A letter from Gregory I, pope (594, August)

Translated letter:

After receiving your Excellence’s letter, I gladly learned how you had arrived at Mount Sinai. But believe me, I also should have liked to go with you, but not at all to return with you. However it is very difficult for me to believe that you have been to holy places, that you have seen many Fathers. For I believe that if you had viewed [them], you could not at all return so quickly to the city of Constantinople. But since the love of such a great city in no way receded from your heart, I suspect that your Excellence considered very little from her heart the holy things which she viewed in a physical manner. But may almighty God light up your mind with the grace of His piety; may he grant that you would have wisdom, and that you would ponder how fleeting everything temporal is; because we say these things, and time speeds onward and the Judge arrives, and behold! Already it nearly the appointed time for us to abandon a world unwillingly which we do not wish [to abandon] voluntarily. I ask that lord Appio and his wife Eusebia and their daughters be greeted on my behalf. But that lady, my nurse, whom you commend to me through [your] letters, I esteem her completely and I do not wish her to be oppressed in any way. But we are strained by such great difficulties that at this time we cannot even absolve ourselves from duties and burdens.(1)

Original letter:

Excellentiae vestrae scripta suscipiens libenter agnovi, qualiter ad montem Sina porrexerit. Sed mihi credite, ego quoque voluissem vobiscum ire, sed vobiscum minime redire. Quamvis valde mihi sit difficile credere, quia ad sancta loca fuistis, patres multos vidistis. Nam credo si vidissetis, tam celeriter redire ad Constantinopolitanam urbem minime poteratis. At postquam talis civitatis amor de corde vestro nullo modo recessit, suspicor, quia excellentia vestra sancta quae corporaliter vidit ex corde minime adtendit. Sed omnipotens Deus mentem vestram gratia suae pietatis inlustret; donet vobis sapere, et temporalia omnia quam sint fugitiva pensare; quia dum haec loquimur, et tempus currit, et iudex supervenit, et mundum quem sponte nolumus ecce iam prope est ut relinquamus inviti. Domnum Appionem et domnam Eusebiam eorumque filias mea peto vice salutari. Domnam vero illam nutricem meam, quam mihi per litteras commendatis, omnino diligo et gravari in nullo volo. Sed tantis angustiis premimur, ut ab angariis atque oneribus hoc iam tempore nec nosmetipsos excusaremus.

Historical context:

The pope gently chastises his friend for her apparent preference of the city over the holy sites she has visited.

Scholarly notes:

1 This translation was provided by Angela Kinney.

Printed source:

Gregorii I Papae Registrum Epistolarum, ed. Paulus Ewald and Ludovicus Hartmann (Berlin: Weidmann, 1887-91, MGH, 279-80, 4.44.

Date:

594, August