To King Reccared, on the Conversion of the Goths

Gregory to Reccared, and so on. [a]

I cannot put into words, most excellent son, how much your work and your life delight me. For on hearing of the power of a new miracle in our days, namely that through your excellency the whole nation of the Goths has been brought over from the error of the Arian heresy to the firmness of a right faith, one is moved to cry out with the prophet, “This is the change brought about by the right hand of the Most High” (Psalm 77, verse 10). For whose heart, even if it were made of stone, would not soften on hearing of so great a work, into praises of Almighty God and love of your excellency? As for me, I declare that it delights me to tell often of these things done through you to my sons who gather around me, and often to marvel at them together with them. These things also, for the most part, stir me up against myself, because I languish sluggish and useless in idle ease, while kings are laboring to gather souls for the gains of the heavenly homeland. What, then, will I say to the Judge who is coming, at that dreadful judgment, if I come there empty-handed, when your excellency will bring after you flocks of the faithful, whom you have now drawn to the grace of a true faith by diligent and continual preaching? But this, good man, by the gift of God, gives me great comfort: that the holy work I do not have in myself, I love in you. And when I rejoice with great exultation over what you have done, the fruits of your labor become mine through love. So with regard to the conversion of the Goths, both for your work and for our exultation, we may well cry out with the angels, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will” (Luke 2, verse 14). For, as I think, we owe Almighty God all the more thanks because, although we did nothing with you, we nevertheless share in your work by rejoicing with you. Further, how gladly the blessed Peter, prince of the apostles, has accepted the gifts of your excellency, your very life clearly bears witness to everyone. For it is written, “The vows of the righteous are his delight” (Proverbs 15, verse 8). For indeed, in the judgment of Almighty God, what is regarded is not what is given, but by whom it is given. [b]

That is why it is written, “The Lord had regard for Abel and for his gifts, but for Cain and for his gifts he had no regard” (Genesis 4, verses 4 and 5). That is, being about to say that the Lord had regard for the gifts, the writer took care to say first that he had regard for Abel. So it is plainly shown that the offerer was not accepted because of the gifts, but the gifts were accepted because of the offerer. You show, then, how acceptable your offering is, since, being about to give gold, you first gave gifts of souls by the conversion of the nation under you. As to your telling us that the abbots who were sent to bring your offering to the blessed apostle Peter were worn out by the violence of the sea and returned to Spain without completing their voyage: your gifts were not held back, for they reached us afterward. But the steadfastness of those who were sent has been tested, to see whether they knew how to overcome the dangers on their way with holy desire, and, though tired in body, never to be wearied in mind. For hardship that comes in the way of good intentions is a test of virtue, not a sentence of rejection. For who does not know how happy an event it was that the blessed apostle Paul came to Italy to preach, and yet on the way suffered shipwreck? But the ship of his heart stood unharmed among the waves of the sea.

Further, I must tell you that I have been led to praise God all the more for your work by what I learned from the report of my most beloved son Probinus the presbyter. Your excellency, he says, issued a certain decree against the faithlessness of the Jews, and those it concerned tried to bend the uprightness of your mind by offering a sum of money. Your excellency scorned it, and, seeking to satisfy the judgment of Almighty God, preferred innocence to gold. In this connection what King David did comes back to my mind. When the water he had longed for from the cistern of Bethlehem, which was hemmed in by the enemy, had been brought to him by obedient soldiers, he said, “God forbid that I should drink the blood of righteous men” (First Chronicles 11, verse 19). And because he poured it out and would not drink it, it is written, “He offered it as a drink offering to the Lord.” If, then, water was scorned by the king under arms and turned into a sacrifice to God, we may judge what kind of sacrifice has been offered to Almighty God by the king who for love of him has scorned to receive, not water, but gold. So, most excellent son, I will say with confidence that you have poured out as a drink offering to the Lord the gold you would not take against him. These are great things, and they redound to the praise of Almighty God. [c]

But in the midst of all these things we must guard with watchful attention against the snares of the ancient enemy, who, the greater the gifts he sees among men, seeks with the subtler snares to take them away. For robbers, too, do not look out for travelers with nothing to carry, to seize them on the road, but for those who carry vessels of gold and silver. For indeed the present life is a road, and everyone must be all the more on guard against spirits lying in ambush, the greater the gifts he carries. It is the duty, then, of your excellency, with regard to the great gift you have received in the conversion of the nation under you, to keep with all your might first humility of heart, and second cleanness of body. For where it is written, “Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 14, verse 11, and 18, verse 14), it is surely plain that he truly loves what is lofty who does not cut his soul off from the root of humility. For often the evil spirit, in order to destroy the good that he had no power to oppose beforehand, comes into the mind of the worker after the work is done and stirs it with silent thoughts of self-praise, so that the deluded mind admires itself for the great things it has done. And being lifted up in its own eyes by a hidden swelling, it is deprived of the grace of him who gave the gift. That is why it is said through the voice of the prophet to the soul that grows proud, “Trusting in your beauty, you played the prostitute because of your renown” (Ezekiel 16, verse 15). For a soul’s trusting in its beauty is its relying within itself on its own righteous deeds. And it plays the prostitute because of its renown when, in what it has done rightly, it does not desire the praise of its Maker to be spread abroad, but seeks the glory of its own reputation. That is why again it is written through the prophet, “Because you are more beautiful, go down” (Ezekiel 32, verse 19). For the soul goes down because it is more beautiful when, through the beauty of the virtue by which it ought to have been raised up before God, it falls from his grace through pride. What, then, is to be done here, except that, when the evil spirit uses the good things we have done to lift up the mind, we should always call our evil deeds to memory, so that we may acknowledge that what we have done sinfully is our own, but that it is the gift of Almighty God alone when we avoid sins? Cleanness of body also must be guarded in our efforts to do good, since, in the words of the apostolic preacher, “The temple of God is holy, and you are that temple” (First Corinthians 3, verse 17). And again he says, “For this is the will of God, your sanctification” (First Thessalonians 4, verse 3). What he means by this sanctification he shows by adding at once, “that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each one of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in the passion of lust.” [d]

The very government of your kingdom, too, in relation to your subjects ought to be tempered with moderation, so that power does not steal over your mind. For a kingdom is ruled well when the glory of reigning does not master the heart. Care must also be taken that anger does not creep in, so that whatever is lawful to do is not done too hastily. For anger, even when it pursues the faults of wrongdoers, ought not to go before the mind as its mistress, but follow behind the back of reason as a handmaid, so as to come forward when it is bidden. For once it begins to take possession of the mind, it counts as just what it does cruelly. That is why it is written, “The anger of man does not work the righteousness of God” (James 1, verse 20). And again it is said, “Let every man be swift to hear, but slow to speak, and slow to anger” (James 1, verse 19). Still, I do not doubt that under God’s guidance you observe all these things. Yet, now that an opportunity to give advice has come up, I slip myself quietly in among your good deeds, so that what you do without being advised you may not do alone, but with an adviser besides. Now may Almighty God protect you in all your doings by the stretching out of his heavenly arm, and grant you prosperity in the present life and, after a course of many years, eternal joys.

We have sent you, to bring you his blessing, a small key from the most sacred body of the blessed apostle Peter, containing iron from his chains, so that what bound his neck for martyrdom may loose yours from all sins. We have also given to the bearer of this letter, to be presented to you, a cross in which there is some of the wood of the Lord’s cross, and hairs of the blessed John the Baptist, from which you may always have the help of our Savior through the intercession of his forerunner. [e] Further, we have sent to our most reverend brother and fellow bishop Leander a pallium from the see of the blessed apostle Peter, which we owe to ancient custom, to your character, and to his goodness and seriousness. [f]

A long time ago, when a certain young man from Naples came here, your excellency, most dear to me, saw fit to charge me to write to the most pious emperor, asking him to search the record office for the treaties made long ago with the emperor Justinian of pious memory about the rights of your kingdom, so as to learn from them what he ought to observe toward you. But two things stood seriously in the way of my doing this. One was that in the time of the emperor Justinian of pious memory the record office had been so burned by a fire that broke out suddenly that hardly any paper from his times was left. The other was that, as no one needs to be told, you ought to look in your own archives for the documents that go against you, and produce them, instead of my doing so. So I urge your excellency to arrange matters in a way that suits your character, and to carry out carefully whatever makes for peace, so that the times of your reign may be remembered with great praise through many years. Further, we have sent you another key from the most sacred body of the blessed apostle Peter, which, laid up with due honor, may multiply with blessing whatever it finds you enjoying. [h]