Letter 2: Bishop Albiso and the deacon Proculus -- whom I must call our masters in conduct, since they deserve to be counted...

Sidonius to his lord and bishop Euphronius, greeting. 1. The bishop Albiso and the deacon Proculus, who are for that very reason fit to be pronounced our masters in conduct because they deserve to be your disciples, have delivered the letter by which you bestowed upon us your most sacred affection; yet that letter lays upon us much honor, but more burden. And so I rejoice at its blessing in just such measure as I am thrown into confusion by its injunction, since I am one wholly disturbed and who in part do not comply. For you bid things as diverse as they are excessive, and you decree that a work be unfolded which is as difficult to be completed by my poor self as it is shameless to begin. 2. But if I rightly measure the greatness of the piety I have proved in you, you have labored the more in order that the affection of your heart, rather than the achievement of our work, might be made public. For when Jerome the translator, Augustine the dialectician, and Origen the allegorist bring to birth for you, with a wholesome harvest of doctrine, ears teeming with spiritual meanings, surely the dry stubble of a fasting tongue will not now crackle for you from my quarter. After this fashion you would have a right to associate hoarse geese with the songs of swans, and the chirping whispers of worthless sparrows with the measured plaints of nightingales. 3. What then? Even thus it would be done arrogantly and unbecomingly, were I to take up the weight of the task you have enjoined - a new cleric, an old sinner, of slight learning and weighty conscience - namely so that, if I should send anything written anywhere, my own person would not even then be absent from the laughter of those who judge, when it had been absent from their sight. Do not, I beg you, my lord bishop, demand too much that my modesty, lurking however it may, be stripped of its grace by the rashness of this undertaken work, because so great is the envy of detractors that the subject matter you send would more swiftly meet with reproach when begun than with approval when finished. Deign to be mindful of us, my lord bishop.

EPISTULA II Sidonius domino papae Euphronio salutem. 1. Albiso antistes Proculusque levites, ideo nobis morum magistri pronuntiandi, quia vestri merentur esse discipuli, litteras detulerunt, quarum me sacrosancto donastis affectu; quae tamen litterae plurimum nobis honoris, plus oneris imponunt. unde et ipsarum sic benedictione laetor, quod iniunctione confundor, quippe qui ex asse turbatus vel ex parte non pareo. iubetis enim tam diversa quam nimia explicarique decernitis opus, quod ab extremitate mea tam difficile conpletur quam inpudenter incipitur. 2. sed si amplitudinem in vobis pietatis expertae bene metior, plus laborastis, ut affectus vestri cordis quam nostri operis effectus publicaretur. neque enim, cum Hieronymus interpres, dialecticus Augustinus, allegoricus Origenes gravidas tibi spiritalium sensuum spicas doctrinae salubris messe parturiant, nunc scilicet tibi a partibus meis arida ieiunantis linguae stipula crepitabunt. hoc more tu et olorinis cantibus anseres ravos et modificatis lusciniarum querelis inproborum passerum fringultientes susurros iure sociaveris. 3. quid? quod sic quoque arroganter fieret indecenterque, si negotii praecepti pondus aggrederer, novus clericus peccator antiquus, scientia levi gravi conscientia, videlicet ut, si scriptum quocumque misissem, persona mea nec tunc abesset risui iudicantum, cum defuisset obtutui. ne, quaeso, domine papa, nimis exigas verecundiam meam qualitercumque latitantem coepti operis huiusce temeritate devenustari, quia tantus est livor derogatorum, ut materia, quam mittis, velocius sortiatur inchoata probrum quam terminata suffragium. memor nostri esse dignare, domine papa.