Epistulae

XI. ENNODIUS TO AGNELLUS. My mind is troubled that your abundance has bestowed upon me nothing from its endowments of eloquence, and that it broods over the riches of rhetoric so jealously that to share a portion of them is deemed sacrilege. Avarice in all things is shameful—yet if you deny words, it is the more disgraceful. Often it also happens that those who write frequently love less; but never has it occurred that one who persists in perpetual silence reserves anything for affection. Ambiguity can arise from the blandishments of letters; but it is a certain proof that one who maintains silence is not loved. These are the things I have written hastily in the bearer’s haste, spurred by the twin goads of the courier’s speed and my own grief. Therefore, apply remedies to the weariness of my mind without delay, so that, although until now the sustenance of affection has been lacking, it may yet be known that promised love remains steadfast. My lord, as I offer you the fullest greeting, I beseech that what suffices for my expectation be not denied by one most skilled in speech.

XII. ENNODIUS TO HORMISDAS THE DEACON. No place for pardon would remain for the unskilled, if they spoke at greater length: brevity alone commends the unlearned. A prolix narrative from a rustic is worse than an error: when something that is to be read at length has been wrung from an ignoramus, the one who exacts it owes his own resentment to himself. Does any man wish that things which are to be loathed should proceed at length and, seasoned with no savor, have no brief limits? This, brother, you have demanded with Roman and excessively artful subtlety: but against such contrivances, simplicity, tinted with no tricks, fortifies me. For although you have drawn me out with the cajoling eloquence of your letter, you have not made me forgetful of myself. I know how to compress a page, whose value I, as its publisher, understand. Know, however, that I do not fail my own part, although both the urbane man and the cleric call me into the open. But why do I produce a page, whose brevity I promised above? This is my contest with a lover: such is the fruit of letters. Saying to my lord the most abundant greeting, I pray that, by the granting mercy of our Christ, you may often announce your health to me, which I desire, while you seek mine, in your longed-for addresses.

XIII. ENNODIUS TO BOETHIUS. If it were permissible to put off what has been commanded, I would be granted that the ornaments of silence still not perish: for it is a gift of taciturnity that you believed I could speak without being uncivilized. See how much genius of speech a restrained voice has conferred. But it is the plight of an empty breast not to hold onto remedies that have been put at risk. The care of speech presses on, lest the ignorance of the one who proclaims be concealed, when the labor of leisure intercepts glory. Behold, I, who was praised before proof, am now subjected to examination, and I break into my own holidays, lest I seem worthy of praise. For while humility renders obedience, we do not possess what was obtained through silence. You, most correct of men, deign to praise virtues in me, whom industry, without prejudice of age, has made ancient in boyish years, who through diligence fill everything that is compelled, for whom among the beginnings of life, the constant practice of reading is a game and another’s toil is a delight, in whose hands, doubled…

XIII. ENNODIUS TO BOETHIUS. ...it glows with fire where the old torches once shone. For what scarcely befell our elders at the end of life, this abounds for you on the threshold. Truly you have given a price to my loquacity, since you, desiring conversation, first approach me. A new thing has happened to a chatterbox: that he was prolonged until the writings demanded a response. Thanks be to God, who by hidden paths has reminded you of necessary affection from close at hand. Behold, you now hold twin causes of injury: for after I have become known as a rustic, I presume to call myself a parent. My lord, while I speak the duty of greeting, I hope that you will grant frequency in the duties of letters, in which work both a loving man and an eloquent one shows assiduity. XIIII. ENNODIUS TO ARCHOTAMIA. You have advanced so far above the brightness of your lineage by the light of your character, that even those whom kinship does not bind to you are subjected to the goods of your deeds. For who would not be prepared to pay perfect reverence to a soul sublime in the culture of God? Who makes himself a stranger to the grace of the Redeemer, who does not obey God? For it is a sign of exceptional conduct to love the cultivators of our Christ: he is close to the most upright who already loves the proven: he gives testimony of good merits without doubt, if you strive to follow the perfect with praises under due continuity: he becomes close to the saints who preaches sanctity in them without pretense: whomever you prefer with encouraging diligence, it is a loss of modesty, unless you follow.

who, with modesty preserved, walking through thorny paths, would raise up a cleared road and, seeing the way of salvation, choose paths of harm? It is a profession of blindness to reject the good placed before one's eyes as an example and not to hold fast to that from which you might profit by imitation. This, my lady, rumor has announced to me concerning you not through uncertain indications; it has not been broadcast by the talkative crowd through mouths ignorant of judgment, whose custom it is, while fanning sparks into funeral pyres, to extinguish the amplified flames of the faithful. This has become widespread through the report of our relatives, especially through the account of the lady and sister Euprepia, that you are not only worthy of praises, but have instituted a celebration and are presenting to a venerable son, along with the rays of his lineage, the torch of conduct. The inhabitant of Lérins, I have learned, has something to learn from a holy mother, even one who has not left urban dwellings. If your piety believes me, it is more to have conquered the world in the battle line than to have avoided it: flight from the contest betrays fear, and there is no hope of virtue when the adversary is avoided before the engagement; consciousness of strength acquiesces in hiding for few: this is to choose seclusion—to have shown fear. I write these things not to accuse my lord and the light of our family, the presbyter, to whom I believe even there there is no lack of assaults for him to overcome, in which place he seemed to have declined the conflict. For he trampled all the blandishments of the world at that time when the chain of age, wealth, and birth was unable to hold back his departure.

But to you, as much as the weaker sex is concerned, so much praise is owed for the attainment of the palm. It is close to the point that you are also the guardian of that purpose, who, suffering the evils of widowhood and childlessness, through the merits of a venerable son, by the occasion of your consolation, allow nothing to perish. Behold, where a woman, forgetful of her frailty, in the role of a fortress, leads both a husband and a young man away from hostile attack. May you, the glorious leader of this deed, endure and persist in this world until that time when, if circumstances demand, the field of this world receives him already mature. I would wish, I confess, if the composition of a letter allowed it, to prolong my words and, under the abundance of speech, to narrate a few things about the ornaments of your deeds. But let these be reserved for writing to others. It is enough for you to know that, although you have never been seen by me, you are known and, inserted into venerable records, you are already held by the root of my mind. It is written, you remember: let your neighbors praise you. Truly, I would wish that the sole reason for seeking Gaul existed, so that with my lord presbyter, both of us kissing your hands and eyes, we might render you blessed in whatever affliction of time. My lady, concerning the reason letters are sent, indicating that I am well in body, I inquire about the state of your prosperity, beseeching and conjuring you by God, never to deny me the aid of your prayers.

XV. ENNODIUS TO AGNELLUS. Thanks be to God, who, although He has delayed the fulfillment of your desires concerning your greatness, has not rejected them. For, lest the faith of the suppliant falter, wishes are deferred, because a swift granting of a request diminishes the charm of the ensuing joy. And it is evident that you have merited honors, not merely desired them. But the preceding arrangement reveals the prayers of those who love you. The Almighty knows, both moved by the light of your lineage and invited by the confidence of the grace you have promised: in your successes, whatever you restrain by discipline or reason has preceded. Let brief conversations suffice at the threshold: respond to one anxious about your prosperity, even though I have no doubt of your affection. My lord, offering the most complete respects, I commend the bearer of this letter, because he is known to me for his trustworthiness and integrity, wishing it not to be hidden from all what regard I have for your dignity, so that those hoping may be nourished from the harvest of our common grace.

XVI. ENNODIUS TO AGNELLUS. The joyful festivity of speech is accustomed to scatter the signs of favorable circumstances, while whatever good has come to eloquent men runs through the peoples with a voice that is the sister of joys. It is easier to confine fire, kindled in pyres, with the tongue, than to keep silence among desired things. It is a law of humanity and a command of nature that the cheerfulness of the mind should flow out through the resources of writing: for favorable things, even if they are confined within chambers, flow forth. But in your greatness, just as your age is hoary with modesty and ripening with the dowry of knowledge, so you restrain joy with the reins of moderation. But should discipline run to the detriment of grace, and should that which is joined to the ornaments of character be diminished from the diligence of friends? Although you hold the mint of Latin eloquence, you cannot, however, find how you may assert that it was done lawfully, that you do not grant words to me as I wait. Is it fitting, therefore, that heavenly benefits should be announced to those who love only by opinion, and that one already in possession of joys should tremble with congratulations? I have sent a boy with this necessity, who is not to demand back writings, but to demand them. You know what is the confidence of those who love simply, especially of those whose hope you hold, confirmed by the promise of grace. My lord, saying the fullest greeting, I beg that you send both frequent and not cramped letters. See the security of my mind: I ask for lengthy pages, I who have as yet received none.

XVII. ENNODIUS TO AVIENUS. If you had any concern for my insignificance, such a long silence would not persist, especially since the indisposition of my lady, your mother, afflicts me in my absence through various rumors without remedy. For I know that this alone burdens the holy woman with a weight, because she displays immoderate affection toward one who does not deserve it. But why do I produce words bound by the chains of sadness? If heavenly favor has restored her good health, announce it quickly by letter. For I expect that prosperity will be reconciled with me only when I learn that she is well. You have learned the cause of my grief; indifferently, after God, provide the remedy. My lord, presenting the respects of a greeting, offer worthy attentions to my lord on behalf of your suppliant. XVIII. ENNODIUS TO AVIENUS. If a judge of lowly persons labors under injuries, I do not know whether he can relieve others from this burden, when he himself succumbs to it. A healing hand must be applied to serious wounds, lest the disease grow through impunity. The sublime man, the Vicarius, has extorted these words from me, although they were owed for the sake of justice: what he has endured, let him himself disclose. One thing I know: unless you come to the rescue, the evil will become general, to which he himself, as the guardian of discipline, is exposed. This is not alien to Christianity, when I defer, because it is impious for the order of things to be confounded by such a mixture.

XVII. ENNODIUS TO AVIENUS. If you had any concern for my insignificance, such a long silence would not persist, especially since the indisposition of my lady, your mother, afflicts me in my absence through various rumors. My lord, after the honor of a salutation has been set before you, graciously receive my voice as a suppliant, so that he who has taken up so great a burden of labor may recover through its fulfillment. XVIIII. ENNODIUS TO SIMPLICIANUS. May the rudiments of your youth be strengthened by the aid of divine favor: may He Himself grant success to the fruits who bestowed the adornments upon the beginnings, so that you may not withdraw in the ripeness of the fruit what you have offered in the white flower of the start. It is the first care of our purpose, being anxious for the praise of the beginner, to send prayers to God, so that what has been presumed in the education of a good character may mature with heavenly help. May He lead the crop of your talent to the granaries, who drew forth the nurturing grass of men from the sod: may He Himself form into the shape of wheat the milk expressed from the earth, by whose rain the wedded face of the soil is made fertile. But to you, learned boy, I give thanks, because, although you have shone with the splendor of eloquence and are praised in that city with the support of literary knowledge, you also desire the aids of my commendation. The fruit of my diligence has accrued to you, even if the ornaments of a rustic’s testimony are granted nothing. I gladly proclaim your words along with those of the most eloquent, with whom I join my own opinion, so that I may grow rich by the company of good men. Next, those who agree in any judgment should not be divided in merits: he is one, nor does he wander far from the citadel of the sublime, who, with not unequal admiration, concurs with what they pronounce. However, concerning your letter and its diction—

I return to honey: for whom the preface is so charming in the present and tender in age that virtue and genius are not withdrawn from the future. The Latin eloquence is established in hollowed channels, while the wave of Roman oratory glides through its own bed: to what it extends, estimation scarcely comprehends, you who appear greatest at the thresholds. In the morning light you have shone with noonday brilliance. May heavenly grace protect its gift around you, and may Christ, our salvation, inspire you to cultivate the loving one with frequent gifts of letters. XX. ENNODIUS TO MAXIMUS. While the servants of the presses were completing the bounty of autumn and were breaking the tender tunics of the grapes with hastened treading, I recalled both eyes and words to the eminent man, my parent and brother, deeming it just that, while the vineyards yield abundant liquor, I should address a sober person with joyful cheerfulness. Therefore, loose the Pythagorean silence and share with me the goods of your skill and eloquence: let there be between us, in place of happy vintages, a conversation: let the sweet musts of words flow. You have matters, most holy one, which you may communicate with the deacon concerning established morals with a noted abundance of speech. For those who, like you, stand firm in ecclesiastical integrity, the avoidance of silence among them is just.

write with what strictness golden chastity is to be maintained, by what path foul avarice is to be shunned, in what ways the shameful darkness of deceit is to be avoided: in short, without dissimulation teach what you practice: especially instruct me, eager to know, how the blandishments of a spouse or of the world are to be rejected by the strictness of religion. Lord, as above, presenting the gift of a greeting, I beg that you graciously accept what, amid the burdens of cares, the not-to-be-rejected stealing of jests demands to be done. XXI. MAXIMUS TO ENNODIUS. Where is the faith of a shining conscience that has been imperiled, which even in boyish years hoary reverence does not abandon, which through the prejudice of old age the observance of honesty irradiates, which, maturing in the acts of youth, enters infancy and glides before it? Was it fair that only commands be returned to the pages of a lover, or is the trust equal for free writing and for a servant? Did you deem it worthy of proven morals not to follow one who provokes to religious duties, or did you think it a sin to return letters which it happened you did not receive amid your excesses? Is this, then, your discipline? The integrity once revealed does not spread such a report of you. Yet I, with the loquacity by which I am known, strive to change hardened silences. Is your tongue unequal to your birth? Or do you not announce the testimony of your lineage with the flower of speech? Does the fertile dictation of the heart abandon the purple of eloquence?

nothing but malice does one reveal who, when able, does not grant words to one who desires them. Behold, amid the belches owed to Lyaeus, I, like a second Silenus, compose such words. Know that your name is to be written for the purple of my genius and inserted into my own little books, so that, even if you grant nothing in reply, I nevertheless hold the citadel, because I direct to learned men something to be read without any trepidation. My lord, accept the homage of my greeting, repaying the debt of letters. May your virginity stand firm for you throughout eternity, And may nothing that a blessed life has given perish, May dark-skinned girls not stain your limbs, And may you not lie prostrate because of a Tartarean face: So that you, through writings, may relieve the eager with holy words, And from your springs a wave may flow to your brother. XXII. ENNODIUS TO MAXIMUS. More faithfully do the broken echoes of mountains or the secrets of forests receive a voice from your sublimity: by the institution of nature, even mute things give a response to men: the reciprocity of a clamorous solitude returns to mortals: what tongues or lairs have received as a benefit does not perish. Why, then, is this a kind of praise and philosophy in your greatness—to say nothing and to maintain caution amid the uncertainties of those declaiming? A man whom nature has produced neither barren nor whom learning has left unshaped, but, I believe, you disdain me with your speech, unwilling to give precious words to an Opician by your judgment. What of the fact that a rich man's eloquence is a sign, and not to withhold desired words from the unlearned?

The course of rivers is a beggar, which is thought only to slake the thirst of the most noble: the abundance of rains drenches rocks that will produce nothing. It is the order of liquid reason that one who fears loss reveals poverty: whatever does not run forth is meager. Nevertheless, I have set aside a singular gift from the birds, which a hawk seized. For we advanced to Bromius and the orgies of Bacchus, and we waged war among the birds: the social contest of feathers profited our gain. Remember that we sent only a duck, knowing that the god rejoices in an odd number. Our gift is instruction: take, if you love, as a doctrine what we jest. Make my joy fruitful. If it imposes upon you the diligence of perpetual chastity, my tongue, which now is exercised in admonitions, will labor in your praises. Farewell, lord, and reply to one who loves you as a learned man, if I deserve it, with dissimulation set aside. XXIII. ENNODIUS TO MAXIMUS.

Your greatness produces the festivities of marriage at the appointed times: while you pursue with long duration the matter to which you were compelled, your necessity has suddenly become desire. Let someone who descended to that business unwillingly apply himself to it perpetually. Thus you have withdrawn from the diligence of guarded blessedness, as if you had learned over long periods how a wife is to be established. Thirty happy days have passed, and you still keep yourself from the city and from my eyes, wasting me away with long expectation. Truly, do whatever you wish: if I live, I will not be silent about the things I have woven to be said to you. Nevertheless, having received the honor of a greeting, accept the taste from the little drops, as befits a brother from a brother, the things sent. Blush, you, because you neither visit the sick nor send anything from the nuptial delights that could relieve distaste. XXIIII. ENNODIUS TO STEPHANUS. The exhortation of our common son Marcellus, whom nature gave to you, affection gave to me, demands that I be the first to aspire to the duties of writing and, conquered by love, bestow the solace of letters, through which antiquity wished nothing to be permitted to absence. Now you owe me a double favor, even if you return a reply, because I was the first

I began. He opens the door of affection who provides an example in conversation; those who return writings preserve the prescribed form. Therefore, with God as author, we dispatch a letter bearing news of our well-being. We add this to your joy, that your paternal heart may exult: your son already holds the testimony of free birth in liberal studies, and conducts himself in this pursuit in such a way that he surpasses the greedy hopes of his own people. An honorable beginning in a young man is the hope of perfection, nor is he far from the learned man who, at the very start, seizes the glory of a good undertaking. Therefore, greeting you with the affection I owe, I hope that, when opportunity is restored, I may be raised up by the good of your prosperity. XXV. ENNODIUS TO SYMMACHUS. A law written for desires is scarcely believed; diligence impatient of a stricter precept does not always make what is free worthy of reproach. It often becomes more lovable through its fault, when through unbridledness it gains a genius for pleasing more: for its transgression commends itself with a certain honey of presumption. I protect myself from the preface, because I am the first to aspire to letters. It remains in the power of your Highness, if you choose to endure a garrulous man, not to be silent and to nourish me from the original milk of the Symmachian spring. Farewell in our Christ, nobility of the Roman race, and deign to regard me now as a client and servant for the light of your character and nature.

XXVI. ENNODIUS TO AGNELLUS. In accordance with my wish, you have produced a letter, while you clear away the clouds that darken nothing. We are present with innocence by the most fortunate lot of defense, and we always bestow the use of our voice on those who shine by their own right omen. You easily affirm the light of one who gleams, nor is speech lacking that is lent to the blameless. You proceeded with words about the promised horse as if the shameful affection of lying had ever been yours. Truly, by my soul, I would more readily believe that sacred pontiffs could slip into this pit. Vices do not know maturity, except those that have imbued men from their earliest years: denial does not sprout anew in men: whatever is in our character both follows and has preceded. Therefore, farewell, purple of Latin eloquence, and restore to me reciprocity by loving, providing that, as compensation for your slowness, a horse worthy of your gift may come to my aid. XXVII. ENNODIUS TO PROBUS.

I choose the loss of modesty rather than undergo the disgrace of not loving, knowing that the damage to the forehead can more easily be repaired than that to faith. To be unlearned is a misfortune; to hate the virtues of your family is a matter of crime. We could have been lacking in the liberal disciplines without being delinquent: no one suffices for that from which he has shaken off character. Shall I not honor the virtues heaped up in your greatness with epistolary speech? Shall I not look up to that light of the family amplified by studies and probity? It seems to me that he does not fall far from uprightness who cultivates the upright, while it is believed that anyone can follow what he loves. Therefore, farewell, approving through the grace of God and my zeal the one who loves you; amplify the gift of letters. XXVIII. ENNODIUS TO THE PRESBYTER ADEODATUS. The occasion that exists as a servant for writing to you complies with my wish. For speech both flatters as a substitute for presence and promises to itself from the publication of pages what it displays, because the most upright men, just as they consider it a detraction from their virtues that some have been beforehand in testimony of diligence, so they consider it a disgrace to neglect examples. This communion lived among holy men, that through the providence of the inner man, earthly separation harmed nothing. It is fitting, lord, that you follow both my wish and my example. Therefore, greeting you in the first place, I beg that you be mindful of me, and that what is withdrawn from me through my negligence may be conferred to me by the grace of God through your intercession.

I declare, therefore, without lying, that on the third night after my departure, my holy lady Cynegia, ungrateful to me, appeared to me at the very break of dawn, and that I was greatly reproached by her for the haste of my journey: she complained not with gentleness of words, because not even her tomb had been honored with any verses. I, indeed, did not receive this as an image of prophetic truth, nor did I atone for the toil of my work with nocturnal delusions. But because it is easy to persuade those who love, the work that was owed did not labor to demand what she was urging. The reverence of the lady is safe. I adjure you by the day of judgment to have the verses I sent written immediately on the wall above the feet. Know that it will be pleasing also to your son: for he wishes her merits to be celebrated by the mouths of many, but in the manner in which you find them here. Greet my lady Stephania and lady Sabiana, and also lady Fadilla for me. If they have been written, write back immediately. Deign to tell the lord pope to arrange something through the holy deacon Dioscorus concerning my case. As much as I could in the haste of the courier, I have written. Greet the lord and brother Hormisdas sufficiently for me, and tell him to send that key.

XXIX. Ennodius to the Blessed One. I do not confine my letter within the narrow limits of a Spartan brevity, mindful of such conciseness, nor do I mock your form with the artifice of forced speech: it is far from me to speak few words with few matters. Let the urbane withdraw their extended productions from scanty subjects and form pages without any necessity, such as the measure of men demands. What you consider subtle in me concerning those things I have mentioned, haste, not always a friend of art, and chance have produced. It is a great thing for me if chance occurrences have given you something to admire. Therefore, I set forth the reason for my writing, which I commend to you after the prefatory greeting. When I had departed far from the city, the admonition of my lady Cynegia came to me, because I had not honored her tomb with praise in a poem of composed eloquence: although I did this out of reverence for her husband himself, I considered that what shines with the light of merits ought to be celebrated with the abundance of style. For God does not reject the service of an unskilled person, and He Himself, content with what He bestows, does not require verbal diadems from rustics. Therefore, I have sent this epitaph to be written in these verses. Concerning what is thought of it, may your father live and may Rome claim you, as far as those things which are criticized in her, not as her own, so that you may judge simply and purely, and you may not flatter my ears or my perception with the pretense of feigned grace. Do not blush to review my page, especially also with the merit of Lady Barbara, because she is placed with you.

Yet I desire that my letter may savor as much of your hope as it does, which, in the white-haired bloom, surpasses both my own wishes and those of her parents, though they be greedy. Greet for me Lord Cethegus and Lady Blesilla, his sister. Greet for me Fidelis, Marcellus, Georgius, Solatius, Simplicianus. Tell them: if the discipline of Lady Barbara is dear to you, frequent her lord or his fathers or brothers, because she is chaste and free from luxury: whoever does otherwise, let him not hope to return to me. The price of the best prayers by Christ's gift: The life that was mine, the cross gave this to the tombs, dissolving the offspring of the flesh without wound to the mind, because I die before Faustus, a happy husband. The remedy of the heart scattered tears. She who preserves a faithful bed by her merits, let a matron desire a similar lot. XXX. ENNODIUS TO FAUSTUS. The hope of young men is firm, which the cultivation of great men accompanies: if care ceases, the abundance of wheat turns into tares. Parthenius, my sister's son, had long been drawn to diligence in letters, as his father's plea revealed, by fear of your highness. But now, freed from the law of reverent dread by your absence, he contrives shameful things: that age, more friendly to sins, finds many guides to errors. The father implores the loyalty of my resolve and mourns his son, safe, in place of one dead. So do those to whom no confidence in the progress of their own has responded.

Nothing remained for me, which I might offer in place of a remedy, overcome by prayers, except to hastily inform your Eminence's conscience about the excesses of the aforementioned young man. You, apply the healing hand; you, provide the customary aid, lest the progress of vices cut down in him everything that could have borne any good. Commend to friends what is being done; make it known to his teacher, and grant whatever help can be given, because these are the things I, mindful of my profession, can offer to a relative without pretense, after the greetings previously mentioned have been paid. XXXI. PARTENIUS TO ENNODIUS. It would have been fitting, indeed, to oppose a reciprocal silence to a degenerate silence, and for vengeance to exit by the same path through which the error came. Is it fair that in your excesses, your voice reveals what you have done wrong, and not a silent grief? Believe me, a revealed indignation is close to a cure. A pent-up disturbance should have struck you for a long time, if indeed you have not wholly departed from humanity. What had I done wrong, after you had sought pardon with fabricated humility in your first letter? Is this the faithful promise of correction, that after you have extorted the conceived anger with a soothing speech, you blush to have sinned less? As far as I can see, after professed shame, you only avoid the straits of errors, considering it a crime if, toward your parent and nurturer, you do not raise your eyebrow as much as you ought to have been lowered in communion for so many benefits.

Or do you perhaps think that childish anger stirs me, or that any necessity can overcome a mature affection? Surely a parent does not find a child's blows unwelcome? Or do those who create crawling little ones not even take pleasure in their injuries? They consider nothing bitter, those for whom, amid their desires, something that opposes their prayers has boiled up. We find thorns and tares among the wheat fields, and while we pluck the fruitful herb, barren things are offered. Is the diligence of cultivation therefore to be rejected, or is one to cease from the plough, if the land has not wholly satisfied the farmer? I pray God that he may banish from you what I detest; yet I, if you believe me, will never abandon the office of a monitor. I have heard from your father's account that you are already remiss in your studies, and, as if you had attained the citadel of knowledge, you are in no way concerned with instruction from reading. You know, my son, that the summit of this matter is not held except by excessive assiduity. It has profited no man in this work to have labored at some time, if he has ceased from the intention of labor: knowledge flees the negligent on swift wings, and whatever has been produced by delay and sweat is transferred with speed. I want you to be greeted and watchful, so that you may bind the harvest of your progress with the chains of daily reading. Write back to me even now, if you think anything befits you, because, if you believe me, you will never find a supporter of your compositions like me in any part of the world.

BOOK EIGHT. I. ENNODIUS TO BOETHIUS. Full of the best hope, for whom I desire good fortune, I venture to approach the duty of a letter. For it is fitting that your high offices be saluted with this preface, and that among the purple robes growing with the light of their possessor, I should not refrain from some sort of address. Is love known only by the benefits of learning, and is it not to be believed that the desires of a rustic may come into the open? Wishes become known more simply, veiled by no skill of pretense. Therefore, we are in speech what we are in heart: we cannot change bitter feelings with soothing words; a modest praiser is one to whom the mind suggests what to say in the composition of flattery. Thanks, therefore, to almighty God, who in you, while preserving the ancient goods of your family, multiplies new ones and, what is more, at the pinnacle of dignity, makes you worthy of the heights. Indeed, this glory is rendered to your lineage, but, what is clearer, it is obtained by the merit of the person. It may have been the custom of the ancients to buy the height of the curule chair with the sweat of the field and to shine with the honors of light through contempt of life: but another kind of virtue is sought, after Rome became the prize of victors. Our candidate, after a manifest contest, receives a deserved triumph, though he has never seen war. He demands laurels by judgment and has deemed it unnecessary to engage with armed men. Among

Cicero’s swords and Demosthenes’ brilliance have shone forth, and the sharpness of each one’s purpose you have gathered together as if born in the very peace of the arts. Let no one fear a discord between Attic perfection and Roman, nor doubt that the chief excellences of nations can meet in partnership. You are the one who embraces both, and whatever, distributed individually, could have sufficed, you, a greedy possessor of the greatest things, include. You surpass the eloquence of the ancients while imitating it: you grant a form of speaking to the most learned while you seek it. In my possession is the venerable composition of your letter, which gives credence to this matter. Would that the letters sent by you were as frequent as they are delightful! Perhaps you will say: it was fitting for a close friend to praise one laboring for the common advancement, because what the palm of victory seems to bestow as if uniquely is not a private possession: a portion from the curule chair has come to me as well. But, if you believe me, I am raised more by the genius and studies of the one who has been elevated. Sometimes those things have come from chance: those others have come to virtue alone. A man who boasts only of his parents is brought almost destitute to the consular scepter by the support of a vote. For you both are in your possession: Latin learning and the vein of purple robes. Oh, if only the consideration of the epistolary style did not oppose to me a hand, indeed, extended at length! What others enrich by a relation, I would set forth raw, even if in confused order. I return to the trustworthiness of the letter-carrier.

I announce that I am well and beg to know whether you are well, asking as the highest favor that your esteem may raise me with a reply in turn, also entreating that you grant me, in whatever manner you wish, the house which in the city of Milan both your abundance and almost neglect have already abandoned. For it is just that your parents should have what descends from the mass of the patrimony. Believe me, with God as witness, that if I merit obtaining it without detriment to your estate, I will respond with greater services, as if bound by a gift. Concerning this matter, may all things turn out happily for you, if I ought to be secure; send me the full assurance of a written document. II. ENNODIUS TO AVIENUS. It would have been fitting for your greatness to display the opulence of your intellect while following the precepts of the holy father, and to air the learning acquired with much toil as a testimony of diligence. A twofold praise would come to you from the aforementioned composition, when, with the devotion of your clients increasing, the palm of eloquence would be brought into the open: a thing which reveals your love for us and exalts you. By one and the same practice, both the pomp of speech and of faith would be multiplied. Those placed at the summit are thought to bestow upon their subjects the affection they speak. This, my lord, that most busy father, stationed on the human pinnacle, guards. For he manifests contempt who, living in leisure, does not offer words. I remember having read: no honor for the miser of speech. Now, therefore, having offered the services of a greeting, I announce that I am well.

It remains that my suggestion may rejoice in the abundance of conversation it has elicited. III. ENNODIUS TO MESSALA. After the one letter which you sent, overcome by frequent writings, you persist in continuous silence, and I believe it is from necessity, not from choice, that you keep the philosophy of saying nothing, not considering that the ancients, in order to speak better, said nothing in the present, and that care for silence was the nurse of speech. You seem to me to follow faithfully the Attic disciplines in their mute part, unwilling to make public what was acquired through silence. Show, after the holiday of your mouth, what riches have traveled to you along the path of your ears. You sent me your compositions, in which, although there was no sublimity to be desired, yet nothing was detected that would be foul with abjection. I gave thanks to God because you had already freed yourself from the bond in which negligence held you constrained. I promised that subsequent efforts would have a better outcome than the beginning suggested. But you have joined the beginning, as far as I am concerned—to whom you send nothing—with the end. Lord Messala, may it daily be granted by the dispensation of our God that you keep before the eyes of your heart whose son you are. But I do not wish things that are harsh to be lengthy. Farewell, having received the duty of greeting, and, corrected by my frequent suggestions, send back word of yourself by the service of letters.

IIII. ENNODIUS TO ARATOR. Departing for distant places, you have proved forgetful of affection. It was not permitted for pious diligence to leave the city walls with you. While you are a dweller of the city, you guard fabricated blandishments with no small Daedalian skill: but once you have decided that the countryside must be sought, you abandon the memory of friends like heavy burdens. You sought out rural delights, and we remained with you among the evils of the city walls. The affection had no root, which you separated like the torments of cares. You might say, whence such swift reproach? It is not fair for a torturer to be prepared before the offenses. You promised, without hesitation, that you would write as soon as you had reached your desired destination: as your father, always the publisher of your faults, has disclosed, the pages from you have already returned empty to the boy. I fear that this silence may grow strong through duration and that shameful neglect may increase into a habit of silence. My lord, I therefore greet you and I bind you to be mindful of your promise, so that, wreathed with ivy among the gray groves, you may be inspired.

V. ENNODIUS TO FAUSTUS. There is no need to commend with a recommendation the craftsmen sent by the holy bishop. For a thing that will please more by its own merit renounces the injury of a praiser’s devotion. It is a household which, when you see it, you cannot doubt was sent from the church and proceeded from its treasures and bosom with this purpose, that, treated generously, it may bring you a reward in that exchange of a better age. Among these servants, who will deny that, according to the announcement of the most blessed martyr Laurentius, there are the greatest riches? For they are women who, although they have lost the lights of the outer man, will shine with the splendor of their minds: whatever is taken away from the prosperity of bodies grows into the fruitfulness of souls. Do not take it ill that they can neither see nor be seen, far from your maturity, with beauty enticing by its charm. He who has set his life, as you have, on this path of innocence, if he feeds such persons, is in heaven: believe me, although the abundance of those tears poured out to God brings you joys, you will be content to possess them while they continually weep. Among these goods which I have mentioned, although they have cost you great labor and price, I add what follows. One among them is both freeborn and without children, and I think, which is close to holy desires, she will not have... for in Christian men, sterility is fruitful, and not to have the aids of the age is the greatest solace.

but lest your mind, occupied with public affairs, should feel distaste at the length of this reading, although good things placed at the beginning encourage you and any resentment is wiped away by the sweetness set at the start according to rhetorical discipline, yet, so that I may not keep your desires in suspense by feigned delay, I have earned no documents for them, because I would be making mention of mules; this seems harsh to the bishop, and although the persistence of your servant, brother Gaianus, pressed us and his importunity weighed upon us beyond measure, we accomplished nothing by our joint effort. They wish only this to be inserted: that your holy father, invited by your many benefits and favor, has provided for you in return with a gift. If this kind of document pleases you, write back without delay, or indicate what form it should take. Now I, who have been tested for many years in your service and in matters of proven utility, have spoken with swift leaps of words, what I have accomplished—which another would scarcely have narrated through endless losses of paper.

VI. ENNODIUS TO AVIENUS. I believe it pertains to justice that I first offer what I expect from you. For it is fitting that one who awaits good works should invite by example. He who provides the pattern of duty spurs on slowness with goads. Therefore, bestowing the gift of greeting, I announce that I am well after the illness which I suffered on account of my sins, and I inquire about the state of your prosperity, hoping that you will be diligent in the resolution of this matter. VII. ENNODIUS TO SENARIUS. Among holy consciences, one does not deny what is owed to charity. The principal occupation of your grace does not banish the fervor of pious love from the court. He gives testimony of solid affection who does not bury it under forgetfulness amid hindrances. Commend to me in writing your highness, which I have earned by my importunate prayer: the safeguard of communion is the honor of dignities. Therefore, greeting you most respectfully, I confine my letters to brevity, knowing that lengthy ones can be dreaded, and I act so that you may give thanks to the Lord on my behalf, who wiped away the illness which I suffered before you could have learned of it.

VIII. ENNODIUS TO HELPIDIUS THE DEACON. By what means and with what art I might solicit your brotherliness to write, when you, a man rich in words, maintain a foreign silence toward me? I have chosen to make you speak by speaking, and to draw forth that Attic erudition into letters with another loquacity. Was it just that for so many days you should desist from your promise and not indicate by any dispatch of a page how you had arrived? Or do you think that caution of yours is to be preserved toward me? Do you disdain conversation with those whose favor you sought with much sweat? Believe me, unless you free yourself from this fault with that speed with which you are accustomed to walk, it is necessary that I transfer my patronage to others, who, mindful of their position, repay love with services. Therefore, greeting you as a friend and physician, I indicate that I am suffering from a severe bodily imbalance, which, unless a page dictated by you, offering jests, cures it, I will compare the distended little frog through torments to tall men.

IX. Ennodius to Messala. If divine favor is already leading you from a disposition of negligence to the pursuits you have vowed, if you heed the vein to which Lord Faustus summons you, do not remain silent with the writing I desire. But I fear that while I long for a dutiful man, I may have to endure a boor, and that what I have desired may begin to resist my wishes. May the riches of heaven rouse that idleness with the spur of piety and enrich the poverty of your speech with divine aid. Behold, write, even if provoked by insults. Therefore, bidding you greetings, I ask that I may learn through the dispatch of letters what is happening with you. X. Ennodius to the Most Illustrious Maximus. May your prayers be well ordered by the judgment of heaven: may He come to your wedding who granted the gift of blessing to the first parent while he still rejoiced in native immortality. May our Christ cause for you neither the fruit of preserved integrity to perish nor the gifts of marriage to be lost. May virginity benefit you for offspring in such a way that fertility detracts nothing from your chastity, and by the wondrous mystery of dispensation, may you neither perish for the world while you are a father, nor for the grace of God while you are chaste. May what Isaac piously wished for his younger son come upon you. May your wife enter your home with the same auspices with which the daughter-in-law entered the inner chambers of Tobias. May you have in your wife the cause of perfect love, and in yourself, preserved virginity. Know that you have been reserved for her alone, for whom you kept yourself as if you were not from the dregs of the world. Behold, because I could not come, I am not absent in prayer.

my lord, I hope that, having received the honor of my greeting, you will deign to accept what has been sent by me. XI. ENNODIUS TO ARATOR. I wonder why you disfigure with shameful silence the Roman elegance of the good discourse cultivated in you, and, fleeing the distribution of riches gathered with much toil, you consume them by keeping quiet. Whatever is bestowed upon the worthy, while it is in use, adorns its author: he who confines the elegance of talents diminishes it: it is a single error to come forth as a rustic and to hide away when worthy of the honor of praise. Did you have nothing worthy of mention, or did I seem to you not to be cultivated in speech? There was once a subject so worthy of being celebrated by all tongues and writings. Let it be so, when a man has been led to the nuptial bond, a man for whom, though his birth is of great splendor, his abundance of means, his discipline and modesty surpass both, who, abjuring the vices of the flesh, rejected as a shameful enticement whatever laws gave as a remedy, and, not wishing to assign his body to wifely servitudes, thought he was devoting himself if he spent his free chastity on anything in the world? Even if you do not love these things, you ought nevertheless to praise them for the display of your talent. We can believe you are becoming good if we hear you preaching what is honorable. Now, offering the most abundant greeting, I urge you to write back, and do not judge me by my letter, which, God is witness, I dictated in a rush as I was returning from the basilica.

XII. ENNODIUS TO FLORUS. You can infer from the quality of your own mind with what bond I hold you, with what devotion I embrace you. For it will scarcely happen that anyone is loved except those who are clearly loved with sincerity. The vigor of souls and their pursuits meet each other; they reveal themselves to one another through silent utterances. And therefore, if you intend to return the favor to me, insist upon my lord that he order that suburban property—if he deigns to do so at a price set by me—be purchased for me, which, while I am in Liguria, I may happily possess, and after my death he and his may own. Yet it seems to me that, after God, he himself bestows freedom and substance upon me, if I obtain this favor through him. But as surely as your daughter lives, as surely as you hold from her the children you desire, as surely as God makes your soul equal to his saints and your brother lives, so surely do you insist importunately and suppliantly that you bring my petition to fulfillment. Let him think of God, let him think of my needs, because there is nothing greater that his power, that his affection for me, can bestow.

XIII. ENNODIUS TO AURELIANUS, A PRESBYTER. I would be feigning affection if, when parting from you, I did not remain behind, and if I did not carry your blessedness with me, though it is stationed in one place. For my mind, as in others, is the commander of my body; it is itself wholly captive in its attention to my regard for you. Therefore, paying the honor of a greeting with due humility, I declare that nothing of my health has been lost from the weariness of the journey. Behold, I repay your solicitude with the care of a kindly devotion: do what is written—return what you have received—by letting me rejoice at a report of your well-being. XIV. ENNODIUS TO FAUSTUS. I would keep silent about my troubles, were I not aware that your concern relieves me. You have not yet learned with how many varied afflictions of illness I am worn down; for my sins, I am frequently consigned to fevers, and the strength that seemed restored is broken. Therefore, provide the usual remedies and apply that custom of holy fellowship, so that whatever mortal medicine cannot achieve, you may obtain by pouring out prayers to our God.

XV. ENNODIUS TO EDASIUS. Before the test, the loyalty of friends is hidden; after it has come to light, it binds to itself the minds of those who have had any taste of it. Yet the service that is shown to loved ones is a freedom that is all too free. I confess to your greatness: before the report of my man, it was hidden from me what taste and grace lay concealed in your sublimity beneath a noble humility. I have learned a man who surpasses the hoary faithfulness of old age while he handles the absence of friends well. You had promised many things when departing, but you have delivered greater things to the genius of your conscience. My lord son, as I impart the gift of most effusive greeting, I give and have insufficient thanks for those things that have been conferred upon me at the very threshold of our acquaintance. For the rest, I beg that you now cause those remaining slaves to be held. Behold the confidence descending from preceding benefits: he who earlier feared to offer prayers to an unknown person now does not hesitate to command.

XVI. ENNODIUS TO BARBARA. I have not, forgetful of my debt, refrained from my duties, nor, disdaining what was established, have I suspended my chattering from the performance of my service. But after I returned from the City, various illnesses and everything that summons to death immediately constrained me. Truly, my lady, as surely as happy things may befall you and yours, because as a testimony to the ancient mystery, our Christ again, although a sinner, and not like that one who deserved to be called a friend, but again called Lazarus from the tomb. There is a unity of the deed in the disparity of the persons, now a greater magnitude of the divine work, because what that one merited has come to me undeservedly. This cause recalled me from the proclamation of my duty. Nevertheless, after I was brought back to life, I immediately turned to discharging my services to you, asking God that he protect you and yours with heavenly aid. I also promise myself and my desires that, with your happiness and joy, an acquired dignity will summon you to the courtly vigils, which will satisfy my wishes. Do not, my lady, withdraw yourself from this labor, from this burden. Let the provinces see the goods of the Roman City, and let those who are scarcely instructed by precepts be formed by the goods which God has bestowed upon you, through examples. I ask, however, with the reverence of a greeting shown, that you relieve me, who am most expectant, with a reply, but do not allow another to dictate what you write to me: so may your prayer never be driven from its petition.

XVII. ENNODIUS TO STEPHANIA. I believe that you have come to the aid of my perils even without knowing them: or why should I trust that those who, through God, are granted to foresee all things, know nothing? For after I returned from the city, the divine mysteries were renewed in me, and what had grown old in times past rose again through recent examples. Lazarus was again summoned from the tomb, not indeed with the merit of that one who earned the name of the Redeemer’s friend: but in the diversity of the acts, the form of the mystery is the same. Led through manifold illnesses to the tombs, but recalled by a heavenly voice, I first turned to those duties which are discharged for you, believing that I would please God if, through the tongue which He Himself restored, I offered obedience to His worshippers in the foremost place. Therefore, having paid the reverence of a salutation, I beg that you take care to pray for me more diligently, as I have asked, so that through your merit divine mercy may deign to confirm what it has granted, and that you frequently sustain me with the pious publication of your letters. I ask that you have no one else dictate, by the soul of Lord Asterius and by your profession: so may the splendor which you desire attend him until the time of his consummation.

XVIII. Ennodius to Faustus. The bearer of this letter has driven me to my studies, and he has exacted from me, almost importunately, what I myself wished. Thus he who was demanding a favor has conferred one. This man, in his own business, seeks the judgment of your justice, proven to the world, and he thinks that the truth of his case can be discerned by no one if you are absent. I approach as a suppliant for him, so that while you attend to the divine commands and seek the truth with all your intention, you may come to the aid of an afflicted man’s necessities. I also hope, by the service of a salutation rendered, that you will not neglect the indication of your prosperity for me, which frequently presents itself through opportunities for greeting. XVIIII. Ennodius to Faustus. Although every frequency of letters seems rare to those who are anxious, and providence does not suffice for one who is suspended by piety, nevertheless, that part to which it is given, if it does not respond, is separated from humanity. Therefore, having performed the duties of a salutation, I indicate to you, by God’s gift, that with me the intercessions of the saints and your prayers have already brought about a better state, and that the illness of despair and fevers has grown cool. Now, what remains, I hope that you may deign, with your accustomed kindness, to receive my petition, which I sent through my fellow servant, brother Florus, because, although to me at present the matter seems to be one of gain, for you, to whom the future is more dear, the utility from this side corresponds in the highest degree.

XX. Ennodius to Agnellus. If I were able to accompany you in person, I would refrain from words; but since that resource fails due to ill health, this one comes to the rescue. The examiner of secrets knows that I cannot be absent from you even when separated by presence. Therefore, I relieve your anxiety with a report of my well-being and, by means of what is granted to epistolary commerce, I seek yours, indicating that I have sent my boy to receive a horse, with the honor of a greeting rendered. It is only that you send such a one as both makes it clear that you have given it and that I may rejoice to have received it for the height of honor. XXI. Ennodius to Beatus. If I could erase my page by writing, I would strive to do so with manifold intention. But since it is not lawful for a man not to err, I, that gray-haired one, but your father, beg that you never be mindful of my earlier letter: may your father and your country receive you such as I proclaim you to all day by day. I believed the writings of others, so that I might bite with the importunate haste of my style. You had done what a wise man does, who had read my verses among learned men only to Lord Probus holding the citadel, which it was fitting to do. I was importunate, who ought not to have believed another; as I see, I was stirred up in vain.

Go therefore to lord Probus (as your father may live, as you, whom I have always loved, may hear me living), because I have dictated this almost dead, and kiss his knees for me and tell him concerning that last verse: Terentianus led me into that example, "Thus he speaks weeping, and gives the reins to the fleet." Nevertheless, he has foreseen everything that was worthy of correction. I greet you with the love I owe. If I escape, I will correct those verses themselves and send them thus. For I received your letter, which you sent by the infant Rufinus, in the month of July: hence it happened that I was unaware of what had been done, so that I was moved in such a way. XXII. Ennodius to Florus. Who more justly knows the signs of my prosperity than he who sincerely and unceasingly desired it? Nor is it fitting for another to learn of another's wishes beforehand. Therefore, having offered the service of a greeting, I indicate that I was soon healed by a heavenly benefit, after human treatment ceased: that thing recalled me to the hope of prosperity, because the physicians desisted. Now, as I judge concerning myself, recognizing your joys along with me, let us together pursue with praises the giver of such a great benefit and, if a longer delay still detains you, indicate by letter how well you are.

XXIII. ENNODIUS TO FLORUS. The respectable man Eleutherius, in his case which the Vicarius had undertaken to be heard by the lord Prefect, hoped for letters of recommendation from me to your Magnificence, believing that, justice being safe, full assistance could be available to him if he were aided by my addresses to you. I therefore ask, after having offered the honor of a greeting, that you extend a healing hand to him if he truly labors against equity, because it is wrong that, to the prejudice of a good cause, cunning should see profit from what it contrives. XXIIII. ENNODIUS TO FAUSTUS. Your kindness, placed above men, maintains its custom. Truly, the care of the most holy one is medicine: for a venerable conscience always commends to God what it seeks. After you departed, a sharper heat consumed me, and with the devil hastening everything toward despair, the sails were spread. A physician came to me and said he had nothing to do. Hence, greater hope for me, when a man has ceased. Immediately, with tears, I turned to the aid of the heavenly physician and armed my whole body, which was already being prepared for the tomb, against fevers with the oil of lord Victor. My God knows, soon the emperor of the great soldier was present, and what I sought through his suitable witness I obtained without delay. Soon that heat, the procurer of eternal cold, grew tepid, and at the ninth hour, as is read, at the command of my Christ it departed. I know the times of your prayer, I know that the abundance of your tears also helped the sufferer in that very moment.

XXIII. ENNODIUS TO FLORUS. The respectable man Eleutherius, in his case which the Vicarius had undertaken to be heard by the lord Prefect, hoped for letters of recommendation from me to your Magnificence, believing that, I did not keep silent about the desired indications: but the scarcity of letter-carriers suspended our common desire. For your relief greatly helps me, although it is least desired by you, who have rejected joyful things. XXV. ENNODIUS TO FAUSTUS. As soon as divine grace looked upon me and, by granting a space for living in which I might be improved, relaxed my soul trembling from its proximity to celestial judgment, I did not keep silent in letters about the benefits of your Magnificence to the divine. Truly, with physicians ceasing, the medicine that is purchased by innocence and tears was not lacking. Believe me, unless the abandonment of those who were treating me had come to my aid, I would be worth nothing. For because I was growing sick from the efforts of men, I began to be healed by neglect. These things indeed were communicated to my superiors: but lest the opportunity be passed over, I added this, hoping that by offering the duty of a greeting, you might relieve me with words about the state of your prosperity, on which I depend. XXVI. ENNODIUS TO AVIBUS. It is necessary that one who desires your writings should not be silent, nor should he who offers an address set an example of silence. By the support of your orations, I already feel myself to be better, through those whom innocence and devotion make acceptable to our God, desiring that you acknowledge how well you fare by the honor of the greeting I have paid, because after receiving health, the only solace is to be uplifted by the good of your prosperity.

XXVII. ENNODIUS TO BARBARA. Although I am still placed among extremities and, on account of the weight of my sins, the benefits of my lord do not follow while I deserve to be ground down for a long time, my pendent soul has not omitted what it owes to the observances of your Reverence. It is almost already summoned to judgment and still in this light it looks up to those whom it has cultivated. How true is that saying, that holy affection does not perish even with death! Therefore, my lady, as I attend you with the services of a due salutation, I ask that, having recognized what is happening around me, for the sake of that by which you excel all—both by the brilliance of blood and the rays of your conduct—you supplicate my lord the Apostle and his other brothers, so that through them the power of God, once entreated, may not restrain the benefits of its mercy, which is not wont to be slow. XXVIII. ENNODIUS TO BEATUS. By what care of reciprocity, by what care of services, will it be weighed that I both address you with frequent pages and do not shrink from your speech’s office coming into public light? Neither your age nor a like formula can recall me from my talent. I choose to believe the kindly more than the skilled, so that the goods of origin may be preferred to studies: that you are faithful is a gift of the divine in nature: erudition will come as a secondary thing through God. It is necessary that love of integrity display to you, already holding the insignia of the foremost parts, everything.

Therefore, having received the honor of your greeting, know that I have dictated a letter of admonition to you at your request, albeit in haste, which I have taken care to send to the lord patrician Symmachus so that whatever in it is worthy of correction may be amended. But due to the stealth of negligence, I have also informed you with copies of it. Concerning this matter, keep it to yourself and beware of revealing to anyone that it has been delivered to you, as if demanding something new from the most eminent man mentioned above, because if you learn that it has pleased his mastery, you will not fear to bring it to the notice of those who are wise. XXIX. ENNODIUS TO BEATUS. Your error did not deceive me, nor did your twisted affection mislead me: you have preserved the order of age, nature, and purpose: I have sinned by judging otherwise of you than truth demanded. To this end return those whom insipid diligence captivates. Therefore, let it now be spoken without circumlocution. To what forgetfulness of yourself has insane presumption led you, that you would say to the holy presbyter that in those verses, although composed in a moment of time, the expression of conjugal affection seemed to some not to be conveyed? Or did I wish to defame what I had written? Or did the epitaphs demand this, or reason? Who, inexperienced in this, who, devoid of sanity with you, said that a poem, which the lord Faustus received with the highest favor, would be harmed by you and your fellow gnawers? Perhaps those who do not know Terentianus had something from the third Phalaecian, so that, seeking an occasion from a single syllable, they might speak.

Truly I deserved those things which I have endured, because it is also written that pearls should not be cast before unclean animals. Although I am well aware of my own lack of skill in diction and my ignorance, I had nevertheless learned beforehand that you neither know anything nor will know anything. Farewell, and turn yourself to others about whom you ought to speak. XXX. ENNODIUS TO THE PRESBYTER ADEODATUS. Crushed by a bitter onset of illness and a violent excess of fevers, when our Christ had shown in me what He had done in Lazarus, to confirm the truth of the ancient testimony, and had declared the faith of the Gospel by present examples, I received your letter. He who was able arranged that on the days when He had restored life, He might also confirm and support it with the conversations of His friends. Concerning the verses about which that portentous thing spoke to you, the foolish judgments made me laugh. Know that they were held in the highest esteem by the lord, although they were written in a narrow space of time and in the haste of a courier. But if you did not write them, do not do so either. It is enough for me that, when I did write them, I fulfilled my vows. Now I turn to that part which is especially to be asked of the saints, that you pray more attentively for a sick man and a lover, and, if I deserve it, that you provide frequent conversations of instruction and consolation.

XXXI. ENNODIUS TO BOETHIUS. Consideration of your greatness demanded epistolary exchange, but the haste of the bearer confined the letter to brevity. I could not delay one in a hurry, but neither did I send him away empty of these duties on account of necessary matters. I have dispatched frequent letters concerning the house which I requested. If what is desired can be granted, now reply, because all buildings grow decrepit under neglect. My lord, paying the respects of a greeting, I ask that you aid a suppliant without your own loss. XXXII. ENNODIUS TO SYMMACHUS. He who commends orphans and strangers to the parent of all provides for a necessary matter: the sole path is the solace of your apostolate, which heals outsiders. Far be it from me to call afflicted those who have happened to reach you: those whom the care of your crown has taken up do not elsewhere seek creators, fatherland, or wealth. The bearer of this letter, nobly born, seeks in Rome studies that will be profitable as testimony to his free birth. My assertion as your suppliant commends this man to your blessedness, so that, having graciously accepted the services of my greeting, you may double what you do by custom out of consideration for me.

XXXIII. ENNODIUS TO HORMISDAS THE DEACON. Both what you are is adorned with mercy, and what you will be is sought after with piety, and you have exalted the deacon by these pursuits, the care for which promises a pontiff. The bearer of this letter, a man of upright character and noble nature, deprived of the support of a twin, has sought Rome for the liberal arts, though he will be a sojourner. See if these matters I have set forth deserve to be aided by a religious man of good birth and wealth. Now, having performed the duty of greeting, I ask that if you value me, if you value the good reputation you have purchased, you cause the bearer to grow with the assistance you expend. XXXIV. ENNODIUS TO PORCIANUS THE ABBOT. It is declared by divine examples that the visitation of heavenly beings does not come to men except through the grace of God. For what remembrance can sinners have, unless heavenly favor works by hidden paths and, through a way inspired into minds, eliminates the oblivion that could creep in because of sins? The confidence of divine mercy already obtained is that the minds of the servants of God are not lacking. Therefore, I give thanks to the Trinity, our God, who required that your reverence visit me with words. I receive your obedience: for no small reverence is owed to those who obey, since the glory of Christ remains with the one who commands. Pray for me, who, while you are still men, have avoided the weaknesses of human nature, you who have managed to be absolved from the burdens of the flesh even though the body is not yet separated, and having accepted the duties of greeting, grant me the fruit of grace, while the cultivation of speech grows.

XXXV. ENNODIUS TO AURELIANUS THE PRESBYTER. An occasion that was hardly pleasing to my desires served me, and a necessity that is scarcely bearable opened a way for my prayers: I embraced a page that was coaxing with its preface, but I was confounded by the subsequent elocution of it. For a sweet beginning and the honey of a serene conversation, the recounted calamity overshadows as if with a garment of night. Truly, while you were speaking, what I was reading was thrust before my eyes. For while the page of a wise man intercepted the happiness of absence, I was compelled to have seen that Aetheria too much as an earthly thing and, by a fault that leads down, deposited from the sublimity of her name into Tartarus. I am silent about what she owed to her parents, what to modesty, from what house the unhappy woman proceeded to crime, what marriage she pursued, having left the worshippers of God for the sake of a brothel-like union. Believe me: she exacted the vengeance for the crime, while she committed the crime, and, sunk in a base cohabitation, she found both the disgrace and the punishment of the disgrace in her husband. The woman carried with her the person of both the defendant and the judge, when she chose an unworthy man. I would produce letters, were I not to desire that the memory of the ill-omened woman be buried in oblivion. You choose that Gaul be relieved by their expulsion: we wish that Italy not be polluted. Let them rather seek the Libyan Syrtes and be separated from the fellowship of humanity: because if they flee from lord Aurelianus on one side, and from Ennodius on this, to what places will they turn?

To my lord the prefect I have more pressingly conveyed what you ordered, who soon demanded the royal commands, through which we believe that good men and friends have found an opportunity to be generous, and yet do you remove your mind from anxiety, because the celestial vigor of judgment will suffice for the punishment of the wicked. My lords, presenting the respects of a greeting, I pray that you frequently relieve me with reports of your prosperity, since the opportunity of travelers presents itself. XXXVI. ENNODIUS TO BOETHIUS. Eloquence had lost the price of its learning while you were silent, because, while the beauty of speech was enclosed by silence, it was believed that what has recently boiled forth did not exist. You have brought forth into the light a new radiance of eloquence, and while you make day in a letter, you, having newly acquired splendor, are believed already mature. I give thanks that you compel me to the guardianship of friendship by the flower of your page. But if you were aware of my faithfulness, you would have no doubt about constant matters. I fear that you may display the ambiguity you believe, and while you fear the tepidity of a lover, you may grow cold in affection. My lord, as above, paying the grace of a greeting, I hope that you frequently direct commercial exchanges of letters to me, because in these duties both diligence admonishes you and perfection urges you to apply yourself much.

XXXVII. Ennodius to Boethius. Although eloquence arises from a slight effect of a request, favorable circumstances both win and endow eloquence: in any fullness of words, pages, if they are rejected from obtaining what is sought, are barren: more praise is owed to successful letters than to learned ones. Rightly does one speak with words of sublime brilliance who captivates the highest men with the charm of speaking: any rhetorical figure is scattered by adverse fortune; for the tongue nourished by benefits grows rich. I recently directed a conversation to your Eminence, produced by whatever boldness, which you so elevated with the genius of your reply that I believed I had lost the times of worthy favor through inactivity, when a modest effort had enticed the judgment of one holding the citadel. You had also promised that the house I had requested would not be denied. I was proceeding, elevated by twin successes, if both my reputation had grown by the support of completion and my wealth by the expenditure of a most abundant estate. But I detest the delay, which indeed barren sins have produced. For the man of your high rank whom I awaited has arrived, and he asserted that nothing had been entrusted to him that could benefit my desires. See the dark dealings of my merits: they, shining against me, cannot break faith, but they demand slowness. Far be it from my conscience to distrust your clarity: it is the mark of an obscene mind to think that the memory of a resolution does not remain. But I ask that, while you assert the light of your purpose, you surpass the darkness of those things which are owed to me.

Therefore, infuse the genius of swiftness into your provision. My lord, as I impart the courtesy of a greeting, I add prayers that I may receive the consular gift along with the response to the aforementioned petition. XXXVIII. Ennodius to Summachus. He who introduces strangers to the parent of all does not petition ineffectively: a general defense is owed to nobles, especially among those who bestow benefits unasked. The blessed young man, the bearer of this letter, will be distinguished if your crown deigns to receive him; a splendid office adorns him according to the custom of the pontiff: for he merits your favor both by his birth and his character. A brief commendation suffices for the worthy. Now, having performed the duties of a greeting, I ask that you relieve me, who loves you, by the frequent proclamation of conversation. XXXIX. Ennodius to Hormisdas the Deacon. If the regard for me that you promised had endured, a frequency of letters would be asserted: the humble are scarcely looked upon by those whom a favorable outcome has raised to the citadel; it is grievous if the hope of better fortune severs the bond of affection: that which flatters according to wishes ought not to prejudice diligence. If, however, you preserve some favor toward me, if the spark of promised love lives, I commend to you the most noble young man, the bearer of this letter: for whom it is just that, out of consideration for me, your blessedness should bestow both a parent and a fatherland. Be his special guardian, soon to be of all.

My lord brother, having paid the courtesy of a greeting with humility, I ask that you indicate by a letter with what swiftness you are faring well. XXXX. ENNODIUS TO BOETHIUS. The repetition of prayers accuses a good conscience of forgetfulness. But let it cease to spur on one who is already running and to drive a steadfast man to remember a promise. I have touched briefly on these matters, which were long ago written by me to your Eminence, so that I may receive the house, concerning which your will has already been disclosed by the evidence of a letter. I have entrusted the rest of the letter to the bearer of the greeting, so that, just as my health is in a stable state, so may divine favor make known the condition of your Eminence. XXXXI. ENNODIUS TO AGAPITUS. The absence of lovers would be borne inconsolably, were it not that the remedy of letters offers aid, which feeds the hungry souls of those who long with the food of conversation. For through the pen, affection paints for itself a friendly likeness, with which it may mingle the honey of speech without the hardship of patience. Your Greatness has acted as an artist in this, so that you would not leave my unfed affection, by writing. I owe a return, because I have learned that you are mindful of me. Therefore, having offered the honor of a greeting, I ask that you not fail to do, with continuity, what you know is precious among those who are dear and endowed with affection.

XLII. ENNODIUS TO AVIENUS. The indication of your illness has brought about an increase in my own. For such is always the habit and almost the nature of a worried man, that he scarcely believes what he feared has passed, and he sighs over what our Redeemer has made past by heavenly kindness, as if it were placed before his eyes. My lord AVIENUS, there is now nothing left in me of the enjoyment of this light except your affection alone, after the fear of God: when things go better with me, I am such as you left me in despair. It remains that by your prayers both remission of sins be granted, and, if it seems so to God, a swift death come in place of a remedy, lest what I live be more bitter than death. My lord, paying the due greeting with all humility, I ask that through you I may learn what is announced from Rome concerning our case. XLIII. ENNODIUS TO MESSALA. Has anyone who has prayed to God with confidence ever been disappointed in the outcome? If the mind does not falter in faith, prayers and the fulfillment of prayers are joined together. Behold, my silence has accomplished with you what loquacity of so long a time could not obtain. As far as I see, your letters are merited by nothing except silence: you address those whom you think mute; from those who are believed to have a tongue, you refrain. You have done, nevertheless, what befits a lord and, as you yourself say, a parent, that you have deemed me, weighed down by grave illness, worthy of address. I ask that you do this continuously.

my lord, paying the respect of a return greeting, I ask that you not cease to pray for me through all the saints of God, so that, restored to life, I may rejoice together with you at the sight of you. BOOK NINE. I. ENNODIUS TO ARATOR. I would wish you to favor my labor in such a way that you grant pardon to my barren talent, because it is wrong to despise a lovable desire for learning in acts of devotion, when a harsh interpreter of things nullifies what a gracious person has offered. In studies, even he who is not thought to equal an eloquent man in speech is to be praised. Among the kind and the learned, it is uncertain which is to be chosen. Let it be, since each side confers value. Therefore, trust a diligent man and remove the bitterness from the times of legitimate love. I do not want you to turn a thing of prayer into a necessity and to dissolve desires, which nature has produced for the human race, into grief. He who will not have continence unless he desires marriage is at fault: the one who avoids the remedy of the conjugal bond will choose either virtues or crimes. I implore you to measure yourself, so that you neither take up a path above a man full of hazards nor meditate within a man on things that are to be condemned. One who does not deviate from nature and law scarcely sins. Therefore, after the camps of the Muses and the empty songs of our age, turn your attention to the care of producing offspring: change what has become cheap, because among the armies of the unskilled it is madness to refuse to be rustic: it helps a wise man to be what the majority are. Let philosophy cease to be a mark in our gatherings: I wish to be absent from cares whenever a man who precedes follows happy ignorance.

Therefore, receiving the honor of a greeting, write back to me what my page has done with your mind. For if you demand what my opinion is, I already detest even the names of the liberal studies. II. ENNODIUS TO FAUSTUS. It stands before the conscience of your Highness what we owe to the wish and the family of the eminent man Faustinus: and therefore, although he believes that what a father has begged for his son suffices in your eyes, yet through me, because his solicitude thinks that what he has done is too little, he repeats his prayers, hoping that your young man may be raised to mature morals under God's auspices: that you give precepts, what he ought to follow, what to avoid, that you pursue in writing whatever you have deemed necessary. Your Highness would do this even if I were silent: but I could not fail the prayers of such a great man, nor ought I. Moved by the tears of the aforementioned man, I also, weeping, beseech you by that conscience which has been granted to us by God (may the pious testimony of the martyrs commend our petitions to our Savior), that both the creator for his son and the lord Faustinus for Ambrosius may effectively supplicate before you: and duly instruct the aforementioned young man and pray for him, so that Rome may be able to extinguish the youth neither with vices nor with diseases. I know that you prevail more among men, but greater things before God, and therefore I already securely promise the effect to those whom I commend. Therefore, paying the reverence of a greeting, I have woven many things into few words.

It is enough that the piety of a man pleasing to God is instructed: both the cause and the person, with God’s comfort, are placed under your care. III. MERIBAUDUS ENNODIUS TO FAUSTUS. As if one were to assist the sun with torches and enrich the sea with a little moisture, so does he labor with superfluous outlays who commends what is pleasing on its own. But it is foolish to let an opportunity for a benefit pass when a strong man implores aid: a wealthy man is enriched beyond his means if he believes the assistance that a poor man has offered: a gift becomes royal when the recipient bestows upon it a notable price. Lord Faustinus, anxious with a father’s care beyond what is usual for his son’s advancement, believed that our Ambrosius would be strengthened among you by this advocacy, thinking that his blood, his prudence, his wealth lay hidden within the narrow confines of Liguria and that the noble fame of his art was constrained by obstacles: he thought his renown would burst forth into the Roman light through another’s support. Let it be far from my studies to deny a testimony that benefits the author more: for he who asserts good men is approved. See what confidence there is in you, to whom whatever is preeminent in a noble land has been entrusted. I do not want it thought among us that this family is rather to be found here. It is enough for those eager for honors to surpass so many in such a way that they are compared with the most powerful. The modesty of a young man of well-known birth shows his honor: let the dispensation of providence ensure that through you his beginnings, well placed here, are consolidated.

Therefore, accept the honor of my greeting and respond to my petition with paternal affection, as antiquity called teachers, by your kindness. IV. ENNODIUS TO PROBINUS. If my supplication were sustained by recollection in your eminence, it would have been revealed by frequent writing, nor would it bury in oblivion those whom, in Liguria, you deigned to call yours. But because we are separated by place and resources, and are not compared by the law of diligence, you therefore bestow perfect love upon your subjects, if they are worthy, by addressing them, entering into friendship with such discrimination that you are compelled only to look back, while we are compelled to love. The condition of the lowly will be proud if they expect more from the powerful than words. I have descended to complaint by the command of love: you ought, after the danger you witnessed, to have deemed me worthy of conversation, especially since the assertion of the reviving mystery of recent memory commended me. I think that those who are worthy of the grace of honors from the tombs of our Redeemer by the power of the Redeemer—yet I, although prodigal of boldness and talkative, not yet having confidence in myself, recommend my relatives. The bearer of this letter, the son of Lord Faustinus, sufficiently promises merits from his parent: I implore you to cherish him, because you well know with what light of character his creator is conspicuous, nor should anyone whom the authority of life and lineage arms hasten to others but to you. Therefore, my lord, having offered the duty of a greeting, I ask that the care of a letter reveal your prosperity.

V. ENNODIUS TO HORMISDAS THE DEACON. Divine dispensation joins in charity those united by the benefits of letters, while the length of journeys separates them, affection unites them in a remedy for anxiety, if there is care for conversation. Yet I greatly wonder at your silence, that after laying down the burdens of illness you have relieved me with no address. But because by speaking opportunely we compel you to speak, respond even by the imitation of a chatterer. For the object of desire is both sought and obtained by examples. Therefore, paying the honor of a greeting, I indicate that I am already well, with God propitious, begging that you bless me with a reciprocal publication of your pen. VI. ENNODIUS TO BEATUS. If you had stored in the granary of your heart the harvest of learning to be brought forth at the proper times, the hands of travelers would not come empty from your letters. But because your abstinence from speech betrays your negligence and sterility, it is necessary for me to rise again to the cultivation of admonition and to urge the unproductive backs, after seeds have been cast, with renewed furrows toward fertility. Where are the warnings which you claimed would live with you? Where is the zeal for conversing, through which both knowledge and charity become manifest? Your silences cry out that you have not attained what could be worthy of a good judgment. For just as silence is rare among the learned, so continuous silence betrays the unskilled. Therefore, blush and at last break the bonds and impediments of speech.

Show what you can do, show what you have achieved—provided that, as we wish, heavenly grace does not abandon you. For now, accept the honor of a greeting, and, content with a brief letter, recognize that what is disclosed in a lengthy reproof was entrusted to your father. VII. ENNODIUS TO AVIENUS. I bless the threefold unity of our God in its majesties, which, amid my distress, has relieved me with the gift of your union in place of perfect health. A report came to me—late, indeed, but welcome: may our Redeemer be present and fulfill what, in his condescension, he granted to my supplication. My lord, as I pay the reverence of a greeting, I ask that you complete the business of your transaction concerning that suburban estate with your father, the lord Liberius, with Christ assisting you, so that, if an exchange occurs, he may deign to accept the price, and we may no longer waver in the uncertainty of the promise—for you know that there is nothing more you can offer in this worldly life of your suppliant.

VIII. ENNODIUS TO VICTOR. While your Highness professes ignorance, you have laid bare the secrets of learning: you attack with perfection what you assert. For while you confirm, with due modesty, that you are unlettered, you have declared what the vigor of nature and the file of studies have conferred. Let your Highness believe me, one to be imbued with the liberal disciplines has already enriched with his own goods. If such a tongue accompanies the son of brother Paulus, an eloquent testimony both commends and instructs. There is no need for teachers dwelling far away, when one who directs to the teacher speaks worthily of praise. I blush that the one introduced has found less than he brought, praying to God that I may be able to fulfill with the strength of my ability what you presume of my talent through affection. Nevertheless, having accepted the honor of a greeting, you may pay the service of speech to whomever you wish, provided that the care of multiple writing responds to my concern about your prosperity. IX. ENNODIUS TO CAMILLA.

You intercepted my letter, following some counsel of mine. For you have marked your little one, whom the care of liberal studies ought to have taken up, with the titles of religion before the appropriate time of judgment. The form of ecclesiastical service is indeed venerable, but it does not relax the mind toward two parts: the path by which one goes to Christ is one and difficult, nor does the narrow way ever receive those who are busied in many directions. The Artificer of salvation does not reject those hastening to him from secular disciplines, but he does not permit anyone to go from his own luster to them. Now if you had withdrawn him from the world, do not seek worldly trappings in him: I am ashamed to polish one professing ecclesiastical things with secular ornaments. I had agreed, through the deacon Patricius, as he himself asserted, to what you requested: why was it necessary for him to be sent to me otherwise than he was found on those very days? If you consult my judgment, I want those belonging to me to be holy more by merit than by title. Truly, you have driven my mind from the station of quiet to a sea of thoughts. Nevertheless, under God’s auspices, I have taken up the little servant of my blood. Now it remains that celestial favor smile upon my efforts and compose the negligences of men with an abundance of pious moderation. My lady, as above, sending due greetings, I pray that you now take up a double concern for both and do not cease to commend us to God with constant prayers.

X. Celsus to Ennodius. It is a mere enticement, not a sacrament of grace, which is displayed only to those present: the sincerity of friendship does not abandon those who are far away. Let him understand what true faith can do who obtains benefits at the very moment he ceases to plead: I owe it to myself that you, placed beyond Gargara, have arrived at the station of prayers. You have divided friends and letters from yourself at one and the same time by the light of your conscience, pursuing not only remote but hidden places, so that the seeker of a good man may never find you. Always, indeed, you loved hidden lairs among the hares here, but often the one who tracked your hiding place with a closed mouth found it. Now, by a deeper design, I believe, to kindle sorrows, you have removed yourself from the gatherings of men. So, did you owe only your boyhood to your Milanese? And should those who possessed you as a boy have held you as a man, and those whom you delighted with embraces, you ought to have aided with counsels. But of this elsewhere. You will owe either joys or tears to your own provisions. Meanwhile, I, having prefaced my greeting, mindful of the debt, have sent the gift concerning the boy, thinking this within myself, that neither would the importunate one prevail in a time of his own diffidence, nor would the one ceasing rejoice amidst the evils of despair.

XI. Faustus to Ennodius. I received a letter enriched with a manifold dowry of joys, announcing the grace of God toward you, which I already knew. I immediately revealed it to the witnesses of our Christ with tears that joy prompted, and, giving thanks for what had been obtained through them, I proclaimed it as if I were a new reporter. Truly, Lord Faustus, in this matter it was simply made known what merit, what power in prayers that holy soul which has gone before possessed: for although our hope is still blind, clothed in the light of this world, yet what it knew to be fitting it merited without the labor of our action: when it separated from us things placed in our hands, it offered things distant by a long interval, more happily bestowing necessities than desires. Therefore this world has something true: or if it does not, it is not from its domain that it is soon snatched away. Those men lied who swore they would receive benefits if they gave them: even by divine dispensation those are joined from whom we have received neither blandishments nor given: a certain confidence born of despair and a cloudy agreement from a published promise. I would truly say, if this separation grieved me, that such men could not have been produced even by that Liguria which you call the nurse of lies. What should I first accuse in them? The obscenity of deceit or of folly? They have lost two who are joined together by the intercession of saints, through whom the spark of a long-prostrate family, forced into shadow, could have been revived.

you remember that Lord Avienus said to you in church that he was not specifically praying to God concerning that girl. See the offspring proceeding from holy creators to the usury of life. He understood that he would accomplish more by the tears of the parents than by action. Thanks to you, almighty God, thanks, ruler of the faithful, who, regarding the prayers of your handmaid, fulfilled the promises of prophecy in her, saying: her soul will dwell in good things, and her seed will inherit the earth. Complete, pious judge, what remains, and join her in marriage to another servant of yours. Breathe serenely. If the disease, which has already seized my vital substance, does not leave me to see these things, let her father see good things concerning them, and let her great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather receive the name before their passing. Yet grace from above does not abandon me, though a sinner, since I forestall admonition with caution. For I suspended my desires, albeit with sorrow, lest I accept the name of provincial legate. I feared that either the master of affairs, with you arranging things, might believe that these things were being demanded from him, which necessity compels to be sought, or that I might become burdensome in duties and barren in actions, although I would not be equal to carrying out or fulfilling what was enjoined. I ask that you pray to God that he preserve me, at least until the times of our common vows, in this uncertain world.

XII. Ennodius to Mersala. I would bear your silence in letters, if it pertained to the increase of my joy that you are silent: the interruption of correspondence is not burdensome, if rare conversations are joined with splendid expressions. I accept what was presumed concerning the grace of God toward you, concerning your holy parents. You have already learned through the intercessions of the friends of God, who are father and brother to you. Truly, I did not reread your expression without tears, which joy gave. I do not wish to produce with the importunity of words what I feel about you. Strive to compose with eloquence what you discover in your senses through the vein that suggests it. You lack nothing from the son of Lord Faustus and my lady, your mother, except what you yourself have studiously withdrawn. May God yet spare you, so that you believe me to be unmindful of you, while I do not honor you with frequent writing due to hindering illnesses: you ought to know that whatever is transgressed out of necessity is worthy of pardon. My lord, offering the fullest greeting, I declare that I am blessing God in his works concerning the union of Lord Avienus, and I await from you what his piety promises.

XIII. Ennodius to Panfronius. You would think I was a stranger in my own homeland, even if I were well, when you are absent. But since illness and the infirmity of certain persons press upon me, what am I to do between the two? Who can bear both diseases and faithless men at the same time? Know that in our city, by no caution, by no innocence, are the promises made in the presence of God kept: everything is attributed to good fortune, nothing to love; for the humble, there is rare regard; the best man is the one who is more exalted. But I sigh over these things not out of consideration for myself, for whom nothing remains that I might hope for: it grieves me that those whom I love are perishing. Your man will inform you more fully of the whole matter and of the ill-will I have incurred on account of your pursuit. I, bestowing the honor of a greeting, ask that you immediately deliver my letter to both lord Avienus and lord Liberius, and I adjure you, by the one who may grant you our Panfronia safe and sound, that you promptly instruct me as to what answer they have given: because if the king’s arrival is denied by some occupation, I, with my God’s support, hasten to come to you, whatever the frailty of my limbs.

XIIII. Ennodius to the Deacon Helpidius. May God attend your sanctity with the marks of his mercy and grace, you who, concerning my lowliness, performing a friend’s office, deign to be solicitous and promise to cultivate me and mine with particular affection. I know that a propitious God has bestowed upon you the grace of the unconquered prince in such a way that ecclesiastical humility might not perish. Truly, Lord Helpidius, if the pious king deigns to be concerned about his servant, you have brought it about, you whose place no friend’s spirit can ever repay. Know, however, that I am daily afflicted with various kinds of illnesses, so that I despair of life. Yet, having received the honor of your greeting, I ask that you sincerely love Lord Faustus and his sons, mindful of your soul, and that you not cease to pray for my soul as much as you are able, because there remains in the light nothing for me to hope for. I also ask that you deign to address me frequently and that you take care to inform me if our lord is coming to Liguria.

XV. Ennodius to Stephania. It is well for my spirit that you remember me, burdened as I am with the weight of sin, and that among those cares of your sacred breast, as the letter sent to Lord Avienus reveals, forgetfulness of my person does not emerge. I give thanks to God, who through undeserved clemency toward sinners succors them with his wonted mercy, while sustaining them by the intercession of holy souls. I do not believe that one whom you address with the speech of nobility is abandoned among prayers. Therefore I greet you with the humility that is fitting and ask that you grant the constant support of prayers to him whom you nourish with the abundance of your remembrance. XVI. Ennodius to Adeodatus. I would have responded long ago to the writings of your blessedness, had it been easy to intercept the journeys of those going to Rome. Ecclesiastical humility is passed by the powerful of the world as if it were a foreign thing. However, as soon as Lord Dioscorus returned to Rome, having completed his pious labor, I aspired to restore the debt, looking up to your reverence. You wish your children, Lord Faustus and his holy offspring, to return to Rome; I wish to remain: a difference of opinion returns to the one path of affection without error. Yet may the best God, the dispenser, arrange what he knows is fitting for his happiness. For me, the prosperity of Lord Faustus and his own flatters in place of his presence.

my lord, I send back the codex you gave to your son, the lord prefect, as he returns, repaying the duty of greeting with full affection: send me either my own or the one you promised, if it pleases you, but especially grant this, that you never strip me of the protection of your prayers, for no wall can be stronger for me against the battering ram of sin than if their defense shields me. XVII. Ennodius to Apodemia. The ancient opinion that kinship is not cheated by distance is not a lame faith. The rights of families remain fixed at their hinges, nor are those who are separated by dwellings disunited in their souls: the ethereal vigor runs through wherever it is produced by the bond of flesh, and that heavenly portion is not confined by the narrow bounds of a single homeland. Thus you, my lady, have sought out Ennodius, who lives far from your body, by sending a noble gift to his longing eyes. I have received the cowl such as the holiest of religious should send to one professing religion. Pray that your gifts, even if they have not found me worthy of humble garments, may yet perfect me by the nobility of their own merit. My lady, I send you the most abundant greeting and ask that you frequently revive me with your venerable words. Send me a cloak and rachanas of whatever color you wish, red or dark, with speed.

XVIII. ENNODIUS TO STEPHANIA. It would be enough, indeed, for the exchange of letters, the merit of the bearer, to whom both his own vein supplies what is to be said and a pure affection for me ministers it. But my mind hastens to a doubled service, nor is it content with the simple humility which your reverence demands; it joins writings for the lord Avienus, for him whom both his life and his speech proclaim as born from your stock. Yet I take it hard that you describe my rustic utterances with too urbane and subtle elocution. Divine grace has not so manifested itself concerning your family that it is permitted for any in it to be unlike his ancestors either in speech or in action, unless perhaps it be that you, above the brightness of your elders, are radiant with the splendor of holy widowhood. Surely you are the sister of that lord Faustus, in whose prefecture it is found that he institutes monks, who is more venerable by his action than by his title. I beg you, having offered the service of my greeting, never to mix the indocile compositions of scholastics with holy dictations: it suffices for me to find in your sentiments what I may admire, what, if I deserve it, I ought to follow.

XIX. ENNODIUS TO AGNELLUS. My mind long hung in uncertainty, whether to knock on the door of writing with a lovable presumption, out of regard for acquaintance with you, and to enter the heart of a most excellent man by this path, or, content with a vague greeting through your people, to burst into the secrets by which I was beset, because I consider that man not to be counted among the number of men whom the most powerful of men would not know. And plainly, neither his character nor his nature suggests confidence to one who, placed on the citadel, is hidden, especially from you, whom both worlds embrace with friendly and allied diversity, whom the fear of God, strengthened by the courtesy of his grace, has made already to bestow the summit of honors and, to what the exceptional are scarcely led, to give the glory of reputation to subjects. The pinnacles are to be praised, but one arrives at them with the greatest effort. Yet, happily said, even among your gifts are the heights. Therefore, reverently greeting, I conclude the letter with brevity, lest before your condescension the praise seem importunate. More widely, after a page-response, which befits your character, which befits your power, you will be read by me with the world as witness.

XX. ENNODIUS TO MASCATOR. It is fitting both that I hope for what is pious and that you deign to grant it. For by unequal paths, the intention to be rewarded tends toward a single end. You bestow comforts upon affairs; from me, the slender aid of speech is demanded. Thus it happens that he upon whom, by consideration of his office, it falls to provide greater things can scarcely supply small ones. Let the man of the palace display his generosity, because for the church nothing more suffices than to pray. You know from whom retribution comes for the ashes, if they are helped. Succor those whom their native land holds captive, and for whom both help is given along with the native-born and a condition to be lamented along with fugitives. A Christian and a wise man ought not to be admonished with many words, lest a long entreaty ascribe to itself the fruit of another’s labor. Therefore I greet you with the humility that is fitting, and I implore that you send the aforementioned back to me with joy. XXI. ENNODIUS TO HELPEDIUS. Even if the inhumanity of Pontus makes you forgetful of me, it is not fitting that I imitate what I would condemn. Thus you flew away from the city of Milan like Icarus, and you did not deign to greet me even with a message. This is what those do whom an unexpected fellowship joins to the sides of the powerful. It is just that the fly should die, but if you cannot by nature, you may be invited to affection by my example: others may be more useful to you by abundance of resources, yet they cannot be dearer. But I return to consideration of your fatherland, to which you owe forgetfulness of good things and the misery in which you labor.

Now, therefore, having paid the honor of a greeting, I have sent your servant for this purpose, that he might announce to your son, the lord prefect, and to you, in the name of Christ, that I have received the lawful documents concerning that suburban estate, so that you, together with that lord of yours, Triggua, may not fail to do what seems necessary. XXII. ENNODIUS TO FAUSTUS. I hope in our God, the Trinity, through the venerable intercessions of the saints, that He may guard servants placed in any place as the pupil of the eye is protected, and restore to good health whatever hostile inequality has broken. I, however, although I cannot in body, follow with my duties: for by the command of my concern I have granted words, begging that I be informed how well you are. Behold, I scarcely endure a brief letter, wearied by a long absence. But the friends of the lord to whom your holy soul has entrusted you are powerful, and I, mindful, as of a deposit, without ceasing attend to them. They will be present in their own parts, and what has been undertaken by them they will preserve without diminution. To these things I add, by the grace of the mercy of almighty God, that your servants, already returned from Venice, have produced documents confirmed by the laws, and that the solemn introduction was immediately completed here. Now, as to whether anything ought to be said to a friend by you, consider with that maturity of yours.

XXIII. ENNODIUS TO LIBERIUS. It has been granted to me, by the infusion of the celestial mystery, to hold free judgments, even when I am bound by benefits. For it is a gift of the divine bounty that one who is obligated should deliver an unbiased opinion, and that the vigor of examination should not delight in the savagery of gratitude. It is a divine thing when, without corruption, one speaks of you upon whom he has conferred much, and does not place anything unjust in the scales of truth, though subdued by the wealth of your gifts. For when the discourse concerns the most powerful, and words are being formed that will go forth into the ears of the world, why should private action overshadow public testimony? I owe, indeed, to your Highness more than the whole world does: but I do not wish to bring forth anything greater than what the mouths of the whole world can utter, and, content with the law of epistolary brevity, I will merely taste a very small portion of that harvest of merits. Most fortunate of men, you labor with all the expenditure of your powers to this end, that throughout the whole world you alone may restore what has been scattered. It remains for estimation to determine what sort of man is he for whom you serve, when fallen, burnt, and ruined things, upon beholding you, recover. Italy was barely nourished by the sweat of public expenditure, when you, without any interval of time, changed it both to the hope of restoration and to the payment of tribute. We began gladly, under your governance, to pay into the public treasuries what we used to receive with the greatest sorrow. Our abundance has always been your administration. The venerable counsel of heaven has aided. For you have either nurtured the resources of the taxes for the public good, or you have given them.

XXIII. ENNODIUS TO LIBERIUS. It has been granted to me, by the infusion of the celestial mystery, to hold free judgments, even when I am bound by benefits. For it is a gift of the divine bounty that one who is obligated to all heights, a man more sublime, you first made the royal resources flow without the evil of private extortion. To you, after God, it is owed that, under a most powerful lord and victor everywhere, we confess our wealth secure: for the opulence of subjects is then safe when the emperor does not lack. What of the fact that you enriched those countless hordes of Goths, scarcely knowing the Romans, with a generous grant of estates? For the victors desired nothing more, and the conquered felt no losses. I pass over in silence, out of consideration for the eloquence of the page, the honey of your fellowship and blandishments, instituted by celestial precepts, no less ennobled by deeds than by words: I turn my speech to the prayers that are owed to your Eminence, because with me the Gauls agree in this assertion, that by the disposition of Christ the living God, you, who after many cycles of years introduced civility to those ordered, whom before you no taste of Roman liberty touched, may be brought back to your Italy, both to us who ask and to them who hold. Thus, as a native of both worlds through your holy actions, you may exalt the venerable house and your eminent sons, together with all who possess Italy, with the dowry of your happy presence. I, however, having performed the duties of salutation, announce that I am well and await from you what can satisfy my prayer.

XXIIII. ENNODIUS TO AVIENUS. My mind would be well, if at least the opportunity of frequent letter-carriers were suggested for writing, because in remedy of longing, superior providence has provided the gift of letters, in which, in place of presence, a formed address soothes the burning: and although from the very remedies the mind of the absent grows sick and from the medicine of concern care is doubled, yet those things which are alone are not to be abandoned. Therefore, with the infant Valentinus seeking Rome, as much as I could under haste, I snatched up from those things which were to be spoken, briefly indicating that the health of my body had been disturbed. It is enough, however, if, with the messenger of your prosperity, while the soul becomes cheerful, I recover. My lord, with the duties of salutation discharged, as your reverence demands, I ask that you now relieve me concerning the effect of my vows and concerning your good things by the epistolary proclamation of conversation. XXV. ENNODIUS TO AGNELLA.

It is pleasing to me to send forth the gifts of letters to your greatness, because this honor is not so much bestowed upon your family and your conscience as it is rendered to them. It is right that a man of upright character should venerate a holy widow, both noble and of religious purpose. I give thanks to my God, because the good odor of your reputation has wafted to us; may that fruit which planted a good root in this worldly life grant its yield until the end of life. You have done well, Lady Agnella, to spurn the blandishments of this world, and while you pursue higher things, not even to have those which could have come from lawful remedies: you have known how to seek not only pardon but a crown. Let the sick rejoice in medicine: he is near to integrity to whom it is granted to unlearn enticements happily. Therefore, my lady, paying the grace and honor of a greeting, I ask that you not cease to supplicate at the thresholds of the apostles for me, your friend and kinsman, that I may deserve to keep what I preach and not neglect in myself what I extol in others.

XXVI. ENNODIUS TO MESSALA. I know, of course, that you were taken from me in accordance with my own longing; but I had commanded something else from my hope concerning your solicitude. For I would have learned, if you were mindful of me, both how our lord, with God’s aid, bade farewell, and what the order of our journey was. But what am I doing, when I cannot overcome your negligence even by suggesting a form of affection? Therefore, if, by the gift of our God Christ, the hope of marriage breathes upon you, you will not banish the memory of Ennodius, since no greater diligence has ever yielded so much, and pious love has been shut out from your breast only to the extent that I shall be removed from your sight. Be well; may the life of your father and your brother be safe; may God do good to you; may they recognize what feeds the hearing; show toward me whatever disposition you wish. I ask you one thing: after offering the honor of a greeting, deign to offer prayers for me before the lord apostles, so that they may medicinally cure my miseries and not allow me to want anything unbecoming; let them chastise the presumptions of mind and body. If you do this, I believe that, on account of your innocence and purity, you will be better heard on my behalf than if I were present in person.

XXVII. ENNODIUS TO BISHOP AURELIANUS. I owe a voice to my grief, to be sure, but silence to your reverence. And perhaps mute dissimulation would better express my sorrow over the abstinence of your speech: for it was urbane and subtle that the offenses of superiors should be struck by the same lines by which offenses are committed against me, that punishment should accompany the fault. But where shall I turn, I who do not cease to pursue with the pertinacity of love one who is forgetful of me and spurns the acquaintance of the humble? Is not the importunity of a rejected man a source of horror, when the desire to please through assiduity provides material for displeasing? For whatever we flee in our minds we scarcely see when thrust before our eyes. If only it were still permitted me to contend with your blessedness on equal terms! But the privileges of kinship lie dormant before your crown, after you have merited to be a father. Does anyone retain the right to have his own bonds of relationship perish through advancements, and the ties of pious dignity, family, and devotion be dissolved by accession? Therefore, did the promotion of your merit require that I learn of it through unstable rumor and still depend on opinion concerning the common joys? Was I chosen, for whom the general good was to be kept silent, so that I alone, due to the obscurity of my conscience, would be ignorant of an event of a golden age? A noble life, whether by birth or by kind, ascends to the pinnacle of ecclesiastical honor, and it disdains to address me. Truly, such a deed, whether it came about by design or by negligence, is not approved.

I nevertheless pay the services of greeting and, with Italian simplicity, I disclose without dissimulation the source of my sadness. XXVIII. ENNODIUS TO AGAPIUS. Harshly has the duty of a yearning mind recalled to memory a sorrowful thought by goading recollection. For oblivion is always the remedy for grief, because what we cannot achieve by reason we bury by the passage of time. It is well that affliction grows old with duration and that consolation for great sorrow is more quickly procured through silence. For in matters of this kind, more is accomplished by doing nothing. But what am I to do, since the reading of your letter reopens the recesses of a scar already healed and revives by bitter chance the memory of a buried untimely death? Was I, then, able to offer consolation to our common brother, when, if any humanity is believed to be in me, I would grieve so? Or has a weeping consoler ever been pleasing? Is medicine, then, expected from the sick? No; you judge me well, Lord Agapius, if in the grief for your brother and in the death of a spiritual son I come forward as a disputant to your opinion. Healthy breasts find the path of treatment: no one absolves another from that from which he himself suffers. But of this elsewhere: God is powerful, who alone is able to meet these things and lighten the burden of a common evil. Yet, as I impart to you the honorific observance of greeting, I ask that you frequently bestow upon me the gifts of epistolary commerce. To be sluggish in these pursuits befits neither a loving nor an eloquent man.

XXIX. ENNODIUS TO LIBERIUS. If the discipline of the page admitted the spirit of poets, a hundred mouths and an iron voice would scarcely disclose, with the abundance of words, what is owed to your Highness by me. But because, being liable for great things, I scarcely suffice for small ones, I have provided, after the mercy of God, a repayer of your grace. For your brother, lord Faustus, while he speaks of the benefit you bestowed on me as something he owes, removes the burdens of a heavy load from my weak shoulders. These things are common between two most exalted men: you know both how to give and how to repay what is worthy to yourselves: I, placed under the weight of your gift, am left only with the confession of indebtedness, while, forestalled by the mass of your grace, it has made me, though capable of the vow, unequal to it. Nevertheless, I take up my part, and while praying to God, though a sinner, I implore that He may also repay you on my behalf. Behold, these two things suffice: for from heaven you expect for me what you remember having shown, and on earth there is an equal who confesses himself indebted. I await, however, the swift supplement of your benefit: that I may receive the letters, such as I requested through the sublime man Tranquillinus. Yet I will also show you another way of having mercy, being aware of your good character. My relative Camilla is said, within Gaul, to have succumbed to the misery of widowhood and the hardships of a double captivity.

No one except your Highness can avert such manifold necessities: the patron of my family, who provided for those settled in Italy, should not deny his support in Gaul, so that even from the little properties themselves, by your arrangement, when the burdens of the treasury are diverted from them, they may suffice for the sustenance of the aforementioned. My lord, performing the service of greeting, I ask that you order your Eminence, with God inspiring you, to allow my man, the bearer of this letter, whom I have sent to carry these matters out, to proceed to my desired outcome. Should he who knows that he has obtained even those things he had not requested doubt his own petitions? XXX. IN THE SIGN OF CHRIST. It is in the nature of things that even a man competent in speech or intellect can be faulted for presumption. For every facility with words, when it exceeds the bounds of humility, is trampled underfoot; and just as things demanded at a price are valued, so things thrust forward become cheap. Importunity, when it strips the eloquent of the nobility of their reputation, clothes the unlearned in disgrace. But I sustain myself with this reasoning: that it is indeed bold, yet a lovable precedent to have offered speech, and just as it is close to rashness, so it is near to diligence, opening a path that pertains to charity. Among men of the churches, is it a crime if they have contended with equal love, though unequal in rank? Or do those who desire, by the support of grace, to be compared to the highest exceed the narrow confines of modest honor? They have no consciousness of pride.

who does not measure himself by the duties of affection, I presume to say, is the direct fervor of subjects, which in this matter surpasses those who came before. Behold, I have cleared the clouds from my part, as if from a voluntary address, which had been darkened. But I speak of what pertains to the most abundant defense. Your son, Lord Rhodanius, demanded that I break forth into the use of the present style; I confess, however, that it was in my inclination: what he ordered, because he who compels a willing man does not labor. Let us give thanks to God, in the first place and in the whole composition of the letter: because the Roman limbs have at last come together into the fellowship of their head, it was just that the blessed apostle Peter should restore to his see the churches and to the freer senate, through the Lord, the parts that were due. A worthy ruler, worthy those in whose age the fulfillment of prayers has occurred: for even if the happiness that will pass to posterity should endure, those from whom it took its beginning must be propitiated with special praise. You have effectively besought God, that His virtue might rescue you, whose mercy is able to preserve. You have learned of his prosperous outcomes, whom you see followed by victory when he commands wars. Little remains, that you hold the gentleness of his mind so deeply, as if it were ignorant of campaigns. With God granting, his peace cannot be disturbed by doubts, nor his fortitude broken by any opposition.

Nothing is safer with him than a suppliant; alone, he who asked escaped the battle lines: the assault of arms was conquered by him who offered devoted obedience. What the ancient emperors barely obtained by the sweat of their own presence, our king's brief letter always procured. Through expeditions, a fortunate army is led to triumph, which believes that his soldier, in toil and perfection, indeed has the glory of the victor, but the continence of the vanquished? When conflicts are concluded, nothing remains of the inheritance of wrath; at one time, those whom the enemies saw as destructive, they feel as gentle when paying tribute. And these things are prepared by heavenly suffrage for this recompense, because our faith with him—even if he himself pursues something else—is in harbor. Wonderful patience, when tenacious of his own purpose, he does not overshadow the clarity of another: for he laments that the patrimonies of our churches slip back, unless they have been increased. Thus it has happened that both the wealthy hold their status by the substance of the poor, and the mediocre grow to supreme opulence. In priests, he cultivates virtues that are inborn and inspires those not found. But why should I anticipate your blessedness by the prejudice of a lengthy discourse? Your experience and that spiritual perfection will immediately accuse me of having been barren in the praises of your son, and although deeds are usually amplified by words, it will charge me, a sterile reporter, concerning the harvest of his virtues.

the sweat of ancient emperors. Now let it be proclaimed, with the attestation of the domestic bearer, how he restores to nature or to character the ancient secular honors, the curule chairs and trabeas, and even the patrician dignities. For he both makes the old endure in the ancient light of their lineage and irradiates the new with the splendor of unexpected brilliance. The republic more easily flows, through his good stewardship, from public wealth into private opulence than the property of his servants is converted into palace profits. Now, for what remains, after receiving the services of my greeting, look forward with your speech, so that Christ our Redeemer may long preserve what he has bestowed on those serving him in the aforementioned most clement king, and may also grant a successor from his line for the kingdom, lest the blessings of such a man grow old in a single generation and, antiquated by time, be named only in commemoration of a golden age. XXXI. ENNODIUS TO AVIENUS. While I was still enjoying, with God's dispensation, the delightful nearness of your presence to my eyes, and my hearing was retaining the lovable honey of your conversations in a venerable deception, an opportunity for writing was offered to me. I confess, I long refused to break in upon the medicine of desire while another was being procured. It delighted my mind, flattered by a pious illusion: I was unwilling, knowingly, to catch the deceit that was nourishing me in love.

For indeed the seduction that complies with our studies tastes good, and we willingly admit the images of sweet messengers as true: we groan over gratifying dreams whenever they are dispelled by wakefulness, and that semblance of death from peaceful deceptions is more loved. So now for me, since what I mentioned earlier could not stand, what remains must be carried out. Does any man labor under the burden of his sin like this? I would be crushed unless I saw you: brought to what I desired, I am worn away, because what we sought has been granted by God's gift. Has anyone ever gained from an occasion of joy something that torments, or has a plant of sadness sprung from a harvest of delights? Thanks to the inseparable Trinity, the true God, who, to fulfill vows, sometimes scorns vows. So may He Himself look upon the bond of your union: may He Himself make one from two, He who formed both in the body of the first man, while it still rejoiced in native and undefiled immortality. May a wife be joined to you, as Sarah was to Abraham, as Rebecca to Isaac, as Rachel was joined to Jacob by heavenly blessing. May you have the reward of continence, the fruit and sweetness of the married: may the virgin's release obey God's law, while what it withdraws in itself it renders in offspring. May the communion well solidified in you not know external attention: may she restore your mother in character and conduct, and you your parent. May the embraceable formation of your ancestors not perish from the world, while it is reborn in you.

Not at all are foreign examples of life or imported models demanded: you pursue what is placed before your eyes. Behold, I, who could not be present at your wedding, unite you by this pursuit of my prayers: you, in turn, offer frequent conversations. My lord, paying the love and reverence of a greeting, I ask that, if you do not thrust my memory from that rich recollection, you sustain me both with your prayers and with your conversations. XXXII. ENNODIUS TO THE PRESBYTER ADEODATUS. How much brighter you are than I by merit, how much by action, the effect of your prayers has revealed. Behold, you will hold the greatest part of your son, Lord Faustus, snatched from my consolation. I indeed placed no obstacles in the way of holy and lawful desires with my prayers: but the departure of Lord Avienus struck me so greatly for his sake that I followed with tears even one heading toward his wishes. The formation of human affairs from diversity was revealed in this matter. Desired things summon him with Christ as leader, they strike me: proximity flatters him with union, it stings me with separation. Behold, I am solicited for the fruit of my prayers, and I groan that we have obtained, if anything in this matter has been requested—which may be said in peace with Christ—what was asked. But among these things I am sustained by the cure of such diligence, because we have returned Lord Avienus surpassing his vows. Rome has boasting from his origin, Liguria from his progress: there, Lord Faustus was granted a son by the law of nature; here, he was revealed by education.

It was less to be born a human being in the general way than to be proven, what seemed inimitable, the offspring of Faustus. Let us refer his benefits back to God, and ourselves offer thanks on his behalf to the one from whom we have asked for what we hold. Receive the attentions of my greeting with the purity of your holy breast, and, receiving my codex, send it together with the one that was promised by you. XXXIII. ENNODIUS TO BISHOP CAESARIUS. What I had anticipated in hope you indicated by your letter. For by the promulgation of your venerable discourse I learned what the heavenly commander had compelled the lord king to do concerning you: I am the one to whom, after your merit became clear, the happiness of the action did not at all conceal itself. Who does not know that the most noble of men, a bishop in the service of Christ, is not subject to earthly dominions, and that the threatening power of a king is overcome by the objection of innocence? When has the imperial purple either despised haircloth or a pallium? When has that most powerful freedom believed that, before Christian humility, it was permitted to do what it wished? Or when was it permitted to wish what would harm? But if among these things the examples of a hoary age are recalled, and you bring back into the midst the tyrannical savagery against the worshippers of God, we know that the followers of our creed were killed by those men, so that they might never die. Then that perpetual commander conferred life and eternity upon his soldiers by the obedient sword: they, by the ministry of their enemies, lost their original baseness.

you, my lord, in the now Christian world, divine law brought forth and the milk of apostolic nurture nourished: you surpass others as the magnitude of the sun compared to lesser stars: whoever has examined you with the eyes of the inner man has been instructed. For even by your very face you foster purity, and you correct the erring with a restrained tongue. The good, wherever you go, find in your conduct things to imitate: to the wicked, things to be avoided are shown. Blessed are you, to whom it has been granted by God that you teach both by admonitions and by examples, who, always going before as a guide, have invited others to the direct path of pious journey. Who would not wish, when you speak, to know more, not to read? You, while reconciling genius with books by your account, also instruct the teachers: whatever great writer there is owes it to you that you amplify him with the gift of eloquence. In you, the light of speech and of action meet. Whence this prerogative to the Transalpines? Whence this unhoped-for sublimity to my parents, that they sent forth such a man? But why is a heavenly thing sought among earthly things? Could any brow of the palace, then, before you, not lie prostrate? Could what you desired be withheld from you, whom only errors make combative, gentler than sheep? Your merit and my diligence call me more broadly, but the law of the letter confines my loquacity. For the rest, accept the gift of my devoted service and commend me to our God by the support of your prayers, frequently informing me of what is being done or has been done with you.

I also beg that you make known to me by letter what success Rusticus’s supplication has had among you—he who, as I hear, clothes his fornications with the name of wives and thinks that the term of law can excuse a matter of crime. XXXIV. ENNODIUS TO AVIENUS. Where are those who say that among those separated by habitation diligence does not endure, and that the warmth of affection grows cold by division of lands, and that minds cannot proceed further than eyes? Behold, the fullness of my love seethes with the violence of separation, and the medicine of conversation, more languid, is not confined by the seats of the body. Yet I bless God, who has regarded our prayers concerning you, who has granted you not only a noble wife, but, as report declares, one holy in character. For worshippers of Christ, all perfect things would be pressed forward: to them alone in marriage are wealth of minds and clarity of blood not denied. I used to hope by expectation that such a one could be produced as I hear has now come to you. My estimation is surpassed by what I feel about the progress of that man whom I hear has begun from the best. My lord, as I impart the grace of a greeting, I hope that you will deign to fulfill without delay the petition of your holy father the bishop, and to grant to that man of his the favor of your grace, concerning which I am confident.

XXXV. ENNODIUS TO MESSALA. The necks of arrogant minds usually grow soft in the midst of ill-omened good fortune, and the brows of a stricter resolve are tempered by novel delight. For whatever fulfills our wishes sows kindness, and nothing humbles the most powerful more than longed-for eminence. It is a sign of fellowship and deference to have reached the summit. After you were advanced to what you desired, you despise me with a swelling hitherto unknown; and, forgetful of what you look to in your honey, you scorn old friends solely because of the opulence of your future wife, not knowing that a burden comes from where you think a reward is conveyed—first, because it is not fitting for one who does not overshadow the rays of his own origin to be fickle; second, because I will be avenged for where I am despised. Therefore, kindly return to the practice of your promise, lest I seem to have suspected what is obvious. I, because you have so far refrained from the duty of writing, have burst into these words: it is for you either to refute the deed or to affirm your innocence by the nobility of your speech. My lord, rendering the offices of most full greeting, I hope that you, who have neglected one who loves you, will at least deem one who reproves you worthy of conversation.