Answered by Gregory:  In the English Church, indeed, in which thou alone as yet art found a bishop, thou canst not hallow a bishop otherwise than without other bishops; but bishops must come to thee out of the kingdom of Gaul, that they may stand as witness at the bishop’s hallowing, for the hallowing of bishops must not be otherwise than in the assembling and witnessing of three or four bishops, that they may send [up] and pour [forth] their petitions and prayers to the Almighty God for his favor.

Asked by Augustine:  How must we do with the bishops of Gaul and Britain?

Answered by Pope Gregory:  Over the bishops of Gaul we give thee no authority, because from the earlier times of my predecessors the bishop of the city Arles received the pallium, whom we ought not to degrade nor to deprive of the received authority.  But, if thou happen to go into the province of Gaul, have thou a conference and consultation with the said bishop what is to be done, or, if any vices are found in bishops, how they shall be corrected and reformed; and if there be a supposition that he is too lukewarm in the vigor of his discipline and chastisement, then is he to be inflamed and abetted by thy brotherliness’s love,[45] that he may ward off those things which are contrary to the behest and commands of our Maker, from the manners of the bishops.  Thou mayest not judge the bishops of Gaul without their own authority; but thou shalt mildly admonish them, and show them the imitation of thy good works.  All the bishops of Britain we commend to thy brotherliness, in order that the unlearned may be taught, the weak strengthened by thy exhortation, and the perverse corrected by thy authority.[46]

Augustine likewise bade [his messengers] acquaint him that a great harvest was here present and few workmen.  And he then sent with the aforesaid messengers more help to him for divine learning, among whom the first and greatest were Mellitus and Justus and Paulinus and Rufinianus, and by them generally all those things which were needful for the worship and service of the Church—­communion vessels, altar-cloth, and church ornaments, and bishops’ robes, and deacons’ robes, as also reliques of the apostles and holy martyrs, and many books.  He likewise sent to Augustine the bishop a pallium, and a letter in which he intimated how he should hallow other bishops, and in what places [he should] set them in Britain.

The blessed Pope Gregory likewise at the same time sent a letter to King Ethelbert, and along with it many worldly gifts of diverse sorts.  He wished likewise by these temporal honors to glorify the King, to whom he had, by his labor and by his diligence in teaching, opened and made known the glory of the heavenly kingdom.