Letter 5049: Gregory to Leander, Bishop of Hispalis (Seville). With what ardour I am thirsty to see you you read in the tables of your own heart, since you love me exceedingly. But since I cannot see you, separated as you are from me by long tracts of country, I have done what charity towards you dictated, namely to transmit to your Holiness, on the arrival ...
Pope Gregory the Great→Leander of Hispalis (Seville)|c. 594 AD|Pope Gregory the Great
grief deathmonasticism
Military conflict; Literary culture
Book V, Letter 49
To Leander, Bishop.
Gregory to Leander, Bishop of Hispalis (Seville).
With what ardour I am thirsty to see you you read in the tables of your own heart, since you love me exceedingly. But since I cannot see you, separated as you are from me by long tracts of country, I have done what charity towards you dictated, namely to transmit to your Holiness, on the arrival here of our common son Probinus the presbyter, the book of Pastoral Rule, which I wrote at the commencement of my episcopate, and the books which you knew I had already composed on the exposition of the blessed Job. Some sheets indeed of the third and fourth parts of that work I have not sent to your Charity, having already given those sheets only of the said parts to monasteries. These, then, which I send let your Holiness earnestly peruse, and more earnestly deplore my sins, lest it be to my more serious blame that I am seen as it were to know what I omit to do. But with how great tumults of business I am oppressed in this Church the very brevity of my epistle will signify to your Charity, seeing that I say so little to him whom more than all I love.
About this page
Source. Translated by James Barmby. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 12. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1895.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/360205049.htm>.
Contact information. The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. My email address is feedback732 at newadvent.org. (To help fight spam, this address might change occasionally.) Regrettably, I can't reply to every letter, but I greatly appreciate your feedback — especially notifications about typographical errors and inappropriate ads.
Book V, Letter 49
To Leander, Bishop.
Gregory to Leander, Bishop of Hispalis (Seville).
With what ardour I am thirsty to see you you read in the tables of your own heart, since you love me exceedingly. But since I cannot see you, separated as you are from me by long tracts of country, I have done what charity towards you dictated, namely to transmit to your Holiness, on the arrival here of our common son Probinus the presbyter, the book of Pastoral Rule, which I wrote at the commencement of my episcopate, and the books which you knew I had already composed on the exposition of the blessed Job. Some sheets indeed of the third and fourth parts of that work I have not sent to your Charity, having already given those sheets only of the said parts to monasteries. These, then, which I send let your Holiness earnestly peruse, and more earnestly deplore my sins, lest it be to my more serious blame that I am seen as it were to know what I omit to do. But with how great tumults of business I am oppressed in this Church the very brevity of my epistle will signify to your Charity, seeing that I say so little to him whom more than all I love.
About this page
Source. Translated by James Barmby. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 12. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1895.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/360205049.htm>.
Contact information. The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. My email address is feedback732 at newadvent.org. (To help fight spam, this address might change occasionally.) Regrettably, I can't reply to every letter, but I greatly appreciate your feedback — especially notifications about typographical errors and inappropriate ads.
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Book V, Letter 49
To Leander, Bishop.
Gregory to Leander, Bishop of Hispalis (Seville).
With what ardour I am thirsty to see you you read in the tables of your own heart, since you love me exceedingly. But since I cannot see you, separated as you are from me by long tracts of country, I have done what charity towards you dictated, namely to transmit to your Holiness, on the arrival here of our common son Probinus the presbyter, the book of Pastoral Rule, which I wrote at the commencement of my episcopate, and the books which you knew I had already composed on the exposition of the blessed Job. Some sheets indeed of the third and fourth parts of that work I have not sent to your Charity, having already given those sheets only of the said parts to monasteries. These, then, which I send let your Holiness earnestly peruse, and more earnestly deplore my sins, lest it be to my more serious blame that I am seen as it were to know what I omit to do. But with how great tumults of business I am oppressed in this Church the very brevity of my epistle will signify to your Charity, seeing that I say so little to him whom more than all I love.
About this page Source. Translated by James Barmby. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 12. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1895.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/360205049.htm>.
Contact information. The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. My email address is feedback732 at newadvent.org. (To help fight spam, this address might change occasionally.) Regrettably, I can't reply to every letter, but I greatly appreciate your feedback — especially notifications about typographical errors and inappropriate ads.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.