Epistola Ad Palchonium De Reliquiis Sancti Stephani / AVITI AD PALCHONIUM EPISTOLA, DE RELIQUIIS SANCTI SΤΕΡΗΑΝI, ET DE LUCIANI EPISTOLA A SE E GRÆCO IN LATINUM VERSA

The Letter of Anastasius to Landuleus, concerning the writing of the translation of Stephen the Martyr. A writing concerning another discovery and translation of Saint Stephen into the city of Byzantium, which Anastasius rendered into Latin. Letter Of Avitus to Palchonius, concerning the relics of Saint Stephen, and concerning the letter of Lucianus translated by him from Greek into Latin. To the most blessed and most beloved always in the Lord, Bishop Palchonius, and to the whole clergy and people of the Church of Braga, Avitus the presbyter, eternal greeting in the Lord. I desire and implore you to be mindful of me; just as I, as far as I am able, do not cease to have remembrance of you, suffering with my grief in your tribulations, and pouring forth incessant tears for the sundering of your fatherland from the holy places: so that either the Lord may restore liberty to you, whom he wished to admonish; or grant gentleness to those whom he has permitted to prevail. And I indeed, most blessed brothers (I speak with our Lord Jesus Christ as witness), have often wished to come to you, so that I might either endure evils with you, or enjoy good things: but my desire has been hindered, with the enemy spread throughout all of Spain. For I have feared that, both leaving the holy places, and perhaps not reaching you, intercepted anywhere, I would pay the penalty for irrational audacity.

But since merciful God, provoked by my desire and your merit, has deigned to grant the grace of his indulgence, first that my most beloved son and fellow presbyter Orosius might be sent to these parts by the African bishops—whose affection and consolation restored to me the presence of all of you—and then that in those very days, when he himself was already preparing his return with incredible longing, the blessed and truly holy one, the crown of our glory in Christ Jesus, the first martyr Stephen, should deign to reveal himself and manifest himself by signs and by the most evident following miracles, whom I, having received by the occasion of God the ordainer of such great things, considered it more worthy to send ahead to your Charity, so that he himself, as a present advocate and patron, might deign to assist the petitions of those who obey him—he who, when he suffered, deigned even to pray for his enemies. And so, most blessed and most beloved brothers, incessantly mindful of you and seeing the fitting disposition of the ordaining God, I was ready to obtain from the presbyter to whom it had been revealed some portion of the discovered body, which, sought in haste and received in secret, I did not delay to send to you. For this reason, I have sent to you through my holy son and fellow presbyter Orosius relics from the body of the blessed Stephen, the first martyr—that is, dust of flesh and sinews, and, what is more faithfully and certainly to be believed, solid bones, made richer by their sanctity with new spices or fragrances.

But so that there can be no doubt, I have sent to you, appended to my writings, the very letter and account of the holy presbyter to whom these things were revealed, which, at my request and demand for the fuller ascertaining of the truth of the matter, he first dictated in the Greek language, but which was afterwards translated into Latin by me. And I implore that you, holy and blessed brothers, may receive these things as faithfully as they were truly done. For I am certain that, just as the blessed Martyr himself deigned to announce and to manifest himself for the salvation of the endangered world, so, with the help and presence of such a patron, if you cherish such a pledge with worthy devotion, you may live secure and tranquil. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit be with you, most beloved in the Lord. Amen.