Gregory to Virgilius, bishop of Arles. How great is the affection to be shown to brethren who come of their own accord, is known from this, that they are for the most part wont to be invited for charity's sake. And therefore, if it should chance that our common brother Augustine the bishop comes to you, let your Love receive him, as is fitting, affectionately and sweetly, so that he may both cherish him by the good of his consolation, and teach others how brotherly charity ought to be cultivated. And since it often happens that those who are set far off first perceive the things that are to be amended before others do, if perchance he shall have brought to your Fraternity any faults of priests or of others, sitting together with him, search out all things by subtle investigation.
And so show yourselves strict and solicitous in those things which offend God and provoke Him to wrath, that, for the amendment of others, both punishment may strike the guilty, and false opinion may not afflict the innocent. May God keep you safe, most reverend brother. Given on the tenth day of the Kalends of July, in the nineteenth year of the reign of our lord the most pious Maurice Tiberius Augustus, the eighteenth year after the consulship of the same our lord, in the fourth indiction.