To the Bishops Virgilius and Syagrius, on Syagria, Married by Force

Gregory to Virgilius, bishop of Arles, and Syagrius, bishop of Autun. [a]

The nature of the office entrusted to me, dearest brothers, drives me to break out in a cry of grief, and to sharpen your love with the anxiety of love. For it is said that you in your parts have been too negligent and slack in a matter where uprightness of justice and zeal for chastity ought to have set your earnestness on fire. Now it has come to our ears that a certain Syagria had entered the religious life, and had even changed her dress, and was afterward joined to a husband by force (a wicked thing even to tell), and that no sorrow moved you to step in and defend her. If this is so, I groan over it all the more heavily, for fear that before the Almighty Lord (God forbid!) you should be found to hold the office of hired hands and not the merit of shepherds, since you left a sheep in the mouth of the wolf to be torn, without a struggle. For what will you say, or what account of yourselves will you give to the Judge who is to come? You, whom the lewd violence of her abduction did not move; whom respect for the religious habit did nothing to stir up to stand in her defense; whom your concern as priests did not rouse to protect the purity of a virgin’s modesty? Even now, then, let your neglect come back to your memory. Let the remembrance of this fault stir you, and the thought of your office drive you to exhort the woman we have spoken of. And in case, as time has gone on, what was forced has turned into willing consent, let your tongue be her cure. Through your exhortations let her give herself diligently to prayer. Let the lamentations of penitence never leave her memory; let her show our Redeemer a penitent heart; and let her make amends with weeping for the loss of a chastity that she was not allowed to keep in her body. [b]

So, since the woman we have spoken of wishes, it is said, even now to devote her property to pious uses, we urge that she should experience the favor and enjoy the support of your fraternity in this, and that, once a fair portion has been set aside for her children, she should be free to decide as she wishes about her property. For without doubt you do good yourselves if you give help to those who wish to do good. Consider, then, most beloved brothers, from how great a love these things we say come, and take them all in the same spirit of love that moves them. For since we are one body in Christ, I burn with you in this, which I feel to be to your harm. And with what earnestness and what affection I send you this letter, may the Author of truth make plain to your hearts. So do not let this brotherly warning distress you, since even a bitter cup is taken gladly when it is offered for the sake of health. Finally, dearest brothers, let us with united prayers beg the mercy of our God to order our life favorably in his fear, so that we may both serve him here as priests should, and be able to stand in his sight hereafter, safe and without fear.