Letter 116: Although the praises and favourable report of your administration and your own illustrious good name always give me the greatest pleasure because of the love which we feel due to your merit and to your benevolence, on no occasion have I hitherto been burdensome to your Excellency as an intercessor requesting any favour from you, my much-loved lo...
Augustine of Hippo→Generosus|c. 405 AD|augustine hippo
Military conflict
To Generosus, my noble and justly distinguished lord, my honored and much-loved son, Augustine sends greeting in the Lord.
The praise and good reputation that surround your administration have always brought me the greatest pleasure — both out of the affection I feel for you on account of your personal merit, and for the goodwill you have shown us. Yet until now I have never burdened your Excellency with any petition or request for a favor, my much-loved lord and justly honored son.
When your Excellency reads the letters I have sent to my venerable brother and fellow bishop Fortunatus [context: bishop of a neighboring see, likely in North Africa], you will understand what has happened in the city where I serve the Church of God — and your generous heart will immediately see why I have been compelled to impose on your already well-occupied time with this request.
I am entirely confident that, given the feeling you hold toward us in the name of Christ — a feeling we have every reason to expect — you will handle this matter in a way that befits not merely an upright magistrate, but a Christian one.
Letter 116 (A.D. 410)
Enclosed in the Foregoing Letter.
To Generosus, My Noble and Justly Distinguished Lord, My Honoured and Much-Loved Son, Augustine Sends Greeting in the Lord.
Although the praises and favourable report of your administration and your own illustrious good name always give me the greatest pleasure because of the love which we feel due to your merit and to your benevolence, on no occasion have I hitherto been burdensome to your Excellency as an intercessor requesting any favour from you, my much-loved lord and justly-honoured son. When, however, your Excellency has learned from the letters which I have sent to my venerable brother and colleague, Fortunatus, what has occurred in the town in which I serve the Church of God, your kind heart will at once perceive the necessity under which I have been constrained to trespass by this petition on your time, already fully occupied. I am perfectly assured that, cherishing towards us the feeling which, in the name of Christ, we are fully warranted to expect, you will act in this matter as becomes not only an upright, but also a Christian magistrate.
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Source. Translated by J.G. Cunningham. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 1. Edited by Philip Schaff. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1887.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1102116.htm>.
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To Generosus, my noble and justly distinguished lord, my honored and much-loved son, Augustine sends greeting in the Lord.
The praise and good reputation that surround your administration have always brought me the greatest pleasure — both out of the affection I feel for you on account of your personal merit, and for the goodwill you have shown us. Yet until now I have never burdened your Excellency with any petition or request for a favor, my much-loved lord and justly honored son.
When your Excellency reads the letters I have sent to my venerable brother and fellow bishop Fortunatus [context: bishop of a neighboring see, likely in North Africa], you will understand what has happened in the city where I serve the Church of God — and your generous heart will immediately see why I have been compelled to impose on your already well-occupied time with this request.
I am entirely confident that, given the feeling you hold toward us in the name of Christ — a feeling we have every reason to expect — you will handle this matter in a way that befits not merely an upright magistrate, but a Christian one.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.