Letter 2007: Because your justice, proven in so many tests of fairness, has rightly earned the respect of all, I gladly and...
To Explicius.
Because your justice, proven in so many tests of fairness, has rightly earned the respect of all, I gladly and eagerly send before your tribunal each person who requests it, anxious to relieve myself of the burden of judgment and them of the burden of their quarrel. This will be accomplished if, as a scrupulous arbiter, you do not dismiss the complaints of both parties out of hand — although even the fact that you grant litigants access to yourself reluctantly is itself a sign of a man who will judge well. For who would not prefer to be chosen as arbitrator if he had the power to show favoritism for money or friendship?
So forgive those who rush to the privilege of so upright a conscience, since neither the loser attacks your verdict as foolish nor the winner mocks it as clever. Out of respect for truth, the condemned pay you reverence and the acquitted pay you gratitude. Therefore I earnestly ask that you resolve the dispute between Alethius and Paulus as soon as both sides have presented their cases. For unless I am mistaken, beyond the precedents of both secular and ecclesiastical law, only the moderation of your character, with its well-known capacity for healthy judgment, will cure the sickness of this nearly interminable quarrel. Farewell.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.
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