Letter 9002: What we have learned about our brother the bishop Januarius the bearers of these presents, as well as the copies of our letters, will sufficiently inform you; and so let your Experience judiciously carry into effect the excommunication which we have decreed to be pronounced on his perverse counsellors, that they may learn by falling not to walk ...

Pope Gregory the GreatVitalis|c. 599 AD|gregory great
Military conflict

Gregory to Vitalis, guardian of Sardinia.

What we have learned about our brother Bishop Januarius, the bearers of this letter and the copies of our correspondence will make sufficiently clear. Carry out judiciously the excommunication I have decreed against his misguided advisers, so that by their fall they may learn not to walk carelessly.

Further, I have sent back through the guardian Redemptus the wheat that had been sent to us under the guise of a gift. Make sure that neither you nor the man who brought it presumes to take any of it as a bonus. Restore the entire amount, without reduction, to the persons it belongs to and send me their receipts confirming the value. If I discover that anything has been handled differently from what I direct, I will treat the offense with considerable severity.

Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.

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