To Rufinus, Bishop of Ephesus, Commending a Cleric Who Cannot Read

Gregory to Rufinus, and so on. [a]

The love shown in your acts of friendship in the past has moved us to visit your fraternity with this letter. For we have been refreshed with great joy to learn from reports of your health that all is well with you. But while this is so, we implore Almighty God that, as in the present life, which is a kind of shadow of the life to come, he has granted you to rejoice in the passing well-being of your body, so in that heavenly homeland where true life is, he may make us give thanks and rejoice together with a shared delight for the full salvation of your soul. Now the bearer of this letter wished to be commended to you by a letter from us. When we asked him whether he had learned to read, as befits a cleric, he replied that he had not. So I do not know what further commendation I should give your fraternity about him, except that you should be concerned for his soul and watch over him with a pastor’s zeal. So, since he cannot read, let your tongue be a book to him, and let him see in the goodness of your preaching and your work what he should follow. For the living voice usually draws the heart more closely than a hasty reading. But while, as his master, you supply him inwardly with this spiritual teaching, do not let outward care for him be lacking either. By its help he may come to long for spiritual things; and if such help is neglected, you may no longer have anyone to preach to. [b]