To Eulogius, Bishop of Alexandria, on Peter and Mark

Gregory to Eulogius, bishop of Alexandria. Love, the mother and guardian of all that is good, binds the hearts of many together in union, and does not count as absent one whom it holds present in the mind’s eye. So, dearest brother, since we are held together by the root of love, neither bodily absence nor distance of place will have any power to lay claim to us, for we who are one are surely not far from each other. Now we wish always to keep this common love with the rest of our brothers. Yet something binds us in a special way to the church of Alexandria and compels us, as if by a law of its own, to be the more inclined to love it. For it is known to all that the blessed evangelist Mark was sent to Alexandria by Saint Peter the apostle, his master. So we are bound together in the unity of this master and his disciple, so that I seem to preside over the see of the disciple because of the master, and you over the see of the master because of the disciple. [a]

Moreover, the merits of your holiness also bind us to this unity of hearts, for we know that you follow with profit the ordinances of your founder, and we sense how wholeheartedly you devote yourself to the bosom of your master, from which the preaching of salvation sprang in your parts. And so, when we received your holiness’s letter, our heart rejoiced at your brotherly visit, and in the same measure it is now weighed down with sadness at the untold burdens you speak of, and we groan with you in brotherly sympathy over your grief. But since upheavals of every kind are spreading everywhere, in the midst of a common need one should grieve less for one’s own troubles, and should rather try, by patient endurance, to overcome what we cannot altogether avoid. But what we ourselves suffer from the swords of the Lombards, in the daily plundering, maiming and killing of our citizens, we will not tell, in case, by speaking of our own sorrows, we add to yours through the sympathy you have for us. [c]

Further, a little while ago we sent a letter of ours to Sabinianus, who represents our church in the royal city, and he should have forwarded it to your fraternity. If you have received it, we wonder why you have sent us no reply to it. And so, since care must be taken that no one’s pride, whoever he may be, bring offense into the churches, you need to read it carefully, and with all diligence and the full bent of your mind maintain what belongs to your dignity and to the peace of the church. [d] Now may Almighty God, who by the grace of his loving-kindness has given you the disposition and the love that befit a priest, protect you in his service, keep you within and without from every adversity, and mercifully grant that the souls of those who wander may be converted to him by your preaching.

We have received with due love the bearer of this letter, our common son the deacon Isidore, who brought us the blessing of Saint Mark the evangelist. You indeed, shining with the merit of a good life, have sent us sweet-smelling wood, wood that is near to Paradise. But we, being sinners, send you wood from the West. It is suited for building ships, and so it stands for the turmoil of our mind, always tossed on the waves of the sea. We wanted to send larger pieces, but the ship was not big enough to hold them. In the month of August, in the fourteenth indiction. [e]