To the Monks on Their Way to England

Gregory, servant of the servants of God, to the servants of our Lord Jesus Christ. [a] Since it would have been better not to begin a good work than to turn back from it once begun, you must, most beloved sons, finish the good work which, with the help of the Lord, you have begun. So let neither the hardship of the journey nor the tongues of slanderous men turn you aside; but with all perseverance and all fervor carry on what you have begun under God’s guidance, knowing that great toil is followed by the glory of an eternal reward. Obey Augustine, your superior, humbly in all things. He is returning to you, and we also appoint him your abbot, knowing that whatever is accomplished in you through his guidance will profit your souls in every way. [c]

May Almighty God protect you with his grace, and grant me to see the fruit of your labor in the eternal homeland; so that, even though I cannot labor with you, I may be found together with you in the joy of the reward, for indeed I long to labor. God keep you safe, most beloved sons. Given on the tenth day before the Kalends of August, in the fourteenth year of our lord the emperor Maurice Tiberius, the most pious Augustus, the thirteenth year of the consulship of our same lord, in the fourteenth indiction.