To Januarius, Bishop of Cagliari, on the Guesthouses and Clerical Discipline

Gregory to Januarius, bishop of Cagliari. Your fraternity ought indeed to have been so attentive to your duties of devotion as to need no warnings of ours at all to lead you to fulfill them. Yet since certain things that need correcting have come to our knowledge, it is not out of place for you to have, besides, a letter addressed to you that carries our authority.

So we inform you that we have been given to understand that it has been the custom for the guesthouses established in the district around Cagliari to submit their accounts in detail from time to time to the bishop of the city, so that they are governed under his guardianship and care. Now, since your love is said to have neglected this so far, we urge, as has been said, that those who are or have been placed in these guesthouses submit their accounts in detail from time to time. And let such people be ordained to preside over them as are found most worthy in life, character and diligence, and in any case men who are religious, whom the judges have no power to harass. Otherwise, if they were men who could be summoned to the courts, an opening might be given for wasting the slender resources these houses have. We wish you to take the greatest care of these resources, so that nothing is given away to anyone without your knowledge, and the carelessness of your fraternity does not go so far as to let them be plundered. [a]

Moreover, you know that the bearer of this letter, Epiphanius the presbyter, was accused of crimes in the letters of certain Sardinians. We investigated his case, as we wished to do, and finding no proof of what was charged against him, we have acquitted him, so that he may be restored to his place. So we wish you to search out those who brought the charge against him. And unless the man who sent those letters is ready to support his charges with canonical and most strict proofs, let him on no account approach the mystery of holy communion. Further, there is Paul the cleric, who is said to have been caught many times in wrongdoing, and who had fled to Africa and gone back to the life of a layman in defiance of his clerical state. If this is so, we have seen to it that he is first given corporal punishment and then handed over to penance, so that, according to the apostle’s sentence, the spirit may be saved through the affliction of the flesh, and so that he may also be able to wash away with continual tears the earthly filth of sin which he is said to have contracted by wicked deeds. [c]

Moreover, in keeping with the commands of the canons, let no religious person associate with those who have been suspended from the communion of the church. Further, let no one presume to take any fee for ordinations or for the marriages of clerics, or from virgins when they are veiled, unless they prefer to offer something of their own accord. As to what should be done about women who have left monasteries for a lay life and have taken husbands, we have spoken at length with your fraternity’s presbyter already named, and your holiness may be more fully informed from his report. Further, let religious clerics avoid resorting to laymen or relying on their patronage. Let them be subject in every respect to your jurisdiction, according to the canons, so that the discipline of the church over which you preside is not broken down through the slackness of your fraternity. [d] Lastly, as to the men who sinned with the women already named, who had left their monasteries, and who are said to be suspended from communion now: if your fraternity sees that they have repented worthily of such wickedness, it is our will that you restore them to holy communion.