To Clotaire, King of the Franks, on the Monks and on Simony

Gregory to Clotaire, and so on. [a]

Among the many cares and anxieties you carry for the government of the peoples under your rule, it is to your very great praise and great reward that you are helpers of those who labor in the cause of God. And since by the good things you have already done you have shown yourselves to be such that we may expect still better things of you, we are moved most gladly to ask of you what will be for your own reward. Now certain monks who had gone with our most reverend brother and fellow bishop Augustine to the nation of the Angles have returned and told us with how great a love your excellency refreshed this brother of ours when he was with you, and with what support you helped him on his departure. But since the works of those who do not draw back from the good they have begun are pleasing to our God, we greet you with fatherly affection and ask you to hold as especially commended to you the monks who bring you this letter, whom we have sent to our brother just named, together with our most beloved sons the presbyter Laurentius and the abbot Mellitus. Whatever kindness you showed to him before, show to them also, to the richer increase of your praise, so that when through your provision they have completed without delay the journey they have begun, Almighty God may reward your good deeds and be both your guardian in prosperity and your helper in adversity.

Furthermore, it has come to our ears that in your regions sacred orders are conferred for payment of money. And we are greatly distressed if the gifts of God are not reached by merit but pounced upon by bribes. Since this simoniac heresy, which was the first to arise in the church, was condemned by the authority of the apostles, we ask you, for your own reward, to have a synod assembled. Then, once it has been put down and rooted out by the decree of all the priests, it will have no power in your regions in future to endanger souls, and will not be allowed to rise again under any pretext whatever. In this way our Almighty God may raise you up against your enemies in proportion as he sees that you have zeal in fulfilling his commands, and as you take thought for the salvation of souls that had been in danger of perishing by the sword of this outrage.