The Lord's Flock

Quote from Letter 4,35 to Victor and Columbus, bishops of Africa. July 594.

The message of this consideration ought to force us powerfully to resist the diseases of the soul as far as is possible, quickly. Otherwise, while we fail to apply healthy medicines, they may rob many of you of your lives, with which we are striving to enrich our God.
We must therefore protect with vigilant care the sheepfolds of our sheep, over which we seem to have been placed as guards, so that the cunning wolf finds shepherds fighting against him on all sides, and has no way of getting into the sheepfold.
For indeed, we have found that the stings of the Donatists have disturbed our Lord's flock in those parts like this, as if they were not looked after by the control of any shepherd. And the report has come to us, which we cannot mention without heavy grief, that very many of them have already been torn by poisoned teeth.

Cited from: The Letters of Gregory the Great, trans. John R.C. Martyn (Toronto: PIMS, 2004), I: 315