Letter 4095: A man named Agathon wishes to enter your monastery and embrace the monastic life.

To Urbicus, abbot. That he should receive Agatho into the monastery, if his wife likewise should be willing to be converted [to the monastic life]. Gregory to Urbicus, abbot of the monastery of Saint Hermes, which is situated in Panormus [Palermo]. Whoever, pricked by divine inspiration, having abandoned the affairs of this present age, hastens to be converted to God, is both to be received with charity and to be cherished through all things with gentle consolations, so that he may persist in that way of life [...] which [he has undertaken]. Since therefore Agatho, the bearer of these present letters, desires to be converted in the monastery of your beloved self, we exhort you to receive him with all sweetness and love, and by continual exhortation to kindle his desire toward eternal life, and to take care to be diligently solicitous concerning the salvation of his soul; so that, while by your admonishing he persists with devout mind in the service of our God, both his having forsaken the world may profit him, and his conversion may profit you toward your reward. Yet know that he is to be received in such a way only if his wife likewise should be willing to be converted. For since by the joining of marriage the body of the two has been made one, it is unfitting that one part be converted and one part remain in the world.

AD URBICUM AFBATEM. Agathonem in monaslerio suscipiat, 8i illius uxor 8i- mililer converti voluerit. Gregorius * Urbico abbati monasterii sancti Her- metis, ® quod in Panormo situm est. Quisquis divioa inspiratione compunctus, relictis $2culi hujus actionibus, ad Deum converli feslinat, ita et cum charitate suscipiendus est, et blandis per omnia consolationibus reſovendus, ut in ea quam 4 In Norm., Reg. et nonnullis, calcem vero quam... oblatam. Keisr. XLVII. — * Fanum $eu Fanum fortun:e, vulgo Fano, urbs vlim Umbriz, nunc ducatus Urbi- nails, in ora maris Adriatici,;Ariminum inter et Seno- gal-iam, adhuc episcopalis, immediate subjecta Ro- mano pont. in eujus dominio esl. Gus8anv. | EeisT, NEV. [ Al. 49]. — * De Urbico et mona- $terio £ancli Hermetis, Supra epist. 41. Gussaxv. Tit electus, hunc ab illo cenasemus diversum. EerisT, XLIX [ Al. 5U]. — *® Fuit decimus episco- pus Santonensis, prosapia nobilis. Hunc Gunichram- nus rex odio habuit alque vexavil, quod Gundobal- dum regnum affectantem urbe $ua palam, ct Frede- gundis nuntios clam tecto recepisset; de qua re vide Gregorium Turon., lib. vu Historize, cap. 51, et lib. vin, cap. 2, 7 et 45. De co etiam agzit lib. de Gloria tonſes$Sorum, cap. 57 et 6), et lib. iv de Miraculis Kucti Martini, c. 8. A Forlunalo lib. 1, carim. 5, pudatur ob edificalain Saucli Stephani eccle>iam. mecſuit concilio Paris. 1v, anno 5:5, et Matiscon. 1, im. 580, Kjus nomen in Ecclesi.e fasus legitur, Saintes, urbs episcopalis Galiiz, Sub archiepiscopo Burdigalensi Aquilaniz Il metropoltano, Santoniz fA conversatione persistere. Quia igitur © Agathoprezsen- tium lator in monaslerio dilectionis tuz converti desi- derat, hortamur ut cum omni eum dulcedine dile- clioneque SusCipias, atque ad zternam vitam ejusdesi- rium asSidua adhortatione succendas, et circa anime ipsius salutem diligenter studeas esse $0llicitus, qua- tenus dum in Dei nostri servitio, te admonente, de- vola mente perslilerit, et illi prosit szculum reli- quisse, et tibi ejus conversio proficiat ad mercedem. Quem tamen ita $u>-cipiendum esse cognosce, 8 et uxor ipsius similiter converti voluerit. Nam dum unum utrorumque corpus conjugii copulatione: Sit factum, incongruum est partem converti, et par- tem in sculo remanere (Cſ. Grat. 27, q. 2, c. 25).