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.

EPISTULA VII Sidonius Explicio suo salutem. 1. Quia iustitia vestra iure fit universitati per conplura recti experimenta venerabilis, idcirco singulas quasque personas id ipsum efflagitantes in examen vestrum libens et avidus emitto, quam primum ambiens me discussionis, illos simultatis onere laxari; quod demum ita sequetur, si non ex solido querimonias partium verecundus censor excludas: quamquam et hoc ipsum, quod copiam tui iurgantibus difficile concedis, indicium sit bene iudicaturi. quis enim se non ambiat arbitrum legi aut pretio aliquid indulturus aut gratiae? 2. igitur ignosce ad tam sanctae conscientiae praerogativam raptim perniciterque properantibus, quandoquidem sententiam tuam nec victus ut stolidus accusat nec victor ut argutus inridet, veritatisque respectu dependunt tibi addicti reverentiam, gratiam liberati. proinde inpense obsecro, ut inter Alethium et Paulum quae veniunt in disceptationem, mox ut utrimque fuerint opposita, discingas. namque, ni fallor, supra decemvirales pontificalesque sententias, aegritudini huius prope interminabilis iurgii sola morum tuorum temperantia solita iudicandi salubritate medicabitur. vale.