Letter 2018: The greatest fulfillment of our longing comes when our eager hopes learn that the magnificent state of your devotion...

Bishop Avitus to the most illustrious Messianus. The greatest heaping-up of our longing is conferred with the wished-for abundance of joys, if our eager prayers of solicitude come to know that the magnificent condition of your devotion is strong and flourishing in prosperity; for whatever the diffused devotion of heavenly benefits has bestowed upon your clemency grows, to the profit of our own affairs, into a certainty of undoubted happiness. For in this we measure that our success is prospered by happy increases, in that the support of your activity grows without end. Wherefore, rendering an honorable greeting, I ask — as we desire — that, if all things go happily concerning you, your greatness may fully inform us by setting it forth in the eloquence of a passing page [a reply letter].

Avitus episcopus viro illustrissimo Messiano. Maximus desiderio nostro cumulus optata gaudiorum ubertate confertur, si magni- ficum vestrae pietatis statum florenti prosperitate pollentem avida sollicitudinis nostrae vota cognoverint: quia hoc proventibus nostris compendio indubitatae felicitatis ad- crescit, quicquid clementiae vestrae caelestium beneficiorum pietas diffusa contulerit. Nam in eo metimur felicibus incrementis nostrum prosperari successum, in quo actionis vestrae crescit sine fine suffragium. Qua propter honorificum salve persolvens quaeso, ut cupimus, si felicia cuncta erga vos geruntur, magnitudo vestra percurrentis pa- ginae eloquio pandendo perdoceat.