Letter 4,17 - to Felix, bishop of Siponto. December 593
And so, since the above-mentioned Tribunus asserts that he was kidnapped by the enemy and was bought for twelve gold coins, and laments that he is being urged to pay them back, you ought to inquire into this diligently. And if it is so, and you learn that he does not have the funds from which he could pay back the price given for him, repay the aforesaid gold coins to the person who redeemed him, from Church funds.
For it is very hard if he finds no remedy from the Church for which he fights. And so, avoiding any excuse, pay the price that was clearly paid for him, with manifest trust, and without any delay, as we have said already.
Cited from: The Letters of Gregory the Great, trans. John R.C. Martyn (Toronto: PIMS, 2004), I: 300
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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