Unknown→Faustus of Riez|c. 457 AD|sidonius apollinaris
diplomaticeducation bookshumormonasticism
LETTER III
Sidonius to his lord Bishop Faustus, greetings.
1. Your eloquence and your devotion alike maintain their accustomed standard, and for this reason we admire your speech all the more because you write so finely, and your affection because you write so willingly. For the present, however, with your permission first sought and obtained, I judge it safest and most salutary to renounce more frequent correspondence through these cities especially, which stand very much isolated by their position while the roads remain suspect due to the movements of the nations. Instead, let us for the time being assume the care of keeping silence, though the diligence of our mutual discourse is merely deferred. Though this is exceedingly harsh and bitter between persons bound together by affection, it is nevertheless brought about not by trivial causes but by many certain and necessary ones that spring from diverse origins.
2. First among these must be counted the fact that a letter carrier never passes the guards on the public highways without being searched. Even if he faces no danger, being innocent of any crime, he regularly endures a great deal of trouble while the ever-vigilant inspector probes every secret of the couriers. And if their replies falter even slightly under questioning, whatever is not found written down is believed to have been committed to memory. As a result, the man who is sent often suffers an injustice, and the man who sends him, suspicion -- and all the more in this time when the treaties long since established between kingdoms, now mutually jealous of one another, are being rendered uncertain again through contentious negotiations.
3. Beyond this, my own mind lies wounded on every side by domestic losses. For under the semblance of duty -- or, to speak more truly, by necessity -- driven from my native soil, exiled here, I am battered by various alarms on every side, suffering here the discomforts of a stranger and there the losses of a proscribed man. Therefore to compose letters of any polish is either untimely to ask of me or impudent for me to attempt; letters that are either witty in humor or elegant in style belong to the fortunate. Indeed, there is a certain barbarism of character in cheerful speech coming from an afflicted soul.
4. Rather, I beg you to endow my soul -- conscious of its guilt and trembling hour by hour at the remembered debts of a life deserving punishment -- with those most frequent and most powerful intercessions of your prayers. You who are skilled in the prayers of the island communities, which you brought from the training ground of the hermit congregation and from the senate of the cells of Lerins into the city as well, whose church you now oversee as bishop -- unchanged from the abbot by the priesthood, since the attainment of your new office has not relaxed the rigor of your former discipline. With these most efficacious prayers, I say, obtain that the Lord may be our portion, and that we who are enrolled in the ranks of our fellow Levites may not remain earthly -- we for whom the earth no longer remains -- and may begin to become pilgrims from the world's gains as well as from its sins.
5. The third reason, and the greatest, why I have refrained from writing to you is my tremendous awe of that tropological and figurative manner of composition in you, polished in manifold ways with the most refined language, which the letter we received from you displays. Though long ago, as a hoarse applauder, I heard your sermons -- some delivered impromptu, some carefully prepared when the occasion demanded -- especially when, at the festival weeks of the newly dedicated church of Lyon, you were prevailed upon by your sacred colleagues to preach. There, as you held forth midway between the rules of spiritual discourse and the conventions of the forum -- being most learned in both disciplines -- we crowded round you with senses uplifted and ears bent, finding you all too brief for our desire even as you had fully satisfied our judgment.
6. For these reasons I have restrained my pen and shall continue to do so, having spoken briefly in order to obey, and prepared to remain long silent in order to learn. It remains your part, my lord bishop, to devote yourself to works of singular and saving doctrine -- and to devote yourself sufficiently. For whoever listens to you teach and discourse learns not so much to speak well as to do what is praiseworthy. Now for the rest, grant pardon to this page that clumsily attempts to serve you, to which -- even with me as its author, should it be compared with your letters -- belongs only the most childish style.
7. But why do I stupidly press these points? For it is most foolish to apologize excessively for the very foolishness in which you, as sole judge, if you strip the matter bare, will find much to laugh at and more to blame. Yet I embrace even this: if, out of the love in which you excel, you are not entirely restrained in your censure -- that is, if your judgment strikes out something in these lines -- then I shall rejoice more confidently that you have approved the rest when I learn that you have deleted some portion. Deign to remember me, my lord bishop.
EPISTULA III
Sidonius domino papae Fausto salutem.
1. Servat consuetudinem suam tam facundia vestra quam pietas, atque ob hoc granditer, quod diserte scribitis, eloquium suspicimus, quod libenter, affectum. ceterum ad praesens petita venia prius impetrataque cautissimum reor ac saluberrimum per has maxume civitates, quae multum situ segreges agunt, dum sunt gentium motibus itinera suspecta, stilo frequentiori renuntiare dilataque tantisper mutui sedulitate sermonis curam potius assumere conticescendi. quod inter obstrictas affectu mediante personas asperrimum quamquam atque acerbissimum est, non tamen causis efficitur qualibuscumque, sed plurimis certis et necessariis quaeque diversis proficiscuntur ex originibus.
2. quarum ista calculo primore numerabitur, quod custodias aggerum publicorum nequaquam tabellarius transit inrequisitus, qui etsi periculi nihil, utpote crimine vacans, plurimum sane perpeti solet difficultatis, dum secretum omne gerulorum pervigil explorator indagat. quorum si forte responsio quantulumcumque ad interrogata trepidaverit, quae non inveniuntur scripta mandata creduntur; ac per hoc sustinet iniuriam plerumque qui mittitur, qui mittit invidiam, plusque in hoc tempore, quo aemulantum invicem sese pridem foedera statuta regnorum denuo per condiciones discordiosas ancipitia redduntur.
3. praeter hoc ipsa mens nostra domesticis hinc inde dispendiis saucia iacet; nam per officii imaginem vel, quod est verius, necessitatem solo patrio exactus, hoc relegatus variis quaquaversum fragoribus quia patior hic incommoda peregrini, illic damna proscripti. quocirca solvere modo litteras paulo politiores aut intempestive petor aut inpudenter aggredior, quas vel ioco lepidas vel stilo cultas alternare felicium est. porro autem quidam barbarismus est morum sermo iucundus et animus afflictus.
4. quin potius animam male sibi consciam et per horas ad recordata poenalis vitae debita contremescentem frequentissimis tuis illis et valentissimis orationum munerare suffragiis, precum peritus insulanarum, quas de palaestra congregationis heremitidis et de senatu Lirinensium cellulanorum in urbem quoque, cuius ecclesiae sacra superinspicis, transtulisti, nil ab abbate mutatus per sacerdotem, quippe cum novae dignitatis obtentu rigorem veteris disciplinae non relaxaveris. his igitur, ut supra dixi, precatibus efficacissimis obtine, ut portio nostra sit dominus atque ut ascripti turmis contribulium levitarum non remaneamus terreni, quibus terra non remanet inchoemusque ut a saeculi lucris, sic quoque a culpis peregrinari.
5. tertia est causa vel maxuma, exinde scribere tibi cur supersederim, quod immane suspicio dictandi istud in vobis tropologicum genus ac figuratum limatisque plurifariam verbis eminentissimum, quod vestra quam sumpsimus epistula ostendit: licet olim praedicationes tuas, nunc repentinas, nunc, ratio cum poposcisset, elucubratas, raucus plosor audierim, tunc praecipue, cum in Lugdunensis ecclesiae dedicatae festis hebdomadalibus collegarum sacrosanctorum rogatu exorareris, ut perorares. ubi te inter spiritales regulas vel forenses medioximum quiddam contionantem, quippe utrarumque doctissimum disciplinarum, pariter erectis sensibus auribusque curvatis ambiebamus, hinc parum factitantem desiderio nostro, quia iudicio satisfeceras.
6. hisce de causis temperavi stilo temperaboque, breviter locutus, ut paream, longum taciturus, ut discam. sunt de cetero tuae partes, domine papa, doctrinae salutaris singularisque: victuris operibus incumbere incumbere satis. neque enim, quisquis auscultat docentem te disputantemque, plus loqui discit quam facere laudanda. nunc vero, quod restat, donate venia paginam rusticanter vobis obsecundantem, cui me quoque auctore, si vestris litteris comparetur, stilus infantissimus inest.
7. sed ista quorsum stolidus allego? nam nimis deprecari ineptias ipsas est ineptissimum, in quibus tu merus arbiter, si rem ex asse discingas, ridebis plurima, plura culpabis. sed et illud amplector, si pro caritate qua polles non fueris usquequaque censendi continentissimus, id est, si sententia tua quippiam super his apicibus antiquet. tunc enim certius te probasse reliqua gaudebo, si liturasse aliqua cognovero. memor nostri esse dignare, domine papa.
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LETTER III
Sidonius to his lord Bishop Faustus, greetings.
1. Your eloquence and your devotion alike maintain their accustomed standard, and for this reason we admire your speech all the more because you write so finely, and your affection because you write so willingly. For the present, however, with your permission first sought and obtained, I judge it safest and most salutary to renounce more frequent correspondence through these cities especially, which stand very much isolated by their position while the roads remain suspect due to the movements of the nations. Instead, let us for the time being assume the care of keeping silence, though the diligence of our mutual discourse is merely deferred. Though this is exceedingly harsh and bitter between persons bound together by affection, it is nevertheless brought about not by trivial causes but by many certain and necessary ones that spring from diverse origins.
2. First among these must be counted the fact that a letter carrier never passes the guards on the public highways without being searched. Even if he faces no danger, being innocent of any crime, he regularly endures a great deal of trouble while the ever-vigilant inspector probes every secret of the couriers. And if their replies falter even slightly under questioning, whatever is not found written down is believed to have been committed to memory. As a result, the man who is sent often suffers an injustice, and the man who sends him, suspicion -- and all the more in this time when the treaties long since established between kingdoms, now mutually jealous of one another, are being rendered uncertain again through contentious negotiations.
3. Beyond this, my own mind lies wounded on every side by domestic losses. For under the semblance of duty -- or, to speak more truly, by necessity -- driven from my native soil, exiled here, I am battered by various alarms on every side, suffering here the discomforts of a stranger and there the losses of a proscribed man. Therefore to compose letters of any polish is either untimely to ask of me or impudent for me to attempt; letters that are either witty in humor or elegant in style belong to the fortunate. Indeed, there is a certain barbarism of character in cheerful speech coming from an afflicted soul.
4. Rather, I beg you to endow my soul -- conscious of its guilt and trembling hour by hour at the remembered debts of a life deserving punishment -- with those most frequent and most powerful intercessions of your prayers. You who are skilled in the prayers of the island communities, which you brought from the training ground of the hermit congregation and from the senate of the cells of Lerins into the city as well, whose church you now oversee as bishop -- unchanged from the abbot by the priesthood, since the attainment of your new office has not relaxed the rigor of your former discipline. With these most efficacious prayers, I say, obtain that the Lord may be our portion, and that we who are enrolled in the ranks of our fellow Levites may not remain earthly -- we for whom the earth no longer remains -- and may begin to become pilgrims from the world's gains as well as from its sins.
5. The third reason, and the greatest, why I have refrained from writing to you is my tremendous awe of that tropological and figurative manner of composition in you, polished in manifold ways with the most refined language, which the letter we received from you displays. Though long ago, as a hoarse applauder, I heard your sermons -- some delivered impromptu, some carefully prepared when the occasion demanded -- especially when, at the festival weeks of the newly dedicated church of Lyon, you were prevailed upon by your sacred colleagues to preach. There, as you held forth midway between the rules of spiritual discourse and the conventions of the forum -- being most learned in both disciplines -- we crowded round you with senses uplifted and ears bent, finding you all too brief for our desire even as you had fully satisfied our judgment.
6. For these reasons I have restrained my pen and shall continue to do so, having spoken briefly in order to obey, and prepared to remain long silent in order to learn. It remains your part, my lord bishop, to devote yourself to works of singular and saving doctrine -- and to devote yourself sufficiently. For whoever listens to you teach and discourse learns not so much to speak well as to do what is praiseworthy. Now for the rest, grant pardon to this page that clumsily attempts to serve you, to which -- even with me as its author, should it be compared with your letters -- belongs only the most childish style.
7. But why do I stupidly press these points? For it is most foolish to apologize excessively for the very foolishness in which you, as sole judge, if you strip the matter bare, will find much to laugh at and more to blame. Yet I embrace even this: if, out of the love in which you excel, you are not entirely restrained in your censure -- that is, if your judgment strikes out something in these lines -- then I shall rejoice more confidently that you have approved the rest when I learn that you have deleted some portion. Deign to remember me, my lord bishop.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.