Serious Matters And A Touch Of Irony

Letter 2,50 - to Peter, sub-deacon of Sicily, about various cases. July-August 592.

"But when you come, bring with you the money and jewels from the inheritance of Antoninus. Also bring with them any rents obtained by you from the ninth and tenth indictions, and all the accounts. Make an effort to cross the sea, if it pleases God, before the nativity of Saint Cyprian, in case some danger might eventuate (Heaven forbid!) from the sigh that is always a threat at that time.
Besides this, you should know that I severely rebukes Pretiosus, a monk, over a slight fault, and I sent him from my presence, a sad and embittered man. As a result, I am deeply distressed in my thoughts. And I wrote to the lord bishop, that he should send him back to me, if he were willing. But he was not at all willing. I neither should nor can upset the bishop, for occupied as he is in the service of God, he should be supported with words of comfort, and not criticized with bitterness. In fact the same Pretiosus, from what I hear, is extremely sad, because he is not returning to me. But as I have said, I cannot upset the lord bishop, who does not want to send him away, and I remain undecided between the two of them. You therefore, if you have a greater amount of wisdom in your poor old body than I have in mine, arrange this same case in such a way that my wish is realized, and the lord bishop is not upset."

Cited from: The Letters of Gregory the Great, trans. John R.C. Martyn (Toronto: PIMS, 2004), I: 229.