither, you should by the trouble of your sickness cause us a relapse of sadness.' And after a few words:
'But we have transmitted to you one horse, such as we could find, of the blessing of Saint Peter, that you may have something on which you may be carried after your infirmity.' (Register, book x, letter 45, indiction 3.) 28. Enlarged by such a patron, the pontiffs of that time began both to adorn new churches which they constructed from the foundations, and most splendidly to renovate the old ones also. For Gregory sought out nothing in his bishops more curiously than sanctity, wisdom, and liberality. And that this may shine forth more significantly, I shall adduce certain of his letters, by whose testimony my reader may learn the faults of certain bishops reproved.
For he says in a letter to Secundus, the servant of God, among other things, thus: 29. 'Stir up our brother Marinianus, the bishop, with such words as you can, for I suspect that he has fallen asleep. For certain men came to me among whom were some old beggars, who were examined by me, and reported both what they had received, and from whom, and item by item, how much and by whom things had been given to them on the road. When I diligently inquired of them concerning the aforesaid brother what he had given them, they answered that they had asked him, but had received absolutely nothing from him, so that they did not even receive bread on the way, which it was always customary for all in that church to give. For they said: He answered us, saying: I have not what I might give you.
And I marvel if he who has garments, has silver, has storerooms, has not what he ought to give to the poor. Tell him therefore that he change his mind together with his place. Let him not believe that reading and prayer alone suffice for him, so that, withdrawn, he may study to sit and to bear no fruit from his hand; but let him have an open hand, let him run to those suffering necessity, let him reckon another's want as his own: for if he has not these things, he holds the empty name of a bishop.' (Register, book vi, letter 30.) 30. Likewise to Serenus, bishop of Marseilles, after certain matters: 'It had been reported to us that, kindled with inconsiderate zeal, you broke the images of the saints, under this pretext, as it were, that they ought not to be adored. And indeed, because you had forbidden that they be adored, we altogether praised you:
but we reprove that you broke them. Tell me, brother, when was it ever done by any priest, or heard of, what you did? If nothing else, at least this ought to have recalled you, that, despising your other brethren, you should believe yourself alone to be both holy and wise. For it is one thing to adore a picture, another to learn, through the story of the picture, what is to be adored. For what Scripture affords to those who read, this a picture affords to the unlettered who behold it: since in it even the ignorant see what they ought to follow, in it they read who do not know letters. Whence, and especially for the Gentiles, a picture takes the place of reading. Which it especially behooved you to attend to, who dwell among the Gentiles:
lest, while you were incautiously kindled by right zeal, you should engender a scandal to fiercer spirits. Therefore that ought not to have been broken which was placed in the churches, not for adoration, but solely for the instruction of the minds of the ignorant. And because antiquity, not without reason, admitted that the stories of the saints be depicted in venerable places, if you had seasoned your zeal with discretion, you could without doubt both have salubriously obtained the things you intended, and have gathered the flock rather than scattered it — nay, the scattered flock rather than scatter it: so that the merited name of pastor might excel in you, and not the fault of a scatterer weigh upon you.
But while you carry this out in this over-incautious impulse of your soul, you are reported so to have scandalized your sons, that a very great part of them has suspended itself from your communion. When therefore will you lead the straying sheep to the Lord's fold, you who are not able to retain those you have? Wherefore we exhort you that even now you study to be solicitous, and restrain yourself from this presumption: and that you make haste, with paternal sweetness, with every endeavour and every study, to recall to yourself the minds of those whom you know to be disjoined from your unity.' (Register, book xi, letter 13.) 31. To Januarius likewise, bishop of Cagliari, after certain matters he writes, saying:
'Among manifold complaints, Isidore, a most illustrious man, has complained that he was excommunicated and anathematized by your Fraternity without cause. When we wished to learn from your clerk, who was present, for what reason this had been done, it became known that it was done for no other cause than that he had done you an injury. Which matter has vehemently afflicted us, because, if it is so, you show that you think nothing of heavenly things, but signify that you have an earthly conversation: since, for the vindication of a private injury, you have brought in the malediction of an anathema, which is forbidden by the sacred rules. Whence for the rest be altogether circumspect and solicitous, and do not again presume to inflict such things on anyone in defence of your own injury.
For if you shall do any such thing, know that it shall afterward be avenged upon you.' (Register, book xi, letter 49.) 32. Likewise to the same: 'The preacher of Almighty God, the apostle Paul, commands, saying: Rebuke not an elder (1 Tim. v, 1). But this rule of his is to be observed in this case, when the fault of the elder does not by his example draw the hearts of the younger to destruction. For where an elder offers to the young an example unto destruction, there he is to be smitten with strict rebuke. For it is written: A snare to the young are all of you (Isa. xlii, 22). And again the prophet says: The sinner of a hundred years is accursed (Isa. lxv, 20).
But such wickedness concerning your old age has come to my ears, that, unless we still weighed it with human consideration, we would smite it with a settled malediction. For it has been told me that on the Lord's Day, before you celebrated the solemnities of the Mass, you set out to reap the corn of the bearer of these presents; and after reaping it, you celebrated the solemnities of the Mass. After the solemnities of the Mass also, you feared not in the least to root up the boundaries of that possession. What penalty ought to follow such a deed, all who hear know. But we were doubtful concerning so great a perversity; yet our son Cyriacus the abbot, being questioned by us while he was at Cagliari, declared that he had learned it to be so.
And because we still spare your grey hairs, we exhort you: come at last to your senses, old man, and restrain yourself from such levity of manners and perversity of works: for the nearer you become to death, the more solicitous and fearful you ought to be. And indeed sentence had well-nigh been hurled against you; but because we know your simplicity together with your old age, for the present we are silent.' (Book ix, letter 1.) 33. Gregory forbade absolutely all pontiffs from the reading of the books of the Gentiles. Wherefore to Desiderius, bishop of Gaul, who was requesting the pallium, he writes, saying:
'When many good things had been reported to us concerning your studies, such gladness was born in our heart that we could by no means suffer to deny those things which your Fraternity asked to be granted to it. But after this it reached us — which we cannot mention without shame — that your Fraternity expounds grammar to certain persons. Which thing we took ill, and have vehemently spurned, so that we turned into groaning and sadness what had first been said; because the praises of Christ do not find room in one mouth together with the praises of Jove. And how grave and nefarious it is that bishops should sing what does not befit even a religious layman, do you yourself consider.
For although our most beloved son Candidus the presbyter, coming afterward and being subtly questioned on this matter, denied it, and endeavoured to excuse you, yet it has not even now departed from our mind; because, as much as it is execrable that this be narrated of a priest, so much does it behove that, whether it be so or not, be ascertained by strict and truthful satisfaction. Whence if, after this, these things which were brought to us shall clearly appear to be false, and it shall be established that you do not devote yourself to trifles and secular letters, then we shall give thanks to our God, who did not permit your heart to be stained by the blasphemous praises of nefarious men, and we shall treat, now secure and without any doubt, of granting the things you ask.' (Register, book xi, letter 54.) 34.
Nonetheless he writes to Natalis, bishop of Salona, saying: 'From many coming from your city, dearest brother, I have learned that, the pastoral care being abandoned, you are occupied with banquets alone. Which things heard I would not believe, unless I approved them by the proofs of your own actions. For that you in no way devote yourself to reading, in no way keep vigil over exhortation, but even are ignorant of the very usage of the ecclesiastical order — this is a testimony that you know not how to preserve reverence toward those under whom you are set.' (Register, book ii, letter 18.) 35. But when Natalis strove by his own writings, through vain philosophy, to prove himself blameless, the most gentle teacher Gregory wrote back thus:
'In defence of banquets your Fraternity recalls the banquet of Abraham, in which, according to sacred eloquence, he is said to have received three angels. But by this example of a banquet, neither do we reprove your Beatitude, if we learn that you receive angels into hospitality. Again your Fraternity relates that Isaac, being satisfied, gave a blessing to his son. Both of which things of the Old Testament, since they were so done according to history that yet they signified something by allegory, would that we might so be able to run through deeds done in the reading of them, that we might also be able to perceive, by foreseeing, deeds to be done. For he indeed, saluting one in the three angels, declared that the subsistences of the Trinity are of one substance.
But he, being satisfied, blesses his son: because he who is filled with divine banquets, his understanding is extended into the virtue of prophecy. Now the divine banquets are the words of sacred eloquence. If therefore you read assiduously, if, drawing an example from things outward, you penetrate inward things, you fill, as it were satisfied from the hunt of the field, the belly of the mind, that, the son being set before you — the received people, that is — you may be able to announce things to come. But he already grows dim in this world who prophesies anything concerning God: because assuredly it is fitting that he should here already see less through concupiscence, whose sense flashes within through understanding. These things therefore draw unto yourselves; and if you recognize yourselves to be such, there is nothing that you should doubt concerning our estimation.
I find also that your Beatitude rejoices, if it sustains the name of a glutton together with the author of the things. Which I briefly explain thus: that if a falsehood is spoken concerning you, you truly sustain this name together with the author of the things. But if it is true concerning you, who doubts that this was false concerning him? An equal name does not avail to absolve you, whose cause is unequal. For the thief also, about to perish, received the cross together with him; but him whom his own guilt held, an equal crucifixion did not absolve.' (Register, book ii, letter 52.) Yet I, as much as I am able, beseech with prayers, that the author of us both, God, may join your most holy Fraternity to himself, not only in name, but also in cause.
But the banquets which are made out of the intention of bestowing charity, your Sanctity rightly praises in your letters; yet it is to be known that they then truly proceed from charity, when in them the life of no absent person is bitten, no one is reproved out of mockery; and when in them are heard not the vain fables of secular affairs, but the words of sacred reading, when no more is served to the body than is necessary, but its infirmity alone is refreshed, that it may be kept for the use of exercising virtue. If therefore you do these things in your banquets, I confess you are a master of the abstinent. But as to the testimony of Paul the apostle which you put to me, in which he says: He who eats not, let him not judge him that eats (Rom.
xiv, 5), I altogether esteem it to have been incongruous: because neither do I not eat, nor was it said by the apostle Paul for this, that the members of Christ, which in his body — that is, in the Church — are connected to one another by the joint of charity, should in no way exercise any care concerning themselves. But if neither I pertained to you, nor you at all pertained to me, I should rightly be compelled to keep silence, so as not to reprove him who could not be amended. This sentence therefore was said solely on account of those who are eager to judge those whose care is not committed to them. But since we, God being the author, are one, if we keep silent about those things which are to be corrected by us, we greatly transgress.' 36.
Gregory by no means permitted any of the pontiffs to depart from his own parish even for a little while, save by an utterly inevitable necessity: whom indeed he most vehemently forbade to be occupied in worldly affairs. Whence he writes to Romanus, the defensor, saying: 'It has been reported to us that our most reverend brother Basil the bishop is occupied, as though one of the laity, in secular affairs, and uselessly serves the praetorian offices.'