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To the most blessed and honourable lord, the holy Father Pope Gregory, Felix, a lover of your salvation and holiness. The claims of your most blessed salvation and holiness are manifest before God. For while, indeed, by the apostolic preachings and the doctrines of the true faith the whole earth has been filled with cultivation, yet through the erudition of the divine oracles, your exhortatory admonition instructing us, the orthodox Church of Christ is built up higher, founded upon apostolic institution and most firmly strengthened by faithful fathers.
To which Church all the most blessed apostles, endowed with an equal partnership of honour and power, turning the throngs of peoples, piously and holily led men foreknown by the grace of divine predestination, from darkness to light, from falling to the true faith, from death to life, by salutary precepts and admonitions. Of which holy apostles
following the honourable merits of these holy apostles, and more perfectly fulfilling their examples, your venerable Paternity adorns the Church of God as a wall by uprightness and by the holiness of your deeds; and flourishing in the sacred faith and in Christian conduct, you unceasingly work at and accomplish with pontifical zeal those things which He commands to be done as pleasing to God, keeping the precepts of the divine law, because not the hearers of the law are just before God, as the Apostle relates, but the doers of the law shall be justified (Rom. II, 13). While meditating upon these things, it has been reported to us by certain persons coming from Rome that to Augustine, our associate, ordained by your venerable Holiness afterwards as bishop of the English nation and thence directed,
and to the English, whom we have learned were once converted to the faith through you, wrote that up to the fourth generation of the Sagensian stock, those who are scarcely joined as kinsmen should not be separated. Which custom formerly, in those or in these parts — when I was nourished and instructed together with you from infancy — did not exist, nor have I read it in the decrees of your predecessors, nor learned that it was generally or specially granted in the institutions of the other Fathers, or hitherto conceded by any wise men.
But I have found that always, up to the seventh degree of one's origin, this ought to be observed by your holy predecessors and the other holy Fathers, both in the Nicene synod and in the other holy councils assembled, and I have known it to be diligently provided for by men living rightly and fearing the Lord. While these things were being turned over among us, other matters also came up, concerning which it seemed necessary to us to consult your authority.
For there came to us both Benedict, bishop of the Church of Syracuse, and also other brethren of ours, indeed bishops, weeping and saying that they were exceedingly troubled and afflicted in soul by seculars and laymen over the immoderate acts of these, for which certain injustices too were being charged against them. There are also certain churches in our province concerning whose consecrations there is doubt, and both because of their antiquity and because of the carelessness of their custodians, it is not known whether they were dedicated by bishops or not. Concerning all which things we beseech to be instructed by your Holiness and by the authority of your holy See;
and whether those things which, as we have said before, we have heard you wrote to our aforesaid associate, bishop Augustine, and to the English nation, were written specially for them or generally for all — we desire to be imbued by your writings; and concerning this, or concerning the other aforementioned matters, we long to be fully informed. For we signify to you the things which we read and have known to be observed by the faithful, not by way of reproach — which be far from us — but we seek what we ought reasonably and faithfully to observe concerning these things.
And since no small murmur is being turned over among us concerning this matter, we seek from you, as from the head, an answer as to what we ought to reply to our brethren and fellow-bishops, lest we remain in doubt concerning these things, or lest that murmur remain among us or others, both in your times and for posterity, and your reputation, which has always been good and most excellent, be torn to pieces by detractions, or be undermined, or your name — which be far from us — be blasphemed in the times to come.
For we, keeping with humble heart the things that are right, God being their author, bound to you by the one bond of charity, defending your religion in all things as faithful pupils, seek from you the things that are hidden; for we know that, as the prelates of the holy See always did — first the apostles, then their successors — you bear the care of the universal Church, and especially of the bishops, who are called the eyes of the Lord because of contemplation and watching, and that you assiduously think upon our religion and law, as it is written: Blessed is he who shall meditate on the law of the Lord day and night (Ps. I, 1).
Which meditation is discerned not merely by reading, beheld through the figure of letters, but by the grace of Christ overflowing in you, planted immovably in your conscience — the sacrosanct law of Christ the Lord in no way departing from your heart, as the Prophet says in the Psalms: The mouth of the just shall meditate wisdom, and his tongue shall speak judgment: the law of his God is in his heart (Ps. XXXVI, 30) — written in your secret places not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God; not therefore on tablets of stone, but on tablets of the heart.
We pray that by your most wise responses and aids every gloom of darkness may be extinguished, so that the morning star may shine forth for us through you, most holy Father, and a dogmatic definition gladdening all everywhere; because the glorious Fathers of the holy Church are known to have preached their own most pious dogmas as a firm inheritance of eternal life. And the subscription: May the Lord keep you safe, as pleasing to God, holy Father of fathers, praying for us, unto the age. Amen. To the most reverend brother, bishop Felix, Gregory the servant of the servants of God.
Our Head, which is Christ, willed us to be His members to this end, that through His abundant charity and faith He might make us one body in Himself, to whom it befits us so to cleave that, since without Him we can be nothing, through Him we may be able to be what we are called. Let no thing divide us from the citadel of the Head, lest we be abandoned by Him if we shrink from being His member, and, like branches cast down from the vine, we wither. Therefore, that we may deserve to be the dwelling-place of our Redeemer, let us abide in His love with the whole effort of the mind. For He Himself says: He who loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him (John XIV, 23).
Your Charity therefore required, dearest brother, that out of the authority of the apostolic See we should answer your consultations. Which, although we hasten to do not at length but succinctly, on account of certain vexations which, our sins impeding, have come upon us, yet we commit it to be more widely sought out and investigated by your zeal, through the remaining writings of the holy Fathers. For a mind worn down and heavily burdened by cares and vexations cannot accomplish so much good, and speak freely of these things, as one delighted and freed from oppressions.
Therefore we have not put these things forward for this reason, that we would wish to deny these and other things which we shall have known to be necessary to your Holiness, but that what is found here in lesser measure may be sought more widely. For you believed, following the examples of your predecessors, that the apostolic See — in which you were nourished and instructed — was to be consulted concerning three chapters: that is, concerning the joining of consanguinity, concerning the vexation of bishops by their subjects, and concerning the doubt about the consecrations of churches.
But as to what I wrote to Augustine, bishop of the English nation — your pupil, indeed, as you recall — concerning the joining of consanguinity: know that I wrote it specially to him and the English nation, which had recently come to the faith, and not generally to the rest, lest, out of fear, it should recoil from the good which it had begun towards things too austere. Whence the whole Roman city stood as witness to me. Nor did I command these things to those writings with the intention that, after they have been solidified with a firm root in the faith, if they be found within their own consanguinity they should not be separated, or that they should be joined within the line of affinity, that is, up to the seventh generation;
but rather, while they are still neophytes, one ought most frequently first to teach them to avoid unlawful things, and to instruct them by words and examples, and reasonably and faithfully to exclude what they may afterward do in such matters. For according to the Apostle, who says: I gave you milk to drink, not meat (1 Cor. III, 2), we granted these things to be held for that time only, not for later times, as has been said above, lest the good which had been planted with a still weak root should be torn up, but that what was begun should be strengthened and guarded until perfection. Truly, if in these matters we have done anything otherwise than we ought, know that it was done not out of wantonness, but out of compassion.
Whence I call God to witness, who knows the thoughts of all men, to whose eyes also all things are naked and open. For if I were to destroy the things which our predecessors established, I should justly be proven to be not a builder but an overthrower, as the voice of Truth attests, which says: Every kingdom divided against itself shall not stand (Luke XI, 17), and all knowledge and law divided against itself shall be destroyed. And therefore it is necessary that we all concordantly hold the statutes of our holy Fathers, doing nothing indeed through contention, but, unanimous in every zeal of good devotion, obey the divine and apostolic constitutions, the Lord helping. (See book XI, letter.)
O how good is charity, which exhibits things absent as present to themselves through love by means of an image; it unites things divided, orders things confused, associates things unequal, consummates things imperfect! How rightly the eminent preacher calls it the bond of perfection (Col. III), because the other virtues indeed generate perfection, yet charity so binds them that they can no longer be dissolved from the mind of the one who loves. These things being duly weighed, I have granted the aforesaid things out of charity; nor have I given a command, but counsel; nor have I handed down a rule in these matters to be held by any posterity, but I have shown, of two dangers, which is the more easily to be avoided.
If therefore in secular affairs each one's own right and proper order must be preserved, how much more in ecclesiastical dispositions ought no confusion to be introduced, lest discord find a place there, whence the goods of peace ought to proceed? Which will be preserved by this reasoning, if nothing be attributed to power, but all to equity. Wherefore our heart greatly rejoices together with your Greatness, that we find you so zealous in your acts that you both have care of us and are zealous to inquire by asking such things, so that such things may acquire for you glory not only among men, but also rewards of recompense with the almighty Lord.
Moreover, concerning the vexation of bishops, about which you wished to consult us, we know that the life of prelates ought to be disturbed by no excesses, because it is exceedingly unworthy that those who are called the thrones of God should be troubled by any commotion, whether from kings or from subjects. Since if David, the most just of kings, did not presume to lay a hand upon Saul, whom it was established had already been reprobated by the Lord, how much more must it be guarded against that any should lay the hand of detraction or of vituperation, or of indiscretion or of dishonouring, upon the anointed of the Lord, or upon the preachers of the holy Church, since their vexation or detraction pertains to Christ, in whose stead they perform an embassy in the Church?
Whence it must be most earnestly guarded against by all the faithful that they should not, secretly or publicly, tear their bishop, that is, the anointed of the Lord, with detractions or vituperations, weighing that example of Miriam, who, because she detracted from Moses the servant of God on account of the Ethiopian woman, was punished with the uncleanness of leprosy (Num. XII). And that of the Psalmist: Touch not my anointed ones, and be not malignant against my prophets (Ps. CIV, 15). And in the divine law it is read: Thou shalt not detract from the gods, and thou shalt not curse the prince of thy people (Exod. XXII, 28).
Whence it must be exceedingly foreseen by subjects, both clerics and laymen, that they should not rashly dare to reprehend the life of their bishops or prelates, if perchance they see them do anything reprehensibly, lest, from that whereby they reprove evils, they be plunged by the impulse of elation into deeper things. They are also to be admonished that, when they consider the faults of their prelates, they should not become more audacious against them. But let them so consider their perverse deeds within themselves that, constrained by divine fear, they refuse not to bear the yoke of reverence under them; since the deeds of bishops or prelates are not to be struck with the sword of the mouth, even when they seem rightly reprehensible;
since we have known it to have been established by our predecessors and by the many other holy bishops, that sheep should not easily reprehend their shepherds, nor presume to accuse or arraign them, because when we offend against prelates, we oppose the ordination of Him who provided them for us. Whence Moses, when he had learned that the people were complaining against himself and Aaron, said: For what are we? Nor is your murmuring against us, but against God (Exod. XVI, 8). Wherefore subjects of both orders of men are to be admonished that, when they behold the deeds of their masters, they should return to their own heart, and not presume to rebuke them; because the disciple is not above the master, nor the servant above his Lord (Matt. X, 24).
But concerning the doubt about the dedications of churches, on which among other things you wished to consult us, you ought to hold this, which we have received as handed down from our predecessors: that is, as often as there is doubt either concerning the baptism of certain persons, or their confirmation, or concerning the consecration of churches, and no certain account is had, neither by writings nor by witnesses, whether they have been baptized or confirmed, or whether the churches have been consecrated — that such persons be baptized and confirmed, and the churches canonically dedicated, lest such doubt become a ruin to the faithful; since that is not shown to be repeated which is not shown by certain proofs to have been rightly performed.
These things, with the help of divine grace, we desire so to hold, and we charge you, as you requested, to hold and teach; and we wish not wantonly to break into those things which were established by the holy Fathers before us, but faithfully to observe them. Whence we implore the mercy of our Redeemer, that His grace may support you in all things, and grant you to fulfil in effect what He has granted you to will; because in this matter the advantages of recompense increase in proportion as the zeal of labour is augmented. But we decree that each one of those who have been faithfully instructed, and now stand planted with a firm root, unshaken, should observe their lineage up to the seventh generation.
Etquandiuseaffinitateagnoscuntpropinquos, adhujuscopulaeconaccederesocietatempraesumant, neecam (Grat., c. 55, q. 2, et 3. c. 10) quamaliquisexpropriaconsanguinitateconjugemhabuit, vela!iquaillicitapollutionemaculavit, inconjugiumdncereultiprofectolicetChristianorumvellicevbit, quiaincestuosusesttaliscoitusetabominabilisDeo, etcunctisbonisbominibus. IncestuososveronulloconjugiinominedeputandosasanctisPatribus 1280 dudumstalutumesselegimus.
And so long as they recognize themselves to be related by affinity, let them not presume to approach the fellowship of this union; nor is it lawful, nor ever shall it be lawful, for any of the Christians to lead into marriage her whom anyone had as wife from his own consanguinity, or defiled by some unlawful pollution, because such intercourse is incestuous and abominable to God and to all good men. And we have read that it was long ago established by the holy Fathers that incestuous persons are to be reckoned by no name of marriage.
Therefore we do not wish to be reprehended in this matter by you or by the other faithful, because what we granted in these things to the English nation, we did not by giving a norm, but by considering lest they should leave imperfect the good of Christianity which they had begun. Saluting you therefore with paternal love, we exhort that you should more earnestly labour in your effectiveness upon the opportunities presented by occasion, and strive by every zeal to act, by whatever means shall be possible, so that you may fulfil your praiseworthy desire for the help of all, the Lord assisting.
Nor do we leave you without guidance in this part of your solicitude, namely that all who are guilty of incest are to be separated from the thresholds of Holy Church until, by making satisfaction, they are canonically reconciled to that same Holy Catholic Church through the prayers of the priests. For the evil are to be set apart from the good, and the wicked from the just, so that at least by their own shame they may recognize their consciences and be converted from their depravities (Hincmar, On the Divorce of Lothar and Theutberga, Question 5). But if they show themselves incorrigible, let them be separated from the faithful until they make satisfaction, according to the sentence of the Lord our Saviour, in which, among other things, He commands concerning a brother who sins against oneself, saying: 「If thy brother shall offend against thee, rebuke him between thee and him alone.」
If he shall hear thee, thou shalt gain thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may stand. And if he will not hear them, tell the Church. But if he will not hear even the Church, let him be to thee as the heathen and the publican (Luke XVII, 3; Matthew XVIII, 15 ff.). By these therefore and by many other authorities of the holy Fathers the evil are to be separated from the good, lest the just perish for the unjust, as it is written: 「The just man perisheth for the ungodly」 (Isaiah LVII, 1, according to the Septuagint). For a distinction ought always to be made between the good and the evil, just as there is between the goats and the sheep. Manifest sins, moreover, are not to be purged by hidden correction;
but those who do harm openly are to be reproved openly, so that while they are healed by open rebuke, those who had gone astray by imitating them may be corrected. For while one is rebuked, very many are amended. And it is better that for the salvation of many one burden be condemned, than that through the license of one man many be endangered. Nor is it any wonder if this principle is observed among men, since we have very often known this to be done even among the beasts, that those which are seen to have mange or scab are separated from the healthy, lest the rest that are sound be corrupted or perish by their disease. It is better therefore that the evil be openly corrected, than that for their sake the good perish.
Wherefore we desire that all you bishops come together into one, so that concerning cases as they arise there may be discussion, and a wholesome conference concerning ecclesiastical observance, to the end that while by this both past faults are corrected and things to come receive their rule, the Almighty Lord who is everywhere may be praised for the concord of the brethren. Know that His presence will be with you, if you observe these things, for it is written: 「Where two or three shall be gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them」 (Matthew XVIII, 20). If therefore He deigns to be present with two or three gathered, how much more will He not be absent where many priests come together? And indeed it is no secret that a council of the Fathers is appointed by the rules to be held twice a year.
But lest there should be any excuse, we have decreed that you assemble once, so that in expectation of the council nothing depraved, nothing unlawful may be presumed. For very often a man is restrained from that which is known to be able to displease the judgment of all, if not by love of justice, yet by fear of examination. This observance, dearest brother, let us hold as to be handed down to our posterity, and let us keep all things that have been written in sacred characters for our instruction, and let us stir up to them whomever we can. For it is certain that if we occupy ourselves with the whole heart in the salutary precepts, we escape every stain of vices, since while we lean upon those things by which we are edified, we without doubt shut out all room for deception.
Wherefore it behoves that in all things you show yourselves the more earnestly zealous toward your brethren and those subject to you, so that all with whom you have been nourished and instructed to obey the precepts of the Holy Roman Church may acknowledge that you multiply and make most openly known the precepts of the Apostolic See; for what we write specially in reply to you and to your charity and to the charity of your brethren, according as your letters have made known, we command to be held generally by all. Concerning the acts of those subject to you, moreover, let your Fraternity be watchful, so that your example may be their instruction and your life their teacher; by the exhortation of your tongue let them learn what to fear, and be taught what to love;
so that when the talents entrusted are multiplied with gain, on the day of retribution, by the granting of divine grace, you may be found worthy to hear: 「Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord」 (Matthew XXV, 21, 23). Moreover, let us know that you have care in all respects concerning all things which we have written to you and to our other brethren, and generally to all, for the prohibition of those matters; for with all zeal and all endeavour it is necessary that the vigilance of your Fraternity be fulfilled, and that there all things which we have written for the salvation of souls be faithfully reviewed;
to the end that both you, through this your zeal, may show how unlawful things displease you, and that we may be seen to have provided profitably, we who have chosen you and your person for this before others. And may Almighty God guard you with His protection, and grant that the honour you have received be preserved for you all. Amen. The Symbol of Faith dictated by the blessed Pope Gregory. I believe in one Almighty God, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, three Persons, one substance: the Father unbegotten, the Son begotten; but the Holy Spirit neither begotten nor unbegotten, but coeternal, proceeding from the Father and the Son. I confess the only-begotten Son to be consubstantial and born of the Father without time.
The Maker of all things visible and invisible. Light of Light. True God of true God. The Brightness of glory. The Figure of His substance, who, abiding the Word before the ages, was created a perfect man toward the end of the ages; conceived and born of the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary. Who took our nature upon Himself without sin. And under Pontius Pilate He was crucified and buried; on the third day He rose again from the dead. But on the fortieth day He ascended into heaven. He sits at the right hand of the Father. Whence He is to come to judge the living and the dead. About to set before the eyes of all the hidden things of each one. About to give to the saints the everlasting rewards of the heavenly kingdom, but to the wicked the torments of eternal fire. About to renew the world through fire.
I confess one faith, one baptism; one apostolic and universal Church, in which alone sins can be loosed, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. In the times of Pope Gregory, in the seventh year of the consulate of Maurice Augustus, Laurentius was deposed, who had been first in the order of the diaconate of the Apostolic See, on account of his pride and his evil deeds, which we have thought fit to pass over in silence; and Honoratus was made archdeacon in the presence of all the presbyters and deacons and notaries and subdeacons, and of the whole clergy, in the Golden Basilica.
The solemnity of our yearly devotion admonishes us, most beloved sons, that we ought, with the Lord's help, to celebrate with anxious and devout minds the litany which is called by all the Greater, through which, supplicating His mercy, we may deserve in some measure to be purged from our excesses. For it befits us to consider, most beloved, by how various and continual calamities we are pressed for our faults and offences, and how in turn the medicine of heavenly mercy comes to our aid from time to time.
Therefore, when the sixth day of the week comes, let us go forth from the church of the blessed martyr Laurence, which is called that of Lucina, and, supplicating the Lord with hymns and spiritual canticles, let us hasten to the blessed Peter, prince of the apostles, so that there, celebrating the sacred mysteries, we may deserve to render thanks to His mercy, as far as we can, both for the more ancient and for the present benefits. Gregory to all the bishops. To the most precious stones deservedly gleaming in the diadem of Christ, and to all the members of the holy Church of God, whose universal Head is Christ, Gregory—though exalted by the pontificate of the holy Roman See, yet the most humble servant of the servants of God.
When the hearts of Catholic kings are kindled with such ardent desire, by the prevenient divine grace, toward those things to which they are to be urged by pontifical admonitions, that these things are of their own accord asked for by them, they are to be granted with a mind so much the more alert and joyful, as the very things they desire would have had to be sought from them if they were unwilling to do them. Accordingly, in keeping with the writings of our most excellent sons the kings Brunichildis and her grandson Theoderic, to the monastery of the holy Mother of God Mary, and of the blessed Peter, prince of the apostles,
and of the protomartyr of Christ Stephen, which is situated in the city of Soissons, where the holy Medardus reposes and where the venerable man Abbot Gairaldus is seen to preside—to this monastery we grant, by the decree of our authority, privileges of this kind, and we more fully confirm those privileges which by the lord Pope John of good memory, with the clemency of the illustrious kings, namely Clothar and Sigebert, the consorts of this our daughter, accompanying, were granted or bestowed upon that place under the bonds of anathema; these we grant and confirm.
Decreeing that no king, prelate, or judge, no man endowed with whatsoever dignity, shall, under the pretext of any occasion, diminish, take away, or apply to his own uses those things which have been granted or shall be conferred upon the place by the most excellent kings or by any others who fear God; but we will that all things which have been offered or shall happen to be offered to the monks serving God be possessed for perpetual time inviolate and without any disturbance, wholly profitable for the uses of those for whose sustenance they were granted. We grant also that, when the abbot dies, no other whatsoever be there ordained by the cunning of any usurpation, save him whom the common consent of the monks shall have chosen, or shall have provided to be ordained.