To Theoctista, on the Two Kinds of Heartfelt Sorrow

Gregory to Theoctista, and so on. [a] Your excellency, though placed in so great a turmoil of affairs, is full of the fruitfulness of the sacred word and longs without ceasing for eternal joys. For this I give great thanks to Almighty God, because in you I see fulfilled what is written of the chosen fathers: “But the children of Israel walked on dry land through the midst of the sea” (Exodus 15, verse 19). I, on the other hand, “have come into the depth of the sea, and the storm has overwhelmed me” (Psalm 69, verse 2). But you, as I see, walk with dry feet through the waves of worldly affairs to the land of promise. Let us give thanks, then, to that Spirit who lifts up the hearts he fills; who amid the tumult of men makes a solitude in the soul; and in whose presence there is no place where a soul moved by heartfelt sorrow can be that is not a secret place. For you breathe in the fragrance of eternal sweetness, and you love the bridegroom of your soul so ardently that you can say with the heavenly bride, “Draw me after you; we run in the fragrance of your ointments” (Song of Songs 1, verse 3). But in your excellency’s letters I find this lack: you have been unwilling to tell me about your most serene mistress, how earnestly she reads, or how she is moved to heartfelt sorrow in her reading. For your presence ought to be of great benefit to her, so that amid the billows of affairs that she constantly suffers, and by which, whether she will or not, she is drawn outward, she may be called back inwardly to the love of the heavenly homeland. And you ought to look into this too, as often as tears are given her for her soul: whether her sorrow still springs from fear, or now from love. [b]

For there are two kinds of heartfelt sorrow, as you know: one that is afraid of eternal pains, the other that sighs for heavenly rewards. The soul that thirsts for God is moved to sorrow first by fear, and afterward by love. For at first it is moved to tears because, as it remembers its evil deeds, it fears to suffer eternal punishment for them. But when fear has worn away in the anxiety of a long sorrow, a certain security is born from a sense of pardon, and the mind is set on fire with love of heavenly joys. And the one who earlier wept for fear of punishment afterward begins to weep most bitterly because he is kept back from the kingdom. For the soul contemplates what those choirs of angels are, what the very company of blessed spirits is, what the vision of the inward brightness of God is; and it grieves more over the lack of unending good than it wept before when it feared eternal evil. And so it comes about that the sorrow of fear, when it is made perfect, draws the mind on to the sorrow of love. All this is well described in the sacred and true history, understood figuratively, which says: “Achsah the daughter of Caleb sighed as she sat on an ass. And her father said to her, ‘What do you want?’ She answered, ‘Give me a blessing. You have given me a southern and dry land; give me also a watered land.’ And her father gave her the upper springs and the lower springs” (Joshua 15, verses 18 and 19). For Achsah sits on an ass when the soul rules over the irrational motions of the flesh. And sighing, she asks her father for a watered land, because the grace of tears must be sought from our Creator with great longing. For there are some who have already freely received the gift of speaking up for justice, of protecting the oppressed, of giving of their own to the needy, of burning with faith, but do not yet have the grace of tears. These, that is to say, have a southern and dry land, but still need springs of water. For while they are busy with good works, in which they are great and fervent, they still sorely need, whether from fear of punishment or from love of the heavenly kingdom, to lament the sins they cannot be without as long as they live. But since, as I have said, there are two kinds of heartfelt sorrow, her father gave her the upper springs and the lower springs. For the soul receives the upper springs when it afflicts itself in tears out of desire for the heavenly kingdom; but it receives the lower springs when it shudders and weeps at the punishments of hell. And indeed the lower springs are given first, and the upper springs afterward. But because the sorrow of love is far higher in dignity than the other, the upper springs had to be mentioned first and the lower springs afterward. You, then, who through the working of the Almighty Lord know both kinds of sorrow by experience, ought to try anxiously, day by day, to discover how much you are helping your most serene mistress by your words. [d]

Further, I beg you to take special care to train in good character the little lords you are bringing up. And admonish the glorious eunuchs appointed to attend them to say such things to them as may move their minds to love among themselves and to gentleness toward their subjects, so that, if they should now conceive any grudge against each other, it may not break out openly later on. For truly the words of those who bring up children will be either milk, if they are good, or poison, if they are evil. So let them speak to the little ones now in such a way that later they may show what good words they drew in from the mouths of those who nursed them. [e]

Furthermore, my beloved son Sabinianus the deacon has brought about twenty-two pounds of gold, sent by your excellency to be given for the ransom of captives and for distribution to the poor. I rejoice over it, but I tremble for myself, seeing that I will have to give an account before the awesome Judge not only of the property of Saint Peter, prince of the apostles, but also of your possessions. But may Almighty God repay you with heavenly things for earthly ones, and eternal things for temporal ones. I must now tell you that from the city of Crotone, which lies on the Adriatic Sea in the land of Italy and was taken last year by the Lombards, many noble men and many noble women were led away captive. Children were parted from their parents, parents from their children, husbands from their wives, and wives from their husbands. Some of them have already been ransomed. But because of the heavy prices set on them, many have remained until now in the hands of those most abominable Lombards. I sent half of the money you sent at once for their ransom. With the other half I have arranged to buy bedding for the handmaids of God whom you call in the Greek language monastriae, since they suffer from a grievous lack of covering on their beds in the very severe cold of this winter. There are many of them in this city: according to the official list of them, they are found to number three thousand. They do indeed receive about sixty pounds a year, by weight, from the possessions of Saint Peter, prince of the apostles. But what is that for so great a multitude, especially in this city, where everything is so expensive? Their life, moreover, is such, and so strict in tears and abstinence, that we believe that but for them not one of us could have survived for so many years in this place among the swords of the Lombards. [f]

Furthermore, I am sending you, as a blessing from Saint Peter the apostle, a key from his most sacred body, and about this key the miracle took place that I will now relate. A certain Lombard found it as he entered a city in the region beyond the Po. Paying no regard to it as Saint Peter’s key, but wanting to make something for himself out of it, since he saw it was gold, he took out a knife to cut it. But at once he was seized by a spirit, and he plunged the knife with which he had meant to cut it into his own throat, and in the same hour fell down dead. When Authari, king of the Lombards, and many others of his people came to the place, the man who had stabbed himself was lying dead in one spot and the key on the ground in another. Great fear came on them all, so that no one dared to lift the key from the ground. Then a certain Lombard who was a catholic, known to be given to prayer and almsgiving, Minulf by name, was called, and he lifted it from the ground himself. Because of this miracle Authari made another golden key and sent it along with this one to my predecessor of holy memory, declaring what kind of miracle had taken place through it. So I have taken thought to send your excellency this key, through which Almighty God cut off a proud and faithless man, so that through it you who fear and love him may be able to have well-being both now and forever. [h]