Letter 33

From: Braulio of Zaragoza, bishop To: [Recipient unknown] Date: ~641 AD Context: Letter 33 of Braulio of Zaragoza; on the challenge of maintaining scholarly work amid the demands of episcopal office. To my learned friend, Your lament about the impossibility of sustained scholarly work while carrying the full weight of episcopal responsibilities resonates with me deeply. I have written a version of this letter myself, in my mind, many times — the letter that begins: "I had planned to write a commentary on such-and-such, and here it is five years later and I have managed twelve pages." The honest truth is that the episcopate, as it is actually practiced in this age, does not leave much room for the scholar's work. The correspondence alone could consume every hour of the day if I allowed it to. Add to that the pastoral visitations, the judicial functions, the management of the cathedral chapter, the synods, the management of property, the reception of petitioners — there is always more that could legitimately be done, and most of it is genuinely important. What I have found — and it is an imperfect solution — is to protect a certain portion of every day by treating it as non-negotiable. Not the whole morning, not even two hours necessarily; what I can reliably protect is perhaps one hour in the early morning before the day's demands begin. In that hour I read, and occasionally I write. It is not enough for the kind of sustained scholarly project I once imagined, but it is not nothing. Isidore found a way to do it. Gregory found a way to do it. They did not have fewer demands on their time than we do; they had better habits of protecting their time. I have not yet matched their example. But I am still trying. Your fellow bishop and scholar, Braulio