Letters 1 part 6/7

And since you deign to be solicitous for our well-being, I signify, according to the prayers of your devotion, that I am well, and at the same time I beg that you inform me, by the returning bearers, where you intend to keep the holy Pasch. 46. FROM RURICIUS THE BISHOP, TO THE PRESBYTER ALBINUS. When the report of our common mourning reached me by rumor of a messenger — which indeed I wondered at, that I did not first learn it from the account of your brotherhood — I myself would at once have come to seek you out, had not the reverence of these days delayed me. These things I have sent,

by which I hope you may deign to hold me excused, and that you may comfort our daughter — whom I hear is grievously afflicting herself — in my stead, both by reason and by your authority: that our Lord did with His servant, both when He willed and what He willed. And therefore he will be seen to go against the will of the Lord to whom the divine ordinance — divine indeed — is displeasing; for He alone, when He has willed it, can lead our soul out of the body, He who poured it into the body.

And therefore this excessive mourning, which seems to be of piety, descends rather from the counsel of the devil than from piety; so that, while grief, impatient of consolation, reproaches God of impiety by its complaints, He who sent His Son forth through human condition may, through unbelief, lose the soul. Let the dead bury their own dead, whom they do not believe will rise again — they who reckon that the soul perishes together with the flesh, who have no confidence concerning the blessedness of the soul, none concerning the restoration of the body.

But we, who have the hope of resurrection in Christ, who believe that our souls, according to the promise of the Lord Himself, are placed in the bosoms of the saints — let us betake ourselves to Him with heart and prayers, and take consolation from His promise: that He makes those who believe in Him live with Him, and that none is judged dead before Him save the unbeliever. And so let us temper our laments, as the Scripture teaches us, saying: The mourning of the wise man is seven days, but of the impious all the days of his life. As we know him to be dead in body, but in soul to live unto God for his innocence, so let us, living in body, die in heart. 47. FROM RURICIUS THE BISHOP, TO TAURENTIUS.

I give thanks for your most ready devotion in the Lord and for your most sincere charity toward me, which, an imitator of the divine goodness, hastens, by its own benevolence, to forestall my office in that very thing which it foresees ought to be entreated of me — even before it is asked; for it is eager not only to keep but even to increase in me that affection toward itself, which it therefore gladdens by anticipating with benefits, because it dreads to sadden it even a little.

And therefore it prefers to offer grace to one who is silent rather than to grant it to one who asks, knowing without doubt that there is more of merit in that which is bestowed by spontaneous kindness than in that which is procured by entreaties; since of these, the one is given to need only out of necessity, but the other is often yielded even to the importunity of an earnest petitioner. Whence, returning your greeting, secure because of the promise of your devotion, I signify that I have consigned your girl to your lads sent for the purpose, and I trust that, according to your promise, you will grant her, on my intercession, not only pardon but also favor. 48. RURICIUS THE BISHOP, TO THE VENERABLE LORD BROTHER JOHN.

Magnus, our common dependant, has now done, compelled by necessity, what he ought to have done willingly: namely, that he should beg recommendatory letters for your veneration, and, though ungrateful in the past because of his own negligence, should now nonetheless, through our introduction, present himself to be received into your favor. To his petition I have therefore the more readily acceded, because I believed — as indeed I trust — that you will gladly assent to my request. Whence, my greeting paid, I hope that you may hold it of such worth, on our intercession, to receive him; and, since he has rendered what he owed, that you deign to grant him the interest on those same gold pieces, not so much for our prayers as for the divine precepts.

This you would do without hesitation, for the sake of your manner of life, in which I hear that you, by God's favor, advance day by day; for you yourselves know that he will receive the kingdom of God with joy and gladness, and will ascend glorified into the mountain of the Lord, who has not exacted from his neighbor the interest of his money in this present world, but has awaited it from the Lord in the world to come. Nor by deceitful benefits does he cast upon laboring men the snares of insoluble debts, but he is the moneylender and creditor of Him who says: Give, and it shall be given unto you; and with what measure you shall have measured, the same shall be measured back to you. Unfaithful indeed and unjust, even to himself, is he who does not wish to have perpetually that which he has chosen to be desired.

For although whoever stores up much, gathers much, and acquires boundless wealth by his various tradings, he will go down from this world a beggar, unless from his own goods he has sent ahead his portion to eternal blessedness beforehand — as the Lord says through the prophet: Be not afraid when a man is made rich, and when the glory of his house is multiplied; for when he dies he shall take nothing away, neither shall the glory of his house descend together with him. And again: They have slept their sleep, and all the men of riches have found nothing in their hands. If they were kind to their own souls, they would rather entrust their goods to Him who is both a fit surety for the poor and a most generous repayer of interest.

Be not therefore covetous, dearest brother, to receive now twofold what the Lord promises to repay you a hundredfold — whence you will be able neither to dread destruction from the moth nor to fear loss from the thief, for our Lord Himself is both the bestower and the keeper of His own gifts. 49. TO BISHOP APRUNCULUS, RURICIUS THE BISHOP. The affection of mutual love demanded that I should, for this one cause alone, address a letter to your sanctity, undivided from me, even if no opportune occasion presented itself.

Whence, by the man of my son Leontius, I have sent these to your apostolate; in them, my good wishes being first offered — wishes that you may, according to my desire and by God's favor, be well — I inquire, since you yourselves know that your safety is our joy, hoping that, when the aforesaid man returns, you will render us, by God's gracious favor, secure concerning your doings — you who see us to be anxious for your prosperity. 50. RURICIUS THE BISHOP, GREETING TO CERAUNIA.

Confident in the most sincere charity with which you deign to honor us in the Lord, for the kindness of your spirit, not for our merits, I have, free of care, directed these to your veneration; in them, saying an abundant greeting to you in the Lord and our God, I especially ask that those things which I hoped for through your servant Amandus by word, you may, if it be possible, deign to grant us without delay, since this matter can both relieve us and can bring no loss to you — which I shall reckon as a very great benefit. Again, in whatever you shall command or use shall require, I will strive to repay the turn with reciprocal services. 51. RURICIUS THE BISHOP, GREETING TO BISHOP CENSORIUS. Although I rejoice that I have received the letters of your sanctity by occasion,

for it makes no difference whether out of necessity or out of will, provided that those who love one another converse with each other, and that those whom the intervals of places separate in body, the faithful conversings of minds and senses may join together; for this the virtue of divine piety has granted us as a general and supreme thing: that those whom we cannot behold with carnal sight, we may discern with a spiritual gaze. Whence, when the bearer of letters returns, I have taken care to render these, as you enjoined, that I might reply alike to your solicitude and to our mutual charity.

Therefore I pay an abundant greeting to your apostolate; and as to that which by my letters you wished to ascertain by testimony — whether Sindilla had lost his swine through the cunning of Foedamius — you shall know that I diligently inquired among my own men, where they had been. But, as I had already known beforehand, I learned rather that these men too, doing the labor, both suffered from Sindilla, and that he himself lost his swine through his own perversity, while he boasts himself to be of the adverse party; but that the aforesaid Foedamius was in no way culpable toward him. For what he endured, he ought to impute to none other than himself, of all men.

In which matter, how much I labored, out of regard for you, that your men might either be freed from custody or might recover your swine, you have already been able to learn more fully from those very men who report it; wherefore it was not necessary to indicate it by letters. It is for you to defend your man justly from the charge of this calumny, which you recognize, by our writings, that he is unjustly enduring. 52. RURICIUS THE BISHOP, GREETING TO HIS OWN STEPHANUS. So has the piety of your sanctity, in these very few days, allured me to its honoring, that, although by God's favor I hold you in my heart and behold you with the eyes of the mind, yet, with affection ever urging, I always seek you out; for surely everything that is sweet seems brief, and so everything that is of the flesh is insatiable.

And I give thanks to almighty God for so admirable a gift of His, which by His ineffable dispensation He deigned to bestow so universally upon His servants, that those who are separated in body might be joined in mind, nor would there be anything so remote and so difficult that it would not be met by the gaze of minds; but through the heart's regard those who love one another might behold each other there, in the contemplation of charity, where charity itself abides. Whence it comes to pass that your devotion to me, which in my inmost parts, by continual remembrance, while it is daily renewed, is increased, promises me a return of your love, and that my mind stands as surety to me for your minds, while it dares to presume of your love just as much as it longs to expend upon you.

Therefore I say a most abundant greeting to your blessedness, and I ask that you unceasingly entreat our common Lord that, according to the riches of His goodness and power, to whom we confess all things are possible, even if in this world we cannot more often see one another because of the disturbances and tempests of this life and the intervals of the regions, He may at least make us meet together at that City which is built as a city — to which the mercy of the Lord will be able to bring us, your merits aiding. 53. RURICIUS THE BISHOP, GREETING TO HIS SON PRAESIDIUS. Many people, while they trust that I have much power with your sublimity, undivided from me — not by the merit of life, but by the privilege of friendships — seek recommendatory letters from us, by which they may be excused to you.

These we cannot deny them, by reason of the necessity of our office — not from the boldness of presumption, but from the discipline of ministry — while we desire both to provide the solace of the present life for them and to provide for you that of eternity: that both they may, through your patience, be reserved unto repentance, and you may, through mercy, attain unto pardon; as the Scripture says: For judgment without mercy shall be to him who has not shown mercy; for He who said, Forgive, and it shall be forgiven you, will without doubt, to him whom He shall see here doing what He commanded, in the time to come restore what He promised. For His truth is at hand for us, if our faith toward Him be not wanting.

Whence you can most manifestly perceive that the acquittal of your wretched ones is the forgiveness of your sins, and that what you grant to others must be conferred upon your own prayers, according to His saying in the Gospel: With what judgment you shall have judged, it shall be judged concerning you. And therefore on behalf of Ursus and Lupus — who came to me, bound to me by the right of charity as if more peculiarly yours, as I said before, for the intercession of their crimes — I approach as an intercessor, that, first to God, then to us, you deign to grant that which they have committed, and that you do not confound us by their condemnation, who believed themselves to be already absolved at that time when they were brought to my humility. 54. RURICIUS THE BISHOP, GREETING TO HIS SON RUSTICUS.

Beyond your customary and proven affection, you deign to bestow even kindness upon us, while you withdraw from your own uses what you would lavish upon our expenses; for I learned, your servant reporting it, that you had ordered the delicacies of fishing in the Visera to be supplied to us for your part. Whence, my greeting paid, I give very many thanks, beseeching the divine mercy that, for the honor which you bestow upon us out of fear of Him, He may both confer upon you the felicity of present days and grant you the blessedness of things to come. 55. RURICIUS, GREETING TO BISHOP APRUNCULUS. As I received the letters of your sanctity, through the venerable man Elogius, with rejoicing, so I have gladly sent these by the same man returning.

In them I pay to your apostolate the due office of good wishes, and at the same time beg that you deign to pray for us, and to ask of our common Lord this in particular: that at last, some day, we may merit to come together into one and to see one another; that the charity which, according to the Lord's saying, has grown cold in our breasts through absence — which is the worse — may, through presence, again be roused up in its slumbering embers, and, by living voices as by new breaths, the revived fire of our old love may be rekindled; which, after the manner and power of that fire which the Lord sent upon the earth, may both burn away the thorns of our negligence and sloth by the force of a mighty nature, and illumine the darkness of the sleeping heart. 56. LIKEWISE ANOTHER, FROM RURICIUS TO THE SAME BISHOP.

The persistence of suppliants supplies in us the office of our common grace, so that what we ought to do through the affection of mutual love, we do through the command of another's necessity, while we grant to another's petition what we recognize we owe to our own charity — so that this obligation of letters might be a joyous one arising from the will of affection, and not one extorted by the calamity of one bewailing. Nevertheless, since we neglect the spontaneous grace of writing, we ought at least not to pass over the one thrust upon us.

And therefore, by our brother and fellow-presbyter Maxentius — whom our brother commended to us by his own letters — I have given these, in which, my good wishes being paid, I introduce him to your apostolate, according to what he requested, since he says he has there acquaintances and friends who can, at present, more fully make him known to your blessedness, by whose testimony it may be believed which perhaps is not believed on his own assertion. 57. LIKEWISE TO THE SAME.

Our sons Ommatius and Eparchius sent me letters full of tears and lamentation, specially beseeching that I should stand forth as intercessor with your sanctity, on behalf of the ignorance of our son Eparchius — confident that, for the sake of our mutual love, you ought to deny us nothing; and I have directed our presbyter Eusebiolus to your piety in this matter. Through him I greet you abundantly and ask that, the aforesaid man being sufficiently admonished as is fitting, you deign, on our supplication, to grant pardon to his error; for, just as the fault of one who foolishly and faithlessly persists in defending his sin ought not to be remitted until he acknowledges his guilt, so the acknowledgment of sin ought to confer pardon on the one confessing.

For the unfeigned confession of a fault is the remedy of evil, nor is room left for public vengeance where the guilty one is punished by his tormenting conscience. 58. LIKEWISE ANOTHER, FROM RURICIUS TO THE SAME. Before the day on which I received the letters of your sanctity, I had directed my fellow-presbyter — as you will be able to learn from his own report — to your brotherhood, in the same cause in which you wrote to me; so that, since not only our son Eparchius himself, but also his brother, had tearfully entreated me by letters, I might approach your apostolate as an intercessor; and I — compelled both by his confession of fault, by his entreaty for pardon, and by the affection of kinship — granted it, because I did not believe that you would write to me about this matter.

But because you deigned, on account of the charity which, by God's favor, is between us, to consult my humility — that I should indicate to you, by my own letters in particular, whether your severity was just — let my lord know that I both approve and commend and vehemently admire your deed; because, while to one not without hope you inflicted, by the admonition of the spiritual sword, pain for the rendering back of salvation, you conferred health upon many who were languishing. For many in the Church who cannot be cured by word are healed by example.

It remains that mercy follow severity, so that you may receive with the gentleness of a father him whom you have corrected with the authority of a pontiff; and, invoking that evangelical example, which we ought in all things both to follow and to imitate — He who, to the son who had squandered his father's substance and confessed his crime, not only mercifully imparted pardon but also gladly restored his former grace — let us too suffer with the fallen, come to the aid of the bruised; let us embrace the returned, rejoice over the found. Which I am certain your apostolate did for this very reason: that you might for a little while exclude the ailing son from his mother, so that you yourselves might after a short time restore him whole, and might sadden him for a time, over whom you long to rejoice forever. 59.

RURICIUS THE BISHOP, GREETING TO HIS SON SEVERUS. While you excuse our negligence and laziness, you reprove it, and we acknowledge ourselves debtors for your benefits and services. But I know that you do this out of the sincere and perfect love with which you love us, because it is too little for your charity, what you bestow upon us, while you desire to expend your whole self upon us, and that daily. But for us the benevolence of a ready mind would suffice abundantly and more than enough, even if the constancy of service were lacking. Whence, my greeting paid, I give most abundant thanks to your devotion, that toward me you not only retain the affection of your father of good memory, but have even surpassed it. 60. RURICIUS THE BISHOP, GREETING TO HIS SON STORACHIUS.

I render and hold abundant thanks to your kindness, because you made us aware of the negligence of our servants, while your gracious goodwill bountifully supplied the suitable conveyance which our crafty enemy had stolen from us. The Lord permitted him to inflict this upon us at this time so that he might prove both our patience through the injury and your charity toward us through fellow-suffering, and that, without loss to our means, he might bring you the gain of the work through the benefit of love. LXI. BISHOP RURICIUS TO HIS SON VITTAMER, GREETING.

Your condescension makes us your intimates, since that which is freely offered by us is gratefully received by you—for that gift is proven acceptable and sweet which not its size has commended, but affection. This is why we hold even in our wishes the service of spontaneous devotion to repay you, that which we do not have in words. And so, having paid my greeting *** , because I have ventured to send a hundred pears to your Eminence and another hundred to my daughter, which, if perhaps they should displease by the taste of their flavor, will please, as we trust, by the affection of the sender. LXII. BISHOP RURICIUS TO HIS BROTHER NAMATIUS.

I greet you most warmly and hope that, if you cannot on the day after tomorrow, you will at least deign to come to us on Tuesday, because, kindled by longing for your charity, we too say with the prophet: My soul is as earth without water unto thee. My spirit has failed. Turn not away thy face. Do not delay your coming, that you may extinguish the burning of our heart, which you have stirred up by the consolation of a little time. LXIII. BISHOP RURICIUS TO HIS SON VITTAMER. I give thanks to your most condescending Eminence toward me, because you make us, who—by God's favor and by the law of friendship—are anxious about your doings and well-being, secure by the diligence of your letters.

Wherefore I render back to your Nobility the reciprocal duty of greeting, and I make known that I have sent these to you from Decaniacum; and showing you my own well-being by the favor of the Godhead—which I trust is pleasing to you—the Lord will grant it, so that, soon returning from here, I may be worthy to be presented to your sight; so that you may rouse to fulfillment, by a meeting, the longing whose desire you have aroused by your kindness. LXIIII. BISHOP RURICIUS TO HIS BROTHER, BISHOP CLARUS. To your apostleship, in return for that charity which you bestow on me not for my merits but for the benevolence of your hearts, I cannot, I will not say repay the favor with services, but not even unfold in words such thanks as you deserve.

Yet I render through letters the due service of well-wishing, and I transmit by the converse of the page a part of my heart, in which I have received affection for you with eagerness; and at the same time I beseech you to entreat our common Lord, that He may swiftly make us reap the fruit of our presence, and that those whom He has bound together by the prompting of His inspiration He may join also by the mutual sight of their faces, so that the gaze may quench in us the longing which discourse has kindled. As for the columns, I give thanks, and as you ordered—since now, on account of the approaching winter, I cannot send the wagons thither—after holy Easter, by the favoring Godhead, I will dispatch them. As for the smaller ones, just as you bade me by word, if they can be found, I indicate to you that I need at least ten.

But if the Lord grant all things to prosper, before I send the wagons, I will dispatch a man to you. LXV. BISHOP RURICIUS TO HIS BROTHER, BISHOP VOLUSIANUS. Thus—which is the worse—a long forgetfulness has, partly through our own negligence (for it must be confessed), partly through the necessity of the time, partly through bodily infirmity, blotted out the ancient charity engrafted in us, so that, becoming wholly forgetful of ourselves, we do not seek you out with any mutual offices nor even with letters. I marvel that your Nobility sends letters to me as to a son, when, without any regard for religion or kinship, the injuries done to us so please you that you are unwilling to avenge them.

Wherefore, had I not considered the esteem of my own person or office, I would have sent back to you such a bearer of your letter as the woman who led my men—not your matron, but a mistress too brazen and unbridled—drove them on; whose manners, if you, with the diminishing of your own reputation, endure for so long either willingly or out of necessity, know that others are unwilling to bear them and are not content. For as to what you write, that you have been made dull through fear of enemies: he who is accustomed to endure a domestic enemy ought not to fear an outside one. I. TO HIS SON RURICIUS, EXALTED IN THE HONOR OF RELIGION AND TO BE MAGNIFIED FOR THE MERITS OF HIS FAITH, GRAECUS. Thanks be to the Lord, that the merit of your faith, as it advances in devotion, so grows also in work.

You anticipate the needs of those who labor with solicitude, foster them with kindness, sustain them with humanity. For by these things, according to the Apostle—fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope—you acquire for yourselves the divine recompenses of eternal life. But in your Eminence these are nothing new, because your soul, as it is full of the fear of God, so is it full of charity—charity, I say, which alone profits by use and grows by giving, which knows its weight yet feels no loss. For while it is paid out, it is not spent, but rather, while it is extended, it is increased; and its grace so rewards the one receiving that it does not diminish the one imparting—charity which, in the likeness of the Godhead, gives what it has and keeps what it has given. II.

TO THE MOST BLESSED AND MOST REVEREND LORD, TO BE SINGULARLY VENERATED BY ME WITH DUE HOMAGE, MY PATRON IN CHRIST, BISHOP RURICIUS, FROM VICTORINUS. Although I was granted to see your Blessedness only for the briefest time and only once, yet so, at the very first meeting of recognizing and beholding you, did you irrigate my senses from the purest fountain of your kind heart, that, however much I cannot grasp the precious gifts of your discourses, I nonetheless possess your presence within the depths of my mind; so that, even if I receive no occasions from without for rekindling my longing, I yet find them within me, while I remember your grace.

For it is not right that that good should require increase only from external aids, which is acknowledged to be infused into the very marrow. Whence it comes about that the charity which, made new by the continual remembrance of you, grows sweet in my inmost being, promises me a return of your charity. And thus my affection toward you stands as a surety to me for your mind, and in a certain way the conscience of my inner self assists me as a witness in turn of your love; and how much I ought to presume concerning you, I ask my own mind, which burns with all the ardor of love toward you. Wherefore, offering my greeting and begging your intercession, I render insufficient thanks on behalf of the bearer of these letters.

And because the toil of that unhappy man—by which, for the ransoming of his wife, he was tossed through the exiles of various regions—the death of the ransomed woman, immediately following, rendered void; and because now again paternal anxiety is stretched out for the ransoming of his daughter: I beg that you bid him be accompanied by your letters, for the heaping up of the abundance of your reward. May the merciful Lord deign to multiply your Blessedness, reverend to me, both in years and in merits, for the advancement and adornment of His Church—O most blessed and most reverend lord, to be singularly venerated by me with due homage, my patron in Christ. III. TO THE HOLY AND MOST BLESSED LORD, TO BE VENERATED BY ME WITH ALL HOMAGE AND HONOR, MY FATHER AND PATRON IN CHRIST THE LORD, BISHOP RURICIUS, FROM TAURENTIUS.

The letters of your Holiness, having fed me with spiritual food, have spurred me to the hope of things to come; and your prophetic words, shining with brightness, have blazed forth with purest light to dispel the darkness of errors. I recognize a full affection of charity, and I embrace the sincerity of your pious correction—eloquence in words, perfection in examples, grace in counsel, diligence in duty, constancy in truth, truth in admonition; and you approve knowledge in doctrine.