To Venantius, Patrician of Syracuse, Once a Monk

Gregory to Venantius, and so on. [a]

In sending you the greeting that is your due, I meant to speak of what I am suffering. But I think I need not tell you what you already know. For I am tormented by the pains of gout. They afflict you and me alike, and as they grow upon us beyond measure they have made our life shrink. Amid them, what else should we do but call our faults to mind and give thanks to Almighty God? For we who have sinned in many things by indulging the flesh are cleansed by the affliction of the flesh. We should also know that present pain, if it turns the mind of the sufferer, is the end of earlier guilt; but if it does not turn him to the fear of the Lord, it is the beginning of pain to come. So we must take care, and with a whole conversion of heart keep watch with tears to the utmost of our power, so that we do not pass from torment to torments. We should also consider with what great loving kindness our Maker arranges his dealings with us, in that he keeps striking us, who deserve death, and yet does not kill us. For he threatens what he will do, and yet does not do it, so that pains sent ahead may alarm us, and, once we have turned to the fear of the strict Judge, may shield us from his punishment when life is over. For who can tell, who can count, how many people, sunk in their lust, rushing headlong also into blasphemy and pride, carrying on in robbery and wickedness to the very day of their death, have lived in this world in such a way that they never suffered so much as a headache, and then by a sudden stroke have been handed over to the fires of hell? We, then, have a token that we are not forsaken, in that we are continually scourged, as Scripture bears witness when it says, “Whom the Lord loves he disciplines, and he scourges every son whom he receives.” So under the very blows of God let us call to mind both his gifts and what our guilt has cost us. Let us consider what good things he has showered on our wrongdoing, and what evil things we have committed under his goodness. Let us do what the Lord says through the prophet: “Put me in remembrance; let us plead together.” Let us plead with God now in our thoughts, so that we may not be strictly judged by God hereafter. For what does Paul say? “If we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged by the Lord.” So whoever wishes to make haste to escape the strictness of the sentence at the judgment to come, let him cut off for himself, through the bitterness of penitence, all the sweetness of the present life. Moreover, whatever gifts of this kind there are, whose gifts are they but our Maker’s? But a thing should not be counted fully a gift of God to us if, through delight in itself, it separates us from the love of God. Otherwise we may prefer the things given to the Giver, and, receiving good things though we ourselves are evil, we may be cut off from fear of him by the very thing by which we ought to have grown in fear of him. Now may the Creator of all things, that is, Almighty God, pour into your heart by the inspiration of his Spirit what we are telling you by letter. May he cleanse you from every stain of sin, and grant you the joy of his comfort here, and hereafter eternal rewards with himself. I ask that my dearest daughters, the lady Barbara and the lady Antonina, be greeted in my name. [b]