To Italica the Patrician, on the Causes of the Poor

Gregory to Italica, and so on. [a]

We have received your letter, which is full of sweetness, and we rejoice to hear that your excellency is well. Such is the sincerity of our own mind toward it that fatherly affection does not let us suspect any hidden ill feeling concealed beneath its calm. But may Almighty God bring it about that, as we think well of you, so your mind may answer us with good, and that you may show in your deeds the sweetness you express in words. For the most glorious health and beauty on the surface of the body profit nothing if there is a hidden sore within. And that discord is all the more to be guarded against which has outward peace for its bodyguard. But as to what your excellency takes pains in your letter to remind us of: remember that you were told in writing that we would not settle anything with you concerning the causes of the poor in a way that gave offense, or with public outcry. We remember writing to you to this effect. We also know, with God’s help, how to restrain ourselves with the moderation fitting the church from the wrangling of lawsuits, and, according to the apostle’s saying, to bear joyfully the plundering of our goods. But this, we suppose, you know: that our silence and patience will not prejudice future pontiffs after me in the affairs of the poor. So, in fulfillment of the promise just mentioned, we have already decided to keep silent on these questions, and we do not want to involve ourselves personally in these dealings, in which we feel that too little kindness is being shown. But lest you should think from this, glorious daughter, that we are still giving up altogether on what makes for harmony, we have given instructions to our son Cyprian the deacon, who is going to Sicily, that if you arrange these matters in a wholesome way and without sin to your soul, he is to settle them with you by our authority, so that we may be troubled no further by the business, which may in this way be brought to a friendly end. Now may Almighty God, who well knows how to make things altogether impossible possible, inspire you both to arrange your affairs with a view to peace and, for the good of your soul, to look to the benefit of the poor of this church in the matters that concern them. [b]