Letter 2020: Our mutual friendship creates trouble for me from others and for you from me.

Bishop Ruricius to his lord, his steadfast and ever-magnificent son Rusticus. Our shared friendship brings disquiet to me from others, and to you from me, because those who are confident that I have influence with you - not great influence, I will say, but total influence - flee to our little church for their own safety. I cannot do otherwise than both grieve at their groans and obey their entreaties, so that on their behalf, indeed for their guilt, but equally for your advancement, I may more earnestly make supplication to your power. And do not be surprised that I said their guilt pertains to your advancement, since your pardon of them becomes your indulgence, just as [...] [A block of textual apparatus from another work has been merged into the source here and is not part of this letter: lines of editorial variant readings keyed to manuscript sigla, untranslatable as continuous text.] ...and the abundance of the giver is shown to be the indigence of the poor. For this will be repaid to us at the judgment, what we have furnished in this world, the Lord himself saying: forgive, and it shall be forgiven you; give, and it shall be given you; and again: if you forgive men, your Father also will forgive you your sins. From this we plainly recognize that our God has placed his own verdict within our own judgment - he who, as the merciful and just hearer of our prayers, has prescribed to his own power on the basis of our leniency, that he should in a certain manner have no right of severity over those whom he has not here observed to be eager for vengeance, because what he himself is, this he also desires us to be. He is merciful, and he seeks the merciful, saying: be perfect, just as your Father also is perfect. Daily he grants pardon to those who sin and supplicate, and therefore he also requires indulgence from sinners. Hence in the Lord's prayer too we say, by his own teaching: forgive us our debts, just as we also forgive our debtors. By which most stern words we bind ourselves in chains, unless we fulfill what we promise, since through the prophet too he speaks thus: man holds anger against man, and seeks healing from the Lord. Wherefore on behalf of Baxo, who has fled to the church of Userca, I come forward as intercessor, hoping that, first for the fear of God, then for our intercession, you may deign to spare the man himself, by whose absolution you can both remove our embarrassment and procure for us a reward.

XX. DOMINO INDIUIDUO SEMPERQVE MAGNIFICO FILIO RUSTICO RURICIUS EPISCOPUS. Inquietudinem mihi ab aliis et uobis a me facit amicitia communis, quia, qui me apud uos, non dico multum, sed omnia posse confidunt, ad ecclesiolam nostram pro sua securitate confugiunt. quorum ego non possum non et condolere gemitibus et precibus oboedire, ut pro ipsorum quidem reatu, sed et pro uestro pariter profectu potestati uestrae adtentius supplicem. nec mireris, quod dixi illorum reatum ad uestrum pertinere profectum, siquidem illorum indulgentia uestra fit uenia, sicut 1 camina S 2 iuditio S 3 reuersa v 3. 4. 5 hoc] hos Luetjohann 5 relegis 81 in raswa memaro S 8 labellum v, bellu S 11 foro r 12 cybosque S 14 cante S 15 uultos S 18 largior S 20 hymnos] finiunt uersus add. S 24 jjb S*, ab 82 ammicitiae S 27 ego 0.. t! et inopum indigentia largientum esse noscitur copia. hoc enim nobis retribuetur in iudicio, quod praestiterimus in saeculo dicente ipso domino: dimittite et dimittetur uobis, date et dabitur uobis, et iterum: si dimiseritis hominibus, et pater uester dimittet uobis peccata uestra. Unde euidenter agnoscimus deum nostrum sententiam suam in nostra posuisse censura, qui precum nostrarum misericors et iustus auditor potestati suae de nostra lenitate praescripsit, ut in eos quodam modo non haberet ius seueritatis, quos hic auidos non perspexerit ultionis, quia, quod ipse est, hoc et nos esse desiderat. misericors est, misericordes quaerit dicens: estote perfecti, sicut et pater uester perfectus est. cotidie ueniam peccantibus et supplicantibus tribuit, ideo et indulgentiam a peccatoribus poscit. unde et oratione dominica ipsius dicimus doctrina: dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris. \'quibus uerbis durissimis nos uinculis inligamus, nisi, quod pollicemur, implemus, quia et per prophetam sic dicit: homo homini tenet iram et a domino quaerit medellam. quapropter pro Baxone, qui ad ecclesiam Userca confugit, intercessor accedo sperans, ut primum pro dei timore, deinde pro nostra intercessione ipsi parcere digneris, cuius absolutione et in nobis tollere confusionem et nobis potestis conparare mercedem.