1. Since we parted from each other in body, I have received no letter from your Holiness, but now I have read a letter of your Grace about Donatus and his brother. For a considerable time I could not settle what answer to make, but after repeated consideration of what would further the welfare of those whose nurture in Christ is the aim of our service, I could reach no other conclusion than this: we must not put God's servants in the way of thinking that the worse their behaviour, the easier their advancement to better posts. For it would only make backsliding easier for them and lay a quite undeserved slight on the regular clergy, if we selected for clerical service monks who had run away from their monastery, seeing that our usual practice is to select for adoption to the ranks of the clergy only those of higher merit and character from among the monks who stay on in their monastery. The common people say that a bad accompanist makes a good singer; do we want these same common people to laugh at us in the same way and say that a bad monk makes a good clergyman? It is a great pity if we encourage monks to such demoralizing pride and think fit to lay so serious a slight on the clergy, to whose ranks we ourselves belong. Sometimes even a good monk hardly makes a good clergyman, if he possesses sufficient self-control and yet has not the necessary education or the finish of a man who has gone through the normal training.
1. Litteras nullas tuae venerabilitatis, ex quo ab invicem corporaliter digressi sumus, accepi. Nunc vero legi epistulam benignitatis tuae de Donato et fratre eius et, quid responderem, diu fluctuavi. Sed tamen etiam atque etiam cogitanti, quid sit utile saluti eorum quibus nutriendis in Christo servimus, nihil mihi aliud occurrere potuit nisi non esse istam viam dandam servis dei, ut facilius se putent eligi ad aliquid melius, si facti fuerint deteriores. Et ipsis enim facilis lapsus et ordini clericorum fit indignissima iniuria, si desertores monasteriorum ad militiam clericatus eliguntur, cum ex his, qui in monasterio permanent, non tamen nisi probatiores atque meliores in clerum adsumere soleamus, nisi forte, sicut vulgares dicunt, “malus choraula bonus symphoniacus est,” ita idem ipsi vulgares de nobis iocabuntur dicentes “malus monachus bonus clericus est.” Nimis dolendum, si ad tam ruinosam superbiam monachos subrigimus et tam gravi contumelia clericos dignos putamus, in quorum numero sumus, cum aliquando etiam bonus monachus vix bonum clericum faciat, si adsit ei sufficiens continentia et tamen desit instructio necessaria aut personae regularis integritas.
2. In the case we are discussing, your Holiness may, I think, have assumed that it was with my consent that they abandoned monastic life for a more desirable sphere of service among the men of their own district. That, however, is not so; they left of their own accord, of their own accord they deserted their vocation, notwithstanding the most strenuous efforts I could make to oppose them, for their own best good. With Donatus, who has already managed to get himself ordained before we could decide anything in the Council a about this matter, just do in your wisdom as you will, if he happens to have been cured of his obstinate pride. But since you understand what I feel, I am at a loss what to say about his brother, for whose sake most of all Donatus himself left his monastery. Yet I do not presume to oppose one of your wisdom, rank and kindliness, and I do hope that you will do what you see to be beneficial for the members of the Church. Amen.
2. Sed de istis, credo, arbitrata sit beatitudo tua, quod nostra voluntate, ut suis potius conregionalibus utiles essent, de monasterio recessissent. Sed falsum est; sponte abierunt, sponte deseruerunt nobis, quantum potuimus, pro eorum salute renitentibus. Et de Donato quidem, quia iam factum est, ut, antequam de hac re aliquid in concilio statueremus, ordinaretur, si forte a superbiae perversitate correctus est, quod vult, faciat prudentia tua. De fratre vero eius, in cuius vel maxime causa de monasterio etiam ipse Donatus abscessit, cum intellegas quid sentiam, nescio quid respondeam. Contradicere tamen prudentiae tuae, honori caritatique non audeo et sane spero id te facturum quod membris ecclesiae salubre perspexeris. Amen.