A letter from Gregory I, pope (July 599)

Translated letter:

Gregory to Brunhild queen of the Franks. Since the royal sollicitude of your excellence is praiseworthy everywhere in your governing, it should be vigilant and prudent to increase its glory, not allowing those it rules externally by counsel to perish internally, so that you may reach the eternal joys and kingdoms after the distress of the temporal kingdom through the fruit of pious sollicitude as God wills. Which we are confident you can do with reason if among other good things, you take care about the ordination of priests. Ambition for that office is such there, we have learned, that priests are suddenly, and this is very serious, ordained from laymen. But what will they do, what will they offer the people, who lust for the episcopacy not for service but for honor? Since they have not yet learned what they ought to teach what can happen where no regular order is preserved except that the promotion of the few cause illicit destruction to many and the observance of ecclesiastical moderation be brought to confusion? For one who attains to that direction suddenly and without preparation, with what warning can he edify those subject to him, whose example teaches not reason but error? He is shamed, truly shamed to rule others when he does not know how to care for himself. That does not mean we pass over what must also be corrected, indeed which we abhor as altogether most serious and execrable, that sacred orders are conferred there through the simoniac heresy, that arose early against the church and was condemned by strict malediction. What is done brings the office of the priest to scorn and makes a holy honor a crime. Reverence perishes, discipline is lost, since he who should correct faults commits them, and the judgment of honorable priesthood is perverted by nefarious ambition. For who long honors what is sold, who does not hold vile what is bought? Whence I am much saddened and grieve for that land because I do not think that the priesthood can last long there when they scorn to get by divine reward the holy spirit which almighty God deigned to give men through the laying on of hands, but pursue it with bribes. For where the gifts of supernal grace are judged venal, life is not sought in the service of God, but rather money venerated in opposition to God. Since therefore such an outrage is not just a danger to them, but truly also very harmful to your kingdom, we ask, greeting your excellence with paternal affection, that you make yourself pleasing to God by correcting this perversion. And to prevent any occasion for it henceforth, let your command establish a synod where in the presence of our son abbot Cyriac it will be forbidden under strict threat of anathema that any one from the laity dare suddenly to rise to the episcopacy or that anyone give or dare to accept anything for ecclesiastical orders, so that our Lord and redeemer may make you sollicitious with pious devotion towards those things which are yours as he sees you are to those which are his. We have taken special care to delegate the care and sollicitude for that synod which we have decreed should happen to our brother and cobishop Syagrius, whom we know to be your own. We ask that you deign to hear his requests willingly and help with your means as it looks to your mercy, so that the ordination of priests may procede piously and pleasing to God in all the regions subject to your law, with the contagion of this evil removed. We sent the pallium for use in the solemnity of the mass to that brother because he had shown himself vigorously devoted in the preaching to the Angles which God caused, so that as he had been zealous to help in spiritual matters, he should also be advanced in the spiritual order with the comfort of the prince of apostles. Further, we are altogether amazed that in your kindgom you allow Jews to hold Christian possessions.(1) For what are all Christians if not members of Christ? We all know that you faithfully honor the head of those members. But let your excellence weigh how different it may be to honor the head and allow the members to be trampled by its enemy. And so we ask that the establishment of your excellence remove the evils of this perversion from its kingdom so that by freeing his faithful from his enemies you show yourself in this a more worthy worshipper of the almighty Lord.

Original letter:

Gregorius Brunichildae reginae Francorum. Postquam excellentiae vestrae sollicitudo regia est ubique gubernatione laudabilis, ad augmentum gloriae suae vigilantiorem se debet et providam exhibere, ut quos consilio regit exterius, perire interius non permittat, quatenus per fructum piae sollicitudinis post huius quod geritis temporalis regni fastigium ad aeterna Deo auctore gaudia possitis et regna pertingere. Quod quidem hac vobis confidimus posse ratione contingere, si inter alia bona de ordinandis curam sacerdotibus gesseritis. Quorum officium in tanta illic, sicut didicimus, ambitione perductum est, ut sacerdotes subito, quod grave nimis est, ex laicis ordinentur. Sed quid isti acturi, quid populo praestaturi sunt, qui non ad utilitatem, sed fieri ad honorem episcopi concupiscunt? Hi igitur quia necdum quod docere debeant didicerunt, quid aliud agitur, nisi ut paucorum provectus inlicitus fiat multis interitus et in confusionem ecclesiasticae moderationis observantia deducatur, quippe ubi nullus regularis ordo servatur? Nam qui ad eius regimen improvidus et praecipitatus accedit, qua ammonitione subiectos aedificet, cuius exemplum non rationem docuit, sed errorem? Pudet profecto, pudet aliis imperare, quod ipse nescit custodire. Nec illud quidem, quod similiter emendationi tradendum est, praeterimus, sed omnino execrabile et esse gravissimum detestamur, quod sacri illic ordines per simoniacam heresem, quae prima contra ecclesiam orta et districta maledictione damnata est, conferantur. Hinc ergo agitur, ut sacerdotis dignitas in dispectu et sanctus sit honor in crimine. Perit utique reverentia, adimitur disciplina, quia qui culpas debuit emendare committit, et nefaria ambitione honorabilis sacerdotii ducitur in depravatione censura. Nam quis denuo veneretur quod venditur, aut quis non vile putet esse quod emitur? Unde valde contristor et terrae illi condoleo; quia, dum sanctum spiritum, quem per manus impositionem omnipotens Deus hominibus largiri dignatur, divino munere haberet dispiciunt, sed praemiis assequuntur, sacerdotium illic subsistere diu non arbitror. Nam ubi dona supernae gratiae venalia iudicantur, ad Dei servitium non vita quaeritur, sed magis contra Deum pecuniae venerantur. Quia igitur tantum facinus non solum illis periculum, verum etiam vestro regno satis est noxium, salutantes excellentiam vestram paterno affectu petimus, ut de huius pravitatis emendatione Deum vobis placabilem faciatis. Et ut nulla deinceps valeat occasione committi, synodum fieri iussio vestra constituat, ubi praesente dilectissimo filio nostro Cyriaco abbate sub districta anathematis interpositione debeat interdici, ne ullus ex laico habitu subito ad episcopatus audeat gradum accedere neque pro ecclesiasticis ordinibus quilibet quicquam dare vel sit ausus accipere, ut Dominus et redemptor noster sic, quae vestra sunt, faciat, sicut excellentiam vestram in his quae sua sunt pia esse viderit devotione sollicitam. Curam vero et sollicitudinem eiusdem synodi, quam fiendam decrevimus, fratri coepiscopoque nostro Syagrio, quem vestrum proprium novimus, specialiter delegare curavimus; quem petimus ut et supplicantem libenter audire et ope iuvare dignemini, quatenus, quod ad mercedem vestram respiciat, remoto huius mali contagio in cunctis finibus iuri vestro subiectis pia et Deo placita procedat ordinatio sacerdotum. Cui fratri nostro pro eo, quod se in ea praedicatione quae in Anglorum gente auctore Domino facta est devotum vehementer exhibuit, pallium ad missarum sollemnia utendum transmisimus, ut, quia iuvare spiritalia studuit, apostolorum principis solacio in ipso quoque inveniatur spiritali ordine profecisse. Omnino praeterea ammirati sumus, ut in regno vestro Iudaeos christiana mancipia possidere permittatis. Quid enim sunt Christiani omnes nisi membra Christi? Quorum videlicet membrorum caput cuncti novimus, quia fideliter honoratis. Sed quam diversum sit, excellentia vestra perpendat, caput honorare et membra ipsius hostibus calcanda permittere. Atque ideo petimus, ut excellentiae vestrae constitutio de regno suo huius pravitatis mala removeat, tit in hoc vos amplius dignas cultrices omnipotentis Domini demonstretis, quod fideles illius ab inimicis eius absolvitis.

Historical context:

Gregory, worried about ordaining ambitious and untrained laymen bishops, and even more about simony, asks Brunhild to call a synod at which abbot Cyriac will forbid both practices. Gregory also objects to Brunhild’s liberal treatment of Jews.

Scholarly notes:

(1) In an earlier letter to a priest in Gaul, Candidus, Gregory had written about four brothers who were redeemed from captivity by Jews and were now in their service. Gregory, who is appalled (“omnino grave execrandumque”) that Christians should be in the service of Jews, asks Candidus to do whatever he can to buy their freedom, ep.7.21, dated May 597.

Printed source:

MGH, Gregorii Pape Registrum Epistolarum, ep.9.213, 2.198-200 and HGF4 ep.22 p.25-26

Date:

July 599