Letter 9016: I should have replied to your letter long ago, and the delay weighs on me.

I had long since responded to the writings of your blessedness, had it been easy to intercept the routes of those traveling to Rome. Ecclesiastical humility is passed by as though a foreign thing by the powerful of this world. Yet as soon as Lord Dioscorus returned to Rome, having discharged the office of his pious labor, I aspired, looking up to your reverence, to the restitution of my debt. You desire your sons, Lord Faustus and his holy offspring, to return to Rome; we desire them to remain: an opposing judgment returns without error to a single path of affection. Yet may God, the best administrator, arrange what he knows is fitting for his felicity. The prosperity of Lord Faustus and his family flatters me in place of their presence. My lord, paying the worship of greeting with full love, I send back the book you gave by the return of your son the lord prefect: send me yours or the one you promised, if it pleases you — granting this especially: that you never strip me of the defense of your prayers, because no wall against the battering ram of sin can be stronger for me than if the protection of those same prayers defends me.