Canonical Letter · §4 · Gregory Thaumaturgus

Finders may not keep what others lost

Finding something gives no right to keep it: the Law commands that lost goods be returned even to an enemy, and still more to someone who fled from the invaders.

Let no one deceive himself, nor plead that he found the goods; for not even a finder may make a profit. For Deuteronomy says: “If you see your brother’s calf or his sheep straying on the road, do not ignore them; you shall surely bring them back to your brother. And if your brother is not near you, and you do not know him, you shall gather them in, and they shall stay with you until your brother looks for them, and you shall give them back to him. You shall do the same with his donkey, the same with his garment, and the same with anything your brother loses—whatever is lost by him and you find” (Deuteronomy 22:1–3). So says Deuteronomy. And in Exodus this holds not only when someone finds what belongs to his brother but also what belongs to his enemy: “You shall surely bring them back,” it says, “to the house of their owner” (Exodus 23:4).

If, then, it is not allowed to profit from a brother or an enemy who in time of peace is careless, living in comfort, and neglecting his own goods, how much less from one who is in misfortune, fleeing from enemies, and forced by necessity to abandon his own goods?

Greek

Μηδεὶς ἐξαπατάτω ἑαυτόν; μήτε ὡς εὑρών, οὔτε γὰρ εὑρόντι κερδαίνειν ἔξεστι. Φησὶ γὰρ τὸ Δευτερονόμιον· Μὴ ἰδὼν τὸν μόσχον τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ σου καὶ τὸ πρόβατον πλανώμενα ἐν τῇ ὁδῷ ὑπερίδῃς αὐτά· ἀποστροφῇ ἀποστρέψεις αὐτὰ τῷ ἀδελφῷ σου. Ἐὰν δὲ μὴ ἐγγίζῃ ὁ ἀδελφός σου πρὸς σέ, μηδὲ ἐπίστασαι αὐτόν, συνάξεις αὐτὰ καὶ ἔσται μετὰ σοῦ, ἕως ἂν ἐκζητήσῃ αὐτὰ ὁ ἀδελφός σου καὶ ἀποδώσεις αὐτῷ. Καὶ οὕτω ποιήσεις τὸν ὄνον αὐτοῦ, καὶ οὕτω ποιήσεις τὸ ἱμάτιον αὐτοῦ, καὶ οὕτω ποιήσεις κατὰ πᾶσαν ἀπώλειαν τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ σου, ὅσα ἂν ἀπόληται παρ᾿ αὐτοῦ, καὶ εὑρήσῃς αὐτὰ. Ταῦτα τὸ Δευτερονόμιον. Ἐν δὴ τῇ Ἐξόδῳ, οὐ μόνον ἐὰν τὰ τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ τις εὕρῃ, ἀλλὰ καὶ τοῦ ἐχθροῦ· Ἀποστροφῇ, φησὶν, ἀποστρέψεις αὐτὰ εἰς τὸν οἶκον τοῦ κυρίου αὐτῶν. Εἰ δὲ ἐν εἰρήνῃ ῥᾳθυμοῦντος καὶ τρυφῶντος καὶ τῶν ἰδίων ἀμελοῦντος ἀδελφοῦ ἢ ἐχθροῦ κερδάναι οὐκ ἔξεσται, πόσῳ μᾶλλον δυστυχοῦντος καὶ πολεμίους φεύγοντος καὶ κατὰ ἀνάγκην τὰ ἴδια ἐγκαταλείποντος;

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About this text

Gregory Thaumaturgus, Canonical Letter: his rulings for a fellow bishop after the Gothic raids on Pontus, on captives who ate the raiders' food, women taken by force, Christians who looted or joined the invaders, and the stages of penance. A fresh English translation of all eleven canons.

Gregory Thaumaturgus (c. 213–c. 270) was a Christian bishop of Neocaesarea in Pontus, in what is now northwest Turkey. He wrote this letter to a bishop whom he addresses as a holy pope, a title used for a senior bishop rather than the Bishop of Rome. He wrote in response to a Gothic invasion of Pontus that brought violence, captivity, and moral confusion to the Christian community.

The letter answers pastoral questions about Christians taken captive by the barbarian invaders. Gregory addresses whether food placed before captives by their captors defiles them, and how to treat women who suffered sexual violation at the hands of the barbarians. He then rules on Christians who profited from the invasion: those who seized other people's goods, kept what they found or what the invaders left behind, held escaped captives by force, joined the raiders against their own people, or broke into houses, and he sets the penance for each. A closing canon, probably added later, describes the stages of public penance.

A reader should know that the surname Thaumaturgus means wonder-worker, a title given to Gregory because of miracles he was said to have performed. The term holy pope here means a bishop, not the Bishop of Rome. Gregory quotes the Septuagint, the early Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, and refers to the book of Deuteronomy.

Fresh English translation from the Greek of the Documenta Catholica Omnia Canones GR typed print, read from the page images (pages 1–3) and matched against its text layer. Vossius' Latin notes (1684) were checked where they bear on the wording; they hold no running Greek of the canons, and PG 10 was not in hand. ANF was consulted only as a sense check.

Printed text used

Translated from Documenta Catholica Omnia Canones GR (Greek)
Translated from Greek Canon I (Greek)
Also checked Vossius 1684 DjVu extract (Latin/Greek mixed machine-read text)

We have not yet re-checked this work against its source. We made this study translation with AI help. No scholar has yet certified it as faithful and complete. Open Greek on any section to see the source text. It is not a critical edition.

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