Sidonius to his lord, Bishop Lupus [of Troyes].
Blessed be the Holy Spirit and the Father of God Almighty — for you, father of fathers, bishop of bishops, a second James [the Apostle] in our generation, from your watchtower of love, from a Jerusalem no less exalted, look down upon every member of God's Church with your care. You are worthy to console all who are afflicted, and rightly does all the world seek your counsel. And what can I, foul and stinking earth that I am, weighed down with guilt, possibly say in reply to such condescension?
Feeling both the need for your life-giving conversation and the dread that the memory of my sinful life inspires, I am driven to cry out to you what your colleague [the Apostle Peter] once said to the Lord: "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord." But if this fear is not tempered by affection, I worry that I will suffer the fate of the Gerasenes [whose townspeople asked Jesus to leave] — that you will withdraw from my borders entirely. Rather, let me take the course more useful to me and, like the leper, press you with this condition: "If you will it, you can make me clean." In that sentence, the leper revealed not merely what he was asking of Christ, but what he believed about him.
Since you are beyond any doubt the foremost bishop in the entire world — since even the authority of your fellow bishops bows before your judgment, since even the hearts of the most aged churchmen seem childlike beside your gravity, since after the hard-won labors of your monastic service at Lerins [the famous island monastery off southern Gaul] and now nine full five-year terms upon the apostolic seat [i.e., 45 years as bishop], the spiritual army venerates you as a kind of legendary chief centurion of both religious orders [monastic and episcopal] — you nevertheless do not despise the last of your camp followers and baggage carriers. You bring the banner of the cross you have long carried to those wretched men who, through their own folly, still sit weighed down by the burdens of the flesh, and you extend the hand of your words to those who are wounded in conscience.
You know how, seasoned commander that you are, to gather the wounded from the opposing line, and as the most skilled trumpeter, to sound the retreat from sin toward Christ. Like the shepherd of the Gospel, you rejoice no less over one who was lost and is found than over those who never strayed. And so you, the measure of all morality, the pillar of every virtue — you, if a sinner may be allowed to flatter — the true sweetness, because holy sweetness: you were not too proud to touch the sores of this most despicable worm with the fingers of your exhortation. You found no avarice in feeding a soul starved by its own fragility with your counsel, or in pouring out from the storehouse of your deepest love a measure of the humility we should all pursue.
But pray that I may someday come to my senses, given how heavily the burden of the office laid upon me weighs down my neck. Wretch that I am through the accumulation of my sins, I have come to such a pass that I, who should have others praying for my own sins, am now compelled to pray for the sins of a whole people — and a people of the innocent could scarcely win pardon for me even if they begged. For what physician prescribes well when he himself is sick? What man burning with fever can reliably take a healthy man's pulse? What deserter has any right to praise military science? What glutton can competently rebuke a man of temperance? I, the most unworthy of mortals, am forced to preach what I refuse to practice, and, condemned by my own words for failing to live up to what I teach, I am daily compelled to pass sentence upon myself.
But if you, a Moses younger though not lesser than the first, will stand as intercessor between me and the Lord to whom you are crucified, on behalf of my sinful people — then we will no longer go down alive into the pit, nor, inflamed by the temptations of fleshly vice, will we continue to kindle strange fire upon the Lord's altar [cf. Leviticus 10:1]. For although the scales of glory do not tip in favor of guilty men like me, I will be more than satisfied if, through your prayers, I am able to raise the heart of my inner self — scarred though it may be — at least to the level where pardon is granted, if not to the heights of reward. Please remember me in your prayers, my lord bishop.
EPISTULA I
Sidonius domino papae Lupo salutem.
1. Benedictus spiritus sanctus et pater dei omnipotentis, quod tu, pater patrum, et episcopus episcoporum et alter saeculi tui Iacobus, de quadam specula caritatis nec de inferiore Hierusalem tota ecclesiae dei nostri membra superinspicis, dignus qui omnes consoleris infirmos quique merito ab omnibus consularis. et quid nunc ego dignum dignationi huic, putris et fetida reatu terra, respondeam?
2. colloquii salutaris tui et indigentiam patiens et timorem recordatione vitae plectibilis adducor, ut clamem tibi quod dixit domino tuus ille collega: exi a me, quia homo peccator sum, domine. sed si iste timor non temperetur affectu, vereor, ne Gerasenorum destituar exemplo et discedas a finibus meis. quin potius illud, quod mihi conducibilius est, conleprosi mei te proposita condicione constringam, ut aiam tibi: si vis, potes me mundare. qua ille sententia non plus de Christo quid peteret prodidit, quam quid crederet publicavit.
3. ergone cum sis procul ambiguo primus omnium toto, qua patet, orbe pontificum, cum praerogativae subiciatur, cum censurae tuae adtremat etiam turba collegii, cum in gravitatis vestrae comparationem ipsa etiam grandaevorum corda puerascant, cum post desudatas militiae Lirinensis excubias et in apostolica sede novem iam decursa quinquennia utriusque sanctorum ordinis quendam te conclamatissimum primipilarem spiritalia castra venerentur, tu nihilominus hastatorum antesignatorumque paulisper contubernio sequestratus ultimos calones tuos lixasque non despicis et ad extimos trahariorum, qui per insipientiam suam adhuc ad carnis sarcinas sedent, crucis diu portatae vexilla circumfers ac manum linguae porrigis in conscientia vulneratis?
4. nosti, ut apparet, ex adversa acie sauciatos, dux veterane, colligere et peritissimus tubicen ad Christum a peccatis receptui canere; et evangelici pastoris exemplo non amplius laetaris, si permaneant sani, quam si non remaneant desperati. te ergo, norma morum, te, columna virtutum, te, si blandiri reis licet, vera, quia sancta, dulcedo, despicatissimi vermis ulcera digitis exhortationis contrectare non piguit; tibi avaritiae non fuit pascere monitis animam fragilitate ieiunam et de apotheca dilectionis altissimae sectandae nobis humilitatis propinare mensuram.
5. sed ora, ut quandoque resipiscam, quantum meas deprimat oneris impositi massa cervices. facinorum continuatione miser eo necessitatis accessi, ut is pro peccato populi nunc orare compellar, pro quo populus innocentum vix debet impetrare si supplicet. nam quis bene medelam aeger impertiat? quis febriens arroganti tactu pulsum distinguat incolumem? quis desertor scientiam rei militaris iure laudaverit? quis esculentus abstemium competenter arguerit? indignissimus mortalium necesse habeo dicere quod facere detrecto, et ad mea ipse verba damnabilis, cum non impleam quae moneo, idem in me meam cotidie cogor dictare sententiam.
6. sed si tu inter me et illum, cui concrucifigeris, dominum nostrum pro scelerum meorum populo, iunior mage quam minor Moyses, intercessor assistas, non ulterius descendemus in infernum viventes nec per carnalium vitiorum incentiva flammati ad altare domini ignem diutius accendemus alienum; quia quamquam nos utpote reos gloriae libra non respicit, satis tamen superque gaudebimus, si precatu tuo levare valeamus interioris hominis nostri etsi non integrum ad remunerationem, certe vel cicatricatum pectus ad veniam. memor nostri esse dignare, domine papa.
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Sidonius to his lord, Bishop Lupus [of Troyes].
Blessed be the Holy Spirit and the Father of God Almighty — for you, father of fathers, bishop of bishops, a second James [the Apostle] in our generation, from your watchtower of love, from a Jerusalem no less exalted, look down upon every member of God's Church with your care. You are worthy to console all who are afflicted, and rightly does all the world seek your counsel. And what can I, foul and stinking earth that I am, weighed down with guilt, possibly say in reply to such condescension?
Feeling both the need for your life-giving conversation and the dread that the memory of my sinful life inspires, I am driven to cry out to you what your colleague [the Apostle Peter] once said to the Lord: "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord." But if this fear is not tempered by affection, I worry that I will suffer the fate of the Gerasenes [whose townspeople asked Jesus to leave] — that you will withdraw from my borders entirely. Rather, let me take the course more useful to me and, like the leper, press you with this condition: "If you will it, you can make me clean." In that sentence, the leper revealed not merely what he was asking of Christ, but what he believed about him.
Since you are beyond any doubt the foremost bishop in the entire world — since even the authority of your fellow bishops bows before your judgment, since even the hearts of the most aged churchmen seem childlike beside your gravity, since after the hard-won labors of your monastic service at Lerins [the famous island monastery off southern Gaul] and now nine full five-year terms upon the apostolic seat [i.e., 45 years as bishop], the spiritual army venerates you as a kind of legendary chief centurion of both religious orders [monastic and episcopal] — you nevertheless do not despise the last of your camp followers and baggage carriers. You bring the banner of the cross you have long carried to those wretched men who, through their own folly, still sit weighed down by the burdens of the flesh, and you extend the hand of your words to those who are wounded in conscience.
You know how, seasoned commander that you are, to gather the wounded from the opposing line, and as the most skilled trumpeter, to sound the retreat from sin toward Christ. Like the shepherd of the Gospel, you rejoice no less over one who was lost and is found than over those who never strayed. And so you, the measure of all morality, the pillar of every virtue — you, if a sinner may be allowed to flatter — the true sweetness, because holy sweetness: you were not too proud to touch the sores of this most despicable worm with the fingers of your exhortation. You found no avarice in feeding a soul starved by its own fragility with your counsel, or in pouring out from the storehouse of your deepest love a measure of the humility we should all pursue.
But pray that I may someday come to my senses, given how heavily the burden of the office laid upon me weighs down my neck. Wretch that I am through the accumulation of my sins, I have come to such a pass that I, who should have others praying for my own sins, am now compelled to pray for the sins of a whole people — and a people of the innocent could scarcely win pardon for me even if they begged. For what physician prescribes well when he himself is sick? What man burning with fever can reliably take a healthy man's pulse? What deserter has any right to praise military science? What glutton can competently rebuke a man of temperance? I, the most unworthy of mortals, am forced to preach what I refuse to practice, and, condemned by my own words for failing to live up to what I teach, I am daily compelled to pass sentence upon myself.
But if you, a Moses younger though not lesser than the first, will stand as intercessor between me and the Lord to whom you are crucified, on behalf of my sinful people — then we will no longer go down alive into the pit, nor, inflamed by the temptations of fleshly vice, will we continue to kindle strange fire upon the Lord's altar [cf. Leviticus 10:1]. For although the scales of glory do not tip in favor of guilty men like me, I will be more than satisfied if, through your prayers, I am able to raise the heart of my inner self — scarred though it may be — at least to the level where pardon is granted, if not to the heights of reward. Please remember me in your prayers, my lord bishop.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.