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BOOK XI EPISTLE LXI.
TO CLOTAIRE, KING OF THE FRANKS.
Among so many cares and anxieties which you sustain for the government of
the peoples under your sway, it is to your exceeding praise and great reward
that you are helpers of those who labour in the cause of God.
And, since you have shewn yourselves by the good things
you have already done to be such that we may presume still better things
of you, we are moved most gladly to request of you what will be to your own
reward. Now certain monks, who had proceeded with our most reverend brother
and fellow-bishop Augustine to the nation of the Angli, have returned and
told us with what great charity your Excellence refreshed this our brother
when he was present with you, and with what supports you aided him on his
departure. But, since the works of those who do not recede from the
good they have begun are acceptable to our God, we beg of you, greeting you
with fatherly affection, to hold as peculiarly commended to you the monks,
bearers of these presents, whom we have sent to our aforesaid brother together
with our most beloved sons, the presbyter Laurentius and the abbot Mellitus.
And whatever kindness you before shewed to him bestow ye on them also to
the richer increase of your praise, to the end that, when through your provision
they shall have accomplished without delay the journey they have begun, Almighty
God may be the recompenser of your good deeds, and both your guardian in
prosperity and your helper in adversity.
Furthermore, it has come to our ears that in your parts sacred orders are
conferred with payment of money. And we are exceedingly distressed if the
gifts of God are not attained by merit, but pounced upon by bribes. And,
because this simoniacal heresy, which was the first to arise in the Church,
was condemned by the authority of the apostles, we beg of you for your own
reward to cause a synod to be assembled; to the end that, having been put
down and eradicated by the definition of all the priests, it may in future
find no power in your parts to endanger souls, nor be allowed henceforth
to arise under any pretext whatever, that so our Almighty God may exalt you
against your adversaries in proportion as He sees that you have zeal in
fulfilling His commands, and as you take thought for the salvation of souls
which had been in danger of perishing by the sword of this atrocity.
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