To Serenus, Bishop of Marseilles, on the Images He Broke

Gregory to Serenus, and so on.

Do not put down our long delay in sending a letter to your fraternity to sluggishness, but to the pressure of business. We now commend to you in every respect the bearer of this letter, our most beloved son Cyriacus, the father of our monastery, so that no delay may hold him back in the city of Marseilles, but that, with the help of your holiness, he may go on under God’s protection to our brother and fellow bishop Syagrius. [a]

Further, we let you know that it has come to our ears that your fraternity, seeing certain people worshiping images, broke these images and threw them down in the churches. We commend you indeed for your zeal that nothing made with hands should be worshiped, but we tell you that you ought not to have broken these images. For pictures are used in churches for this reason: so that those who cannot read may at least read by looking at the walls what they cannot read in books. So your fraternity should have both kept the images and forbidden the people to worship them, so that those who cannot read might have a way of learning the history, and the people might in no way sin by worshiping a picture. [c]