To the Presbyters and Clergy of Milan

Gregory to the presbyters, deacons, and clergy of the church of Milan. We have received your love’s letter. It bore no signatures, but it was vouched for by the persons who carried it, the presbyter Magnus and the cleric Hippolytus. Having read it, we find that you are all agreed in favor of our son Constantius, deacon of your church, whom I have known well for a long time. When I represented the Apostolic See in the royal city, he stayed close beside me for a long while, and I never found anything in him that could be faulted at all. Nevertheless, it has long been my settled resolve not to intervene on any man’s behalf for his taking up the burden of pastoral care. So I can only follow up your election with my prayers, that Almighty God, who always foresees what we will do, may supply you with such a pastor that in his tongue and his ways you may find pastures of divine exhortation. May he be one in whose character humility shines out together with uprightness, and severity together with loving-kindness; one who can show you the way of life not only by his speaking but also by his living; so that from his example your love may learn to sigh with longing for the eternal homeland. So, most dear sons, warned by the duty of correction that belongs to our office, we urge you in this matter of getting yourselves a bishop that none of you look to your own gain without regard for the common good. Otherwise, if anyone is eager for his own private interest, he may be misled by a trivial judgment, for a mind bound by greed does not weigh with free judgment a person’s claim to be preferred. Considering, then, what is profitable for all, always give the fullest obedience in all things to the man whom divine grace places over you. For once he has been placed over you, you must not judge him any further; though for now he ought to be judged all the more thoroughly, since he may not be judged hereafter. But when, with God’s leave, a pastor has been consecrated for you, commit yourselves to him with all your heart, and in him serve the Lord, the Almighty, who has placed him over you. [a]

But since the judgment from above usually provides peoples with pastors according to what they deserve, seek spiritual things, love heavenly things, despise things that are temporal and fleeting. And hold it as most certain that you will have a pastor who pleases God if you yourselves please God in what you do. See, all the things of this world, which we used to hear from the sacred page were doomed to perish, we now see already in ruins. Cities are overthrown, fortified camps uprooted, churches destroyed, and no one tills the ground of our land. Among us who are left, very few in number, the sword of man rages without ceasing, together with the calamities with which we are struck from above. So we see before our eyes the evils we long ago heard would come upon the world, and the very regions of the earth have become like the pages of books to us. In the passing away of all things, then, we ought to reflect how all that we have loved was nothing. So look with anxious hearts toward the approaching day of the eternal judge, and forestall its terrors by repenting. Wash away with tears the stains of all your transgressions. Calm, by sorrow in this present time, the wrath that hangs over you eternally. For when our loving Creator comes to judge, he will comfort us with all the greater favor as he sees us now punishing ourselves for our own transgressions. [c]

By God’s favor we are now sending you John our subdeacon, the bearer of this letter, for this purpose: that with the help of Almighty God he may see to it that your bishop-elect is consecrated in the same way as his predecessor. For just as we claim our rights from others, so we keep for each their own rights.