Spice Your Humility

Letter 1,38a - to sub-deacon Peter. 16 March 591.

"(I)f you see anything that can justly comply with Church law, be careful in case you are ever keen to protect it with force, especially as I have also issues a decree with anathema added to it, that our Church should never place titles on estates in the city of in the countryside.. But whatever supports the poor with reason, should be defended with reason, so that, when something good is not being done well, what we justly complain about, even before almighty God, is not unjustly refuted.
However the noble laymen and the glorious praetor should love you for your humility, and not shrink from you due to your arrogance.
And yet when you realize that those men are perhaps doing unjust deeds against any destitute people, then turn your humility into pride at once, and always when they behave badly. But act in such a way that your humility is not remiss, nor your authority rigid, so that rectitude adds spice to your humility and your humility adds sweetness to your very rectitude."

Cited from: The Letters of Gregory the Great, trans. John R.C. Martyn (Toronto: PIMS, 2004), I: 157.