Resultados25 letters/passages
ennodius_pavia · c. 515 · score 0.02
Ennodius to Barbara. Although the world around us remains unsettled, the bonds between friends provide a stability that events cannot shake. I write to you as one who finds in correspondence a fixed point amid the general confusion. Take heart. The difficulties are real, but they are not permanent. Farewell.
ennodius_pavia · c. 512 · score 0.02
A man more sublime than all heights, you first made royal resources overflow without the evil of private extortion. To you, after God, it is owed that in the presence of a most powerful lord and conqueror everywhere, we confess our riches in safety — for the wealth of subjects is secure when the emperor is not in need. …
ennodius_pavia · c. 509 · score 0.02
Where in the world were we? From what ruin has heavenly mercy restored us to human life? Let us therefore render to the bestower of this blessing, in urgent words and prolonged sighs, what we owe; let us invite to the custody of his gifts the one whom we have proved to bear aid in times of uncertainty. Let us beseech h …
ennodius_pavia · c. 519 · score 0.02
An unlovely occasion indeed has served my desires, and a necessity scarcely bearable has opened an entrance to my wishes: having embraced a page whose preface was flattering, I was confounded by what followed in its utterance. For the sweet beginning and the honey of serene conversation were obscured, as if by a garmen …
ennodius_pavia · c. 518 · score 0.02
He provides what is necessary who brings orphans and foreigners to the attention of the parent of all: the only path is the consolation of your apostolate, which heals strangers. Far be it from me to call afflicted those whom it befalls to reach you: parents, homeland, and wealth are not sought elsewhere by those whom …
ennodius_pavia · c. 511 · score 0.02
Without loss of guardianship those are orphaned whom it befalls to belong to you: paternal resources do not fail those whom you cherish. I speak of Lupicinus, the son of our Euprepia: to him the aforesaid generality pertains, concerning whose property the distinguished man, your admirer Count Tancila, told me that the …
ennodius_pavia · c. 505 · score 0.01
--- It is rare for love — even love reinforced by the bonds of kinship — to bow its neck in submission to necessity. It scarcely ever happens that affection plays the servant, since it is always the sovereign power, commanding by its own royal right. By what obstacle is the royal name of devoted care ever blocked? To w …
ennodius_pavia · c. 507 · score 0.01
It is scarcely possible that one intent on happy things should foreknow adversity: like a sinister omen one repudiates whatever one has glimpsed of the harshness of the future by preceding understanding; certainly, lest bitter things mingle even at another's time, the very recognition of troubles causes horror. I belie …
ennodius_pavia · c. 517 · score 0.01
Worthy is the ruler, worthy are those in whose lifetime the sum of our desires has been attained — for even if the happiness that is destined to pass to posterity endures, those from whom it took its beginning must be honored with special praise. You have prayed to God so effectually that the valor of the one whose cle …
ennodius_pavia · c. 509 · score 0.01
The savor of good things is unknown in prosperity: scarcely is the quality of heavenly blessings recognized while they are held; after departure, what is sweet increases; we do not know the value of desire while its objects are in our hands. Truly I confess, as long as Ravenna had you, I believed it a sinister omen to …
ennodius_pavia · c. 506 · score 0.01
I had long since responded to the writings of your blessedness, had it been easy to intercept the routes of those traveling to Rome. Ecclesiastical humility is passed by as though a foreign thing by the powerful of this world. Yet as soon as Lord Dioscorus returned to Rome, having discharged the office of his pious lab …
ennodius_pavia · c. 510 · score 0.01
Ennodius to Albinus. Four times I have sent letters to Your Greatness, and four times the silence has answered me. I do not know whether to blame the postal system or your schedule, but the result is the same: a correspondence that moves in only one direction. I write a fifth time, because persistence is the only virtu …
ennodius_pavia · c. 505 · score 0.01
--- By the dispensation of a heavenly mystery, the affection of a sister was restored to me and the affection of a mother to Lupicinus, both at the same moment — and the bond of our twofold kinship has earned the right to receive back its wanderer after so long an absence. You came back to life among us, after the deat …
ennodius_pavia · c. 520 · score 0.01
The announcement of your illness fell upon the increase of my own. For such is always the habit and almost the nature of the anxious: one scarcely believes that what one feared has passed, and what our redeemer has done by heavenly kindness in the past one sighs over as if it were placed before one's eyes. Lord Avienus …
ennodius_pavia · c. 517 · score 0.01
In bishops he cultivates both innate virtues and inspires those not found. But why should I anticipate Your Blessedness with the prejudice of an extended speech? Your experience and that spiritual perfection will immediately accuse me of having been barren in the praises of your son, and whereas deeds are usually ampli …
ennodius_pavia · c. 514 · score 0.01
Your greatness is present to its own duties and asserts the splendor of blood by the testimony of purity. Pious hearts do not know how to desert love; a generous mind preserves religious diligence. Therefore I have received writings shining with a double light, since what the holy heart found, the serene hand has inscr …
ennodius_pavia · c. 505 · score 0.01
Instead, you adopted the outlook of the provincials among whom you settled: you changed your region, and in doing so you renounced your resolution of dutiful affection. For in abjuring all communion with Italy, you drove away not only friends but even the most intimate pledges of the heart. In the end, a change of soul …
ennodius_pavia · c. 518 · score 0.01
Ennodius to Hormisdas and Dioscorus. I know that the weight of your shared responsibilities leaves little room for the claims of private friendship. But I write anyway, because the bond between us predates the burdens you now carry and will, I trust, outlast them. May God bless your labors. The work you do is His work, …
ennodius_pavia · c. 512 · score 0.01
What, confound it, is the reason that you are so sparing in grace, so lavish in complaint, and demand a frequency of letters that you yourself do not provide, inspecting with serpent eyes whatever another does wrong while pruning none of your own faults with any blade? Many years have passed since you chose a habitatio …
ennodius_pavia · c. 493 · score 0.01
By Ambrose's foresight, it came about that fresh sorrow is displayed whenever someone reads those pages, that the limbs of a man long dead are shown still breathing their last before the reader's eyes, and that the faithfulness of the account never allows the death to grow old, though the years have long since buried i …
ennodius_pavia · c. 505 · score 0.01
The care for property ought to have been set aside, because an inheritance is never well pursued when the heir is despised. I will speak plainly: had God not, through my own anxious efforts, withstood the malicious enemies of his servant, every branch of your family tree would have been cut down. Lionesses entrust thei …
ennodius_pavia · c. 507 · score 0.01
In asserting those to whom full honor does not deny its support, I do not employ many addresses, lest a lengthy speech seem to have obtained a benefit from one about to refuse: for you are accustomed to anticipate with generosity what ought to be asked by prayers. The parents of the distinguished and magnificent Opilio …
ennodius_pavia · c. 501 · score 0.01
Ennodius to Avienus. After our common lord departed from the city of Milan, my sole consolation has been the hope that letters might do what physical presence can no longer accomplish. Absence is hard enough without adding silence to it. I miss the conversations we had when distance was not an obstacle. The city feels …
ennodius_pavia · c. 518 · score 0.01
--- If love would yield to shame, if the restless urgency of affection could be held in check by the law of decorum, I would restrain myself from the duty of filling pages and would take up your own model of silence as my guide. I would not be so rash a judge as to conclude that what receives no return from you is ther …
ennodius_pavia · c. 513 · score 0.01
Your Greatness knows with what prejudice the followers of the liberal arts honor me, demanding the writings of my recommendation as something owed to them. It is the custom that you confer benefits while I confer words, and that the greatness of the things desired surpasses the wish of the petitioner. If I were to refr …