That I sent under guard, from the basilica of Vienne to that of Lyon, the slave for whom an examination was judged necessary, was plainly a matter of fear and of obedience. For just as I did not presume to hand him over here while unaccused, so there I saw to it that he was subjected alive to the questionings which the hearing required. But since the rule is everywhere one and the same, and the same impossibility or ability attends us in the observance of our common ministry, I was not treating of any private right of the basilica of Lyon or of Vienne, but of the reverence due to each Church; whence, so that an intercession might the more easily be pressed for one close at hand, whatever might touch us both the bishop present on the spot could set forth.
For in all holy places, just as the same charity belongs to our ministry, so an equal power belongs to your rule. Not to mention that the slave himself, when he had withdrawn from conversation with his lord, ought not to have sought Vienne in order to stir up ill will against me, since, being placed there, he could have kept himself within the Church of Lyon. But as for the case in which, before the examination of your Highness, the cunning denier of a deposit is charged, my conscience is such as is shown before God and before you in my every act and manner of life. Yet even with me bearing witness, the simplicity of the one who intervenes, which I would not shun to acknowledge lest you should call me disloyal to a devoted lord, refused to profess what I, in his consolation, had wished — if only he were thought to be pondering Christ.
This too, by the present testimony concerning your slaves who are our fellow citizens, some have come to know. But when men in distress are urged out of their due order, every answer is said to be scarcely stable. Whatever concerns me, may God suggest it to you, and may the truth make it plain; for he who, chastised by me, is angry perhaps with that same spirit of falsehood by which he lies against a simple man about the denial of the deposit — though, with God and you being favorable, his fabrication profits little for his defense, since, while he says he was warned by me not to render it back, he cannot deny that he received it. And this profession of his, even if you judge that it ought to weigh against me, cannot lift him up. I, however, await the command of your Piety.
Whatever my little church possesses — nay, all our churches — is yours, of the substance which you have hitherto either preserved or bestowed. Whatever, by God's inspiration, you shall command, I will strive to obey as far as my strength allows. For the rest, the gaze of the divine Majesty can never permit that I fear its own offense — which I have always feared, that is, your eternal one — less. This I humbly beg: that that unhappy man, for whose accusation it is enough that he excuses himself, may not, in the eyes of your justice, make me a partner of his faithlessness, even if he sees himself punished by reason of your displeasure.