Letter 2011: Another letter from the lord Ruricius.

11. LIKEWISE A LETTER OF LORD RURICIUS. When you have read my letter through, you will perhaps be surprised that I have written to Your Reverence as to a brother, since this accords neither with our age nor with our rank, because, just as you are greater than I in years, so you are lesser in grade. And therefore, had we looked to your length of days, by God's favor, or to our own administration [episcopal office], we ought to have written either to a father or to a son. But because the holy apostle John also, in his letter, writes to one and the same persons both as fathers and as young men, and addresses them as boys, saying: I write to you, fathers, because you have known him who is from the beginning; I write to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one; I write to you, boys, because you have known the Father; by this distinction of words he assigns not the age of the outer man, but the quality of the inner one. For insofar as we make progress in the knowledge and love of God, we are without doubt called fathers; but insofar as we fight manfully against the adversary, who like a lion goes about seeking whom he may devour, we are recognized to be young men; but insofar as we give ourselves over to sloth and idleness and, through weakness of faith, fail to walk the road of the commandments, and rise up too sluggishly, as if from sleep, from our preoccupation with worldly affairs to contemplate and carry out the divine precepts, we are most rightly reckoned with the frivolity of boys. Whence the apostle Paul too thus admonishes the negligent: Rise, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and you will touch Christ, or Christ will enlighten you. For the Lord also in the Gospel, when it was said to him by the bystanders, Behold, your mother and your brothers are seeking you, wishing to see you, answered thus: Who is my mother, or who are my brothers? And pointing to the apostles who followed him: Are they not those who do the will of my Father? For we can be called the mother of Christ when we carry Christ in our heart. For holy Mary too, who both conceived a virgin, gave birth a virgin, and remained a virgin, conceived our Lord not by a man's embrace, but with faith as her bridegroom. And we are made his brothers when we so order, support, and adorn our life with every kind of virtue that we may be heirs of God and coheirs of Christ. For to whom is it doubtful that, if we are made heirs of God the Father, we shall most rightly be able, by his own adoption, to be called the brothers of Christ as well, he who fashioned us as his own, redeemed us as strangers, chose us as servants, took us up as sons? For he fashions us by his power, redeems us by his passion, chooses us by his foreknowledge, takes us up by his grace. We, however, are sons by adoption; he alone is the Son by nature, who, that he might call us back to the same blessedness from which we had fallen, although he in no way ceased to be what he was, yet willed to be what he was not, so that the Word might become flesh, and, while the Creator descended into the lowliness of the creature, the creature might ascend to the loftiness of the Creator. Whence it comes about that things divine are shared with humanity and things human are partaken of by the divinity, according to that saying of the apostle: who, though he was in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal to God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, made in the likeness of men and found in appearance as a man. He humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, but the death of the cross. For which reason God exalted him and gave him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father. Whence the same teacher, writing also to the Corinthians, says: And so we know no one according to the flesh. For even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we no longer know him so, because, his bodily weakness having ceased in him, he is believed to be wholly in the divine power. And therefore, according to that same apostle, since we are all one in Christ, we are most rightly called brothers, because both one womb of the sacred font has poured us forth and the same breasts of mother Church have suckled us with the life-giving Spirit. And likewise for this reason I have written "brother," because I have learned that, by God's favor, you have turned yourself, soul and all, from the deeds of the world to eternal blessedness, and have become an imitator of that evangelical merchant who, having sold all that was his, acquired the most precious pearl, or of that one who, having found a treasure in a field, sold off all that he had and bought that very field with a praiseworthy eagerness, being no troublesome grasper after another's property, but a provident distributor of his own resources, retaining a most sincere charity with a perfect heart, not that he might sell more sparingly, but that he might lend out more generously. Over which deed I rejoice and give thanks to God, who, according to the riches of his goodness and power, through his inestimable mercy, deigns, so to speak, to come almost against his own sentence; for, although he himself has said that those who have money can only with difficulty attain the kingdom of heaven, behold, he has both deemed you worthy in this world and hastens to advance you in the kingdom. Yet nevertheless the same Lord at once tempered the harshness of his former sentence of this kind, which the apostles feared the more vehemently, by the governance of his mercy, saying that what was impossible to men in themselves by nature was possible to God in them by grace. And as for that, I admonish you, out of the affection of our mutual charity, to apply yourself wholly and with full expenditure inclined to this work, and so to stand fast as a strenuous builder of the fabric of that tower which the Lord in the Gospel commanded to be constructed, that your adversaries may have rather something to grieve over at its completion than something to laugh at over its interruption.

XI. ITEM EPISTULA DOMNI RURICII. Relectis litteris meis fortasse miraberis, quod uenerationi tuae fratri scripserim, cum hoc nec aetati nostrae conueniat nec honori, quia, sicut me maior es natu, ita minor es gradu. et ideo, si ad tuam deo propitio longaeuitatem aut ad nostram respexissemus administrationem, aut patri scribere debueramus 16] Uerg. Aen. VI 688. 17] 1 Cor. 13, 7. 5. 8. 3 plenissime S 4 deferent S 5 caritate nos v caritatem S 6 amore SKr . 8 si ita v, sic a S, si tam Kr . dulcidine S 9 uellitis S 10 si uncis inclusi, om. v desideras Kr . festinato scripsi, festinabo S, festina Kr . 12 ęqualem Snob S 15 inueniendo S 18 que nec S 19 excidere ecripsi, excedere S, cf. p. 388, 6 oportunae S 21 aestatis in raa . 82 23 rurici S 24 relictis S\' 27 longeuitatem S aut filio. sed quia et sanctus Iohannes apostolus in epistola sua unis eisdemque et patribus et iuuenibus scribit et pueris dicens: scribo uobis, patres, quia cognouistis eum, qui ab initio est. scribo uobis, iuuenes, quia uicistis malignum. scribo uobis, pueri, quia cognouistis patrem, qua discretione uerborum non aetatem exterioris hominis, sed qualitatem interioris adsignat, in quantum enim in dei cognitione ac dilectione proficimus, patres sine dubio nuncupamur, in quantum uero contra aduersarium, qui tamquam leo circuit quaerens, quem deuoret, uiriliter dimicamus, iuuenes esse cognoscimur, in quantum uero socordiae desidiaeque committimur et ad incedendam mandatorum uiam fidei infirmitate deficimus atque ad contuenda ac peragenda praecepta diuina a saecularium actuum intentione quasi e somno segniores adsurgimus, rectissime puerorum leuitate censemur. Unde et apostolus Paulus ita commonet neglegentem: surge, qui dormis, et exsurge a mortuis et continges Christum siue inluminabit te Christus. nam et dominus in euangelio, cum ei a circumstantibus diceretur: ecce mater tua et fratres tui quaerunt te olentes uidere te, ita respondit: quae est mater mea aut qui sunt fratres mei? et ostendens apostolos sequentes se: nonne, qui faciunt uoluntatem patris mei? mater enim Christi dici possumus, quando Christum corde gestamus. nam et sancta Maria, quae et uirgo concepit, uirgo peperit, uirgo permansit, dominum nostrum non conplexu uirili, sed fide maritante concepit. fratres uero ipsius efficimur, quando ita uitam nostram omni uirtutum genere disponimus, fulcimus, ornamus, ut heredes dei esse possimus et coheredes Christi. cui enim dubium, quod, si 8] 1 Ioann. 2, 18. 9] 1 Petr. 5, 8. 16] Eph. 5, 14. 19] Matth. 12, 47; Marc. 8, 32. 21] Luc. 8, 20; Maro. S, 88. 22] Matth. 12, 50. 28] Rom. 8, 17. 3 sribo-sribo 8 4 iuuenis S 6 discritione S aetate S 7 qualitate S 10 querens S iuuenis S 11 cognoscimus S commitimns S 14 secularium S signiores S 15 leuitate v, leuitae S 17 contingis S 18 inluminauit S 20 querunt S te om. S 22 ii scripsi, hii S, hi r Kr . 24 que S 25 et del. Kr . 26. heredes dei patris efficimur, rectissime et fratres Christi dici ipso adoptante poterimus, qui nos plasmauit ut suos, redemit ut alienos, elegit ut seruos, adsciuit ut filios? plasmat enim nos potestate, redimit passione, (eligit in) praescientia, adsciscit gratia. nos tamen filii per adoptionem, ille solus filius per naturam, qui, ut nos ad eandem, a qua excideramus, beatitudinem reuocaret, cum penitus non desierit esse, quod erat, uoluit tamen esse, quod non erat, ut uerbum caro fieret et, dum creator in creaturae humilitate descendit, ad creatoris sublimitatem creatura conscenderet. Quo fit, ut humanitati diuina communicent et diuinitati humana participent secundum illud apostoli: qui cum in forma dei esset, non rapinam arbitratus est esse se aequalem deo, sed se ipsum exinaniuit formam serui accipiens, in similitudinem hominum factus et habitu repertus ut homo. humiliauit se ipsum factus oboediens usque ad mortem, mortem autem crucis. propter quod deus illum exaltauit et donauit illi nomen, quod est super omne nomen, ut in nomine Iesu omne genu flectatur caelestium, terrestrium et infernorum et omnis lingua confiteatur, quoniam dominus Iesus Christus in gloria est dei patris. unde et ad Corinthios idem doctor scribens ait: itaque nos neminem nouimus secundum carnem. etsi cognouimus enim Christum secundum carnem, sed nunc iam non nouimus, quia cessante in eo infirmitate corporea totus creditur in uirtute diuina. et ideo iuxta eum apostolum, quoniam omnes in Christo unum sumus, fratres rectissime nuncupamur, quia nos et unus uterus sacri fontis effudit et eadem ubera matris ecclesiae spiritu uiuificante lactarunt. simulque idcirco frater scripsi, quia et deo 12] Phil. 2, 6. 23] 2 Cor. 5,16. 27] GaL 8, 28. 2 suos v, uos S 4 eligit in om. S, add . Luetjohann 6 ad add . r, om. S eadem S a om. v eicederamus S 7 paenitus S 9 humilitatem Kr . discendit S 10 conscenderit S, conscendit v 11 quod S 14 semet Kr . 18 exaltauit illum v 19 omne S 20 inferorum r 27 eundem v omnis S 30 simulq; S, simul v scripsit S propitio a saeculi actibus ad aeternam beatitudinem te animam conuertisse cognoui et imitatorem illius euangelici negotiatoris effectum, qui uenditis omnibus suis conparauit pretiosissimum margaritum, uel illius, qui reperto in agro thesauro distractis, quae habebat, uniuersis agrum ipsum laudabili cupiditate mercatus est non alienae possessionis inportunus inhiator, sed propriae facultatis prouidus distributor, caritatem utpote sincerrimam retinens corde perfecto, non ut parcius uenderet, sed ut largius feneraret. Super quo facto gaudeo et deo gratias ago, quod secundum diuitias bonitatis suae atque uirtutis per inaestimabilem misericordiam suam propemodum, ut ita dixerim, contra sententiam suam uenire dignatur, quia, cum ipse dixerit difficile eos, qui pecunias habent, regnum adipisci posse caelorum, ecce te et his dignauit in saeculo et prouehere festinat in regno. sed tamen idem dominus continuo rigorem prioris huiuscemodi sententiae, quam apostoli uehementius formidabant, misericordiae suae moderamine temperauit dicens, quod inpossibile esset in se hominibus per naturam, possibile deo in eis esse per gratiam. quod in te, cui operi ut totus atque inpendiis pronus incumbas, pro affectu mutuae caritatis admoneo, et ita fabricae turris illius, quam dominus in euangelio construi praecepit, strenuus aedificator insistas, ut aduersarii tui habeant potius de eius perfectione, quod doleant, quam de intermissione, quod rideant.