Letter 3028: Avitus, bishop, to the most holy brother Apollinaris.

Bishop Avitus to Bishop Apollinaris. Bound and at the same time weighed down alike by the honor of your solicitude, by the greatness of your gift, and by the customary nature of your devotion, with what worthy expression of thanks - I will not even say with what diligent service - may I respond? Unless perhaps, manifold though I am and feeble, I may be sustained in this very matter by that same grace of yours by which I am burdened. May almighty God grant you for the adornment of the Church and for our consolation and refreshment: so that, since in truth you live not for yourselves alone, you may heap up your own merits through the comforts you give to others. My sins indeed brought about a necessity of no ordinary kind, by which on the day of your little festival [festivitatula], when it had been undertaken, we were defrauded of the bodily presence of your devotion, to our joy. But you rendered and made present to us in turn the exchange of yourself: your countenance in light, your speech in words, your action in deed. I trust in the mercy of our God that not only in my time, but also in the time to come, our little church [ecclesiola] will venerate the gift of your offering [oblatio]. And just as I, while I live, desire to preserve it as a testimony of your inexhaustible generosity, so may God grant me this: that to him also whom your election shall have decreed to follow me, when God commands it, your authority may especially commend it.

Avitus episcopus Apollinari episcopo. Innexus pariter adgravatusque dignatione sollicitudinis, magnitudine muneris, con- suetudine pietatis, qua digna vel gratiarum actione, non dicam obsequii sedulitate re- spondeam? nisi forte multipliciter atque invalidus eadem in hoc sustenter gratia vestra, qua oneror. Concedat vos ornatui ecclesiae, consolationi ac refectioni nostrae omni- potens deus: ut, quia revera non solum vobis vivitis, per aliorum solacia vestra merita cumuletis. Fecerunt quidem peccata mea non qualemcumque necessitatem, qua in die susceptae vestrae festivitatulae laetitiae nostrae, corporalis vestrae pietatis prae- sentia fraudaremur. Sed reddidistis ac repraesentastis nobis vicissitudinem vestri ad- spectus in lumine, oris in sermone, actus in opere. Credo in dei nostri misericordia, quod non meo tantum tempore, sed etiam secuturo donum vestrae oblationis ecclesiola nostra venerabitur. Quod sicut ego, dum vivo, in testimonium inexhaustae largitatis servare desidero, ita mihi deus praestet, ut etiam ei, quem post me, cum deus iusserit, electio vestra decreverit, peculiariter auctoritas vestra commendet.