To Eulogius, Bishop of Alexandria, on the Acts of the Martyrs and the Timber

Gregory to Eulogius, and so on. [a] What a learned man says is always profitable, because the hearer either learns what he knew he did not know, or, better still, comes to know what he did not know he did not know. I have now become a hearer of the second kind. Your most holy blessedness has been minded to write to me, asking me to send you the acts of all the martyrs, which were collected in the time of Constantine of pious memory by Eusebius of Caesarea. But before I received your blessedness’s letter I did not know about these acts, whether they had been collected or not. So I give thanks that, taught by your most holy instruction, I have begun to know what I did not know. For apart from what is contained about the acts of the holy martyrs in the books of that same Eusebius, I know of no collections in the archives of this church of ours or in the libraries of the city of Rome, except a few things collected in a single volume. We do indeed have the names of almost all the martyrs, with their sufferings assigned to particular days, collected in one volume, and on those days we celebrate the solemn rites of the mass in their memory. Yet this volume does not tell who each one was or how he suffered. Only his name, and the place and day of his suffering, are set down. The result is that many from various countries and provinces are known to have been crowned with martyrdom, as I have said, on their several days. But these we believe you have. What you want sent to you, however, we have searched for and have not found. But though we have not found it, we will keep searching, and if it can be found, we will send it. [b]

As for what you write about the timber being too short, the cause lay in the kind of ship it was sent on. If a larger ship had come, we could have sent larger pieces. As for your saying that if we send larger pieces you will pay for them, we thank you indeed for your generosity, but we are barred from accepting a price, since the Gospel forbids it. For we do not buy the timber we send, and how can we accept a price when it is written, “Freely you have received, freely give” (Matthew 10, verse 8)? So we have now sent, by the ship’s master, timber of short length to suit the size of the ship, and a list of it is added below. Next year, however, if it pleases Almighty God, we will get larger pieces ready. [d]

We have received, with the same kindness in which it was sent, the blessing of Saint Mark the evangelist, or rather, it may more truly be said, of Saint Peter the apostle. And greeting you warmly, we beg your blessedness to be so good as to pray for us, so that we may be counted worthy to be soon set free from present evils and not shut out from the joys to come. [e]