Canonical Letter
Epistula canonica
Foods do not defile; violated women are not guilty§1
Gregory is writing to a bishop about how to treat Christians who were taken captive by barbarian invaders and ate food placed before them, and about women who suffered sexual violation at the hands of the barbarians.
1Foods do not defile us, holy pope, if the captives ate what their masters placed before them—especially since everyone agrees that the barbarians who overran our regions did not sacrifice to idols. The apostle says, “Foods are for the belly, and the belly for foods, and God will abolish both this and those” (1 Corinthians 6:13). And the Savior, who cleanses all foods, says, “It is not what enters that defiles a person, but what comes out” (Matthew 15:11). And as for the captive women being corrupted, with the barbarians committing violation against their bodies: But if a woman’s life had already been condemned before, because she walked after the eyes of fornicators, as it is written, then clearly her immoral disposition is suspect even in the time of captivity, and such women should not readily share in the prayers. If, however, a woman who had lived in extreme chastity and had shown her former life to be clean and beyond all suspicion has now fallen into violation through force and necessity, we have the example in Deuteronomy concerning the young woman whom a man found in the open country and, after forcing her, slept with her: “You shall do nothing to the young woman; there is no capital sin for the young woman, because just as if a man rises up against his neighbor and takes his life, so is this matter. The young woman cried out, and there was no one to help her” (Deuteronomy 22:25–27). These things, then, are so.
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Greed that profits from the invasion§2
Gregory condemns those who treated the invasion as a time to seize other people's goods, rules that they be excommunicated, and supports the ruling with Scripture on greed and the wrath it brings.
2Greed is a terrible thing. It is not possible in a single letter to set out the divine Scriptures, in which not only robbery is denounced as something to flee from and shudder at, but greed of every kind and every grasping at what belongs to others for shameful gain; and anyone of that kind is cast out of the Church of God. But that, at the time of the invasion, amid so much wailing and so many laments, some should dare to think that a time bringing ruin to all was for them a time of gain—that is the mark of impious men, hateful to God, whose outrageousness nothing could surpass. So it has been decided to excommunicate such people altogether, lest the wrath come upon the whole people, and first upon the very leaders who fail to look into these things.
For I fear, as the Scripture says, that the impious man may destroy the righteous along with himself (Genesis 18:23). “For fornication,” it says, “and greed—on account of these the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience” (Colossians 3:5–6; Ephesians 5:3, 6). “Do not, then, become partners with them; for once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light—for the fruit of the light is in all goodness and righteousness and truth—testing what is pleasing to the Lord. And take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. For the things they do in secret are shameful even to speak of; but everything that is exposed by the light is made plain” (Ephesians 5:7–13). So says the apostle.
And if some, while paying the penalty for their earlier greed, committed in time of peace, turn back to greed in the very time of wrath, profiting from the blood and ruin of people who have been driven from their homes, taken captive, or killed, what else is to be expected but that, pressing on still harder in their greed, they will heap up wrath both on themselves and on the whole people?
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Worse than the sin of Achan§3
Gregory compares such profiteers with Achan, who took from the devoted spoil of enemies, and judges them worse, since they take what belongs to their brothers.
3“Did not Achan son of Zerah commit a grave trespass concerning what was under the ban, and wrath fell on the whole congregation of Israel? He was only one man who sinned; did he die alone in his sin?” (Joshua 22:20). For us, at this time, every gain that is not our own but someone else’s ought to be counted as a thing under the ban. For Achan took from the spoil, and these men too now take from the spoil. But he took what belonged to enemies; these men now take what belongs to their brothers, and reap a deadly gain.
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Finders may not keep what others lost§4
Finding something gives no right to keep it: the Law commands that lost goods be returned even to an enemy, and still more to someone who fled from the invaders.
4Let no one deceive himself, nor plead that he found the goods; for not even a finder may make a profit. For Deuteronomy says: “If you see your brother’s calf or his sheep straying on the road, do not ignore them; you shall surely bring them back to your brother. And if your brother is not near you, and you do not know him, you shall gather them in, and they shall stay with you until your brother looks for them, and you shall give them back to him. You shall do the same with his donkey, the same with his garment, and the same with anything your brother loses—whatever is lost by him and you find” (Deuteronomy 22:1–3). So says Deuteronomy. And in Exodus this holds not only when someone finds what belongs to his brother but also what belongs to his enemy: “You shall surely bring them back,” it says, “to the house of their owner” (Exodus 23:4).
If, then, it is not allowed to profit from a brother or an enemy who in time of peace is careless, living in comfort, and neglecting his own goods, how much less from one who is in misfortune, fleeing from enemies, and forced by necessity to abandon his own goods?
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Robbing others to make up for one’s own losses§5
Gregory rebukes those who make up their own losses by keeping goods that belong to others, and sends Euphrosynus to apply the same discipline that Gregory's own church keeps.
5Others deceive themselves by keeping other people’s goods that they have found in place of their own that were lost, so that, because the Boradi and the Goths have dealt with them as enemies, they themselves become Boradi and Goths to others. For this reason, then, we have sent our brother and fellow elder Euphrosynus to you, so that he too may give direction in the same way, following the practice we keep here, as to whose accusations ought to be accepted and who ought to be shut out of the prayers.
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Holding escaped captives by force§6
Gregory has heard that some in the bishop's district held escaped captives by force, and he urges that people be sent there.
6Something beyond belief has also been reported to us as having happened in your district—surely the work of unbelievers and impious people who do not know even the name of the Lord: that some have gone so far in cruelty and inhumanity as to hold by force certain captives who had escaped. Send some people into the district, lest thunderbolts fall on those who do such things.
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Those who joined the invaders against their own people§7
Christians who joined the raiders and helped them kill or rob their own people are barred even from the hearers until the gathered saints decide their case.
7Some were enlisted among the barbarians and, while captives, joined them in their attacks, forgetting that they were men of Pontus and Christians, and became so barbarous as even to kill their own countrymen with a club or a noose, and to show roads or houses to the barbarians who did not know them. These must be barred even from the stage of hearing, until a decision about them seems good in common to the saints when they have met together, and, before them, to the Holy Spirit (Acts 15:28).
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Raiding other people’s houses§8
Penance for those who broke into other people's houses: if convicted, they are not admitted even among the hearers; if they confess and make restitution, they kneel with the returning penitents.
8As for those who dared to raid other people’s houses: if they are accused and convicted, you should not admit them even to the stage of hearing; but if they confess on their own and make restitution, they are to kneel in the rank of those who are returning.
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Keeping what the invaders left behind§9
Penance for keeping what the invaders left behind: if convicted, they are placed among the kneelers; if they confess and give it back, they are admitted to the prayer.
9As for those who found something in the field or in their own houses that the barbarians had left behind: if they are accused and convicted, they too are to be among the kneelers; but if they confess on their own and give it back, they are to be admitted even to the prayer.
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No reward for returning what was found§10
Those who return lost goods must not demand any reward for doing so.
10Those who fulfill the commandment must fulfill it free of all greed for shameful gain, without demanding a fee for information, for rescue, or for finding, or whatever name they give these.
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The stages of penance§11
A description, probably added to the letter later, of the stages of public penance, from weeping outside the church to sharing in the holy things.
11Weeping takes place outside the gate of the house of prayer. There the sinner must stand and beg the faithful who are going in to pray for him. Hearing takes place inside the gate, in the narthex. There the one who has sinned must stand until the catechumens leave, and go out from there; for, it says, “When he has heard the Scriptures and the teaching, let him be put out, and let him not be admitted to prayer.” Kneeling means that he stands inside the door of the church itself and goes out with the catechumens. Standing together means that he stands with the faithful and does not go out with the catechumens. Last comes sharing in the holy things.
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