Letter 3,65 - to Theotimis, physician. August 593
"There were some ancient philosophers who said that there was one soul in two bodies, not joining the two with love, but dividing the single substance of the soul into two. But we say by contrast that we have one soul, not by dividing the substance, but by joining hearts. For it was written about those first Christians: "there was in them one heart and one soul." I read this in the Acts of the Apostles in such a way that I recognize it in the case of Lord Theotimus and me.
For he is such a kindred spirit, that when present in body he never lets me down, and when absent in body, he is always made present through the spirit.
And I offer thanks to almighty Lord, who fills the innermost parts of our mind with the grace of his love."
Cited from: The Letters of Gregory the Great, trans. John R.C. Martyn (Toronto: PIMS, 2004), I: 286.
About Me & About the Project
- Arnold Smeets
- BIO - I am a theologian. Radio broadcaster at Dutch Public Broadcast Organisation KRO-NCRV and Senior Research Fellow at CPO (Centre for Patristic Studies), the Netherlands. In 2007 I took my degree cum laude at the Faculty of Catholic Theology of the University of Tilburg on a semiotic analysis of three letters of Pope Gregory the Great (Ad Leandrum, concerning his own conversion, and Ep. xi,37 and Ep. xi,56, two instructions on the mission of the English). PROJECT - Every few days I'll blog a paragraph and twitter a line from one of Gregory the Great's Letters. Passages from the letters are quoted with kind permission of the publishers, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto, Canada.
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