Letter 3009: I have kept my silence long enough, and silence — when it runs too long between friends — begins to feel less like...

Ennodius to Marcellianus. I know that your greatness abounds in the great benefits of God and preserves the steadfastness it promised toward its friends. Your spirit does not know how to promise uncertain things, guarding its love without any diminishment; and therefore, secure after God, I hand myself over and commend myself to your hands, and I do not doubt that the benefits of God will come to me, in whatever matters, through you. My lord, fulfilling above the honor of a greeting, I ask that you relieve me with the frequent conversation of your letters, since the highest gift is granted to me by God if I shall have deserved to rejoice over your well-being, you whom faith and integrity make acceptable to all who fear God.

VIIII. ENNODIVS MARCELLIANO. Scio magnitudinem tuam grandibus dei beneficiis abundare et promissam circa amicos seruare constantiam. nescit animus uester incerta polliceri amorem sine aliqua inminutione custodiens, et ideo securum me post deum uestris trado et commendo manibus et dei beneficia in quibuscumque negotiis per uos mihi euenire non ambigo. domine, ut supra salutationis honorificentiam soluens rogo, ut frequenti me epistularum uestrarum releuetis alloquio, quia summum mihi a deo munus conceditur, si de uestra meruero sospitate gaudere, quos fides et integritas omnibus, qui deum timent, facit acceptos.