Letter 11017: If on this day we find the saving remedy of redemption, if the heavenly gift opens the hope of salvation, it is...
Cassiodorus→Unknown|c. 522 AD|Cassiodorus
imperial politics
From: Senator [Cassiodorus], Praetorian Prefect
To: [The Praetorian staff]
Date: ~533-537 AD
Context: Cassiodorus announces annual staff promotions on Christmas Day, linking the Nativity to the theme of renewal and advancement.
If on this day we find the saving remedy of redemption, if the heavenly gift opens the hope of salvation, it is fitting that I too should bring the medicine of joy to those worn out by long labor — so that the blessings from above, bestowed upon a world in peril, may be felt by all. It would be a kind of sacrilege to insist on rejoicing amid those who grieve, and the man who does not share in another's pain rejects basic human feeling. By contrast, how much better joy is kindled when it is shared — for the sight of many people rejoicing is the greatest spur to gladness!
This is why the wise have declared that the entire mortal race is a single human being — because they wished all people to be inseparable from each other's fortunes. Therefore, let each person be announced according to the order of the roster by your designation, so that whoever the sequence of rank requires may advance to the next grade of promotion. Let one man depart at the top, thereby moving the entire chain of those who follow upward — for the whole series advances when the senior member completes his service and retires.
XVII.
PROMOTIONES OFFICII PRAETORIANI, QUAE NATALE DOMINI FIUNT.
[1] Si hodierno die redemptionis invenimus vitale remedium, si caelesti beneficio panditur spes salutis, convenit etiam nos longo labore fatigatis gaudii deferre medicinam, ut superna bona quae periclitanti mundo collata sunt, generaliter sentiantur. alioquin piaculum quoddam est inter tristes velle gaudere, et humanitatis refugit affectum, qui dolorem non sequitur alienum. contra quanto se melius excitat de communione laetitia, quando incitamentum magnae alacritatis est plurimos videre gaudentes! [2] Hinc est quod sapientes mortale genus unum hominem esse testati sunt, quoniam omnes a cunctis casibus suis indivisos esse voluerunt. quapropter unusquisque iuxta matriculae seriem tua designatione vulgetur, ut quem loci ordo postulat, gradibus promotionis accedat. egrediatur unus, ut anteponat universos. totam sequentium seriem ad provectum trahit, dum prior militiam perfunctus exierit.
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From:Senator [Cassiodorus], Praetorian Prefect
To:[The Praetorian staff]
Date:~533-537 AD
Context:Cassiodorus announces annual staff promotions on Christmas Day, linking the Nativity to the theme of renewal and advancement.
If on this day we find the saving remedy of redemption, if the heavenly gift opens the hope of salvation, it is fitting that I too should bring the medicine of joy to those worn out by long labor — so that the blessings from above, bestowed upon a world in peril, may be felt by all. It would be a kind of sacrilege to insist on rejoicing amid those who grieve, and the man who does not share in another's pain rejects basic human feeling. By contrast, how much better joy is kindled when it is shared — for the sight of many people rejoicing is the greatest spur to gladness!
This is why the wise have declared that the entire mortal race is a single human being — because they wished all people to be inseparable from each other's fortunes. Therefore, let each person be announced according to the order of the roster by your designation, so that whoever the sequence of rank requires may advance to the next grade of promotion. Let one man depart at the top, thereby moving the entire chain of those who follow upward — for the whole series advances when the senior member completes his service and retires.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.