To Theoctista the Patrician, on Slander and the Errors Laid to Her Charge

Gregory to Theoctista, and so on. [a]

We ought to give great thanks to Almighty God that our most pious and most kindly emperors have near them relatives of their own family whose life and conduct are such as to give us all great joy. For this reason too we should pray continually for these our lords, that their life, together with that of all who belong to them, may be preserved by the protection of heavenly grace through long and peaceful years. [b]

I must tell you, however, that I have learned from the report of certain persons that, through the fickleness of the people, an uproar of slander has arisen against you. And I hear that your excellency has been distressed by it, and in no slight way. If this is so, I wonder very much why the words of men on earth should disturb you, who have fixed your heart on heaven. For when his friends who had come to console him broke out into rebuke, the blessed Job said, “For behold, my witness is in heaven, and he who knows me is on high” (Job 16, verse 20). One who has the witness of his life in heaven ought not to be afraid of the judgments of men on earth. Paul too, a leader of good men, says, “This is our glory: the testimony of our conscience” (Second Corinthians 1, verse 12). And again he says, “Let each man test his own work, and then he will have glory in himself, and not in another” (Galatians 6, verse 4). For if we are made glad by praise and broken down by slander, we have placed our glory not in ourselves but in the mouths of others. And indeed the foolish virgins took no oil in their vessels, but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps (Matthew 25). Now our lamps are good works, of which it is written, “Let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5, verse 16). And we take oil in our vessels with our lamps when we do not seek the splendor of glory for our good deeds from the flattery of our neighbors, but keep it in the testimony of our conscience. And in regard to all that is said of us outwardly, we ought to turn back to the secret places of our soul. Even if everyone should revile us, a person is free whom his conscience does not accuse; while even if everyone should praise him, he cannot be free if his conscience accuses him. That is why the Truth says of John, “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind?” (Matthew 11, verse 7). And this indeed is said as a denial, not an assertion, since it is added, “But what did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Behold, those who wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses” (Matthew 11, verse 8). For although, according to the truth of the Gospel, John was dressed in rough clothing, the meaning is that those wear soft clothing who take delight in flattery and praise. And it is denied that John was a reed shaken by the wind, since no breath from any human mouth bent the firmness of his mind. For if we are lifted up by praise or cast down by abuse, we are a reed shaken by the wind. But far be this, far be it from the heart of your excellency. I know that you diligently read the teacher of the Gentiles, who says, “If I were still pleasing men, I would not be the servant of Christ” (Galatians 1, verse 10). [c]

If, however, even a slight sadness has arisen in your mind from this cause, I believe that Almighty God has kindly allowed it to be so. For not even to his chosen ones has he promised the joys of delight in this life, but the bitterness of trouble, so that, in the manner of medicine, they may be restored through a bitter cup to the sweetness of eternal salvation. For what does he say? “The world will rejoice, and you will mourn” (John 16, verse 20). With what hope? With what promise? A little after it is added, “I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you” (John 16, verse 22). So again he says to his disciples, “In your patience you will possess your souls” (Luke 21, verse 19).

Consider, I beg you, where patience would be if there were nothing to be endured. I suspect that there is no Abel who does not have a Cain for his brother. For if the good were without the bad, they could not be perfectly good, since they would not be purified; and the very company of the bad is the purifying of the good. There were three sons of Noah in the ark, and one of them mocked his father; and though he was himself blessed, he still received a sentence of condemnation in his son. Abraham had two sons before he took Keturah as his wife, and yet his son born according to the flesh persecuted the son of the promise. The great teacher explains this, saying, “As he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now” (Galatians 4, verse 29). Isaac had two sons, but one, who was spiritual, fled before the threats of his fleshly brother. Jacob had twelve sons, but one, who lived uprightly, was sold into Egypt by ten of them. In the case of the prophet David, because there was in him what needed to be purified, it came about that he suffered persecution from a son. The blessed Job says of the company of the reprobate, “I have been a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls” (Job 30, verse 29). To Ezekiel the Lord says, “Son of man, unbelievers and destroyers are with you, and you live among scorpions” (Ezekiel 2, verse 6). Among the twelve apostles there was one reprobate, so that there might be one by whose persecution the eleven might be tested. The prince of the apostles speaks this way to his disciples: “He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the injury and the way of life of the wicked. For in seeing and hearing he was righteous, living among those who day after day tormented the righteous man’s soul with their unrighteous deeds” (Second Peter 2, verses 7 and 8). Paul the apostle also writes to his disciples, saying, “In the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life” (Philippians 2, verse 15). [d]

Since, then, we know from the witness of Scripture that in this life the good cannot be without the bad, your excellency ought by no means to be disturbed by the voices of fools. This is all the more so since there is sure confidence in Almighty God when, for doing good, some adversity is given us in this world, so that a full reward may be kept for us in the eternal recompense. That is why in the holy Gospel the Truth says, “Blessed will you be when men say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my name’s sake” (Matthew 5, verse 11). And for our consolation he was pleased to bring forward the insults against himself as an example, saying, “If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more those of his household!” (Matthew 10, verse 25).

But there are many who perhaps praise the life of the good more than they should. And so that no pride may creep in from praise, Almighty God allows bad men to break out into slander and abuse, so that if any sin springs up in the heart from the mouths of those who praise, it may be choked by the mouths of those who revile. This is why the teacher of the Gentiles testifies that he carries on his preaching “through evil report and good report” (Second Corinthians 6, verse 8), saying also, “as deceivers, and yet true.” If, then, there were people who spread an evil report of Paul and called him a deceiver, what Christian now should think it a hard thing to hear insulting words for the sake of Christ? Moreover, we know how great in virtue the forerunner of our Redeemer was, who in Holy Scripture is called not only more than a prophet but even an angel; and yet, as the history of his death testifies, after his death his body was burned by his persecutors. But why do we say these things of holy men? Let us speak of the Holy of Holies himself, that is, of God who was made man for us. Before his death he heard the insulting charge that he had a demon, and after his death he was called a deceiver by his persecutors, when one of them said, “We know that that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise again’” (Matthew 27, verse 63). How much, then, must we sinners bear from the tongues and hands of wicked men, we who are to be judged at the coming of the eternal Judge, if he who will himself come as Judge endured so much both before and after his death? [e]

These things I have said briefly, most sweet and excellent daughter, so that as often as you hear of foolish people speaking against you, you may not be touched by even the least sadness of heart. But since this very murmuring of foolish people cannot be calmed by quiet reason, I hold it to be a sin if what can be done is neglected. For when we are calming unsound minds and bringing them back to a healthy state, we ought by no means to give them offense. For there are some offenses that are to be disregarded altogether. But there are some which, when they can be avoided without guilt, are not to be disregarded, lest there be guilt in keeping them alive. We learn this from the preaching of the sacred Gospel. When the Truth said, “Not what goes into the mouth defiles a man, but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man” (Matthew 15, verse 11), and the disciples answered, saying, “Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard this saying?” (Matthew 15, verse 12), he at once replied, “Every plant which my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. Let them alone; they are blind, and leaders of the blind” (Matthew 15, verse 13). And yet, when the tax was demanded, he first gave a reason why the tax should not be paid, and then at once added, “Nevertheless, so that we do not give them offense, go to the sea and cast a hook, and take the first fish that comes up; and when you have opened its mouth, you will find a stater. Take that and give it to them for me and for you” (Matthew 17, verse 26). Why is it that of some who took offense it is said, “Let them alone; they are blind, and leaders of the blind,” while for others, so that they would not take offense, the tax is paid by the Lord, even though it was not owed? Why is it that he allowed one offense to remain, but forbade another to be given to others? Why, unless it was to teach us, on the one hand, to disregard offenses that would entangle us in sin, but, on the other, to soften in every way those which we can calm without sin? [f]

So your excellency, with God protecting you, may turn aside the offenses of bad men with great calm. You should of your own accord call the chief of them to you privately and give them your reasons, and anathematize certain wrong points which they suppose you hold. And if, as it is said may be the case, they suspect that such an anathema is not sincere, you should confirm it even by an oath, declaring that you do not hold, and never have held, those points. Do not let it seem beneath you to satisfy them in this way, and do not let there be in your mind any feeling of disdain toward them on account of your imperial family. For we are all brothers, created by the power of one Emperor and redeemed by his blood. And so we ought not to despise our brothers in anything, however poor and lowly they may be. [g]

For certainly Peter had received power in the heavenly kingdom, so that whatever he bound or loosed on earth would be bound or loosed in heaven. He walked on the sea, he healed the sick with his shadow, he struck sinners dead with his word, he raised the dead by his prayer. And because, at the prompting of the Spirit, he had gone in to Cornelius the Gentile, a question was raised against him by the believers: why had he gone in among Gentiles and eaten with them, and why had he received them in baptism? And yet this first of the apostles, filled with such gifts of grace and upheld by such power of miracles, answered the complaint of the believers not with power but with reason, and explained the case to them in order. He told how he saw a certain vessel like a sheet let down from heaven, in which were four-footed beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and birds of the air, and heard a voice saying, “Get up, Peter; kill and eat” (Acts 11, verses 5 and following); how three men came to him calling him to Cornelius; how the Holy Spirit told him to go with them; how the same Holy Spirit, who used to come on those baptized in Judea after baptism, came on the Gentiles before baptism. For if, when he was blamed by the believers, he had looked to the authority he had received in holy church, he might have answered that the sheep should not dare to find fault with the shepherd to whom they had been entrusted. But had he said anything about his own power in answer to the believers’ complaint, he would not truly have been a teacher of gentleness. So he calmed them by humbly giving a reason, and he even brought forward witnesses to clear him of blame, saying, “Moreover, these six brothers went with me” (Acts 11, verse 12). If, then, the shepherd of the church, the prince of the apostles, who did signs and miracles in a way no one else did, did not disdain to give a reason humbly in defending himself from blame, how much more ought we sinners, when we are blamed for anything, to calm those who blame us by humbly giving a reason!

For as you know, when I was living at the feet of my lords in the royal city, many of those who were accused on the points mentioned above used to come to me. But I declare, with my conscience bearing me witness, that I never found in them any error, any perversity, or any of the things said against them. So I took care, disregarding the rumors, to receive them as friends, and indeed to defend them against their accusers. For it used to be said against them that under the pretext of religion they dissolved marriages; that they said baptism did not entirely take away sins; that if anyone did penance for three years for his wrongdoings, he might afterward live a perverse life; and that if they said under compulsion that they anathematized anything for which they were blamed, they were in no way bound by the bond of the anathema. Now if there are any who without doubt hold and maintain such views, there is no doubt that they are not Christians. And such people I, and all catholic bishops, and the universal church, anathematize, because they think what is contrary to the truth and say what is contrary to it. For if they say that marriages should be dissolved for the sake of religion, let it be known that though human law has allowed this, divine law has forbidden it. For the Truth in person says, “What God has joined together, let not man separate” (Matthew 19, verse 6). He also says, “It is not lawful for a man to put away his wife except for the cause of sexual immorality” (Matthew 19, verse 9). Who, then, may contradict this heavenly Lawgiver? We know how it is written, “The two shall be one flesh” (Matthew 19, verse 5; First Corinthians 6, verse 16; Genesis 2, verse 24). If, then, a man and his wife are one flesh, and a man puts away his wife for the sake of religion, or a woman her husband, while the other remains in this world, even perhaps turning aside to unlawful deeds, what kind of conversion is this, in which one and the same flesh passes on the one side to self-control and on the other side remains in pollution? If, however, it suits both of them to lead a life of self-control, who would dare to accuse them, since it is certain that Almighty God, who has granted what is less, has not forbidden what is greater? And indeed we know of many holy persons who first lived lives of self-control with their spouses, and afterward passed over to the rules of holy church. For holy men are used to abstaining even from lawful things in two ways: sometimes so that they may increase their merits before Almighty God, but sometimes so that they may wipe away the sins of their former life. For when the three young men who had been brought under the rule of the Babylonian king asked for vegetables to eat, being unwilling to use the king’s food, it was not because it would have been a sin for them to eat what God had created. They were unwilling, then, to take what it was lawful for them to take, so that their virtue might increase through self-control. But David, who had taken another man’s wife for himself and had been severely scourged for his fault, long afterward wanted to drink water from the cistern of Bethlehem. When his bravest soldiers had brought it to him, he refused to drink it, and poured it out as a libation to the Lord. It would have been lawful for him to drink it, had he wished; but because he remembered having done what was unlawful, he did well to abstain even from what was lawful. And he who earlier, to his guilt, had not been afraid to have the blood of dying soldiers shed, afterward considered that if he drank the water he would be shedding the blood of living soldiers, saying, “Shall I drink the blood of these men who have put their lives in danger?” (First Chronicles 11, verse 19). So when good husbands and wives want either to increase merit or to wipe out the faults of their former life, it is lawful for them to bind themselves to self-control and to aim at a better life. But if the wife does not follow the self-control the husband aims at, or the husband refuses what the wife aims at, it is not lawful for the marriage to be cut apart, since it is written, “The wife does not have power over her own body, but the husband does; and the husband does not have power over his own body, but the wife does” (First Corinthians 7, verse 4). [h]

But if there are any who say that sins are put away only on the surface in baptism, what could be more against the faith than such preaching? By it they would undo the very sacrament of faith, in which above all the soul is bound to the mystery of heavenly cleanness, so that, being completely absolved from all sins, it may cling to him alone of whom the prophet says, “But it is good for me to cling to God” (Psalm 73, verse 28). For certainly the crossing of the Red Sea was a figure of holy baptism, in which the enemies behind died, but others were found ahead in the wilderness. And so all who are washed in holy baptism have all their past sins forgiven, since their sins die behind them just as the Egyptian enemies did. But in the wilderness we find other enemies, since while we live in this life, before we reach the land of promise, many temptations harass us and hurry to bar our way as we travel toward the land of the living. Whoever says, then, that sins are not entirely put away in baptism, let him say that the Egyptians did not really die in the Red Sea. But if he acknowledges that the Egyptians really died, he must acknowledge that sins die entirely in baptism, since surely the truth has more power in our absolution than the shadow of the truth. In the Gospel the Lord says, “He who has been washed does not need to wash, but is completely clean” (John 13, verse 10). If, therefore, sins are not entirely put away in baptism, how is the one who has been washed completely clean? For he cannot be called completely clean if he has any sin remaining. But no one can resist the voice of the Truth: “He who has been washed is completely clean.” Nothing, then, of the infection of sin remains in the one whom he who redeemed him declares to be completely clean. [j]

But if there are any who say that penance for sin is to be done for some three years, and that after the three years one may live in pleasures, these people know neither the preaching of the true faith nor the commands of sacred Scripture. Against them the excellent preacher says, “He who sows in his flesh will also reap corruption from the flesh” (Galatians 6, verse 8). Against them he says again, “Those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Romans 8, verse 8), where he adds for his disciples, “But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit.” [k]

Now those are in the flesh who live in fleshly pleasures. Against them it is said, “Nor will corruption possess incorruption” (First Corinthians 15, verse 50). But if they say that a short season of penitence may be enough against sin, so that one may be allowed to go back to sin again, the sentence of the first shepherd rightly strikes them when he says, “It has happened to them according to the true proverb: The dog has returned to its own vomit, and the sow that was washed to wallowing in the mire” (Second Peter 2, verse 22). For great is the power of penitence against sin, but only if one perseveres in this penitence. For it is written, “He who perseveres to the end will be saved” (Matthew 10, verse 22, and 24, verse 13). So again it is written, “He who is baptized from a dead body, and touches it again, what does his washing gain him?” (Sirach 34, verse 30). Now a dead body is every perverse work, which draws a man to death because he does not live in the life of righteousness. He, then, is baptized from a dead body and touches it again who mourns the bad works he remembers having done, but after his tears entangles himself in the same works again. So washing from such a dead body does no good to any soul that does again what it has mourned, and does not rise through the laments of penitence to the uprightness of righteousness. For to do penance truly is not only to mourn what has been committed, but also to turn away from what has been mourned. [l]

But if there are any who say that if someone has anathematized anything under the compulsion of necessity, he is not held by the bond of the anathema, these people are themselves witnesses that they are not Christians. For by empty attempts they think to loosen the binding of holy church; and in this, if they think her binding has no force, neither do they count as real the absolution which holy church offers to the faithful. With such people no further argument should be held, since they ought to be utterly scorned and anathematized; and by the very means through which they think to escape the truth, let them in reality be bound in their sins.

If, then, there are any who under the Christian name dare either to preach, or to hold silently in their own minds, the points of error we have spoken of above, these without doubt we have anathematized and do anathematize. Yet, as I have said before, in those who used to come to me in the royal city I observed no error at all on any one of these points, nor do I think there was any; for if there had been, I would have noticed it. However, since there are many of the faithful who are inflamed with unwise zeal, and who often, while they attack certain persons as though they were heretics, make heresies themselves, consideration should be given to their weakness, and, as I said before, they should be calmed with reason and gentleness. For indeed they are like those of whom it is written, “I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge” (Romans 10, verse 2). So your excellency, who lives unceasingly in reading, in tears, and in almsgiving, should, as I have asked, calm their lack of wisdom with gentle encouragement and answers, so that not only in yourself but also in them you may find the glory of the eternal recompense. My great love has led me to say all this to you, since I consider your joy my gain and your sadness my loss. May Almighty God guard you with heavenly grace, and, keeping safe the piety of our lord and the tranquility of our most pious lady, lengthen your life for the education of the little lords. [m]