To Kings Theodoric and Theodebert, on Simony and Christian Slaves Held by Jews

Gregory to Theodoric, and so on. [a]

Since the renown of your kingdom has long shone out among all others through the grace of the Christian religion, great care should be taken that, in the very thing in which you stand out more gloriously than other nations, you should please more perfectly the Almighty Lord, who gives health and wealth to kings, and that the faith you keep should be helpful to you in every way. We had indeed wished, most excellent sons, to send you a message of friendly greeting only, and so to show our fatherly affection in acts of love. But since an unlawful practice distresses us greatly, it is fitting for us to do the one thing in such a way as by no means to pass over in silence the other, which needs correcting. If you attend carefully, you will find that we speak entirely for the security of your well-being.

Now it is said that the simoniac heresy prevails within the bounds of your kingdom, though in priests it is faith together with a good life that ought to be chosen. This heresy was the first to creep in against the church of God by the devil’s planting, and at its very rise it was struck down and condemned by the weapon of the apostles’ vengeance. If a good life is lacking, faith has no merit, as the blessed James testifies when he says, “Faith without works is dead.” But what can the works of a priest be who is convicted of obtaining the dignity of so great a sacrament by a bribe? So it comes about that the very men who want sacred orders take no trouble to amend their lives or set their conduct in order, but busy themselves with piling up wealth to buy a sacred rank. This is also why the innocent and the poor shrink back from sacred orders, shut out and looked down on. And while the poor man’s innocence displeases, there is no doubt that the bribe, in the other man’s case, recommends his misdeeds; for where gold pleases, so does vice. As a result, not only is a deadly wound dealt to the souls of the one who ordains and the one ordained, but the kingdom of your excellency is also weighed down by the fault of your bishops, by whose intercessions it ought rather to have been helped. For if a man is thought worthy of the priesthood who is backed not by the merits of his deeds but by the abundance of his bribes, it follows that neither seriousness nor diligence can make any claim to the offices of the church, and the unholy love of gold gets everything. And while vices are rewarded with rank, a man is promoted to the place of the avenger who perhaps ought to have vengeance carried out on himself; and so priests are shown not to help others but rather to perish themselves. For when the shepherd is wounded, who can apply medicine to heal the sheep? Or how will he protect the people with the shield of prayer who exposes himself to be struck by the enemy’s arrows? Or what kind of fruit will he produce from himself whose root is infected with a grave disease? Greater disaster, then, is to be feared in those places where such intercessors are promoted to positions of rule, since they provoke all the more against themselves the anger of God, which they ought, through themselves, to have appeased on behalf of the people. [c]

Moreover, we have heard that the farms of the churches pay no tribute; and so we are lost in great astonishment if unlawful payments are demanded from those to whom even lawful ones are remitted. [d]

Nor does our care allow us to pass over this evil as well: that some, lured on by the urging of empty glory, snatch all at once at the dignity of the priesthood from the lay state of life. And—what it is shameful to say, though it is too serious a matter to pass over in silence—those who need to be ruled neither blush nor fear to appear as rulers, and those who need to be taught to appear as teachers. Men shamelessly take on the leadership of souls who know nothing of the whole way a leader must take, and who do not know where even they themselves are walking. How bad and how reckless this is, even worldly order and discipline show. For since the leader of an army is not chosen unless he has been tested in labor and care, let those who long, with unripe haste, to climb to the height of the episcopate at least consider, with the help of this comparison, what sort of men the leaders of souls should be. And let them refrain from suddenly attempting labors they have not tried, so that a blind ambition for rank may not both bring punishment on themselves and sow the seeds of deadly error in others, since they themselves have not learned what they have to teach. Accordingly, greeting you with fatherly affection, we beg you, most excellent sons, to take pains to banish so detestable an evil from the bounds of your kingdom, and to give no place to any excuse or to any suggestion that works against your soul. For the one who neglects to correct what he is able to correct undoubtedly bears the guilt of the one who does it. So, that you may be able to offer a great gift to Almighty God, order a synod to be assembled. At it, as we have instructed our brothers and fellow bishops, in the presence of our most beloved son the abbot Cyriacus, let it be ordained under the binding force of anathema that no one may ever give, and no one ever receive, anything for an order of the church, and that no layman may pass all at once to the priesthood. In this way our Redeemer, whose priests you do not allow to be ruined among themselves by the enemy, may reward you for this service both here and in the life to come. [e]

Furthermore, we are altogether astonished that in your kingdom you allow Jews to own Christian slaves. For what are all Christians but members of Christ? We all know that you faithfully honor the Head of these members; but let your excellency consider how inconsistent it is to honor the Head and to allow his members to be trampled on by his enemies. So we beg that a decree of your excellency may remove the evil of this wrongdoing from your kingdom, so that you may show yourselves all the more worthy worshipers of Almighty God by setting his faithful servants free from his enemies. [f]