Letter 7

From: Salvian of Marseille, priest and writer To: Hypatius and Quieta, parents-in-law Date: ~450 AD Context: A third letter to his parents-in-law, apparently in response to continued family pressure, maintaining the decision but seeking to preserve the family relationship. To my dear parents in the bonds of love if not always in the bonds of agreement, from Salvian, I write this third letter in the hope that it may be the one that produces, if not agreement, at least a measure of understanding. The life Palladia and I have chosen is not an easy one. We are not living in comfort while you suffer; we are living in genuine poverty, in a community of others who have made the same choice, and the day-to-day reality is demanding in ways that are difficult to convey to someone who has not experienced it. I say this not to seek your pity but to forestall the assumption that we have found an easy and comfortable escape from the responsibilities of adult life. What we have found is something different: a clarity of purpose that we did not have before, and a community of people committed to living in a genuinely Christian way. Whether this was worth the cost — including the cost to our relationship with you — is a question I hold before God every day. I ask only one thing: that we maintain the relationship. That you write to us, that we may write to you, that the love between parents and children not be severed by a disagreement about how to live. We are still your children. We love you. Salvian