The Libellus responsionum

Patristic · Letter · 601 · Latin

Disputed — Disputed. The attribution is argued both ways; the summary below says which way and by whom.

Gregory the Great's answers to nine questions Augustine of Canterbury sent back from England: what a bishop should do with offerings, whether cousins may marry, what to do about pagan temples — famously, do not pull them down, but sprinkle them and put altars in them, since a people cannot be led from all its habits at once. Bede copies the whole thing into his first book.

Authenticity disputed: the letter is attacked as a later compilation and defended as substantially Gregory's; Bede had it by 731 and the missionary policy in it matches Gregory's letter to Mellitus, which is not in doubt.