Letter 67: The man delivering this letter to you is a decent person who took on business from which others would have profited,...
To Florentius. (359)
The man delivering this letter to you is a decent person who took on business from which others would have profited, but not for the sake of profit. I called on him for help in many situations and never once found him lazy.
I advised him to do the opposite of the proverb -- that is, to go from donkeys to horses [i.e., to move up in the world]. So, as a favor to me, make the man a knight as quickly as possible. Test him, and you will find that I do not know how to praise bad men.
AI-assisted translation — This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek below for scholarly use.
Latin / Greek Original
Φλωρεντίῳ. (359)
Ἀνήρ ἐστιν ἐπιεικὴς ὁ διδούς σοι τὴν ἐπιστολὴν καὶ
πραγμάτων ἀφ’ ὦν ἦν κερδαίνειν οὐκ ἐπὶ κέρδει προστάς.
ἐγὼ δὲ αὐτὸν πολλαχοῦ μὲν ἐκάλεσα σύμμαχον, εὗρον δὲ οὐ-
δαμοῦ ῥᾴθυμον.
καὶ παρῄνεσά γε αὐτῷ τοὐναντίον ποιῆσαι
τῇ παροιμίᾳ καὶ ἐφ’ ἵππους ἀπὸ τῶν ἴνων. σὺ δ’ ἡμῖν κυ-
ριος ὡς τάχιστα Μαὶ τὸν ἄνδρα ἱππέα. φήσεις δέ με πεῖραν
αὐτοῦ λαμβάνων ὡς οὐκ οἶδα ἐπαινεῖν κακούς.
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Sent to Florentius along with the preceding letter, which Jerome requests him to deliver to Rufinus. This Florentius was a rich Italian who had retired to Jerusalem to pursue the monastic life. Jerome subsequently speaks of him as a distinguished monk so pitiful to the needy that he was generally known as the father of the poor.