To Januarius, Bishop of Cagliari, on Discipline and the Pagan Peasants

Gregory to Januarius, bishop of Cagliari. We have learned from the report of our fellow bishop Felix and of the abbot Cyriacus that in the island of Sardinia priests are oppressed by lay judges, and that your own ministers despise your fraternity. We learn too that, as far as can be seen, while you aim only at simplicity, discipline is neglected. So I urge you to put aside all excuses and take pains to govern the church whose charge you have received, to keep up discipline among the clergy, and to fear no one’s words. I hear, besides, that you have forbidden your archdeacon to live with women, and that up to now this prohibition of yours has been treated with contempt. Unless he obeys your command, it is our will that he be deprived of his sacred order.

There is another thing, too, that is much to be deplored: the negligence of your fraternity has let the peasants who belong to the holy church remain in unbelief up to the present time. And what use is it for me to urge you to bring to God those who do not belong to you, if you neglect to win back your own from unbelief? So you must be watchful in every way for their conversion. For if I manage to find a pagan peasant belonging to any bishop at all in the island of Sardinia, I will deal severely with that bishop. [b] But now, if any peasant should be found so faithless and obstinate as to refuse to come to the Lord God, he must be weighed down with so heavy a burden of payment that the very pain of what is demanded of him compels him to hurry to the right way. [c]

It has also come to our knowledge that some in sacred orders who have lapsed, whether after doing penance or before, are being called back to the office of their ministry. This is a thing we have altogether forbidden, and the most sacred canons also declare against it. So whoever has lapsed into sin of the flesh after receiving any sacred order must lose his sacred order in such a way that he never again approaches the ministry of the altar. But so that those who have been ordained may never be lost, care should be taken beforehand over what kind of people are ordained. It should first be seen whether they have lived in continence for many years, and whether they have cared for reading and loved almsgiving. It should be asked, too, whether a man has perhaps been married twice. It should also be seen to that he is not illiterate, and that he is not bound by any obligation to the state, which would force him to return to public service after he had taken a sacred order. So let your fraternity carefully inquire into all these things, so that every man is ordained only after careful examination, and none may easily become liable to be deposed after his ordination. Make known what we have written to your fraternity to all the bishops under you, since I have not wished to write to them myself, so as not to seem to lessen your dignity.

It has also come to our ears that some have taken offense because we forbade presbyters to touch with chrism those who are to be baptized. We acted, indeed, according to the ancient custom of our church. But if some are truly distressed by it, we allow that where there are no bishops, presbyters may touch with chrism, even on their foreheads, those who are to be baptized. [d]