Letter 8027: Although the world around us remains unsettled, the bonds between friends provide a stability that events cannot shake.
27. Ennodius to Barbara.
Although I am still placed amid the most extreme straits, and although, on account of the mass of my sins, the favors of my lord, while I deserve them, do not follow but are worn away into a long delay, nevertheless my soul, paying what it owes, has not omitted the dutiful services owed to your reverence. Already he is all but summoned to judgment, and still in this light he looks up to those whom he cherished. How true is that saying, that holy affection does not perish even in death! Therefore, my lady, attending upon you with the service of the salutation that is your due, I ask that, having learned what is being carried on concerning me, by that quality in which you stand out above all others, both by the splendor of your blood and by the rays of your conduct, you make supplication to my lord the apostle [bishop] and to the rest of his brethren, so that through them the power of God, entreated, may not hold back the favors of His clemency, which is not wont to be slow.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek below for scholarly use.
Latin / Greek Original
XXVII. ENNODIVS BARBARAE.
Quamuis adhuc inter extrema sim positus et pro peccatorum
meorum mole domni mei beneficia, dum mereor in longum
conteri, non sequantur, reuerentiae tamen uestrae obsequiis
quod debet pendens anima non omisit. paene iam uocatur ad
iudicium et adhuc suspicit in hac luce quos coluit. quam uera
est illa sententia, quod sanctus affectus nec morte pereat!
ergo, domina mea, seruitiis uos debitae salutationis prosequens
rogo, ut agnitis quae circa me geruntur pro illo quo omnibus
eminetis et sanguinis nitore et conuersationis radiis, domno
meo apostolo et ceteris eius fratribus subplicetis, ut per eos
exorata dei potentia clementiae suae, quae tarda esse non solet,
beneficia non refrenet.
Revision history
- 2026-05-27v2.2.34-import
Initial corpus import from modern ennodius pavia retranslated v1.
Fields: letter text, metadata, source links. Source: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/OpenGreekAndLatin/csel-dev/master/data/stoa0114a/stoa008/stoa0114a.stoa008.opp-lat1.xml
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