Epistola Ad Gregorium Papam

In the year of the Lord 584. Licinianus, Bishop of Carthage. First Letter of Licinianus, Bishop of Carthage, to Saint Gregory the Pope. (On the Book of Rules.) To the most blessed Lord Gregory the Pope, Licinianus the Bishop. The Book of Rules published by Your Holiness and brought to us by the grace of God assisting, we have read all the more willingly as we recognize that spiritual rules are contained in it. Who would not more willingly read where by constant meditation he may find the medicine for his soul, where, having despised the fleeting things of this world varying in their mutability, he may open the eyes of his mind to the station of eternal life? This book of yours is the hall of all virtues. In it Prudence fixes the limit of discretion between good and evil; Justice gives each his due, while it subjects the soul to God and the body to the soul. In it Fortitude is found always equal even in adversities and in prosperities, which is neither broken in contrary things nor exalted in prosperous ones. In it Temperance breaks the fury of lust and discreetly imposes a limit on pleasures. In it you comprehend all things which pertain to the participation of eternal life: and not only do you describe a rule of living for pastors, but you also give a rule of living to those who have no office of the clergy. For pastors have in your fourfold distribution what kind of men come to this office; what kind of life they lead when they have come; how or what they teach; and lest they be exalted in such a priestly height, what they do.

These things are attested to this excellent teaching by the holy ancient Fathers, doctors and defenders of the Church: Hilarius, Ambrosius, Augustinus, Gregorius Nazianzenus. All these bear witness to you, just as the prophets bore witness to the apostles. The holy Hilarius says, expounding the words of the Apostle, the teacher of the Gentiles: "For thus he signifies that those things which pertain to one's own discipline and morals are useful for the merit of the priesthood, if also those things which are necessary for the knowledge of teaching and holding Me are not lacking among the rest; because it is not immediately the mark of a good and useful priest either to act only knowingly, or to preach only knowingly, since even the innocent man suffices only for himself if he is not learned, and the learned man [suffices only for himself] if he does not live his teaching." Your book is attested to by the holy Ambrosius in those books he wrote on the Offices. The holy Augustinus attests to it, saying: "In action, honor in this life is not to be loved without power, since all things are vain under the sun. But the work itself, which is done through that same honor or power, if it is done rightly and usefully, that is, so that it avails for that salvation of subjects which is according to God." On account of which the Apostle says: "He who desires the episcopate desires a good work.

He wished to explain what a bishop is, because it is a name of function, not of honor: for it is Greek, and the term is derived from the fact that he who is set over those over whom he is set oversees them, bearing care for them; for *episcopus* means "intention." Therefore, if we wish to speak in Latin, I can call a bishop *superintendere* [to oversee]. So that he may understand that he is not a bishop who has said he is to be over, not to be of benefit. For no one is prohibited from the pursuit of knowing the truth, which pertains to praiseworthy leisure: but the higher place, without which the people cannot be ruled, even if it is held and administered as is fitting, is nevertheless sought indecently. For this reason, holy leisure seeks charity: one must be free for perceiving and defending the truth. But if it is imposed, it must be undertaken because of the necessity of charity. But the delight of truth must never be abandoned, lest that sweetness be withdrawn and that necessity oppress.

Gregory the holy attests to this, whose style you follow, by whose example you wished to lie hidden, so that you might decline the weight of the priesthood, what sort of thing that is is clearly declared in your whole book; yet you bear what you feared. For your weight is borne upward, not downward: not that it presses you to the depths, but that it raises you to the stars; while through the grace of God, and the merit of obedience, and the efficacy of good work, what seemed through human weakness to have heaviness becomes sweet. For you say things that are consonant with the apostles and apostolic men: for you have spoken beautiful things beautifully, and in these you have shown yourself to be beautiful. I do not, therefore, wish you to be like an unseemly painter painting beautiful things; because spiritual doctrine proceeds from a spiritual mind. A man who is a painter is esteemed more by most people than an inanimate painting: but do not reckon this to flattery or adulation, but to truth; because it is not fitting for me to lie, nor for you to be falsely praised. Therefore plainly, although I have seen you and all your beautiful things faithfully, and I have seen myself as sufficiently unseemly in comparison to you.

Therefore I beseech you, by the grace of God which abounds in you, that you not reject one who entreats, but willingly teach what I confess I do not know. For we are compelled by necessity to do what you teach [Ms. Tolet., you say is not done]. For when an expert is not found to come to the priestly office, what is to be done, unless an unskilled man, as I am, is ordained? You command that an unskilled man not be ordained. But let your prudence consider, lest perhaps it suffice for his skill to know Jesus Christ, and him crucified: but if it does not suffice, no one will be in this book who is said to be skilled; there will certainly be no priest, if no one ought to be unless he is skilled. For we resist bigamists with open brow, lest the sacrament be corrupted. What if a man of one wife has touched a woman before his wife? What if he has not had a wife, and yet has not been without the touch of a woman? Advise us with your pen, that we may be punished neither by our own sin nor by another's. For we greatly fear that through necessity we may do what we ought not. Behold, your precepts must be obeyed, so that such a one be made as apostolic authority teaches: and the one sought is not found; therefore faith, which consists in hearing, will cease; baptism will cease, if there is no one to baptize. Those sacrosanct mysteries, which are performed by priests and ministers, will cease. In either case danger remains: either such a one is ordained who ought not, or there is no one to celebrate or minister the sacred mysteries.

A few years ago, Leander, bishop of Hispalis, returning from the royal city, saw us in passing and told us that he had homilies published by Your Beatitude on the book of holy Job. And because he hastened by, he did not show them to us, though we asked. Later, however, you wrote to him about triple immersion; in which letter you mention that that work displeased you, but that you resolved with more wholesome counsel to transpose it in the course of the books. We indeed have the six booklets of the holy Hilary, bishop of Pictavium, which he translated from the Greek of Origen into Latin; but he did not expound everything according to the order of the book of holy Job. And I greatly wonder that a most learned and holy man would translate Origen’s fables about the stars. To me, most holy Father, it can by no means be persuaded that I should believe the stars of the sky to be rational spirits, which holy Scripture declares were made neither with the angels nor with men. Therefore may Your Beatitude deign to transmit to my smallness the work itself on the book of holy Job, and also the other moral books which you mention having made in this book of Rules. For we are yours, we delight to read your works. For it is desirable and glorious to me, as your Gregory says, to learn even to the last of old age. May the holy Trinity, God, deign to preserve your crown unharmed for instructing His Church, as we desire, most blessed Father.