To Gennadius, Patrician of Africa, on Bishop Paul

Gregory to Gennadius, patrician of Africa. We have no doubt that your excellency remembers how, two years ago, we wrote on behalf of Paul, our brother and fellow bishop. We asked you to give him the support of your dignity in his wish to come to us, because of the trouble he was said to be suffering from persecution by the Donatists. It had been reported to us that he could get no help against them there, and so we wanted, once we had found out the truth, to give him advice with brotherly sympathy, and to discuss with him what wholesome arrangement should be made against the madness of pestilent presumption. But as far as our brother named above gave us to understand, not only did he get no help from anyone, but various hindrances kept him from coming safely to the city of Rome. Yet when we had your letter read to him, he replied that he is not suffering from the ill will of certain persons because he held the Donatists in check. Rather, he says, he is out of favor with many for his defense of the catholic faith. He also told me many other things, which we have thought it best to keep to ourselves, since this is not a fitting time to mention them. [a]

So, since the question before us is not about earthly affairs but about the health of souls, and your account and his differ, we have not been able to reply on any particular point, not having investigated the truth; for when we received your excellency’s letter we were confined by bodily sickness. But when Almighty God, if it pleases him, has restored us to our former health, we will sift out the truth as well as we can by careful inquiry. And according to what we are able to learn, we will settle the case, through the mercy of God, in such a way that the health of souls, whose cure you are good enough to care about, may be restored where those who err have now lost it, and also that what the upholders of the true faith still have may be preserved by the protecting grace of our Redeemer. But as for the bishop named above, who you say has been deprived of communion, we greatly wonder how it is that this was announced to us in a letter from your excellency, and not from his primate. [c]