Letter 2060: In the disputes that have come to my attention involving poor people, I have chosen silence.

To Italica, the patrician lady. In the very cases of the poor, lest he become entangled in lawsuits, he chooses silence. He grants to Cyprian the authority to settle, together with Italica, if she herself so wishes, the case without litigation, the right of the poor being preserved. Gregory to Italica, the patrician lady. We have received your letter, full of sweetness, and the report of the good health of your Excellency has gladdened us. Toward that letter so great is the sincerity of our mind that our fatherly affection permits us to suspect nothing of hidden ill-will concealed beneath the calm of its words. But may almighty God bring it about that, just as we think well of you, so your mind may answer us with good things, and that the sweetness which you spend in words you may display in works. For most glorious health profits nothing [...]. [The following lines in the source are intrusive editorial footnote material that has been spliced into the letter text and do not belong to it: a note that creditors seize the body for debt and forbid it to be buried, handing the living over to prison; a reference to Saint John Chrysostom, Homily 62 on Matthew 18, inveighing against merciless creditors, who especially press their farmers indebted to them too harshly; and a reference to Saint Augustine, in the second book of the Sermon on the Mount, on Christ. ...] [...] within. And that discord is the more to be guarded against to which outward peace lends a covering. But as for that matter which your Excellency in the aforesaid letters earnestly strives to recall to our memory, let her know that it has been written to you that we wish to settle nothing concerning the cases of the poor with you amid scandal or amid the uproar of the courts. We remember that we wrote this; and we know that we ourselves, with the Lord's help, restrain ourselves by ecclesiastical moderation from the litigation of cases, and, according to that apostolic understanding, endure with joy the plundering of our goods. But we believe you know this: that our silence and patience will not work prejudice in matters of the poor against the pontiffs who come after me. Whence we too, fulfilling our above-mentioned promise, have already determined that we must keep silent concerning these cases themselves; nor do we desire to involve ourselves through our own persons in those affairs in which we perceive that things are conducted with too little kindness. But lest perhaps from these things, glorious daughter, you conjecture that we still altogether refuse those things which pertain to concord, we have charged our son Cyprian the deacon, coming to the regions of Sicily, that if you arrange to order anything concerning these matters wholesomely and without sin to your soul, he may, by our authority, settle it together with you, and that we may no longer be vexed by those affairs whose execution is dispensed with gentleness. And may almighty God, who well knows how to bend toward possibility those things that are altogether impossible, breathe upon you, and dispose both to arrange your cases with the intention of peace, and, for the reward of your soul, to provide for this Church out of the things belonging to them. [Farewell.]

AD ITALICAM PATRICIAM. In ipsis pauperum causis, ne litigiis immisceatur, 8i- lentium eligit. Cypriano poteslatem ſacit ut cum Ita- lica, 81 id ipsa velit, salvo pauperum jure, causam absque lite finiat. Gregorius * lialicz patriciz. Suscepimus plenas dulcedine litteras vestras, atque incolumitatis excellentiz veslre nos letificavit audi- ws, Circa quas tanla «8: nostre mentis sinceritas, ul nihil in earum tranquillitate simultatis recondi- tum, paternus nos $uspicari permillat affectus. Sed omnipotens Devs faciat , ut sicut de vobis nos bona Sentimus, ita mens vestra nobis bona respondeal, et dulcedinem, quam verbis impendilis, exhibeatis ope= ribus. Nihbil enim prodest gloriosissima $anilas et toris corpus invadunt creditores, et sepeliri vetant;, viventem carceri tradunt. Sanctus Joannes Chrys0- $tomus, hom. 62, in Matth. xvin, adversus creditores immisericordes anim-se invehitur, eos polissimum 16 $ibi obnoxios agricolas durius exagitant. Sanctus ngustinus , serm. Domini in monte, lib. n, Christi intrinsecus. Atque illa magis cavenda est digscordia, cui $ateſlitium pax prebet Þ exterior. lilud vero quod in epistolis prediclis revocare in memoriam nostram excellentia vestra $tudiose conlendit , sciat gcriptum yobis, nilil cam scantdalo , nihil cum forali strepitu vobiseum nos velle de causis pauperum definire. Hoc nos el scripsis8e meminimus ; et scimus nosmetips0s, juvante Domino, a causarum litigiis ecclesiaslica moderatione compescere, atque secundum 3postoli- cum illum $ensum, rapinam bonorum nostrorum cum gaudio sustinere. Sed illud scire vos credimus, taci- turnitatem atque G72 patientiam nostram futuris post me pontificibus in rebas pauperum prejudiciuu non ſacturam, Unde et nos explentes supra memo- B ratam promissionem nostram, jam de causis ipsis przevidimus reticendum ; nec in his in quibus minus agi benigne Sentimus, desideramus nos per nosmet- ipsos immiscere negoliis. Sed ne forte ex his conji- ciatis, gloriosa filia, ea quz ad concordiam pertinent adhuc nos omnino renuere, filio nostro Cypriano diacono venienti ad Siciliz partes indiximus, ut si quid de his salubriter et sine peccato anime vestre ordinare disponilis, ex nostra auctoritale vobiscum deſiniat, et nos non amplius illis vexemur negoliis, quorum cum mansuetudine © est dispensalus effectus. Deus autem omnipotens, qui ea que omnino impos- - $Sibilia sunt ad pos8ibilitatem bene novit inflectere, - ille vobis aspiret, et causas vestras cum pacis inten- tione disponere, et pro mercede anime vestrz, de C rebus eis competentibus hbujus Ecclesiz consulere | uprribus. Ales EPISTOLA LXI. AD FORTUNATUM EPISCOPUM. Quomodo in Ecclesia sua conversari debeat. Gregorius Fortunato episcopo Neapolitano. Scripla tuz charitatis accepimns , quibus nobis indicasti, Deo propitio, te bene a filiis tuis Neapoli- lanis civibus esse Susceptum. De quibus omnipotenti Deo gratias retulimus. Oportet ergo afectui eorum le luis moribus compensare , malos coercere, bonis ce Defossi erant intra terram baptisterii ſontes, non, ut nostri, supra pavimentum eminebant. Id suppo- nunt Chrysostomus, hom. 40, in cap. xv epis!. | ad Cor. ; Ambros. hom. 16, in ps. cxvim. Gregorius ipse, in lib. Sacrament., de Sabbato Pentecostes. Isidorus Hispal., 1. n de divinis Offic., c. 24, ubi in doctrinam explicans de debitis dimittendis, vult qui- D ipsum bapiisierii fontem tribus gradibus fuise descen- dem a4moneri debitores de $uo officiv, negat com- ellendos inclementer ; docet relaxanda potius esse ebit1. ALGET. Eeisr. LIX | AL. 57]. — * Id omittitur in omnibus Vatie., Norm., Colbert., Corb., etc. Secundinum ta- men ſuisse Tauromenitanum episcopunn, constal ex multis ad eum <criptis epistolis. — d Quod nenpe monachis id molestum esset atque insolitum. Kadem ratione bapti>terium in monas!e- riis prohibetur , qua ibidem probibentur miss:x pu- blicz, ne in servorum Dei recessibus popularis conventus detur occasio. Vide $up., lib. n, epist. 41, Gratianus hune locum reſerens pro , in8olen'ias, habet mole- $043, . $um aperte innuitur. Dispositionis illius vestigium plerisque in locis superest. De baptisterio Lteran. Onuphrius : In medio habe! ſontem in terra excavatum ad quinque ulnas... tribus gradibus in id descenszus est. Ulnam hic intellige cum Suetonio cubitam, non cum Servio spatium in quanium ulraque extendittir manus. | Eersr. LX [Al. 58]. — * Ntalicam Venantii, de quo epist. 54 lib. 1, uxorem fuisse conjicamus ex epist. 123 lib. 1x, ad utramque scripta, ubi meminit Bar= barz et Antonine, quas Venantii Gilias fuisse con- $Lat. x eos meliores partes ſrequentius admonere, quatenus et ill; paternos in te mores invenisse se gaudrant, et tu creditam tibi regiminis causam, cooperaule Do- mino, Studiosius exSequaris.