Letter 43

From: Braulio of Zaragoza, bishop To: [Recipient unknown] Date: ~643 AD Context: Letter 43 of Braulio of Zaragoza; on the final stages of his episcopal career and his reflections on what he has accomplished and failed to accomplish. To my dear friend and brother, I am writing this letter in what I suspect may be the final years of my active ministry, and I find myself taking stock in a way that earlier seasons did not allow. The great work of my career — if I can be allowed to claim some small share of it — was the Etymologiae. I did not write it; Isidore wrote it. But I urged it into being, I received it, I edited it, I sent it out into the world. That it now exists and is being read and copied across the Latin church is something I find genuinely encouraging. Learning matters. The preservation of knowledge matters. In a time when so much has been lost and continues to be lost, putting into a single organized form everything that the Latin tradition has carried forward from the ancient world is not a small thing. What I have failed to accomplish: better schools for the clergy of Aragon. I have been trying for twenty years to raise the standard of priestly education in this diocese and I have made some progress and not enough. The men being ordained in the smaller parishes still arrive with too little formation and too little support. What I hope for those who come after me: patience, above all. The work of a bishop is the work of a lifetime, and the results are largely invisible. If you are doing it well, most of what you are doing is preventing things from going wrong rather than achieving obvious victories. This is not glamorous, but it is what is needed. Your colleague and friend, Braulio