To Martin the Scholasticus, on the Case of Crementius

Gregory to Martin, and so on.

As your greatness knows, questions arising in civil affairs need very full inquiry. So let your wisdom consider with what care and watchfulness the cases of bishops should be investigated. But in the letter you sent us by the bearer of this one, on the questions about which our brother and fellow bishop Crementius sent you to us, you have given only a surface account of them and have said nothing at all about their root. Had their origin and inner character been clear to us, we would have known what should be decided about them, and could then have settled our brother’s mind with a plain and fitting reply. This, however, displeases us altogether: that you give us to understand that some of the bishops have gone to the court without letters from their primate, and that they hold unlawful meetings. But since, as we said before, the origin and nature of the questions are entirely unknown to us, we cannot give any definite ruling, in case we should seem, which would be very blameworthy, to pass sentence on things known only in part. So it was very necessary, for our complete information, that your greatness should have come here to answer our questions during the time you were staying in Sicily. [b]

Nevertheless, now that you have seen our brother and fellow bishop John, we believe that in him you have seen us too. And since he too has taken pains to write to us about the same questions, we have written to him in reply what seemed right to us. And since he is a priest of mature and careful judgment, if you are willing to deal with him on the questions he has been commissioned to take up, we are sure that you will find in him what is both helpful and reasonable.