Letter 1094: Although my affection for you always keeps me from being stingy with letters, right now I'm writing more eagerly...
Although my affection for you always keeps me from being stingy with letters, right now I'm writing more eagerly than usual, for several reasons. First, our friend Marius's departure shouldn't go without a kind of travel offering. Second, I thought my letter would carry a bit more weight if it reached you through someone you deeply respect.
It often happens that a charming messenger enhances even a modest gift. But there's another reason my enthusiasm has kindled: I thought I should congratulate you on the achievements of such a man, who returns from his suburban province carrying as much public affection as he left behind in the way of example.
I won't flatter dishonestly — I don't know the art of ingratiating myself. In him runs a brotherly strain, and this is precisely why his departure is so hard to bear: in him, it seemed, we enjoyed two friends at once. I hesitate to extend my testimonial further, lest I seem to have served his glory more than his modesty — for an honest soul has an unguarded face. Read the rest from the little I've ventured to say; it was not right to put everything in writing here, but writing it through another will not trouble me.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.
Related Letters
That he has sold the priesthood for payment.
It is entirely unfitting for a monk to be reading pagan Greek writings.
Jerome thanks Magnus, a Roman orator, for his services in bringing a young man named Sebesius to apologize to him for some fault that he had committed. He then replies to a criticism of Magnus on his fondness for making quotations from profane writers, a practice which he defends by the example of the fathers of the church and of the inspired pe...
For now, I'm sending what seemed enough to honor our friendship, given both your busy schedule and the courier's haste.
What seems narrow turns out to be the most beautiful road — the one that leads to piety, and ends in broad and...