Letter 4007: Gregory to Gennadius, Patrician and Exarch of Africa. We are well assured that the mind of your religious Excellency is inflamed with zeal of divine love against those things especially which are done in unseemly wise in the churches. We therefore the more gladly impose on you the correction of faults in ecclesiastical cases as we have confidenc...

Gregory to Gennadius, Patrician and Exarch of Africa. We are confident that your devout Excellency's spirit burns with zeal for divine love, especially against those things done improperly in the churches. We therefore impose on you the correction of ecclesiastical abuses all the more willingly, given our confidence in the direction of your pious disposition. Be informed, then, that reports have reached us from people arriving from the African provinces that many things are being done in the council of Numidia contrary to the ways of the Fathers and the decrees of the canons. Unable to endure the constant complaints any longer, we have commissioned our brother and fellow bishop Columbus — whose gravity and reputation, now widely known, leave us no room for doubt — to investigate these matters. Greeting you with fatherly affection, we urge Your Excellency to lend him the full weight of your support in all matters of ecclesiastical discipline. If these abuses are not investigated and corrected, they will only grow through the license that prolonged tolerance provides. Know this as well, most excellent son: if you seek victories and are working to secure the province entrusted to you, nothing will serve that purpose more effectively than your zeal in restraining, as far as possible, the misconduct of priests and the internal conflicts of the churches.

Book IV, Letter 7 To Gennadius, Patrician. Gregory to Gennadius, Patrician and Exarch of Africa. We are well assured that the mind of your religious Excellency is inflamed with zeal of divine love against those things especially which are done in unseemly wise in the churches. We therefore the more gladly impose on you the correction of faults in ecclesiastical cases as we have confidence in the bent of your pious disposition. Be it known, then, to your Excellence that it has been reported to us by some who have come to us from the African parts that many things are being committed in the council of Numidia contrary to the way of the Fathers and the ordinances of the canons. And, being unable to bear any longer the frequent complaints that have reached us about such things, we committed them to be enquired into to our brother and fellow bishop Columbus , of whose gravity his very reputation, which is spread abroad, now allows us not to doubt. Wherefore, greeting you with fatherly affection, we exhort your Excellence that in all things pertaining to ecclesiastical discipline you should lend him the support of your assistance, lest, if what is done amiss should not be enquired into and visited, it should grow with greater license into future excesses through precedent of long continuance. Know moreover, most excellent son, that if you seek victories, and are dealing for the security of the province committed to you, nothing will avail you more for this end than being zealous in restraining as far as possible the lives of priests and the intestine wars of Churches. About this page Source. Translated by James Barmby. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 12. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1895.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/360204007.htm>. Contact information. The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. My email address is feedback732 at newadvent.org. (To help fight spam, this address might change occasionally.) Regrettably, I can't reply to every letter, but I greatly appreciate your feedback — especially notifications about typographical errors and inappropriate ads.