Letter 9033: What I had hoped for on the basis of your reputation, I now confirm through the evidence of your letters.

What I had anticipated by hope, you have indicated by letter. For by the promulgation of a venerable conversation, I learned what the heavenly emperor had compelled the lord king to do concerning you. I am the one to whom, once your merit became clear, the success of the action could by no means remain hidden. Who does not know that earthly powers are subject to the noblest of men in the service of Christ, and that the threatening might of a king is overcome by the opposition of innocence? When has imperial purple ever despised either haircloth or the pallium? When has that supreme liberty believed that it was permitted to do what it wished in the face of Christian humility? Or when has it been permitted to wish what would harm? But if among these things the examples of a hoary age are recalled and you bring back into the open the tyrannical savagery against the worshippers of God, we know that the followers of our faith were slain by those people so that they might never die. Then that perpetual commander conferred life and eternity upon his soldiers through the ministering sword; those men, through the service of their enemies, lost their original worthlessness. You, my lord, were born into an already Christian world under divine law and were nourished with the milk of apostolic nurture. You, like the greatness of the sun compared to lesser stars, surpass all others. He who has examined you with the eyes of the inner man has been instructed. For since you foster purity even in your very countenance, you chastise sinners with a mouth at rest. The good find from your way of life, wherever you have gone, things worthy of imitation; to the wicked, things to be fled are demonstrated. Blessed are you, to whom it has been granted by God to teach both by precepts and by examples, you who, always existing as a guide toward the straight path of pious travel, have invited others forward. Who would not wish, when you speak, not to read, so that he might know more? You, while you bring genius to books by your exposition, even instruct the teachers themselves. To you, whatever greatest of writers owes the fact that you amplify him with the dowry of your eloquence. In you the light of speech and of deeds converge. Whence comes this distinction to the Transalpine peoples? Whence to my parents this unhoped-for eminence, that they should have sent such a man? But why is a heavenly matter sought among earthly things? Could any arrogance of the palace, then, fail to lie prostrate before you? Could it withdraw from you the things you desired — it, which only the transgressions of sheep make more gentle, while it makes you fierce in combat? Both your merit and my devotion call me further, but the law of the letter confines my loquacity. For the rest, graciously accept the gift of my service, and commend me to our God by the support of your prayers, informing me frequently about what is being done or has been done with you. I beg also that you make known to me by the ministry of letters what the petition of Rusticus has accomplished with you — he who, as I hear, dresses up his fornications with the name of wives and thinks the crime can be excused by the vocabulary of law.