Letter 2001: Thanks be to God that the merit of your faith grows in works just as it advances in devotion.

I. GRAECUS TO HIS LORD, THE SON RURICIUS, EXALTED IN THE HONOR OF RELIGION AND TO BE MAGNIFIED FOR THE MERITS OF HIS FAITH. Thanks be to the Lord, that the merit of your faith, just as it advances in devotion, so also grows in deed. The needs of those who labor you anticipate with your concern, you cherish with your kindness, you sustain with your humane care. For by these things, as the Apostle says, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, you acquire for yourselves the divine recompenses of eternal life. But in your sublimity these things are not new, because your soul, just as it is full of the fear of God, so it is full of charity—charity, I say, which alone increases through use and grows greater by giving, knowing its measure and not feeling its losses. For while it is paid out, it is not spent, but rather, while it is dispensed, it is increased, and its grace so rewards the one who receives that it does not diminish the one who imparts; for, in the likeness of the divine, it gives what it has, and has what it has given.

I. DOMINO RELIGIONIS HONORE SUBLIMI AC FIDEI MERITIS MAGNIFICANDO FILIO RURICIO GRAECUS. Gratias domino, quod fidei uestrae meritum sicut proficit deuotione ita crescit et opere. laborantium necessitates sollicitudine praeuenis, benignitate foues, humanitate sustentas. his enim rebus iuxta apostolum spiritu feruentes, domino seruientes, spe gaudentes diuinas uobis (uitae) aeternae retributiones adquiritis. sed in sublimitate uestra ista non noua sunt, quia animus uester, sicut plenus est dei timore, ita plenus est caritate, caritate, inquam, quae sola usu proficit et largiendo succrescit et pensum sciens et detrimenta non sentiens. dum enim dependitur, non expenditur, sed magis, dum prorogatur, augetur eiusque gratia ita muneratur percipiens, ut non minoretur inpertiens, quae ad similitudinem diuinitatis dat, quod (habet), habetque, quod dederit.