To Venantius, Ex-Monk, Patrician of Syracuse¹³⁸

138 See I. 34, note 8.  It is significant of Gregory’s delicate tact, that he does not in this letter, when his friend was suffering, allude to his past renunciation of monastic life as among the sins to be repented of, or urge him to return to it, though that the subject was still on his mind appears from his letter about the same time to the Bishop of Syracuse (XI. 36).

Gregory to Venantius, &c.

In addressing to you the greeting which is due I was intending to speak of what I suffer.  But I think I need not relate to you what you know.  For I am tormented by pains of gout, which, afflicting not dissimilarly both me and you, while they increase upon us exceedingly, have caused our life to decrease.  In the midst of them what else should we do but recall our faults to mind, and give thanks to Almighty God?  For we who have sinned in many things from the pampering of the flesh are purged by the affliction of the flesh.  We are to know also that present pain, if it converts the mind of the afflicted one, is the end of preceding guilt; but, if it does not convert to the fear of the Lord, is the beginning of pain to follow.  We must therefore take care, and in entire conversion of heart watch to the utmost of our power with tears, lest we pass from torment to torments.  We are also to consider by how great a dispensation of loving kindness our Maker deals with us, in that He continually smites us, who are worthy of death, and still slays us not.  For He threatens what He will do, and yet does it not, that pains sent in advance may alarm us, and, when we are converted to the fear of the strict Judge, may shield us from His animadversion when life is over.  For who may tell, who may count, how many, sunk in their lechery, running headlong also in blasphemies and pride, continuing in robberies and iniquities even to the day of their death, have so lived in this world as never to suffer even a headache, but by a sudden stroke have been delivered to the fires of hell?  We, then, have a token that we are not forsaken, in that we are continually scourged, according to the testimony of Scripture, which says, Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth (Heb. xii. 6).  Wherefore under the very stripes of God let us recall to mind both His gifts and the losses of our guilt.  Let us consider what good things He has showered upon our ill-doing, and what ill things we have committed under His goodness.  Let us fulfil what the Lord says through the prophet, Put me in remembrance, that we may plead together (Isai. xliii. 26).  Let us plead now in our thought with God, that we be not hereafter strictly judged by God.  For what says Paul?  If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged of the Lord (1 Cor. xi. 31).  Whosoever, then, would make haste to escape the strictness of the sentence of the judgment to come, let him, through the bitterness of penitence, cut off for himself all the sweetness of the present life.  Moreover, whatever gifts of this kind there are, whose gifts are they but our Maker’s?  But that should not be accounted a gift of God fully to us which separates us through delight in itself from the love of God; lest we should prefer the things given to the Giver, and while receiving good things, though ourselves evil, we should be disjoined from His fear by that whereby we ought to have grown in His fear.  Now may the Creator of all things, that is Almighty God, pour into your heart by the inspiration of His Spirit what we speak to you of by letter, and cleanse you from all defilements of sin, and grant you the joy of His comfort here, and hereafter eternal rewards with Himself.  I beg that my most sweet daughters, the lady Barbara and the lady Antonina, be greeted in my name.

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