Letter 4046: On receiving your Excellency's letters I was glad to hear that you had reached Mount Sinai. But believe me, I too should have liked to go with you, but by no means to return with you. And yet I find it very difficult to believe that you have been at the holy places and seen many Fathers.

Gregory to Rusticiana, Patrician. On receiving Your Excellency's letters, I was glad to hear you had reached Mount Sinai. But believe me, I too would have liked to go with you -- though by no means to return with you. And yet I find it hard to believe you visited the holy places and met many of the Fathers there. If you had truly encountered them, I do not think you could have rushed back so quickly to the city of Constantinople. Since the love of that city has not in the least departed from your heart, I suspect Your Excellency did not devote yourself from the heart to the holy things you saw with your bodily eyes. May Almighty God illuminate your mind by the grace of His lovingkindness and grant you the wisdom to consider how fleeting all temporal things are. While we sit here talking, time runs on and the Judge approaches. The moment is nearly at hand when, against our will, we must give up the world that we refuse to relinquish of our own accord. I ask that the lord Apio, the lady Eusebia, and their daughters be greeted on my behalf. As for that lady my nurse, whom you commend to me in your letter: I hold her in the highest regard and wish her no inconvenience. But we are under such pressure that we cannot spare even ourselves from levies and burdens at this present time.

Book IV, Letter 46 To Rusticiana, Patrician. Gregory to Rusticiana, etc. On receiving your Excellency's letters I was glad to hear that you had reached Mount Sinai. But believe me, I too should have liked to go with you, but by no means to return with you. And yet I find it very difficult to believe that you have been at the holy places and seen many Fathers. For I believe that, if you had seen them, you would by no means have been able to return so speedily to the city of Constantinople. But now that the love of such a city has in no wise departed from your heart, I suspect that your Excellency did not from the heart devote yourself to the holy things which you saw with the bodily eye. But may Almighty God illuminate your mind by the grace of His lovingkindness and give unto you to be wise, and to consider how fugitive are all temporal things, since, while we are thus speaking, both time runs on and the Judge approaches, and lo the moment is even now near when against our will we must give up the world which of our own accord we will not. I beg that the lord Apio and the lady Eusebia, and their daughters, be greeted in my behalf. As to that lady my nurse, whom you commend to me by letter, I have the greatest regard for her, and desire that she should be in no way incommoded. But we are pressed by such great straits that we cannot excuse even ourselves from exactions (angariis) and burdens at this present time.