Letter 495
To Meterius. (356 AD)
I have never ceased to love you — and indeed to admire you — nor shall I ever. But a certain reluctance came over me, perhaps not unreasonable, which made me think I would be a nuisance if I wrote. And so I refrained.
But now that Clematius has set out, I add writing to my love, remembering your household, remembering you and your character and your devotion to the divine — from which all of us drew confidence.
For you are a sufficient remedy against illness, disorder, troubles, grief, and danger. The afflicted run to you and the storm subsides. Even now I remain ill precisely because I lack your company. How much I long to be with you, Clematius knows.
Come then, write to me in return. Put aside your suspicions and hold fast to the old ways.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.
Related Letters
1. When I took your letter into my hand, I underwent an experience worth telling. I looked at it with the awe due to a document making some state announcement, and as I was breaking the wax, I felt a dread greater than ever guilty Spartan felt at sight of the Laconian scytale.
While showing up to the present time the gentleness and benevolence which have been natural to me from my boyhood, I have reduced all who dwell beneath the sun to obedience. For lo! every tribe of barbarians to the shores of ocean has come to lay its gifts before my feet.
I have written to you about many people as belonging to myself; now I mean to write about more. The poor can never fail, and I can never say, no. There is no one more intimately associated with me, nor better able to do me kindnesses wherever he has the ability, than the reverend brother Leontius.