Letter 5015: After the usual greetings, let me introduce our copyist — not as a favor but as a professional assessment.
To Ruricius.
After the usual greetings, let me introduce our copyist — not as a favor but as a professional assessment. I have thoroughly tested both his honesty and his speed in working for our mutual patron. He is bringing you a copy of the Heptateuch [the first seven books of the Bible], written with the greatest speed and the finest clarity, which I have also reviewed and corrected. He also carries a volume of the Prophets, though that one was copied in my absence. He cleaned it up himself, removing superfluous passages with his own hand, and not always with the help of the assistant who had promised his services — presumably because illness prevented him from keeping his word.
It remains for your encouragement — or your promised reward — to compensate this servant appropriately for his diligence and his desire to please. Any payment for such work, if it is given, will redound to your own credit. But since I ask this purely as a matter of goodwill, consider what is owed to a man who clearly desires his master's affection more than his master's money. Farewell.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.
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