Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 423

Gregory to Anthemius, our subdeacon of Naples. How great is the grief, and how great the affliction of our heart, over the things that have happened in the regions of Campania, we cannot say; but from the magnitude of the calamity you can yourself gauge it. On this account, for the relief of the captives who are held, we have sent by the bearer of these letters, Stephen, a man of magnificence, some solidi to your experience, admonishing you that you ought to be altogether solicitous, and to carry it out strenuously: those who are free men, whom you recognize to be unable to suffice for their own redemption, hasten to redeem. But whoever have been slaves, and whose masters you find to be so poor that they cannot rise up to redeem them, do not cease to procure these also.

Likewise also you shall take care to redeem the servants of the Church who have perished through your negligence. Whomsoever, moreover, you shall have redeemed, you shall strive by every means to make, in a careful record, a list that contains their names, and where each one is staying, or what he does, or whence he is, so that you may bring it with you when you come. And so hasten to show yourself diligent in this matter, that those who are to be redeemed may incur no peril through your negligence, and that you may not afterwards begin to be gravely blameworthy in our sight. But do this above all: that, if it can be done, you may procure the captives themselves at a lesser price. And describe the sum of money with all purity and exactness, and send us that description with speed.

In the month of May, in the fourteenth indiction.