For, since you have learnt the precepts of life through the teaching of the Spirit in the school of your heart, namely to despise all earthly things and to hasten to the heavenly homeland, the more you have advanced in goodness, the more you think good things about others.
But wheb in the letter of your Beatitude, I heard many things being said about me full of praise, I realized your purpose. You wanted to record not what I am, but what I ought to be. As for your saying that I ought to remember my morality, and not give way for any reason to the malignant spirit, which seeks to sift men's souls, I certainly recall that I have always had bad habits, and I am making all haste to see if I can overcome them and wipe them out.
But if, as you beliefe, I had some goodness, I trust in the help of almighty God that I have not forgotten it.
Cited from: The Letters of Gregory the Great, trans. John R.C. Martyn (Toronto: PIMS, 2004), II, 477
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