Letter 4001: A good commander knows to encourage the proven valor of a soldier who has been tested in battle, so that courage,...

Ennodius to Pope Symmachus. A good commander knows to encourage the proven valor of a soldier who has been tested in battle, so that courage, nourished by praise, may learn to forget its love of life in the next engagement. Whose strength is not fed by a general's commendation? What limbs, even those of a raw recruit, would refuse any fight, when he sees — on the testimony of his commander — that his service has not gone unnoticed? The only path by which the will to fight grows stronger is one where good deeds are not erased by forgetfulness. Would that the Almighty, moved by your prayers, might bring an end to our war against the Devil! Would that he might display my devotion in a time of peace — so that the loyalty which adversity has exposed might be commended instead by concord. A delegation with full instructions has been sent from your brother [in the episcopate] to Bishop Marcellianus, and he himself has written back with the results. For the rest, I extend my greetings and beg you to heal with the medicine of your prayers whatever is sick among us, and to cut out with the spiritual sword — from among the hidden infections that threaten general destruction — the error that festers in secret. Farewell.

I. SVMMACHO PAPAE ENNODIVS. Boni imperatoris est probatam in acie militis animare uirtutem, ut fortitudo laudis pabulis inuitata in secundis congressibus dediscat lucis affectum. cuius robur ducis praeconio non nutritur? quibus se denegent etiam minus ualida tironis membra conflictibus, quando rectoris testimonio uidet sibi non perire quod gesserit? sola uia est, qua ad proeliandum crescat intentio, quotiens bene gesta non delet obliuio. utinam diuinitas uestris mota precibus diabolicum certamen interimat! utinam deuotionem meam in pace manifestet, ut cuius studium resignauit aduersitas, illius concordia commendet obsequium! ad Marcellianum episcopum directa est a fratre uestro instructa legatio: sed quid promouerit ipse rescripsit. quod restat, porrectis salutationis precor officiis, ut quicquid aegrum est medica oratione curetis et inter latentium secreta morborum qui in generalem necem seruatur ferro spiritali resecetis errorem. uale.