Letter 2012: The sharpness of your intelligence has not been deceived by the various followers of schisms who have tried to veil...

Bishop Avitus to King Clovis. The followers of various schisms have sought, by their opinions diverse in argument, manifold in their numbers, and void of truth, to veil and overshadow the keen edge of your discernment under the shadow of the Christian name. While we commit such matters to eternity, while we reserve for the future judgment what each man may rightly believe, even in present affairs a shining ray of truth has flashed out. For divine providence has indeed found a certain arbiter for our age. While you choose for yourself, you judge for all; your faith is our victory. Most men, in this very matter, if they are moved either by the exhortation of priests or by the urging of any of their companions toward the soundness of believing as they ought, are accustomed to set against it the custom of their lineage and the rite of their fathers' observance; thus, harmfully preferring shame to salvation, while they preserve a futile reverence toward their parents in the keeping of unbelief, they confess that in some way they do not know what they should choose. Let harmful shame, therefore, depart from this excuse after the miracle of such a deed. You, content with nobility alone out of the whole pedigree of your ancient origin, have willed that whatever can adorn the very summit of high birth should spring forth for your line from yourself. You have ancestors who were good men; you have willed to be the author of better ones. You answer to your forefathers in that you reign in this world; you have established for your descendants that you may reign in heaven. Let Greece indeed rejoice that it has chosen [for] our prince [i.e., that the Roman East has an emperor of the faith]: but let it no longer be the only one to deserve the gift of so great a bounty. Its own brightness illuminates your world also, and in the West the light of no new radiance flashes forth in a king. The fitting nativity of our Redeemer began this splendor: so that, consequently, on that day the regenerating wave should bring you forth unto salvation upon which the world received the Lord of heaven, born for its redemption. Therefore, may the birthday of the Lord, which is renowned, be yours as well: namely, the day on which you were born to Christ, on which Christ was born to the world; on which you consecrated your soul to God, your life to those now living, your fame to those who come after. What now shall be said of that most glorious solemnity of your regeneration itself? In whose ministrations, if I was not present in body, yet I was not absent from the communion of its joys: since indeed the divine mercy has added this too to the congratulations of your regions, that before your baptism the herald of your most sublime humility, by which you were professing yourself a candidate [for baptism], reached us. Whence the sacred night found us already secure of you after this expectation. For we were conferring among ourselves and discussing what that would be like: when the numerous band of assembled bishops, in the eager devotion of holy service, would warm the royal limbs in the life-giving waters; when the head to be feared by the nations would bow itself to the servants of God; when the hair nourished beneath the helmet would put on the saving helmet of holy unction; when, the covering of the breastplates laid aside, the spotless limbs would gleam with a like whiteness of garments. It will come to pass, most flourishing of kings, even as you believe — it will come to pass, I say, that this softness of garments will hereafter make the rigor of arms avail you more; and whatever good fortune had bestowed up to this point, here holiness will add. I would indeed wish to attach some word of exhortation to your praises, if anything had escaped either your knowledge or your observance. Shall we perhaps preach the faith to one who is already perfect, the faith which you saw before its perfection without a preacher? Or perhaps humility, which you have long shown to us in devotion, which you now first owe by your profession? Or mercy, which the people lately released by you, but recently captive, makes known to the world by its joys, to God by its tears? There is one thing that we would wish to be increased: that, since God will make your nation wholly His own through you, you may also extend the seeds of faith from the good treasure of your heart to the more remote nations, which, still established in their natural ignorance, no shoots of perverse doctrines have corrupted; and may it neither shame nor irk you to support the cause of God even by embassies directed to that end, who has so exalted your own [cause]. So that whatever foreign peoples of the pagans are first to serve you by the command of religion, while they still seem to have another character of their own, may be distinguished rather by their nation than by their prince. Let no fatherland, then, claim you for itself as though by special right of dwelling; it is established that you belong in common to all whom you raise by degrees of honor. All things have the full enjoyment of the one radiance of the sun; those nearby indeed rejoice more in its light, but those farther off do not lack its brightness. Therefore shine perpetually, by your diadem upon those present, by your majesty upon those absent. The success of the happy triumphs which that realm wins through you is celebrated everywhere. Your felicity touches us also: as often as you fight there, we conquer here. Yet among these things, by the affection of the catholic religion, the care of showing mercy burns in you: and in one who holds the helm of the government of all affairs at the summit, holiness shines no less than power. From which it has certainly come about that you ordered, by your princely decree, the son of your servant, the illustrious Laurentius, to be sent to you; which I report to have obtained with my lord [Sigismund/Gundobad], the king indeed of his own nation, but your soldier. For there is nothing in which he does not wish to serve; he commends the man sent; I rejoice with the one sent, I envy you who will see him. For him it is to be reckoned of less profit to be restored to his own parent than to be presented to the father of all.

Avitus episcopus Clodevecho regi. Vestrae subtilitatis acrimoniam quorumcumque scismatum sectatores sententiis suis variis opinione, diversis multitudine, vacuis veritate Christiani nominis visi sunt obumbratione velare. Dum ista nos aeternitati committimus, dum, quid recti unus- quisque seritiat, futuro examini reservamus, etiam in praesentibus interlucens radius veritatis emicuit. Invenit quippe tempori nostro arbitrum quendam divina provisio. Dum vobis eligitis, omnibus iudicatis; vestra fides nostra victoria est. Solent pleri- que in hac eadem causa, si pro expetenda sanitate credendi aut sacerdotum hortatu aut quorumcumque sodalium ad suggestionem moveantur, consuetudinem generis et ritum paternae observationis obponere; ita saluti nocenter verecundiam praeferentes, dum parentibus in incredulitatis custodia futilem reverentiam servant, confitentur, se quodammodo nescire, quid eligant. Discedat igitur ab hac excusatione post talis facti miraculum noxius pudor. Vos de toto priscae originis stemmate sola nobilitate contentus, quicquid omne potest fastigium generositatis ornare, prosapiae vestrae a vobis voluistis exurgere. Habetis bonorum auctores, voluistis esse meliorum. Re- spondetis proavis, quod regnatis in saeculo; instituistis posteris, ut regnetis in caelo. Gaudeat equidem Graecia principem legisse nostrum: sed non iam quae tanti muneris donum sola mereatur. Illustrat tuum quoque orbem claritas sua, et occiduis partibus in rege non novi iubaris lumen effulgurat. Cuius splendorem congrua redemptoris nostri nativitas inchoavit: ut consequenter eo die ad salutem regeneratrix unda vos pareret, quo natum redemptionis suae caeli dominum mundus accepit. Igitur qui celeber est natalis domini, sit et vester: quo vos scilicet Christo, quo Christus ortus est mundo; in quo vos animam deo, vitam praesentibus, famam posteris consecrastis. Quid iam de ipsa gloriosissima regenerationis vestrae sollemnitate dicatur? cuius mi- nisteriis si corporaliter non accessi, gaudiorum tamen communione non defui: quando- quidem hoc quoque regionibus vestris divina pietas gratulationis adiecerit, ut ante baptismum vestrum ad nos sublimissimae humilitatis nuntius, qua competentem vos profitebamini, pervenerit. Vnde nos post hanc expectationem iam securos vestri sacra nox reperit. Conferebamus namque nobiscum tractabamusque, quale esset illud, cum adunatorum numerosa pontificum manus sancti ambitione servitii membra regia undis vitalibus confoveret, cum se servis dei inflecteret timendum gentibus caput: cum sub casside crinis nutritus salutarem galeam sacrae unctionis indueret: cum intermisso tegmine loricarum immaculati artus simili vestium candore fulgerent. Faciet, sicut creditis, regum florentissime, faciet inquam indumentorum ista mollities, ut vobis deinceps plus valeat rigor armorum; et quicquid felicitas usque hic praestiterat, addet hic sanctitas. Vellem vero praeconiis vestris quiddam exhortationis adnectere, si ali- quid vel scientiam vestram vel observantiam praeteriret. Numquid fidem perfecto praedicabimus, quam ante perfectionem sine praedicatore vidistis? an forte humilita- tem, quam iam dudum nobis devotione impenditis, quam nunc primam professione debetis? an misericordiam, quam solutus a vobis adhuc nuper populus captivus gau- diis mundo insinuat, lacrimis deo? Vnum est, quod velimus augeri: ut, quia deus gentem vestram per vos ex toto suam faciet, ulterioribus quoque gentibus, quas in naturali adhuc ignorantia constitutas nulla pravorum dogmatum germina corruperunt, de bono thesauro vestri cordis fidei semina porrigatis: nec pudeat pigeatque etiam directis in rem legationibus adstruere partes dei, qui tantum vestras erexit. Quatenus externi quique populi paganorum pro religionis vobis primitus imperio servituri, dum adhuc aliam videntur habere proprietatem, discernantur potius gente quam principe . Nulla igitur patria quasi speciali sede sibi vos vindicet; totis, quos honorum gradibus attollitis, constat vos esse communem. Vno solis iubare omnia perfruuntur; vicina quidem plus gaudent lumine, sed non carent remotiora fulgore. Quapropter radiate perpetuum praesentibus diademate, absentibus maiestate. Successus felicium trium- phorum, quos per vos regio illa gerit, cuncta concelebrat. Tangit etiam nos vestra felicitas: quotienscumque illic pugnatis, hinc vincimus. Inter haec tamen catholicae religionis affectu fervet in vobis cura miserendi: et in apice rerum omnium guber- nacula continente non minus eminet sanctitas quam potestas. Ex qua utique factum est, ut dirigi ad vos servi vestri, viri illustris Laurentii, filium principali oraculo iuberetis; quod apud domnum meum, suae quidem gentis regem, sed militem vestrum, obtinuisse me suggero. Nihil quippe est in quo servire non optet; commendat di- rectum; congaudeo misso, invideo vos visuro. Cui minus computandum est ad utili- tatem parenti proprio restitui quam patri omnium praesentari. Sigismundus rex Vitalino senatori. Quantum pertinet ad dignam iudicii vestri integritatem, quoscumque honorum privilegiis erigitis, Romanos putare debetis. Ex hac ergo fiducia ut ex toto cre- dantur absentes, quos, etsi patria separat, militia repraesentat? Vnde, quod solum valeo, sedulitate officii animum devotionis ostendens, quid adsidue cuperem, vel cum possibilitas permittit, allego. Vos nunc clementissimo communi principi, quid velimus, adserite; insinuate adtentius oboedientiae famulatum, quem nunc in obsequio, semper habemus in voto. Suggerite ac pariter commendate ab amatore vestro domno et patre meo impletam me intercedente principalis reverentiae iussionem. Clientis vestri, viri illustris Laurentii, filius studio meo reddatur patri, reddatur regioni. Mise- ramus dudum in parente famulum: ecce adicimus famulatum. Quo uno vobis directo qualiter cum aliis agatur, advertite. Superest, ut praefatus miles vester, cuius proles et illic gratiae vestrae porrigitur et hinc patriae reservatur, commendatus vobis stu- dio meo ipse commendet, quod vel de illius subolis adeptione iam compos vel de istius, quae nobiscum recedit, prosperitate securus est.