To Constantius, Bishop of Milan, on His Ordination

Gregory to Constantius, bishop of Milan. When I received your fraternity’s letter, I gave great thanks to Almighty God that I had been counted worthy to be refreshed by the celebration of your ordination. Your fraternity ought to weigh with the greatest care the fact that, by the gift of God, everyone agreed with one accord in electing you. For after God you owe a great deal to those who so humbly wished you to be set above themselves. [a] So it is fitting that you answer their conduct with a priest’s kindness, and attend to their needs with warm sympathy. If there happen to be faults in any of them, rebuke them with well-considered reproofs, so that even your priestly indignation is mingled with a taste of sweetness, and so you may be loved by those under you even when you are greatly feared. Such conduct will also lead them to hold you in great reverence. For just as quick and habitual rage is despised, so indignation against faults, used with discernment, is generally the more feared the slower it has been to come. [b]

Further, our subdeacon John, who has come back, has reported many good things of you. We pray Almighty God himself to complete what he has begun, so that he may show that you have grown in goodness both inwardly and outwardly, now among men and hereafter among the angels. We have also sent you, as is the custom, a pallium, to be worn at the sacred solemnities of the mass. But when you receive it, I beg you to uphold its dignity and its meaning by humility.