Works 1 part 3/3

he will burn up whatever lies in his path, and will mow it down, nor will he hesitate to lay hands on the roofs and to remove the old rafters from the hearths. Him therefore, endowed with these manners and virtues, we desire to be given to you not as a slave, but as a son in place of a slave, since you do not blush to be a father of the least. I would have wished to serve you in his stead, but if the will is a part of the deed, only do you bring it about that amid happy luncheons and suppers you remember me, because it is more right to be your chattel than the master of others. Pray for me. IIII. Another letter. The faithful interpreter of sacred religion sets all things in order, so that there can be no further place for sins: for what else do you promise by so great a holiness of conduct, except that we should lead a blessed life with errors removed?

In which I see that the greatest praise belongs to your virtues, namely, that you have transformed an untaught mind by pious exhortations and drawn it to the best reasoning. For the rest, it would not seem so wonderful if you had strengthened learned minds with the wisdom poured into them: for there is a kinship between prudent men and devotion, nor is rusticity quickly agreeable to belief. Just so, those who draw the shapes of living creatures from stones carry on a task of more difficult work if they strike the very hardest rocks with their tools; but those who have undertaken the trials of softer material feel their hands aided by the ease of shaping, and it is thought consistent that an arduous labor be esteemed with the greatest honor for the craftsman:

so to you, lord, singular praise must be rendered, because you have made minds unpolished and rustic, freed from the darkness of guilt, both to perceive human things and to know divine ones. No less is that Xenocrates worthy of praise, by far the most learned of philosophers, who by stern exhortations brought it about that luxury was overcome. For when a certain Polemo, languid with wine from a banquet held before dawn, was wandering about in public — and it was at that hour when the hearers were flocking to the gymnasium of Xenocrates — he too entered and shamelessly sat down among the number of the students in that very dress in which he had come forth from dinner; for a blooming garland had wreathed his head:

nor was he ashamed to appear unlike all the rest, because in truth the long indulgence in drink had overturned his head, which is the dwelling-place of soundness. Then, while the others murmured gravely that an unseasonable hearer had crept in among the multitude of the learned, that master was not in the least moved, but rather set about to discourse on the discipline of morals and the laws of modesty; and the authority of the teacher prevailed so greatly that the spirit of that wanton man was impelled to the love of decency. And first indeed Polemo, confounded, took the garland from his head and professed himself a disciple; in the end he so bent himself to the duty of gravity and so wholly formed himself to modesty that a glorious amendment covered over the habit of his former life.

This very thing we admire in your precepts, that by no threats, by no terrors at all, you have turned frenzied minds to the worship of God, so that a confused mind might believe this to be most right: to live well and blessedly with all, rather than to hold unjust opinions with a few. V. Another letter. Although my lord and brother has petitioned of your honorableness that you would be pleased to make Tutus most safe, yet it has been lawful for me to commend the same man by a letter, so that by a doubled petition he may be held the safer: for to this man a childish fault and the error of an uncertain age may have done harm, so as to stain the beginnings of his years; but he who did not yet know what was owed to good morals sinned almost without fault.

For when he turned himself toward a sound mind and reflection, he understood that the life of the stage must be condemned by a better counsel; yet a full cleansing could not come to him unless he should wash away his sins by drawing near to the Divinity, since, having been transformed by the remedy of the catholic religion, he refused for himself the practice of a baser place and removed himself from the eyes of the crowd. Of the Lord, as above.

Since therefore both the divine laws and the public laws do not permit a faithful body and sanctified souls to display dishonourable pleasures and to put forth common delights—especially since it seems in a manner an injury to chaste devotion if anyone, renewed by holy baptism, should be called back into his old wantonness—it behoves your worthiness to favour good purposes, so that he who has obtained a pious gift by the kindness of God may not be compelled to fall into the pit of the theatre. Yet it does not refuse the judgment of you all, if you should impose other fitting public duties according to the need of our common fatherland. VI. To Salvius. The eloquence of the forum ought to glow with the exercise of the courts; for it is fitting that the arms of one who daily contends in industry should have their fearsome motions:

but when sonorous eloquence has sounded the retreat and has withdrawn into leisured groves and pleasant lodgings, it ought to cast off the roaring of idleness and cease from making ineffectual threats. For we know that the palm-bearing pairs of horses, once they have withdrawn from the circus, are stabled in utter quiet: them no continual dread, no doubtful palm troubles; but at last, fastened to peaceful mangers, they now know not to fear the driver, finding the sweet forgetting of seditious contention. Yet it also pleases the glorious soldier, his campaigns completed, to hang up his trophies and to bear old age patiently. And why it should be at your heart to terrify wretched ploughmen I do not at all understand, and why you should wish to press my country-folk with the dread of being summoned to appear, I do not recognize:

as though indeed I did not know how to console them and to draw them back from fear and to teach them that there is not as much to be feared as you yourself pretend. I confess that, while the field of pleading received us, I was often terrified by the weapons of your eloquence, yet, as I could, I frequently dressed the wounds that reopened. With you indeed I learned by what right the tenant-farmers, and in what order, may be claimed back, to whom an action belongs and to whom the outcome of an action does not belong. You say that you wish the people of Volusianum brought back, and often, angry, you repeat that you will drag back my rustics from my little tower: and you who, as I hope and desire, are bound to me by an ancient kinship, rashly threaten that you will seize my men, the agreement being disregarded.

I ask of your distinguished prudence whether advocates have one law, those of the toga another, or whether one equity holds at Rome, another at Matarum. Meanwhile I do not know that you were ever lord of the Volusian estate, since Dionysius is reported to have kept the rights of that possession, nor did his heirs fail—he who, while he lived, directed against very many the saleable stings of his naval business. There was at that time a certain Porphyrius, sprung from Zibberinus, yet not rightly named the son of Zibberinus. The same man cloaked the question of his birth with military service, and, in order to drive the cloud from his brow, he discharged dutiful favours and glad obeisances. He was much with me both at home and in the forum, since he often used me both as a defender before his father and as an advocate before a judge.

Sometimes too I restrained Dionysius, because he ought not on account of twenty iugera to stir up the ship-owner's quarrels against Porphyrius. Behold the reason why your distinguished prudence threatens my managers, so that, though you are not lord of the place, you make mention everywhere of my tenant-farmers. And if you declare yourself the successor of Porphyrius, you should know that the narrow bounds of twenty iugera cannot be worked even by a single cultivator: or if, mindful and guardian of your own dignity, it irks you to name yourself heir of Porphyrius, it is certain and manifest that he can put forward a claim who has the means of putting it forward, so as to proceed against those who possess nothing of that same land. But if you look carefully, the intention of reclaiming can most fittingly be referred to me.

Wherefore, my lord and renowned brother, it behoves you to be at rest and to return into favour with me and to deign to come to a private conversation. Cease, I beg, to disturb the helpless and timid, and exercise your boastfulness far off, and consider that I rejoice at your pride, not am offended by it: for we are neither naked nor unlearned. May Maximinus at least make you gentle. VII. A lofty beginning of the letter. The faith and devotion of our minds indeed remains, yet this must be declared by the token of a letter, so that the increase of charity may grow with a greeting.

For just as a fertile field cannot bring forth abundant fruits if cultivation has ceased, and the goodness of the soil perishes through the sloth of him who rests, so I think the love and favour of the heart can grow torpid, unless those who are absent be visited by the presence of a letter.