“For, as long before us Gregory Nazianzen of reverend memory has taught, one and the same…”

For, as long before us Gregory Nazianzen of reverend memory has taught, one and the same exhortation does not suit all, inasmuch as neither are all bound together by similarity of character.

Gregory I · The Book of Pastoral Rule · NPNF2 XII, Pastoral Rule, Part III

The principle the longest Part of the book is built on, and the one that made it a manual rather than a treatise: forty chapters of paired opposites — the poor and the rich, the joyful and the sad, the impatient and the patient — each to be addressed differently. The same page carries his images for it, herbs that feed one animal and kill another, and the hiss that quiets a horse and excites a whelp.