more sternly, some
more mildly. And though the punishment be inflicted a little harder or
sterner, yet it is to be done of love, not of wrath nor of fury; because
through the throes of this is procured to the man that he be not given
to the everlasting fires of hell-torments. For in this manner we ought
to punish men, as the good fathers are wont [to do] their fleshly
children, whom they chide and swinge for their sins; and yet those same
whom they chide and chastise by these pains they also love, and wish to
have for their heirs, and for them hold their worldly goods which they
possess, whom they seem in anger to persecute and torment. For love is
ever to be held in the mind, and it dictates and determines the measure
of the chastisement, so that the mind does nothing at all beside the
right rule. Thou likewise addest in thy inquiry, how those things should
be compensated which have been taken away from a church by theft. But,
oh! far be it that God's Church should receive with increase what she
seems to let alone of earthly things, and seek worldly gain by vain
things.

Asked by Bishop St. Augustine: At what generation shall Christian people
be joined among themselves in marriage with their kinsfolk?... Answered
by St. Gregory: ... But because there are many in the English nation
[who], while they were then yet in unbelief, are said to have been
joined together in this sinful marriage,[44] now they are to be
admonished, since they have come to the faith, that they hold themselves
off from such iniquities, and understand that it is a heavy sin, and
dread the awful doom of God, lest they for fleshly love receive the
torments of everlasting death. They are not, however, for this cause to
be deprived of the communion of Christ's body and blood, lest this thing
may seem to be revenged on them, in which they through unwittingness
sinned before the bath of baptism. For at this time the Holy Church
corrects some things through zeal, bears with some through mildness,
overlooks some through consideration, and so bears and overlooks that
often by bearing and overlooking she checks the opposing evil. All those
who come to the faith of Christ are to be reminded that they may not
dare to commit any such thing. But, if any shall commit them, then are
they to be deprived of Christ's body and blood; for, as some little is
to be borne with in regard to those men who through unwittingness
commit sin, so on the other hand it is to be st