To Narses the Religious, on Enduring Opposition

Gregory to Narses, and so on. [a] When I was sending Romanus the defensor to the royal city, he searched a long time for your letters, but they could not be found. Afterward, though, they were found among many letters from other people. In them your sweetness tells me of your afflictions and troubles of spirit, and makes known how bad men oppose you. But I beg you, in all this call to mind what I believe you never forget: “All who will live godly in Christ suffer persecution” (Second Timothy 3, verse 12). And on this point I say with confidence that you would live less godly if you suffered persecution less. For let us hear what else the same teacher of the Gentiles says to his disciples: “You yourselves know, brothers, our coming in to you, that it was not in vain; for we had suffered before and been shamefully treated” (First Thessalonians 2, verses 1 and 2). See, most sweet son: the holy preacher declared that his coming would have been of no effect if he had not been shamefully treated. And your love wants to say good things, but refuses to endure evil things. That is why you must gird yourself up more tightly in the midst of adverse circumstances, so that adversity itself may increase all the more your desire for the love of God and your earnestness in good works. So the seeds of the harvest sprout more fruitfully for being covered over with frost; so fire is held down by a blast of wind so that it may grow greater. I know indeed that you are enduring a violent storm from the perverse speeches of so many evil tongues, and that you bear in your soul billows of contradiction. But remember what the Lord says through the psalmist: “I heard you in the secret place of the storm; I tested you at the waters of contradiction” (Psalm 81, verse 7). For if, in the midst of those who contradict you, you do the things that are of God, then you are proved a true worker. [c]

Further, your most sweet love has written asking me to write something by way of admonition to the monasteries which, through your prayers and influence, have been founded by our son the lord Paul. But if they are vessels of God, I know that through the grace of heartfelt sorrow they have a fountain of wisdom within, and ought not to take in the little drops of my dryness. Further, your perfect wisdom remembers that in Paradise there was no rain, but a fountain rose up from the midst of Paradise to water the face of the ground. Those souls, then, that through the grace of heartfelt sorrow have a fountain in themselves have no need of rain from another’s tongue. [d]

Further, you tell me in your letter of the passing of the lady Esychia, and I rejoiced with great gladness that that good soul, which labored in a foreign country, has arrived happily at its own. Further, greet for me my glorious daughters, the lady Dominica and the lady Eudochia. But since I hear that it is now a long time since the lady Dominica I mentioned was made a prioress, let your love watch over her in this respect: that, since she is no longer compelled to serve in the toil of an earthly court, she may flee perfectly from all the noises of this world, devote herself entirely to God, and leave no part of herself outside herself. And let her also gather as many souls as she can to the service of her Creator, so that their minds may receive the grace of heartfelt sorrow through her word, and that she herself may be absolved from all her sins all the more quickly as, through her life and her tongue, the souls of others too break loose from the bonds of sin. Moreover, since no one among men in this world is without sin (and what else is sinning but fleeing from God?), I say with confidence that this daughter of mine also has some sins. So, that she may fully satisfy her mistress, that is, eternal Wisdom, let her who fled alone return with many. For the guilt of turning away will be charged to no one who, in returning, brings back gain. [e]

Further, I beg you to greet for me the lord Alexander and the lord Theodore. But as to your saying in your letter that I ought to write to my most excellent daughter the lady Gurdia, and to her most holy daughter the lady Theoctista, and to their magnificent husbands, the lord Marinus and the lord Christidorus, and give them some admonition about their souls: your most sweet greatness knows well that there is no one in the city of Constantinople at present who can translate well into Greek what has been dictated in Latin. For they keep to the words but pay little attention to the sense, and so they both fail to make the words understood and also mangle the sense. For this reason I have written briefly to my daughter the lady Gurdia, whom I mentioned, but have not written to the others. Further, I have sent you two linen tunics and four scarves, which I ask you to offer humbly to the men I mentioned, with the blessing of Saint Peter. Besides this, a certain person at his death left me a little boy in his will. Taking thought for his soul, I have sent him to your sweetness, so that in this world he may live in the service of one through whom he may be able to reach the freedom of heaven. Further, I beg your most sweet love to visit often my most beloved son the deacon Anatolius, whom I have sent to represent the church in the royal city, so that after the toils he endures in worldly business he may find rest with you in the word of God, and wipe away the sweat of this earthly toil of his as if with a kind of white napkin. Commend him to everyone you know, though I am sure that if he is fully known he needs no commendation. Yet show in your dealings with him how much you love the holy apostle Peter, and me. Now may Almighty God guard your love, so very sweet to me, from enemies within and without, and, when it pleases him, bring you to the heavenly kingdoms. [f]