Bede's Letter to Egbert

With God’s help, I, Bede, the servant of Christ and priest of the monastery of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul at Wearmouth and Jarrow, have assembled these facts about the history of the Church in Britain, and of the Church of the English in particular, so far as I have been able to ascertain them from ancient writings, from the traditions of our forebears, and from my own personal knowledge.

I was born on the lands of this monastery, and on reaching seven years of age, I was entrusted by my family first to the most reverend Abbot Benedict and later to Abbot Ceolfrid for my education. I have spent all the remainder of my life in this monastery and devoted myself entirely to the study of the Scriptures. And while I have observed the regular discipline and sung the choir offices daily in church, my chief delight has always been in study, teaching, and writing.

I was ordained deacon in my nineteenth year, and priest in my thirtieth, receiving both these orders at the hands of the most reverend Bishop John at the direction of Abbot Ceolfrid. From the time of my receiving the priesthood until my fifty-ninth year, I have worked, both for my own benefit and that of my brethren, to compile short extracts from the works of the venerable Fathers on Holy Scripture and to comment on their meaning and interpretation. These books are as follows:

The beginning of Genesis, up to the birth of Isaac and Ishmael’s rejection: four Books.

The Tabernacle: its vessels and priestly vestments: three Books.

The First Part of Samuel, up to the death of Saul: three Books.

On the Building of the Temple: an allegorical interpretation like the others: two Books.

Thirty Questions on the Books of Kings.

On the Proverbs of Solomon: three Books.

On the Song of Songs: seven Books.

On Isaiah, Daniel, The Twelve Prophets, and part of Jeremiah, with chapter headings taken from blessed Jerome’s Treatise.

On Ezra and Nehemiah: three Books.

On the Song of Habakkuk: one Book.

On the Book of the blessed father Tobias: an allegorical interpretation on Christ and the Church: one Book.

Chapters of Readings on the Pentateuch of Moses, Joshua, and Judges; on the Books of Kings and Chronicles; on the Book of the blessed father Job; on Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs; on the Prophets Isaiah, Ezra, and Nehemiah.

On the Gospel of Mark: four Books.

On the Gospel of Luke: six Books.

Homilies on the Gospel: two Books.

On the Apostle [Paul]: in which I have carefully transcribed in order whatever I have found on the subject in the works of Saint Augustine.

On the Acts of the Apostles: two Books.

On the Seven Catholic Epistles: one Book on each.

On the Apocalypse of Saint John: three Books.

Also, Chapters of Readings from all the new Testament except the Gospel.

Also, a book of Letters to various persons, including one on the six ages of the world; on the dwellings of the children of Israel; on Isaiah’s saying, ‘And they shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days shall they be visited’: on the reason for the leap year; and on Anatolius’ explanation of the equinox.

Also, The Histories of the Saints. I have translated Paulinus’ metrical work on the Life and Sufferings of the confessor Saint Felix into prose. And I have corrected, to the best of my ability, the sense of a book on The Life and Sufferings of Saint Anastasius, which had been badly translated from the Greek, and worse amended by some unskilful person. I have also written the Life of our father, the holy monk and Bishop Cuthbert, first in heroic verse and later in prose.

I have written in two books The History of the Abbots Benedict, Ceolfrid, and Hwaetbert, rulers of this monastery in which I delight to serve the Divine Goodness.

The Ecclesiastical History of our island and people: in five Books.

A Martyrology of the feast-days of the holy martyrs: in which I have carefully tried to record everything I could learn not only on what date, but also by what kind of combat and under what judge they overcame the world.

A Book of Hymns in various metres or rhythms.

A Book of Epigrams in heroic or elegiac verse.

On the Nature of Things, and On Times: a book on each, and one larger book On Times.

A Book on Orthography, arranged in alphabetical order.

A Book on The Art of Poetry, with a small work appended On Tropes and Figures;, that is, the figures and manners of speech found in holy scripture.

*

I PRAY YOU, noble Jesu, that as You have graciously granted me joyfully to imbibe the words of Your knowledge, so You will also of Your bounty grant me to come at length to Yourself,

the Fount of all wisdom,

And to dwell in Your presence

for ever.

This letter was written a few months before Bede’s death. It was completed on 5 November 734; Bede died on 26 May 735. Its style is more rhetorical than that of most of the History and more closely resembles that of Bede’s sermons and exegetical works. Long sentences abound, there are frequent biblical quotations, and the main inspiration in its sentence structure, its parallelisms and chiasmus, is biblical. In this way its structure has some resemblance to certain ‘set pieces’ of the History, like the stories of Coifi and of Caedmon, and to the Death of Bede.

The letter is an example of a private exhortation to a prelate by an author who will probably never become one. It is a rare example of a letter concerning pastoral care in early Anglo-Saxon England. While it is in some ways an artificial exercise, its special interest lies in its variety of information about the good and bad state of the Church in Northumbria: it is a witness to Bede’s realism and concern. Here we can read about episcopal government, about the use of the vernacular, about abuses in monasteries and the virtue of the laity. It is a useful check on the picture of Northumbrian Christianity presented in Bede’s History. The failings of the prelates in 734 help us to understand the stress laid on the simplicity and poverty of Aidan, Colman and Cuthbert as depicted (perhaps too idealistically) in the History. The heart of the letter, both in material and style, is the passage on the false monasteries, which were particularly detestable to Bede, a true monk.

His conclusion attributes the decline to riches and avarice. It seems certain that there was much wealth in the Northumbrian Church by this time. Alcuin attributed to Oswald endowments of silver, gold and jewels; tapestries, chandeliers and lanterns are also mentioned (The Bishops, Kings and Saints of York. ed. P. Godman, (Oxford 1982), lines 276 ff.). The same author praised Wilfrid II’s gifts of silver to York (ibid, lines 1222 ff.) as well as those of Egbert himself. Cuthbert’s superb gold and jewelled pectoral cross, as well as the magnificent Lindisfarne Gospels, reveal wealth of which Alcuin approved, while Bede perhaps did not: his silences on these matters (like his selective silence on St Wilfrid) are surely indicative of his values.

What effect did Bede’s letter have? It must be said that in spite of his exhortations, the Northumbrian dioceses were not divided further, nor were the early medieval laity encouraged to receive the Eucharist as frequently as Bede desired. On the other hand the Council of Clovesho of 747, whether or not attended by Egbert, contains in its Canons passages which were surely inspired by this letter. These include Canon 1 on the quality of the bishops’ life styles; Canon 3 on visiting their dioceses every year; Canons 4 and 5 on their duty to sustain the observance of monasteries, even when these are owned by laypeople who cannot be expelled; Canon 9 that no fees should be charged for baptisms; Canon 10 that they learn and teach the Lord’s Prayer and the Creed in English.

This translation has been made from the Latin text edited by C. Plummer (Baedae Opera Historica (Oxford 1896), I, 405–23), based on but two Latin manuscripts; his numbering of paragraphs has been retained for ease of reference. Some use has been made of the translation by Dorothy Whitelock in EHD I (1968), 735–45.

1. Bede, the servant of Christ, sends greetings to the most beloved and reverend Bishop Egbert.¹

   Last year when I spent some days with you in your monastery for the sake of study, I remember you said you would like to talk to me again about our common interests in learning. If by God’s will it had been possible for me to achieve this, there would have been no need to send you this letter, because then I would have more easily suggested in private talk whatever I wished, or whatever I thought necessary. But since the state of my health, as you know, has prevented this, I have tried to do what I could, through love and brotherly devotion sending by letter what I was unable to say in person. 1 ask you in God’s name not to consider my words to be proud and arrogant but rather the expression of humble duty, which they are.

2. THEREFORE, most beloved bishop in Christ, I exhort you carefully to strengthen with good works and sound teaching that sacred dignity which God, who has given both authority and spiritual grace, has generously entrusted to you. For neither gift can be complete without the other if one who lives a good life neglects the duty of preaching, or if a bishop who teaches correctly neglects to practise right actions. But he who truly accomplishes both is a servant who surely awaits the coming of his Lord and hopes soon to hear the words: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; because you have been faithful over a few things, I will set you over many; enter into the joy of your Lord.’² If however, which God forbids, one who has received the dignity of a bishop takes no pains either to restrain himself from evil actions by virtuous living or to correct and admonish the people subject to him, then the Gospel clearly indicates what shall happen to him in its sentence on the unworthy servant: ‘Cast him out into the exterior darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’³

3. ABOVE all I would like to persuade you, holy father, to restrain yourself as a worthy bishop from idle conversation, disparaging remarks and other pollutions of an undisciplined tongue, and to devote your mind and your speech to the word of God and meditation on the Scriptures, reading specially the letters of Paul the Apostle to Timothy and Titus, as well as to the words of the holy Pope Gregory as amply expressed in the book of Pastoral Care and in his Homilies on the Gospels.⁴ Thus your speech will always be seasoned with the salt of wisdom and will shine forth as more elevated than common talk and more worthy of God’s attention. For just as it is a desecration if the sacred vessels of the altar are profaned for secular use and base purposes, so also is it altogether improper and deplorable if a man who was ordained to consecrate the Lord’s sacrament at the altar shall at one moment stand ready to serve God by performing the sacraments, and at the next leave the church to speak trivial irrelevances or to perform evil acts with the very same lips and hands which just before had handled the sacred mysteries.

4. IN order to preserve purity in word and work, the company of men who serve God with faithful devotion, as well as sacred study, are together an immense help. If at any time my tongue begins to speak impurely or evil acts creep in, I can avoid a fall by the help of devout companions. As it is very useful for all servants of God to provide for themselves in this way, how much more is this so for those in holy orders, who have to care not only about their own salvation but also devote themselves to the salvation of the church committed to their care? This is in accordance with Paul’s words: ‘Besides those things that are without, there is that which presses upon me daily, anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble and I am not on fire?⁵

   I am not speaking in this way as if I knew that you do the contrary, but because it is rumoured that certain bishops serve Christ in such a way that they have no men of religion or continence with them, but rather those who are given to laughter, jokes, idle tales, feasting and drunkenness and other attractions of a loose way of life. Daily they feed the stomach on rich food rather than the soul on heavenly sacrifice. If you find such people anywhere, I would like you to correct them by your sacred authority and exhort them to have companions of their daily and nightly actions who are able to benefit the people by actions worthy of God and by suitable exhortation: thus are they competent to help forward the spiritual work of the bishops. Read the Acts of the Apostles and you will see, as Luke tells us, what kind of companions Paul and Barnabas had, and what sort of actions they accomplished wherever they went. As soon as they entered towns or synagogues, they took care to preach the word of God and to spread it everywhere.⁶ I desire that you too, my beloved father, should do the same wherever you can. You were chosen by God for this office, you were ordained for this purpose: to preach God’s word with great strength, helped by the king of virtues, our Lord Jesus Christ. This you will duly achieve if wherever you go, you promptly assemble the inhabitants and show them this by words of exhortation and the example of good living by your companions as well as yourself: so you will be seen to be like the leader of a heavenly army.

5. BECAUSE the distances between the places which belong to your diocese are too great for you alone to suffice for visiting them all and preaching the word of God in its many hamlets and homesteads within the span of a year, you should certainly appoint several helpers for yourself in this holy work, that is, by ordaining priests and appointing teachers who will zealously preach in each hamlet the word of God and offer the heavenly mysteries and above all perform the sacrament of baptism whenever the opportunity arises. In preaching to the people, this message more than any other should be proclaimed: that the Catholic faith, as contained in the Apostles’ Creed and the Lord’s Prayer which the reading of the Gospel teaches us, should be deeply memorized by all who are under your rule. All who have already learnt the Latin tongue by constant reading have quite certainly learnt these texts as well; but as for the unlearned, that is, those who know their own language only, make these learn the texts in their own tongue and accurately sing them. This should be done not only by the laity still settled in secular life but also by clerics and monks who are already expert in the Latin language. For thus it will come about that the whole congregation of believers learns how to be full of faith and how it must protect and arm itself against the attacks of unclean spirits by firm belief: thus it comes about that the whole chorus of those who are praying to God learns what should be specially sought from God’s mercy. That is why I have frequently offered translations of both the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer into English to many unlearned priests. For St Ambrose the Bishop, speaking of faith, admonishes believers to sing the words of the creed each morning: thus they fortify themselves with a spiritual antidote against the devil’s poison, which he can wickedly instil by day and by night. Moreover the custom of repeated prayer and genuflexions has taught us to sing the Lord’s Prayer more often.⁷

6. IF in ruling and feeding Christ’s flock your pastoral authority achieves this, no one can say how much heavenly reward you will have earned in the future from the Shepherd of shepherds. In proportion to the rare examples of this holy task being achieved by the bishops of our nation, you will be rewarded all the higher for your singular merit. Thus you will be enkindled, fired by fatherly kindness and solicitude, to lead the people of God through frequent recitation of the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer to the goal of understanding and love, hope and faith and the pursuit of those realities which are prayed for. On the contrary, if you accomplish the charge entrusted to you by the Lord less diligently, you will receive your future portion along with the wicked and lazy servant who kept back his talent,⁸ especially if you presume to demand and receive temporal dues from those to whom you give back no gifts of spiritual benefit. When the Lord, sending his disciples to preach the gospel, said: ‘And preach as you go, saying “the kingdom of heaven is at hand”, he added, just after: ‘freely you have received, freely give; do not possess gold or silver.’⁹ If then he ordered them to preach the gospel without charge, allowing them to receive neither gold nor silver nor any temporal riches from those to whom they preached; what danger, I ask, threatens those who do the contrary?

7. PAY heed then to how serious a sin is committed by those who most diligently demand earthly rewards from their hearers but take no trouble at all with preaching, exhorting or reproving¹⁰ for their eternal salvation. Ponder this anxiously, beloved Bishop, and give it careful attention. For we have heard, and it is well known, that many farms and small villages of our people are situated in remote hills and dense forests, where for many years on end no bishop has been seen providing any ministry of heavenly grace, but where nobody is exempt from paying dues to this same bishop. Nor do these places lack only a bishop to confirm the baptized by the laying on of hands: there is not even a teacher of any kind to instruct them on the truth of the faith and the differences between good and evil. Thus it comes about that some bishops fail to preach the gospel or lay their hands on believers without reward, but even, which is worse, accept money from their flock which the Lord forbade, yet neglect to perform the ministry which the Lord ordered. Samuel however, God’s high priest, acted very differently, we read, through the witness of the whole people: ‘Having then lived among you, he said, from my youth until this day, behold I am ready: speak of me before the Lord and before his anointed whether I have taken any man’s ox or ass, if I have wronged any man, if I have oppressed any man, if I have taken a bribe at any man’s hand, and I will despise it this day and will restore it to you.’¹¹ And they said: ‘You have not wronged us or oppressed us or taken anything at any man’s hand.’¹² By the merit of his innocence and justice he deserved to be numbered among the foremost leaders and priests of the people of God and to be worthy to be heard in his prayers by God and to talk with him, as the psalmist says: ‘Moses and Aaron among his priests and Samuel among those that call upon his name: these called on the Lord and he heard them. He spoke to them in the pillar of the cloud.’¹³

8. IF we believe and proclaim that an advantage is conferred on believers by the laying on of hands through which the Holy Spirit is received, then it follows that those who have not received this rite lack this same advantage. On whom does their-deprivation reflect but on those bishops who promise to be their protectors, but who are either unable or unwilling to exercise this office of spiritual guardian?¹⁴ There is no greater cause of this sin than avarice. Against this the Apostle, in whom Christ was speaking, said: ‘The root of all evils is the desire for money.’¹⁵ And again: ‘The covetous, he said, will not inherit the kingdom of God.’ When indeed a bishop, at the dictate of love of money, in the name of his office takes on a greater population than he can possibly visit and preach to in the course of a year, this evidently results in danger both to himself and to those over whom he is promoted, because he is falsely called their protector.

9. IN making these few suggestions, beloved bishop, about the misfortunes which our nation endures, I earnestly entreat you to try as best you can to correct by a right rule of life those actions which you can see have been done amiss. For you have, I believe, a very energetic helper in this just task, namely King Ceolwulf,¹⁶ who through his innate love of religion will take care constantly and firmly to help forward whatever belongs to the rule of justice; as you are his closest and dearest kinsman, he will specially help you to perfect the good enterprises you begin. Therefore I would like you to admonish him prudently that you should both take care to restore the ecclesiastical state of our nation into a better condition than it has been recently. This, I believe, cannot be accomplished except by consecrating more bishops for our people, following the example of the lawgiver who, when he could not sustain the burdens and disputes of the people of Israel, chose and consecrated, helped by God’s counsel, seventy elders with whose careful help he could more easily carry the burden placed upon him.¹⁷ For who does not see how much better it is to divide such a great weight of church government among several who can easily bear their share rather than to overburden one man with a load he cannot carry? For holy Pope Gregory, when he wrote in a letter sent to the blessed Archbishop Augustine about the faith of our people, still in the future and needing to be nurtured in Christ, decreed that twelve bishops were to be consecrated after the faith had been accepted, among whom the Bishop of York should receive the pallium from the Holy See as a Metropolitan.¹⁸ I would like you, my lord, to try now to complete the full complement of bishops with the help and protection of this king, beloved of God, so that by abundant bishops the Church of Christ may be more perfectly developed in the practice of holy religion. But through the carelessness of earlier kings and very foolish donations, as we well know, it is not now easy to find a vacant place where a new episcopal see could be established.

10. THEREFORE I would consider it expedient that with the consent of a great council, by royal as well as ecclesiastical decree, the site of one among the monasteries be found where an Episcopal See can be located. Lest by chance the abbot and monks oppose and resist this decree, let them be authorized to choose one of their own community to be ordained as bishop and then let him rule both the monastery and the adjacent territory of the diocese.¹⁹ But if nobody in the monastery can be found who should be chosen as bishop, then let them search out, according to canonical statute, one who should be ordained bishop of the diocese. If with God’s help you accomplish what we suggest, you will very easily obtain also, we believe, that the church of York receive a metropolitan archbishop in accordance with the decrees of the Apostolic See. If it seems necessary for such a monastery receiving a bishopric that its endowment of lands and possessions be increased, then there are many places, as we all know, given the name of monasteries by a very foolish way of speaking, yet have none of the reality of a monastic way of life. Some of these I would like to be transformed by synodal authority from impurity to chastity, from vanity to truth, from intemperance and greed to continence and holiness of heart, and to be taken over to help the new episcopal see which should be set up.

11. BECAUSE there are many large places of this kind which, as is commonly said, are useful neither to God nor man, because they neither keep the life of the rule according to God’s will nor are they owned by thegns or gesiths of the secular power who defend our people against the barbarians, then if anyone establishes an Episcopal See in one of these places because of the needs of the times, he will clearly incur no guilt of deviation from duty but rather will have clearly accomplished a work of piety.²⁰ How can it be considered a sin when unjust judgements of princes are corrected by the just decisions of better rulers and the deceitful compositions of wicked scribes are deleted and made void by the discerning judgement of prudent priests? This is in accordance with the example of sacred history which describes the times of the kings of Judah from David and Solomon to the last of the line, Hezekiah, and shows that some of them were religious but more of them were wicked: in turn the wicked rejected the deeds of their virtuous predecessors and then again the just corrected with all urgency the misdeeds of the wicked through the help of the Spirit of God acting through holy prophets and priests: – all this was in agreement with the word of holy Isaiah, commanding and saying: ‘Loose the bands of false covenants. Let them that are broken go free and break every unjust document.’²¹

    With this example your holiness, with the devout king of our people, should eliminate the unjust actions and writings of our predecessors, and provide for the sacred and secular good of our province, lest in our time either religion should cease and the love and fear of God who sees our hearts perish, or else by the reduction in numbers of the secular army there should not be enough men to defend our boundaries from barbarian invasion. It is indeed shameful to say how many places called ‘monasteries’ these men who are entirley ignorant of monastic life have taken under their control, as you yourself well know, so that there is no place left where sons of nobles or veteran soldiers can receive an estate. Thus unoccupied and unmarried, when the time of puberty is over, they live with no purpose of continence: because of this they either cross the seas and leave the country for which they should have fought, or else with even greater guilt and shamelessness, as they have no commitment to chastity, they serve impurity and fornication, not even abstaining from virgins consecrated to God.

12. OTHERS even more disgracefully, since they are laymen with no experience or love of life under a rule, give money to kings and buy for themselves, under the pretext of building monasteries, estates in which they freely indulge their lust: they have these ascribed to them in hereditary right by royal charters which are confirmed by the written assent of bishops, abbots and secular magnates as though they were truly worthy of God. Having thus usurped for themselves small or large estates, free from both human and divine service, they serve in reality only their own desires as laymen in charge of monks. Moreover they do not assemble real monks there, but rather wanderers who have been expelled from genuine monasteries for the sin of disobedience, or whoever they may have enticed out of them, or any of their own followers whom they can persuade to receive the tonsure and promise monastic obedience to themselves.²² They thus fill the ‘monasteries’ they have built with groups of these deformed people and – a very ugly and unprecedented spectacle – the very same men are now occupied with wives and procreating children and now rise from their beds and accomplish assiduously whatever needs to be done inside the monastic precincts. Moreover they obtain with similar audacity places for their wives, as they say, to build ‘monasteries’: as these are laywomen they authorize themselves to be rulers of the handmaids of Christ. To all these people the popular proverb applies: ‘Wasps can indeed make honeycomb, but they fill it with poison, not honey.’

13. THUS for about thirty years since the death of Aldfrith our province has been so demented with error that almost all the local rulers have procured for themselves a ‘monastery’ of this kind and involved their wives in similar guilt for a wicked transaction; as this evil custom has spread, the king’s ministers and household have done the same. Thus by a perverse state of affairs many are found who call themselves ‘abbots’ and at the same time rulers and ministers or servants of the king: although as laymen they could have learnt something about monastic life by hearsay if not by experience, yet they are complete strangers to the character and profession which should teach it. Indeed these people suddenly, as you know, receive the tonsure at their-own pleasure and by their own judgement instantly become not monks but abbots. Because they clearly have neither the knowledge of nor the zeal for monastic virtues, what can be more appropriate to them than the curse of the gospel where it is said: ‘If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the pit’?²³ This blindness could be ended sometime, restrained by regular discipline and expelled far from all the land of holy church by episcopal and synodal authority if the bishops themselves did not help forward and pledge themselves to evil practices of this kind: they not only fail to oppose unjust decrees with just ones but rather take care to confirm them (as we said) with their official approval. In this they are driven by the very same love of money, giving their written approval to these wicked charters, as were the purchasers who obtained ‘monasteries’ of this kind.²⁴

    I would indeed tell you plenty more by letter about such matters and similar abuses with which our province is miserably afflicted, if I did not know that you yourself are well aware of these matters. I have written in this way not as if I were teaching you anything you did not already know, but rather to warn you by friendly admonition to correct with urgent diligence, as far as you can, those situations which you know very well are irregular.

14. AT this present time I earnestly ask and entreat you in the Lord to protect assiduously the flock committed to your care against the persistence of ravening wolves, and to recall that you have been appointed to be not a hireling but a shepherd, who shows his love for the supreme Shepherd by carefully feeding his sheep and by being ready, if necessary, with the blessed prince of the apostles, to lay down his life for these same sheep. I pray that you carefully take heed lest when this same prince of the apostles and other leaders of the flocks of the faithful on the Day of Judgement offer the supreme fruits of their pastoral care, any part of your flock be separated among the goats at the Judge’s left hand and deservedly depart with a curse to eternal fire; but rather may you deserve to be counted among the number of those whom Isaiah describes: ‘The least shall become a thousand and the little one among the strongest nation.’²⁵

    It is your duty to enquire diligently into what is done well and what is done badly in the monasteries of your diocese: taking care lest an abbot is ignorant or a despiser of the rule,²⁶ or an unworthy abbess is set up over a community of Christ’s servants and handmaids, or on the other hand a contemptuous and undisciplined group of disciples rebels against the rule of their spiritual masters, particularly since, as is often reported, your bishops say that what is done in particular monasteries belongs not to the care of kings or secular magnates, but only to the investigation and judgement of the bishops alone, unless someone in the monasteries has offended against the secular rulers. It is your duty, I say, to prevent the devil from usurping a kingdom for himself in places consecrated to God, lest discord take the place of peace, quarrels that of piety, drunkenness that of sobriety, fornication and homicide that of charity and chastity, lest some should be found among you of whom just complaint may be made in these words: ‘I saw the wicked buried who, when they were yet living, were in the holy place and were praised in the city as men of just works’.²⁷

15. YOU should also care solicitously for those still in secular life so that, as we advised at the beginning of this letter, you remember to provide sufficient teachers of the life of salvation, and that you make your flock learn among other things by what works they may chiefly please God, from what sins they should consequently abstain, with what sincerity of heart they should believe in God, with what devotion they should pray, asking for the mercy of God; how they need with frequent diligence to fortify themselves with the sign of our Lord’s cross against the ceaseless snares of unclean spirits and learn how salutary it is for every kind of Christian to receive daily the body and blood of our Lord, as you know is widely practised by the church of Christ throughout Italy, Gaul, Africa, Greece and the whole of the East. This kind of observance and devout consecration to God has been so long absent from and almost foreign to most laymen of our province through the neglect of preachers, that those of them who are considered more devout do not presume to receive communion except at Christmas, the Epiphany and Easter, although there are countless boys and girls, young men and virgins, old men and women, all of chaste life, who could without any shadow of doubt receive communion every Sunday and on feasts of the holy apostles and martyrs, as you yourself have seen done in the holy Roman and Apostolic Church. Married people also, if each shows a measure of continence and professes the virtue of chastity, may lawfully and gladly do the same.²⁸

16. I HAVE taken care, most holy bishop, to write down these ideas briefly for you, both out of consideration for your love and out of esteem for the common good, deeply desiring and frequently exhorting you to take care to rescue our people from former errors and bring them back to a surer and more direct way of life. If some people of whatever rank or order try to hold back or hinder your good beginnings, do you for your part, mindful of heavenly reward, strive to bring to a firm conclusion your purposeful and holy policy. I realize that some people will vigorously oppose our exhortation, especially those who feel themselves involved in the sinful practices from which we restrain you; but it is appropriate for you to remember the apostle’s answer: ‘We must obey God rather than men.’²⁹ God’s command is: ‘Sell what you possess and give alms’ and ‘unless a man renounces all he possesses, he cannot be my disciple.’³⁰ But the recent tradition of some people who claim to be servants of God is rather not to sell what they possess, but even to acquire what they do not yet own. How does anyone dare to approach the service of God, either keeping what he had in secular life or, under the pretext of a better life, amassing riches which he did not have? Even the apostles’ censure on Ananias and Saphira trying to do this very thing was not one of penance, nor of compensation, but rather a punishment by condemnation to an instant avenging death. Indeed they had not even chosen to amass others’ goods, but only deceitfully to retain their own. Hence it is quite clear how far removed were the minds of the apostles from receiving payments of money, for they served God fittingly under the rule: ‘Blessed are the poor, for yours is the kingdom of God;’³¹ and on the other hand they were likewise taught by the contrary example: ‘Woe to you that are rich, for you have your consolation.’³² Or should we think that the apostle Paul was in error or wrote a lie when he admonished us, saying: ‘Brethren, do not err’³³ and immediately afterwards added: ‘Neither the covetous nor drunkards nor exortioners shall possess the kingdom of God.’?³⁴ And again: ‘Know this, that no fornicator nor unclean, covetous or rapacious man, which is the serving of idols, will have inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.’³⁵ Since the apostle clearly calls avarice and rapacity idolatry, how can we suppose those have erred who have either withdrawn from witnessing avaricious deals although the king ordered them, or else have set their hands to rooting out evil documents and their witness-lists?

17. WE should indeed marvel at the temerity of the foolish or rather weep over the misery of the blind who, without any regard for the fear of God, clearly, everywhere and every day are proved to reject and hold of no account what the apostles and prophets have written, inspired as they were by the Holy Spirit. Yet on the contrary they fear to erase and amend what they themselves or others, inspired by avarice or impurity, have written as though it were holy and protected by God, in the manner (if I am not mistaken) of the pagans who despise the cult of the true God yet venerate, fear, worship, adore and invoke as gods the things which they have formed and made in their own hearts, fully deserving that rebuke of our Lord who denounced the Pharisees who preferred their secondary traditions to God’s laws in these words: ‘Why do you also transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?’³⁶ Even if they produce charters drawn up in defence of their covetous actions, confirmed by the witness-lists of noble men, then never forget, I beg of you, the judgement of our Lord when he said: ‘Every plant which my heavenly Father has not planted shall be rooted up.’³⁷

Indeed I would like to learn from you, beloved bishop, seeing that the Lord testifies, saying: ‘Wide is the gate and broad is the way which leads to destruction and many are those who enter it: how narrow is the gate and straight is the way which leads to life and few are those who find it’,³⁸ what you believe about the life and eternal destiny of those who are known to go by the wide gate and the broad way for their whole lives, and do not trouble to withstand or resist even in the smallest matters their pleasures and desires of body and soul for the sake of heavenly reward. Or should we believe that they can be absolved from guilt by alms which they were seen to give to the poor amid their everyday greed and pleasures, when the very hand as well as the conscience which would offer a gift to God ought to be clean and absolved from sin? Or should we hope that when they are dead, they can be redeemed by the mystery of the holy Mass, of which they were unworthy while they lived?³⁹

Does the sin of greed seem small to them? I will treat this matter a little more fully. It caused Balaam, a man full of the spirit of prophecy, to be deprived of the lot of the saints; it defiled and destroyed Achan, son of Charmi, through his share in the accursed thing; it stripped Saul of his insignia of kingship; it deprived Gehazi of the merit of prophecy and contaminated him. and his seed with the chronic disease of leprosy; it deposed Judas Iscariot from the glory of the apostolate; it injured with physical death Ananias and Saphira, whom we mentioned above as unworthy of the company of monks and, to come to higher matters, this cast out the angels from heaven and expelled our first ancestors from a paradise of perpetual delight.

If you wish to know, this is the three-headed dog of Hell, to whom the poets gave the name of Cerberus, from whose savage teeth John the Apostle would keep us safe, saying: ‘Beloved, love not the world nor the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world is the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, which is not of the Father, but is of the world.’⁴⁰

These things I have spoken briefly against the poison of avarice. For the rest, if we wished to deal on a similar scale with drunkenness, gluttony, impurity and other plagues of this kind, the length of this letter would be inordinately extended.

May the grace of the supreme Shepherd keep you safe, most beloved bishop in Christ, for the salutary feeding of his sheep. Written on the Fifth of November, in the third indiction.