Since this affair both renders him contemptible and annihilates the reverence due to a priest, as soon as your Experience has received this command, compel him by strict enforcement so to return that, while you press upon him there, he may not be permitted to linger under any pretext whatever for five days: lest, if in any manner you allow him to prolong his stay there any further, you begin along with him to be gravely blameworthy in our sight. (Register, book x, letter 10.) 37. Likewise to Anthemius the subdeacon: It has come to our notice that Pimenius, bishop of the city of Amalfi, is not content to reside in his own church, but wanders abroad through various places.
Seeing this, others too do not keep themselves within the fortress, but, following his example, choose rather to dwell outside. And because, acting thus, they themselves rather invite the enemy to their own plundering, we therefore charge you by this authority that you do not cease to threaten the aforesaid bishop, so that he may not presume to do this henceforth, but reside in his own church after the manner of a priest. And if perchance you learn that he is not corrected after your threat, you shall take care both to assign him to a monastery and by every means to inform us, so that you may learn again from our command what you ought to do. (Register, book vi, letter 23.) 38.
It is no wonder that Gregory, out of the ministry entrusted to him, took care to rebuke with wholesome words the vices of any prelates whatsoever, seeing that he did not hesitate to commit to the memory of posterity, for the instruction of the people, the fall of his own aunt. For, wishing to distinguish by illustrative examples the calling of the many from the election of the few—according to that Gospel saying which declares, Many are called, but few are chosen (Matt. xxii, 14)—he sets forth, saying: My father had three sisters, all of whom were consecrated virgins: of these one was called Tharsilla, another Gordiana, another Aemiliana. All being converted by one love, consecrated at one and the same time, living under regular discipline in their own house, they led a common life.
And when they had long continued in the same manner of life, Tharsilla and Aemiliana began by daily increases to grow up into the love of their Creator, and, though here in body alone, daily to pass over in spirit to things eternal. But on the contrary Gordiana's spirit began, by daily decreases, to grow lukewarm from the love of that inward warmth, and little by little to return to the love of this world. Now Tharsilla was often wont to say to her sister Aemiliana with a great groan: I see that our sister Gordiana is not of our lot. For I perceive that she is flowing away outward, and does not guard the heart to that which she had purposed. Whom they took care to correct daily with gentle reproof, and to reform from levity of manners to the gravity of her habit.
She indeed would suddenly resume a countenance of gravity amid the words of reproof; but when the hour of that same reproof had passed, straightway there passed also the assumed gravity of decorum, and she soon returned to frivolous talk. She rejoiced in the company of lay girls, and any person who was not given over to this world was to her exceedingly burdensome.
But on a certain night to this Tharsilla, my aunt—who among her sisters had grown up in the honour and summit of sanctity, by the virtue of continual prayer, by zealous mortification, by singular abstinence, by the venerable gravity of her life—there appeared, as she herself related, in a vision my great-great-grandfather Felix, prelate of this Roman Church, and showed her a dwelling of perpetual brightness, saying: Come, for in this dwelling of light I receive you. She, soon after seized by a fever, came to her last day.
And as with noble women and men who are dying, many gather to console their kinsfolk, so at that hour men and women, awaiting her departure, stood around her bed, among whom my mother also was present. When suddenly, looking upward, she saw Jesus coming, and with great intensity began to cry out to those standing by, saying: Depart, depart, Jesus is coming. And while she fixed her gaze upon Him whom she beheld, that holy soul was loosed from the flesh; and so great a fragrance of a wondrous odour was suddenly diffused that the very sweetness showed to all that the Author of sweetness had come thither.
And when her body, after the manner of the dead, was stripped for washing, it was found that from the long practice of prayer a hardened skin had grown up on her elbows and knees, like that of camels; and what her living spirit had ever done, her dead flesh bore witness to. Now these things happened before the day of the Lord's Nativity. When that had passed, she soon appeared to her sister Aemiliana through the visitation of a nocturnal vision, saying: Come, that whereas I kept the Lord's Nativity without you, I may now keep the holy Theophany together with you. To her the other, at once solicitous for the salvation of her sister Gordiana, replied: And if I come alone, to whom do I leave our sister Gordiana? To her, with a sorrowful countenance, she again said:
Come, for our sister Gordiana has been reckoned among the laywomen. This vision was soon followed by bodily affliction; and just as had been foretold, before the day of the Lord's Manifestation, as that same affliction grew heavier, she died. But Gordiana, as soon as she found that she remained alone, her depravity grew; and what had before lain hidden in the desire of her thought, she afterward carried out in the effect of a depraved deed. For, forgetful of the fear of the Lord, forgetful of modesty and reverence, forgetful of her consecration, she afterward took as husband the manager of her own fields. Behold, all three were formerly converted by one ardour, but not all remained in one and the same zeal, because, according to the Lord's word: Many are called, but few are chosen (Matt.
xxii, 14). (Homily 38 on the Gospels.) 39. The negligences of his subjects too Gregory both subtly investigated and corrected with the most stringent reproofs. Whence, writing to Vitalianus, bishop of Siponto: If, he says, you had been a keeper of the religious habit, or knew how to be a bishop, it would not have been permitted, with you placed there, either for the daughter of Tullianus of glorious memory, the master of soldiery, to return, with her religious garments cast off, to a secular habit, or to send us a perverse letter. But because you are weighed down by excessive sloth and excessive torpor, this thing, at present unlawful, has been committed with impunity, to your disgrace.
For if, as we have said above, you had been vigilant, the vengeance upon a most wicked woman ought to have reached us before her fault did. Since therefore you are so dull and so negligent that, unless you have experienced canonical coercion upon yourself, you know not how to keep the strictness of discipline in others—how you ought to be vigilant we shall show you, if it please the Lord, at a fitting time. (Register, book viii, letter 8.) 40. Likewise to Sergius the defensor: If you were a man, or had any discretion (in another reading, strictness), you ought so to have proved yourself a keeper of regular discipline, that those things which are there unlawfully committed vengeance might correct before the report of them reached us.
But since excessive folly makes you negligent, we are not only offended concerning those matters, but are moreover no less provoked to punish your own sloth. (Register, book viii, letter 9.) 41. Likewise to Anthemius, subdeacon of Campania: It has come to our notice that our brother and fellow bishop Paschasius is so slothful and negligent in all things that in nothing can it be recognized that he is a bishop, so much so that neither his church, nor the monasteries, nor the children of the church, nor the oppressed, nor the poor feel any zeal of his love toward themselves, nor does he lend any help of defence to those who supplicate him in matters wherein it is just;
and—what is yet more grievous to say—by no reasoning does he suffer himself to receive the counsels of the wise and of those who advise rightly, so that what he cannot himself attend to, he might at least learn from another; but, with the matters that pertain to the care of a Pastor set aside, he occupies himself uselessly with the whole of his zeal in building a ship. Whence, as is reported, it has come to pass that he has already lost four hundred solidi or more. This too is added to his faults, that being thus daily despised, he is said to go down to the sea with one or two clerics, so that both among his own he is a byword, and to strangers he appears so mean and despicable that he is judged to have in himself nothing of episcopal genius or reverence.
But if it is so, know that it is not without your fault, since you have put off rebuking and coercing him as is fitting. Since therefore all this not only condemns him, but is proved also to pertain to the reproach of the priestly office, we will that you ought, before other priests, or certain of his own noble sons, to protest to him and to exhort him that, the vice of torpor shaken off, he ought not to be slothful, but to be watchful in the care of his church and monasteries; to show fatherly charity to his sons; to be prompt with discretion in the defence of the poor; to be upright in matters wherein justice shall counsel; to receive gladly the counsels of the wise:
so that both that city may be able to be consoled by his solicitude, and he himself may be able to cover the faults of his sloth. But if—which we do not believe—after this our exhortation he shall attempt to be negligent still in his accustomed manner, he is by every means to be sent to us: that, placed here, he may be able to learn what and how it befits a priest to act according to the fear of God. (Book xiii, letter 26.) 42. Likewise to the same: As often as we hear those things concerning our brothers and fellow bishops which are able both to show them reprehensible and to beget sorrow in us, necessity constrains us to think not moderately about their amendment.
Since therefore it has been reported to us that the bishops of Campania are so negligent that, unmindful of their honour, they show neither toward the churches nor toward their sons the care of fatherly vigilance, nor bear solicitude for the monasteries, nor expend themselves in the protection of the oppressed poor: therefore by this authority we charge you that, having called them together to you, from our command you strictly admonish them that they ought no longer to be slothful, but to hold a priestly zeal, and to show forth their solicitude in deed; and so to be vigilant in those things which it befits them justly to do according to God, that no fresh murmur concerning them may exasperate us.
But if you learn that any of them is negligent after this, send him to us without any excuse, that he may be able to feel in himself, by regular strictness, how grievous a thing it is to be unwilling to be corrected from those things which are reprehensible and greatly to be blamed. (Register, book xiii, letter 27.) Likewise to Victor, bishop of Palermo, after some matters: You understand, he says, of what fault you already are, that I, placed so far away, should know the things done in your city, and, occupied with so many cares, should dispose what ought to be done. (Register, book v, letter 6.) 43. It is indeed to be noted that, just as that most discerning prelate Gregory hardly ever, or never, let manifest crimes go without vengeance:
so assuredly in doubtful matters he never at any time pronounced a definite sentence. Wherefore he writes to Andreas, bishop of Taranto, saying: Whoever, conscious of his own guilt, strives to appease it now by worthy penance, shall behold the tribunal of the eternal Judge without fear. For we have learned by manifest truth that you had a concubine, concerning whom also a contrary suspicion has arisen in certain persons. But because in ambiguous matters judgment ought not to be absolute, we have chosen to commit this to your own conscience. On which account, if, being established in holy orders, you recollect that you are stained by intercourse with her, having laid down the honour of the priesthood, presume by no means to approach to minister:
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sciturusinanimaetuxpericulomi- nistrare, etDeonostrotesinedubioreddereratio- nem, sihujusscelerisconscius, ineoquoesordine, celansveritatempermanerevolueris.(??) ( Regist. l. iii, ep. 45.) 44. ObhocsollicitissimusEcclesiaeDeicustosGre- gorius, uniuscujusqueconsiliariosarguens, quantuminseerat, omnesomninosalvarecertabat. UndeVe- nantio, exmonachopatricio, postaliquascribens, ait: (??) Scioquiacumepistolameasuscipitur, proti- nusamiciconveniunt, litteraticlientesvocantur, etdecausavitaeconsiliumafautoribusmortisquaeri- tur: quiduranonte, sedrestuasdiligunt, nulla (??)bi, nisiquaeadtempusplaceant, loquuntur.
knowing that you minister at the peril of your soul, and that you will without doubt render an account to our God, if, conscious of this crime, you shall have willed to remain in the order in which you are, concealing the truth. (Register, book iii, letter 45.) 44. On this account Gregory, that most solicitous keeper of the Church of God, rebuking the counsellors of each man, strove, as far as in him lay, to save absolutely all. Whence, writing to Venantius, an ex-monk of patrician rank, after some matters, he says: I know that when my letter is received, straightway friends assemble, lettered clients are summoned, and counsel about the cause of life is sought from the abettors of death: who love not you, but your possessions, and speak to you nothing but what may please for the time.
For such, as you yourself remember, were formerly the counsellors who led you to the crime of so great an offence. And—that I may speak to you something from a secular author (Seneca, letter 5)—with friends all things are to be discussed, but first concerning the friends themselves. But if in your cause you seek a man for a counsellor, I beg you, receive me as your counsellor. None can be more faithful to you for counsel than he who loves not what is yours, but you yourself. (Register, book i, letter 34.) Likewise to John, bishop of Constantinople, after several matters: I had written to the most blessed man the lord John;
but I believe that that familiar young man of yours wrote back to me—he who has as yet learned nothing of God, who knows not the bowels of charity, who is accused by all in wicked matters, who daily plots against the deaths of various persons through secret wills, and neither fears the Lord nor blushes before men. Believe me, most dear brother, if you have perfectly the zeal of truth, correct him first, that from those who are near to you, even those who are not near may be the better amended by the example. Do not accept his tongue. He ought to be directed to the counsel of your Holiness, and not your Holiness to be bent to his words. For if you listen to him, I know that he will not be able to have peace with his own brethren. (Register, book
iii, letter 53.) Likewise to Januarius, bishop of Cagliari: Those, he says, by whose counsels you ploughed up another's harvest, and did not in the least fear to root up boundary-markers, we decree to be excommunicated for two months; so that if anything befall them after the manner of men within the space of two months, they be not deprived of the blessing of the viaticum. Henceforth, however, be on your guard against their counsels, and keep yourself carefully: lest, if you become a disciple in evil to those to whom you ought to have been a master in good, we spare neither your simplicity any longer, nor your old age. (Register, book ix, letter 1.) Likewise to Callinicus, exarch of Italy, after several matters:
Know this, that it grieved me not a little that the mayor of the palace, who received the petition of a bishop wishing to return from schism, professed that he had lost it, and afterward it was held by the adversaries of the Church. Which I judge to have been done not by his negligence, but by his venality. Whence I wonder that your Excellency did not in the least punish this fault in him; but nevertheless, because I wondered at this, I quickly reproached my own self. For where the lord Justinus offers counsel—he who has not peace with the Catholic Church—there heretics cannot be condemned. Moreover, you declare that you wish to keep the birthday of the blessed Peter, prince of the Apostles, in the city of Rome; and we pray the Almighty
Lord that He may protect you with His mercy, and grant you to fulfil your vows. But I ask that the aforesaid most eloquent man come along; and if he will not come, let him withdraw from your service; or at least, if your Excellency perchance, owing to arising causes, cannot come, let him nevertheless communicate with the unity of the holy Church. For I hear he is a good man, were he not of the worst error. (Register, book ix, letter 9.) 45. Likewise to Serenus, bishop of Marseilles, after many matters: It has come to me that your Charity willingly receives evil men into its company or counsel, so much so that you have as a familiar a certain presbyter who, after he had fallen, is even now said to wallow in his pollution of iniquity.
This indeed we do not at all believe, since he who receives such a one does not correct crimes, but rather seems to give license to others of perpetrating such things. But lest perchance by some stealth or dissimulation he has persuaded you, that he might be received by you and still be held in favour, it befits you not only to expel him far from you, but also by every means, with priestly zeal, to cut away his own excesses; and as for others who are recorded to be depraved, restrain them by fatherly exhortation from their depravity, and be earnest to recall them to the way of rectitude.
But if—which God forbid—you see them profit in nothing by wholesome admonition, you shall take care to cast these too far from you, lest their depravities, from the fact that they are received, seem in no way displeasing, and not only do they themselves remain uncorrected, but by their reception others also be corrupted. And consider how both execrable among men and perilous before the eyes of God it is, if through him by whom crimes ought to be punished, vices seem to be nourished. These things therefore, most beloved brother, diligently attend to, and be earnest so to act that you may wholesomely correct the depraved, and not bring the scandal of the fellowship of the wicked into the souls of your sons. (Register, book xi, letter 13.) 46.
That one man be punished for another's fault, Gregory, that most upright judge, by no means permitted. And therefore, writing to Gudiscalcus, duke of Campania, he says: That solicitude of superiors is useful, that caution praiseworthy, in which reason does everything, and fury claims nothing for itself. Power therefore must be restrained under reason, nor is anything to be done before the agitated mind returns to tranquillity. For in the time of commotion, wrath thinks everything just that it has done. It has come to us, then, that your Greatness was driven by such an impulse of fury as to cause not only the doors of the monastery of the holy Archangel to be broken, but even what was found there to be plundered.
Moreover, you are said to have so blazed up against the abbot of that same monastery that, unless by hiding himself he had lain concealed during the time of your wrath, he would have incurred no light peril; and finally, that, terrified by fear of you, he does not even dare hitherto to leave the house in which he had formerly taken refuge. And lest perchance you should seem to have done this in vain, you charge the flight of that very monk who went over to the enemy—as far as has been reported to us—as a crime against him, asserting that he fled by his will. But if it is so, we are grieved, and greatly marvel at your wisdom. For if you think it lawful that one man's fault be harmful to others, many can be liable to this crime.
For the servants of divers nobles, the clerics of many churches, the monks of divers monasteries, the men of many judges, have often given themselves over to the enemy. Therefore, if this is believed, assuredly the masters of servants, the bishops of clerics, the abbots of monks, the judges of divers fugitives, are all set under fault and crime. Have not, even in the days of your Greatness, many from the city in which you dwell slipped away by flight to the soldiers of the Lombards? And who could be found of such want of discretion and such great folly as to reckon that their iniquity should be imputed to you? (Book x, letter 11.) 47. The liberty of each individual man Gregory nonetheless defended with free voice against the insolences of judges.
Whence, writing to Leontius, an ex-consul, after some matters, he says: If Libertinus is found blameworthy in the matter of this security-bond, what he may plead for himself in other causes I know not: yet this one thing I know well and firmly, that even if he committed any fraud against the public revenues, his property ought to have been distrained, not his liberty. For in this—that free men are beaten or imprisoned—to say nothing of the fact that Almighty God is offended, to say nothing of the fact that your reputation is gravely burdened, yet the times of our most pious emperor are utterly darkened. For this is the difference between the kings of the nations and the emperors of the Romans, that the kings of the nations are lords of slaves, but the emperor of the Romans is lord of free men.
Whence you too, whatever you do, ought to do it first indeed with justice preserved, and then with liberty guarded in all things. For it is written: What you do not wish to be done to you, see that you do not do to another (Tob. iv, 16). And Truth itself says: Whatsoever you wish that men should do to you, do you also the same to them (Matt. vii, 12). In the liberty therefore of those who have been committed to your examination, you ought especially to attend to your own: and if you yourselves do not wish your liberty to be injured by your superiors, guard the liberty of your subjects by honouring it. For we know who said: Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away (Matt. xxiv, 35).
And because His words do not pass away, but are in all things fulfilled, let us fear what He again says: With what measure you have measured, it shall be measured to you again (Matt. vii, 2). But what does your Glory suppose—that if we act proudly, if cruelly, God being despised, we appease a man to ourselves? By no means. For He who is despised stirs against us the very one whom, with God despised, we wish to appease. Let us therefore take care in all things to appease God, who is able to bring back even angry men to gentleness. For, as I said, even gentle men, when God is indignant, are provoked to wrath.
But if it is said that without stripes and terrors public frauds cannot be discovered, this I could admit, if in the matter of the accounts the lord Leontius had not come. For it is true that those are wont to exceed all measure who are deficient in sense and in tongue. (Register, book x, letter 51.) 48. The cupidities and crimes of all judges Gregory restrained, as with the bit and bridle of his pontificate, by the most powerful authorities; and those whom he could not gently correct from depravity, he made public by the reproofs of his writings. Whence he writes to Romanus, exarch of Italy, residing at Ravenna, saying:
With your Excellency, the audacity of the depraved ought to find rather the goads of correction than the solace of defence. For it is grievous enough that a depraved action should there have a refuge, whence it is fitting that the censure of discipline should proceed. It has come to us, then, that a certain Speciosus, a presbyter, who, as the cause demanded, had been assigned to a monastery by John, our brother and fellow bishop, thereafter went out against the will of his pastor, and, the vigour of ecclesiastical constitution being despised, resists the aforesaid bishop, relying upon your protection. Which, because it without doubt provokes the odium of your Excellency, it is necessary that you should suspend him from that protection you have granted:
lest, if under the pretext of your name he be for a time disobedient or contumacious to his pastor, and defend your judges against you, and your Excellency be compelled from this matter to give offence, we likewise be grieved by your discord. We have learned besides—what it is impious even to say—that certain women, who until now have remained in the religious and monastic habit, are laying aside their religious garment and their veil, and, what we cannot relate without grievous sorrow, are joining themselves to husbands. But this—that they presume even to say or attempt it—they are said to be supported by the patronage of your favour. Which the bitterness of that very perversity does not permit us to believe.
We ask therefore that you by no means involve yourself in so great a sin. For iniquity of this kind we will by no means, for God's sake, suffer to remain unpunished. Whence again we beseech that your Excellency mix not itself in the defence of such causes: lest both God defend His own injury, and the fault of others beget discord between us. (Register, book v, letter 24.) Likewise to Venantius, an ex-monk, a patrician: Many foolish men have supposed that if I were raised to the order of the episcopate, I would refuse to address you or to visit you frequently by letters. But it is not so, since by the very necessity of my place I am now constrained not to keep silence. And after a little.
Compelled therefore by this consideration, whether you will or no, I am about to speak, because with all my strength I desire either that you be saved, or that I be delivered from concern for your death. For you recollect in what habit you were, and, the animadversion of the supernal strictness being set aside, you recognize to what you have lapsed. Weigh therefore your fault while there is leisure; dread the strictness of the future Judge while you are able, lest then you hear that bitter sentence when you may no longer escape it by any weeping. And below: By the witness of the Gospel (Matt. xii), you know that the divine severity arraigns us concerning an idle word, and subtly demands an accounting of a useless word. Weigh therefore what it will do concerning a perverse work, if it reproves some in its judgment concerning a word.
Ananias had vowed his money to God, which afterward, overcome by diabolical persuasion, he withdrew (Acts v); but by what death he was punished, you know. If he therefore was worthy of the peril of death, who took from God the coins which he had given, consider by how great a peril in the divine judgment you will be worthy, who took away, not coins, but your very self, from Almighty God, to whom you had devoted yourself under the monastic habit. Wherefore, if you will hearken to the words of my correction, you will know in the end how gentle and sweet they are. Behold, I confess, I speak mourning, and, addicted to sorrow at your deed, I am scarcely able to bring forth words: and yet your spirit, conscious of its own action, scarcely suffices to bear what it hears; it blushes, is confounded, resists.