Letter 18

From: [Visigothic church official] To: [Visigothic church or court] Date: ~608 AD Context: Epistulae Wisigothicae letter 18, the final letter in the collection; a reflection on the state of the Visigothic church nearly two decades after the conversion, assessing what has been accomplished and what remains to be done. To my brothers in the faith and service of Christ, I write this final letter — final in this collection, though God willing not in my life — as a kind of accounting of where we stand and where we are going. The conversion of the Visigothic kingdom to Catholic Christianity was the great event of our generation, and it was real. The church in Spain is genuinely unified in a way it was not before 589. The theological division between the Gothic rulers and the Roman population that was one of the chronic sources of tension in this kingdom for a century and a half is over. We worship together, we receive the same sacraments, we are governed by the same councils. This is not a small thing. What we have not yet fully accomplished is the depth of Christian formation that a unified church makes possible. We have converted a people; we are still in the process of forming them. The generation that grew up after the conversion — the young men and women who have known nothing but Catholic Christianity — are showing signs that give me genuine hope. They have not inherited their parents' ambivalences about the faith they hold. The church in Visigothic Spain has a future. I believe it will be a good one, though the future is God's to determine and not ours. May God preserve and strengthen all of you in the work. Your brother in Christ