To Marinianus, Bishop of Ravenna, on His Predecessor’s Monastery

Gregory to Marinianus, bishop of Ravenna. [a]

We wonder why your fraternity’s discernment should have changed so much in so short a time that it does not consider what it is asking for. This grieves us, since you give plain proof that the words of evil advisers have counted for more with you than your study of divine learning has profited you. When you ought to be protecting monasteries, and gathering religious people into them with all your power, so as to make your gain from the gathering of souls, you want instead to busy yourself oppressing them, as your letters show. And what is worse, you are trying to make us partners in your fault: you wish, with our consent, to oppress the monastery your predecessor founded, under the name of looking after its property and its business.

For you ought to remember that, in your presence, and in the presence also of several of your presbyters, deacons and clergy, we granted at their request a written order against your predecessor’s will. Yet what he had arranged concerning the monastery itself was confirmed in that same order; and now you pass over this in silence and ask us to order the opposite. We know indeed that this scheme is not your own. But when you do not refuse to listen to those who say unfitting things, you injure not only your own good name but souls as well. Since, then, I love you very much, I urgently warn you—consider this carefully—not to care more for money than for souls. Money should be looked after on the side; but souls should be looked after with the whole bent of the mind, and striven for with all one’s strength. Spend your labor and care watchfully on this, since our Redeemer looks for souls, not gold, from the office of priest.

Further, it has reached our ears that monasteries under your fraternity are being oppressed by the clergy with demands and annoyances of various kinds. So that this may no longer happen, restrain it by a strict prohibition, so that the monks who live in them may be free to rejoice in the praises of our God. As for the clerics Romanus and Dominicus, who rashly presumed to leave this city without our blessing: though they ought to have been struck with heavier punishment, the matter should nevertheless be eased in a spirit of kindness, so that they may be urged to come back to their duty. The month of April, in the fourteenth indiction. [b]