Letter 1028: Although I deserved to receive no letters from your Blessedness, yet I also do not forget my own forgetfulness; I blame my negligence, I stir up my sluggishness with goads of love, that one who will not pay what he owes of his own accord, may learn even under blows to render it. Furthermore, I inform you that I have prepared a full representatio...

Book I, Letter 28 To Sebastian, Bishop of Rhisinum [a town in Dalmatia, on the eastern Adriatic coast]. Gregory to Sebastian. I owe you a letter — I know that — and the truth is I've been neglecting the correspondence I should have sent. So: consider yourself prodded. I'm writing partly out of affection and partly to hold myself to the obligation I've let slide. I want you to know that I've written the most urgent appeal I could manage to our most devout lords [the Emperor and Empress], asking that the blessed Lord Patriarch Anastasius of Antioch — who was removed from his See and has been living in exile — be permitted to come to Rome, to the threshold of the blessed Apostle Peter, with his right to wear the pallium [the woolen vestment that marks a patriarch's authority] fully restored, to celebrate Mass alongside me. My hope was that even if he can't return to his own See, he could at least live here with me at his full dignity. Something has come up that's made me hold off on sending what I'd written. The bearer of this letter will explain. In the meantime, please find out what Lord Anastasius himself wants done about this, and write to let me know.

Book I, Letter 28 To Sebastian, Bishop of Rhisinum [in Dalmatia]. Gregory to Sebastian, etc. Although I deserved to receive no letters from your Blessedness, yet I also do not forget my own forgetfulness; I blame my negligence, I stir up my sluggishness with goads of love, that one who will not pay what he owes of his own accord, may learn even under blows to render it. Furthermore, I inform you that I have prepared a full representation, with urgent prayers to our most pious lords, to the effect that they ought to have sent the most blessed Lord patriarch Anastasius, with the use of the pallium granted him, to the threshold of the blessed Peter, prince of the apostles, to celebrate with me the solemnities of Mass; to the end that, though he were not allowed to return to his See, he might at least live with me, retaining his dignity. But of the reason that has arisen for keeping back what I had thus written the bearer of these presents will inform you. Nevertheless, ascertain the mind of the said lord Anastasius, and inform me in your letters of whatever he may wish to be done in this business.