Letter 11018: My dear Venantius, I write to you not with easy comfort but with the harder truth, which I trust you can receive...

Discharging the duty of a greeting that I owe you, I wished to speak of the things I suffer; but I think it unfitting to recount things you already know. For I am tormented by the pains of gout, which, known to me and to you alike, while they grow violently strong upon us, have made us decline from life. Among these afflictions, what else ought we to do but always recall our sins to memory and give thanks to almighty God? For we who have sinned much through the flattery of the flesh are purged through the affliction of the flesh. We ought also to know that the present punishment, if it converts the mind of the afflicted, is the end of the preceding fault; but if it converts him not at all toward the fear of the Lord, it is the beginning of the punishment that follows. Therefore our Creator deals with us out of a regard for piety, in that he continually strikes those who are worthy of death, and yet thus far by no means slays them. For he threatens what he is about to do, and yet does not do it, so that the pains that go before us may terrify us, and, having turned us to the fear of the strict judge, may hide us in the final reckoning from his chastisement. For who can say, who can count up, how many, given over to their own luxury, rushing headlong also into blasphemies and pride, persisting in robberies and iniquities right up to the day of their death, so lived in this world that they never suffered even a pain in the head, but, struck down suddenly, were handed over to the fires of hell? We therefore have evidence that we have not been abandoned, we who are continually scourged, as scripture bears witness, which says: 'Whom the Lord loves he chastises; he scourges every son whom he receives' [Hebrews 12:6]. And so, amid these very lashings of God, let us recall to memory both his gifts and the penalties of our own guilt. Let us weigh how many good things he has done over and above our wickedness, and how many evil things we have committed under his goodness. Let us fulfill what the Lord says through the prophet: 'Bring me back into remembrance, that we may be judged together' [Isaiah 43:26]. Let us be judged now in our own thinking together with God, lest afterward we be judged strictly by God. For what does Paul say? 'If we judged ourselves, we should certainly not be judged by God' [1 Corinthians 11:31]. Whoever, therefore, hastens to escape the strictness of the sentence of the judgment to come, let him, through the bitterness of penitence, kill within himself every sweetness of the present life. But whatever good things there are of this world, whose gifts are they, if not the Creator's? Yet the gift of God ought not to be free for us when, through delight in itself, it separates us from the love of God, lest we prefer the gifts to the giver, and, while we receive good things and yet are evil, we be cut off from the fear of God by the very thing through which we ought to have grown in his fear. May the Creator of all, that same almighty God, pour into your mind by the inspiration of his Spirit these things that we speak to you in our letters, and wipe you clean from the defilements of every fault, and grant you here the joy of his consolation and one day, in his presence, eternal rewards. My sweetest daughters, the lady Barbara and the lady Antonina, I ask to be greeted on my behalf.

Debitum salutationis alloquium solvens ea volui loqui quae patior; sed incon- gruum puto narrare quae nostis. Podagrae enim doloribus torqueor, qui» et mihi et vobis non dispariliter noti, dum apud nos vehementer excrescunt, nos decrescere a vita fecerunt. Inter quos quid debemus aliud, nisi semper ad memoriam delicta nostra® revocare atque omnipotenti Deo gratias agere? Quoniam qui ex camis blandimento^ multa peccavimus, ex carnis afflictione purgamur. Sciendum quoque nobis est, quia poena praesens, si afdicti animum convertit, finis est culpae praecedentis, si autem ad timorem® Domini minime convertit, initium^ poenae sequentis. Curandum ergo nobis •) et om, Ql. 0 amminiBtrione Q* 1. 8) nullls Bl. quodlibet Rl. rationes B 1. Bl. Q*. P) prunior, om. studinm Bl. ^) iustus B 1. q1; iutus tn adiutus corr. B2; adiutuR m aut iatus eorr. q3. ') hopus (om. hoc) q1. ") inplebueris Bl. egeris Bl. ^) ex consoletur earr. Bl; conaolenter q1. ▼) tu om. q*1. ^) mercedem bouam q3. *) nostri om. B 1. J) con- pensant Bl; compensanter q1. q*2.3. Mense eet.: ianu Mr. Bl, ian q*. q 1, ianuar. B* 1. XI, 18 in Otulo: Yenantio B 1. q 1; Venatio B2. q* 2.3; Venantino Q*1.4; Venancio B* 1 — S^nra- easano Bl.2. q. q*2.3; Syracus. Q* 1.4; Siracusano B* 1. ») que q1. »>) condis pariliter (om. non) Bl. «) delicta nostra om. q*2.3. ^) blandimenta Bl. q1. q*1. «) a timore q*1; a timorem, $ed eorr. q*2. 0 est, ^od post. add. q*2, exhibet q.q*3. 8) est om. q3.q*2.3. ^) flectibus q* 1. 0 oonyersatione q 1. ^) ergo q* 1. 1) De diaeoniis cf. ep. V, 25 n.4. X, 8 n. 4 et de mensis pauperum loh. diae. v. Greg. 11, 26 8$. XI, 18. C^enuinam epistulam non totam traditcm esse, sed fragmentum solum contendU Ewcdd (imMtOf ^ vid€^, initio motus). — De Venantio cf. ep. I, 33 n. VI 40 n. IX, 13 n. GREGORII I. REGISTRI pietatis agit^ conditor noster, quod morte dignos adsidue percutit et tamen adhuc minime occidit'". Minatur enim, quod facturus est, nec'^ tamen facit, ut dolores nos praecurrentes° terreant et conversos ad timorem districtiP iudicis ab eius nos*i animad- yersione in termino abscondant'. Quis enim dicat", quis enumeret, quanti in sua^ luxuria dimissi^, in blasphemiis quoque et superbia proruentes, in rapinis et iniquitatibus per- manentes^ usque ad diem obitus sui^ ita in hoc saeculo vixerunt, ut numquam* dolo- rem vel capitis paterentury, sed subito percussi ignibus infemi sunt traditi? Nos ergo habemus indicium, quia derelicti non sumus, qui adsidue flagellamur, teste scriptura, Heb. 12,6. quae dicit: 'Quem diligit Dominus castigat, flagellat omnem filium quem recipit'. In ipsis itaque verberibus Dei revocemus ad memoriam et eius munera et nostri reatus damna. Pensemus, quanta bona super nostram malitiam' fecerit^ et quanta mala sub i8ai.43, dfi. eius bonitatc commisimus. Impleamus quod per prophetam Dominus dicit: ^Reduc^ me in memoriam, ut iudicemur simul'. ludicemur modo in nostra cogitatione cum Deo, 1. cor. 11,31. ne districte postmodum iudicemur a Deo. Quid etenim Paulus dicit? 'Si nos ipsos iudicaremus, non utique® a Deo iudicaremur'. Quisquis ergo^ festinat® evadere districtio- nem sententiae iudicii sequentis, per amaritudinem paenitentiae omnem sibi dulcedinem interimat vitae praesentis. Quaecumque autem^ huius mundi*^ bona sunt, cuius dona sunt, nisi Conditoris? Sed libere nobis non debet donum Dei, quod per delectationem^ sui separat* ab amore Dei, ne data danti praeferamus et, dum bona percepimus^ etiam mali, unde^ crescere in eius timore debuimus, inde a timore illius disiungamur. Creator autem omnium isdem omnipotens Deus haec quae vobis in epistolis loquimur menti vestrae adspiratione sui spiritus infundat vosque ab omnis°^ culpae'^ inquinationibus tergeat et hic vobis consolationis suae gaudium et apud se quandoque praemia aetema concedat. Dulcissimas filias meas domnam Barbaram ^ et domnam Antoninam ^ mea peto vice salutari.