Register of Letters

To Honoratus, Archdeacon.

Gregory to Honoratus, Archdeacon of Salona.

The mandates of ourselves and of our predecessor had reached your Love not long ago, in which thou were acquitted of the charges calumniously brought against you; and we ordered you to be reinstated without any dispute in the order of your rank. But, inasmuch as again after no great lapse of time, you came to the city of Rome complaining of some improper proceedings among you concerning the alienation of sacred vessels, and as, while we had persons with us here who might have replied to your objections, Natalis, your bishop, departed this life, we have judged it necessary to confirm further by this present letter those same mandates, both our predecessor's and our own, which (as has been said) we sent not long ago for your acquittal. Wherefore, acquitting you fully of all the charges brought against you, we will that thou continue without any dispute in the rank of your order, so that the question raised by the aforesaid man may not on any pretext prejudice you in the least degree. Moreover, as to the heads of your complaint, we have strictly charged Antoninus, subdeacon and rector in your parts of the patrimony of holy Church over which, by God's providence, we preside, that, if he should find ecclesiastical persons implicated in them, he decide these cases with the utmost strictness and authority. But, in case of the business being with such persons as the vigour of ecclesiastical jurisdiction cannot reach, he is to deposit the proofs under each particular head among the public acts, and transmit them to us without any delay, that, being accurately informed, we may know how, with the help of Christ, to dispose of the matter.