Letters 1 part 2/7

I by no means, beloved brother, wrote thus as though to bite you with a malicious tooth while flattering myself, nor to wound you, but to bind you to me by the familiarity of a letter. For if you consider well, those words are of wishes, not of deeds, and of one wishing rather than admonishing, since I set forth not what we should do, but how I wished that we might live. But if you were to examine the deeds of my past and present life, you would be ashamed to bear witness, as an intimate and most secret brother, to things which I was not ashamed to promise with God as witness; for which crimes of mine I rather hope that you would entreat the Lord, so that those whom in this world he willed to be partners in friendship and kinship, he may command to be sharers of good things in the world to come. XIIII.

RURICIUS TO CELSUS, LORD OF HIS HEART. I have sent the horse, such as you had ordered: gentle in its tameness, strong in limb, firm in vigour, excelling in form, well put together in build, even-tempered in spirit, neither over-hasty in speed nor sluggish in slowness; whose rein and goad is the will of its rider; to whom, for carrying a burden, both the willing and the power are alike at hand, so that it neither yields under what is placed upon it nor casts off its load. These things, then, having been made known as was fitting, with a greeting first set forth and a pledge dispensed, we beg the promised: that for the festival of the saints you may deign, God favouring, to come to us together with your sister—to bestow honour on the patrons, affection on the brethren, and grace upon the people. XV.

RURICIUS TO HIS OWN AND SPECIAL LORD IN CHRIST THE LORD, HIS PATRON BISHOP AEONIUS. On learning of the passing of my lord, your predecessor Leontius—of holy and venerable memory with me—I was confounded in soul and mind, and for long and grievously saddened, both because, my sins hindering, I had not been counted worthy to meet so great a prelate, and because I was deprived of such a father. For though I did not enjoy the sight of his outer man, yet I delighted in the grace of his inner man and clung to him unceasingly with the keen edge of my mind; through whom and in whom he was in a manner present to me—beheld with the gaze, heard in his speech, touched by contact, and held in embrace—since dear ones nowhere behold themselves better than in the heart, in the very seat of love itself.

Hence I desired all the more to see with bodily eyes him whom I so beheld with spiritual eyes. But to my grief his own merits gave the consolation which those things had earlier afforded as solace; for I am confident that he whom paternal piety loved, he also guards by diligent intercession. But these things I had reported to your Holiness, as it were conversing with you and seeking from you relief for that very sorrow, dictating love so directing me. But now, as I had set out to say, having learned of the summoning of my lord and of the ordination of your apostolate, I was thinking of sending to your office.

But you have forestalled the service of my humility with your gifts, which have conferred on me greater confidence in writing, since I presume that whom you have made worthy by your generosity, you do not hold estranged from your affections. And therefore, as you give me to understand, since you deign to esteem me so highly, I wish abundant well-being to your Blessedness by letter, and at the same time with special prayer I beg that you would deign to deal with me with such affection that I may know lord Leontius to have been sent ahead and exchanged, rather than lost. XVI. RURICIUS TO THE VENERABLE LORD, ADMIRABLE AND TO BE RANKED WITH ALL THE SAINTS, HIS BROTHER, THE SEER SIDONIUS.

Long ago, dearest brother, I came to know you when most widespread fame proclaimed you, and in the seat of love I beheld you with those eyes of the mind by which you yourself better despise earthly things and consider the heavenly and divine; from which I have inscribed the name of him by whose gift I saw that you had been endowed. And therefore, while I diligently admire you in the mirror of my heart and vehemently the beauty of your inner man, you have stirred the inmost depths of my soul to longing—depths which have been moved to so great an affection for you by purest love, that I long to discern even with bodily eyes him whom I contemplate with spiritual eyes.

Wherefore, bidding you a very great farewell in Christ the Lord, I beg more particularly that, together with my lord bishop—whom by his condescension I trust will come to us—you would do violence to yourselves to visit our humility, so that, set together in one place, we may reap fruit from each other's presence, while the intent of the questioner becomes the instruction of the respondent, and there comes about, as it were, a mutual profit of the learner and the teacher. Peace, peace, peace. XVII. RURICIUS THE BISHOP TO POMERIUS THE ABBOT, LORD OF HIS SOUL AND TO BE CHERISHED WITH ALL THE INMOST DEPTHS OF LOVE IN CHRIST THE LORD. It is written, as you yourselves better know: 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.' Now then forgive me, if you charge me with anything, for you should know that the Lord has taken vengeance.

You should know that we were led by such trackless ways into solitudes so hidden that the spirit shudders to recount them, the mind shrinks back, and speech fails.

For we came upon a path blocked with branches, narrow in space, bristling with thorns, closed off with stumps, overgrown with briars, rough with mould, hampered with heaps of rocks, paved over with a tangle of roots, mired with bottomless filth—so that amid such varied and manifold evils the form of the danger was not single, while the strength of the roots held back the horses' feet and the rottenness of the soil gave them no footing; a path stretched up so high upon the mountains and sunk so deep into the valleys that we believed ourselves to be making our way across a billowing sea, with the blasts of raging winds stirring it, while day was snatched from our eyes by mists and clouds—for even though the sun's ray shone upon the world, its splendour and warmth could not reach us through the denseness of the forest; while the height of the wretched ferns so pressed upon us along the way, and such a flood of dew so sprinkled us, that, shrunk with cold or constrained, we sought the warmth of a great fire even on the dog-days of summer.

But when we had reached the place to which our purpose was tending, hemmed in by waters and drenched, we began to perish of thirst; for although, as we said, there was a chill in the air, yet there was warmth in the spring, a stench in the river, a scorching in the field, a sweltering heat in the camp. And, to sum up everything in brief speech, know that we made our journey by such a road as no one would desire to take even to paradise—not to say, to exile.

Wherefore, since our Lord ordained that I should fall into all these things and that you should escape them—distinguishing my sins from your merits even by a visible journey, so that you who go spiritually by the strait and laborious way should not tread the straits of this road, while we who go by the broad and spacious way, ever looking back, should incur its injuries—pray to the Lord, to whom we confess all things are possible, that, though by a different road, he may yet cause us to come together to one city, into which his mercy can bring us, and your merits you. XVIII. RURICIUS THE BISHOP TO HIS MOST SWEET AND LIKE-MINDED SON OMMATIUS. Know that, if I did not write to your sweetness by Venerius, it was due not to negligence nor to any reproach, but to occupation.

Hence I have sent this by Amelius, by which I bid you a very great farewell and admonish you ever to remember your resolve. Let neither a more enticing sight call your soul, now consecrated to God, away from the journey begun, nor a sweeter sound corrupt it, nor a sweeter taste taint it, nor a softer touch solicit it, nor a more pleasant smell allure it—lest through the windows of the body death be let in to the soul; nor, holding the plough, look back contrary to the Lord's word, lest the furrow lose the straightness of its line; but rather cling with all your senses to him to whom, by his own inspiration, you have vowed yourself, and adhere fixed in heart, so that when even one alluring form of the aforesaid vices assails you, it may not be able to approach a breast fortified by firm faith and divine meditation.

And however much you may seem to be set amid crowds, entering into the chamber of your heart with your door shut, cease not to pray to the Lord, so that he who sees in secret may say to you, as he said to holy Moses crying out to him not with voice but with heart: 'Why do you cry to me?' And I hope that in such prayers you may deign to remember me also, and that the longing for sweetest and most wholesome rest may bring you quickly to us, even if our affection does not draw you back. I. RURICIUS TO HIS EXALTED LORDS AND BROTHERS, MOST BOUND TO HIM IN CHRIST THE LORD, NAMATIUS AND CERAUNIA. The ancient sages said that two friends have one soul, which I declare and prove to be exceedingly true.

For after I departed from your brotherhood, I feel myself to be divided and know that a part of me has remained with you, nor do I seem to myself to be whole while you are absent. And since I do not find myself in myself, having returned to you I seek myself among you; and there I perceive that, as much of myself as I have left with you, so much of yourselves I have carried away with me.

And thus, before the longed-for union of our pledges comes about, by the Lord's consent, there has already been made between us a division of souls—a division more to be embraced than avoided by those who love, through which there comes about in their hearts a sincere transfusion of whole charity, by whose bonds I rejoice to have been bound by you, and bound by such chains I exult, and I desire rather to be tied by their fastenings than loosed—by which I am confident that you too are bound fast. Therefore, as you return, I bid a most ample farewell, and giving thanks for all, I leave aside what pertains to your praise. I signify that I have therefore kept silence, because, as is said, in one's own praises boasting is odious.

For your praise has become mine, and therefore, as I said, I have judged it better to be silent about your magnanimity, since whatever I shall have said about you, I seem to myself to have bestowed upon myself. II. RURICIUS TO HIS EXALTED LORDS AND BROTHERS, MOST BOUND TO HIM IN CHRIST THE LORD, NAMATIUS AND CERAUNIA. Among the other thanks which are rightly to be rendered by me to you, I give immense thanks for the presence and visitation of our common patron, lord Postuminus, because you caused our little lodging to be made illustrious by his prayers; for, while he shows us his faith, he bestows on us a blessing.

And although he was a most vigilant inspector, a most importunate exactor, a most rigorous executor, yet we have weighed all these things as gentle by your grace and the consideration of his holiness; for, as it is written, 'charity bears all things, charity never fails,' especially since we believe that what he seemed to exact, he has by God's kindness bestowed upon us. And so, with the divinity favourable, on his return I gave—not because they were necessary, but because he himself wished it—the things by which, desiring it for your undivided brotherhood, I bid a most ample farewell, and in mind anticipate my journey and the sight of you, and signify that all things, as you bade and as was worthy and due, have been inspected, handed over, and confirmed.

Nor do I fear that it should offend your minds even a little that one item seems to have been withdrawn from the deed of dowry, since you will recognize that what is lacking in number has not only been made up for, but even increased, in merit. III. RURICIUS TO HIS EXALTED LORDS AND BROTHERS, MOST BOUND TO HIM IN CHRIST THE LORD, NAMATIUS AND CERAUNIA. How grievously I have been struck by the cruelty of the news of your mourning, you can more easily gather, by your mutual love, than I can convey by letter; for my spirit, worn out by excessive grief, refuses to set forth what it shudders to recall. I grieve, most devoted brothers, and from my whole heart I suffer together with you at so bitter a misfortune of yours.

For although for the present I am separated from you in body, yet I am ever joined to you in mind; and since I do not withdraw from you in soul, I believe that I share in your laments, because, according to the divine sentence, 'when one member suffers, all the members suffer together in the body.' For we are not only made one body in Christ by faith, but are also knit together by the union of our children. Hence too, had so great an inclemency of the weather permitted, I would myself have come to console you in place of letters. But what shall we do, best of brothers—we who can resist the divine command neither by power...

so neither ought we by will; and with all watchfulness we ought to take care lest, while we weep with excessive grief over our sweet pledges, we be found blasphemous or in some way injurious toward the Lord, and lest the author of death himself, having found occasion, more grievously pierce our soul than he struck us by the loss of our dear ones. Therefore in all bitterness or grief we must flee to him, and to him with our whole heart must all our misfortunes be referred—he who heals the wounded, who relieves the sorrowful, who consoles the afflicted; and that sentence of holy Job must by all means be spoken: 'The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; as it has pleased the Lord, so also it has been done; blessed be the name of the Lord.'

These things, then, lords of my heart, I have presumed to write to you for this reason: that the common grief which I knew I could not mitigate by my words, I might at least somewhat moderate by divine utterances. And truly you can take no small consolation from Christ's will in this—that, inasmuch as an untimely death awaited him, he deigned to take to himself such a one as those of whom he said the kingdom of heaven is, so that you might both have a patron in your son and grieve the less for the one lost, whom you saw taken up by the Lord. IIII. RURICIUS TO HIS EXALTED LORDS AND BROTHERS, MOST BOUND TO HIM IN CHRIST THE LORD, NAMATIUS AND CERAUNIA.

Often, dearest brothers, on account of the most bitter mishap of our common mourning, I have resolved to write to you or to come to you, but always both bodily infirmity has drawn me back from setting out on the journey, and excessive grief of heart from the office of letter-writing. For whenever I have tried to bend my mind to writing, at once my senses shuddered, my mind shrank back, and so weeping always came to me in place of words, so that I would drench the page with a shower of tears before I traced anything with the pen—as that one said, indicating a father's tenderness over the loss of a son: 'Twice he had striven to fashion the disaster in gold, twice the father's hands fell'; or rather, as is said by me, 'because my soul refused to be consoled.' Not without cause.

For I have lost a daughter whom I rejoiced both to have received as mine and that you had borne; I have lost the solace of life, the hope of posterity, the glory of the family, the joy of the heart, the light of the eyes. Nor have I been struck with a single bereavement. For with the daughter I also lost the brothers, by whose affection I was consoled, by whose union I boasted. The bond of our brotherhood has been torn asunder, most dear brothers; the pledge of our mutual love has been taken from you. Woe is me, best of brothers—while I lose your deposit, by whose handing-over you had won me, I have lost you together with it; and therefore in the single degree of one tie I sigh that the solaces of many ties have been taken from me.

Yet the one fatherland which had been acquired for me through her herself I shall not lose, since I shall judge above all this land—which she occupied with her body—to be my fatherland. But whither do I proceed, forgetful of duty, mindful of grace, driven on by grief, and with the wound somewhat closed over by time I rip open afresh, by reviving memory as by a new cutting; and I, who rather desired to console you through the divine promises, take no consolation myself? Yet I will set forth to you the causes of this recurring grief. For somehow my spirit, worn out by sorrow, had already begun to receive consolation by the apostolic exhortation, in which he says:

'I would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them that are asleep, that you sorrow not, even as others who have no hope'—but when our wretched common one arrived, and I beheld him without that gem with which he had formerly shone, through which he was wont to be both more acceptable and more pleasing to me, then, as though stripped of his own ornament, he appeared to me unseemly. He knows, dearest brothers—he who searches out the secrets of hearts—that thus grief was suddenly doubled to me, and thus each day, by reason of so great a natural endowment of the one and the desolation of the other, my feeling and my mourning are doubled, so that I can neither look upon this one nor remember that one without tears, and I often say that prophetic word: 'Who will give water to my head and to my eyes a fountain of tears?'

But he wept for the sins of his people, while I weep for my own, which have pressed both me and you by their weight and number; I weep, as it were, his death and my life, her dead and myself surviving. You presumed something far different of yourself, venerable sister, as though from our merits, when, deceived by excessive love, you promised yourself so much from our prayers—me protesting against it—that you believed both your house would be saved by our intercession and your daughter, so to speak, would be immortal through me. But my merits quickly appeared—merits which both wounded me with an incurable wound and struck you, believing otherwise than was fitting concerning a sinner, with the bereavement of so great a pledge.

But now at least, venerable sister in Christ the Lord, you will recognize both that you believed falsely and that I spoke truly. But for too long, forgetful of the heavenly precepts, we yield assent to human grief. We must return to the divine precepts, lest we so bewail her dead in body that we ourselves die in heart. Withdrawing, therefore, a little from present things, let us again ponder things to come, so that those whom present things weaken, things to come may strengthen. We ought, dearest brothers, to bear that condition of human frailty which both the prophets and the apostles and all the holy and just, or—what is greater—the Lord of all our own deigned to take upon himself.

It befits us not to lament, but rather to give thanks to God and to rejoice, that we had a daughter such as we wished, for as long as he who had given her permitted, and that we did not lose her such as we wished, but, at his very command, sent her ahead to Christ. For to have children is of a general benefit, but to have good ones is of a special reward; as to live is common to all, but to live well and to depart well from this life belongs to few—yet not by the condition of nature, but of fault, nor by divine prescription, but by one's own will. And therefore let not our heart be troubled, nor let us weep for our daughter on account of her loss, but on account of our longing—lest we seem either unbelieving toward the Lord's promises or resistant toward his precepts.

Let them weep for their children who can have no hope of resurrection—a hope which their own faithlessness, not the divine sentence, has taken from them. Let the dead weep for their dead, whom they reckon to have perished forever; let them have no rest from their grief who do not believe there is rest for the dead. But for us, whose hope and portion is Christ—hope in the land of the dying, portion in the region of the living—for whom this death is the end not of nature but of the present life, since we believe it is to be restored unto something better, according to the apostle's sentence: 'when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption'—with the prophet it must be said:

'The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; as it seemed good to the Lord, so it has been done; blessed be the name of the Lord'—because in temptation patience must be held fast, lest it compel us to sin either by mouth or by heart. And so let ready faith wipe away our tears, since we believe that our dear ones do not so much lose life as change it, that they leave a world full of toils and griefs and hasten to the region of blessedness, that they go forth from a laborious pilgrimage and arrive at the fatherland of rest—whence too the prophet says: 'Bring my soul out of prison, that it may confess to your name.' Believe me, dearest brothers, that she, now secure concerning her own rest, is anxious concerning our salvation; who, if she could mingle conversation with us, would say this:

'Do not, devout parents, do not weep for me, nor, ungrateful to so kind a Lord, show yourselves by the laments of excessive love. Granted, your tenderness had this at the time of my summoning; but now your faith ought, with time, to temper your grief, since, even if I am dead to you, I live to God. Or can you possibly love me more than the Lord, who made me as he willed, redeemed me because he willed, and, when he willed, in his tenderness took me up? Or what greater consolation of your grief can you have than that our Lord deigned to deliver up his only Son for us unto death? And when the Son of God vowed to die according to the flesh, ought a human being so bitterly to recoil from the condition of the human lot?'

Wherefore, most devout parents, weep rather for your own sins and think upon the satisfaction for your offences, so that—if you love me in Christ, since you cannot truly love me unless you love me in the Lord—you may be counted worthy to come into the bosom of the patriarch, where the Lord, for the purity of my innocence and for his own tenderness, has placed me, since his mercy is better than life; that there together we may be able to exult with joys not false but true, not temporal but eternal.

With such precepts, my excellent brothers, and with others like them, and with the Lord's promises, it is fitting that we console ourselves, as we do; for just as with the Lord things to come are already accomplished, so the faithful Catholic ought already in a certain manner to hold as present the heavenly promises which he trusts will be fulfilled in their own time — to anticipate them by hope, to possess them by faith, to obtain them by works. For these are the things that furnish us with solace in our griefs, with confidence amid adversities, with moderation in prosperity, lest we be either lifted up by good fortune, or give way before what is adverse, or be consumed by what is sorrowful. These things therefore, dearest brothers, to be sent to you for a kind of shared consolation, I have dictated not without great anguish of soul.

Nor was it the abundance of words that compelled me to draw out my discourse somewhat at length, but the surging of our spirits, that a long and frequent recollection might soothe the longing which remembrance had kindled. And in this too let us prove an equal grace toward our common daughter, and, as her life had bound us together, so may her memory keep us in the same love. V. To the lofty lord and to my brother most devoted in Christ the Lord, Namatius — Ruricius.

We who seek out an occasion for writing as a duty of our close bond ought not to let slip one that is offered, so that the mediating word may give us back a certain portion of presence — a word which is sent forth and not lost, is given and yet retained, seems to depart and yet does not withdraw; it is dispatched by me, received by you, written by me, read by you, and yet is not divided, since though, as it were, divided it is held whole in the heart of each, because after the manner of the divine Word it is handed over and yet does not go out, is conferred upon the needy and yet is not taken from its author — the gain of the receiver without loss to the giver, enriching the poor without diminishing the possessor. VI. To his own lord and special patron in Christ the Lord, the bishop Chronopius — Ruricius the bishop.

In ordaining and in governing the Lord's flock, among watchmen and overseers there ought to be not presumption but reason, and concern for guarding rather than contention for usurping, lest they incur the mark of hirelings while they keep not the discipline of shepherds, and be found, as the Apostle says, to seek not Christ's glory but their own, while they prefer to receive praise from men rather than to await reward from the Lord — seekers after present gain and despisers of an eternal recompense.

Wherefore, as the same Apostle teaches, if we are at one in a peaceful assembling for holy work, if we love without dissimulation, if we minister with care, if we are members of one Head, we ought with one mind to be rulers of the body; for the sheepfolds of the Lord's flock can be many in number, yet not diverse through variety of faith — so that, as the Lord himself deigned to foretell, no manifold schism may arise through us, with us falling apart through envy and dividing the Lord's flock through dissension, but rather, as we gather the Lord's sheep through the unity of a single doctrine, there may come to be among us one flock and one Shepherd, who, as he is King of kings and Lord of lords, Priest of priests and Pontiff of pontiffs, may likewise be understood to be Shepherd of shepherds.

For this reason, out of zeal of charity, not of covetousness, I have sent these things to your holiness through my presbyter on behalf of the diocese of Gemiliacum, concerning which I had written to you long ago, lest, if I had kept silent, it be reckoned to negligence rather than to concord, and I seem to have yielded to unreasonable reasoning rather than to peace — so that, if you acknowledge that the things I say are true, or the things I claim are just, you may suffer neither me to bear injury any longer nor yourselves disquiet. VII. To the lofty and ever-magnificent lord and brother Elaphius — Ruricius the bishop. So, by God's favor, has the fame of your works spread abroad, that all who are set in toils beg with every entreaty of prayers to be commended to your brotherliness, since they do not doubt that their effort will have its effect with you.

Hence also the bearer of this letter, Ulfila by name, whom the presbyter Pharetrius commended to me by his own letters, has asked of you a letter of commendation, which I have freely granted him both for the divine command and for our mutual one. By these I give most hearty greeting to your undivided charity, and I have presumed to commend the aforesaid man out of brotherly affection, not out of pontifical authority; for in a sinner dignity loses its dignity, to whom an unmerited honor is a burden rather than an honor. Although I trust that this is pleasing to you on account of our bond, yet, if you bestow upon me any true or substitute love, I hope you will rather grieve with me than rejoice, since so great a thing does not raise up one who is unworthy and utterly undeserving, but rather casts him down. VIII.

To the holy and apostolic lord, to be cultivated by me beyond all others in Christ the Lord with special devotion and affection, his patron and pope Aeonius — Ruricius the bishop. As often as holy or apostolic men — whom works of mercy commend, and the merits of their works, and the life of their merits, and the fame of every virtue makes known — are compelled by those weighed down under a mass of hardships to be sought after, then, while these afflicted ones seek the solace of a letter for their toil, they confer a benefit upon our own longing; and, since their toil is our sorrow, yet through the bestowal of a service their necessity becomes in a manner our charity, for, while we yield to their petition, we satisfy our own desire; and so it comes about that the need of the petitioner is the advantage of the giver.