Letter 3031: It might seem like a failure of trust in divine promises for anyone to be anxious about your prosperity.

Bishop Avitus to the lord Sigismund. Whoever is less than secure about your prosperity does indeed seem to distrust the divine promise. But if you weigh my disposition with your customary kindness, you will easily understand that forgiveness is owed to my fainthearted timidity on account of excessive anxiety. For all who truly lay claim to the name of the Catholic ought now to entreat God with watchful prayer that, as you go to bring back our prayers unspoiled and whole, he may both faithfully join to you what is near and successfully subject what is adverse, and so, amid the manifold necessity of affairs, with Christ fighting for you, there may fall to you on both sides both the peace that is desired and the victory that is owed. Therefore, if neither the favor of your remembrance toward me nor the season of such great anxiety has diminished it, your special servant, not daring indeed to send a greeting, but awaiting your welfare from the Lord with a mind sufficiently in suspense and attentive, has assigned the service of the present page, anxious first about your health and then about that of the army. Whence, although by God's name we learn good tidings through any travelers who pass by, you can nevertheless, most pious lord, conjecture how much sweeter it will be for me, if, just as that acknowledgment of holy affection nourishes me through whatever reporters, so a written reply may gladden me, in which, as a kind of substitute for your presence, I may be worthy to attain your words before my sight and to kiss your signature in place of your hand. King Sigismund to the lord emperor. It is known to all that your loftiness measures not the obstacles of the times, but the prayers of your subjects. Under the security and gladness of that confidence, we who are absent in body are made present in spirit to our most glorious prince. And although your handmaid, my lineage, has discharged this out of devotion, yet it is not so much ancestral debts as the benefits bestowed upon me that have made me a debtor of your favor. Indeed my people are yours, and it delights me more to serve you than to rule over them. From the forefathers of my race a Roman devotion has always drawn this feeling toward you and your predecessors, that we should reckon as more illustrious that distinction which your loftiness extended through the titles of military service; and by all my forebears it was always held more highly what they received from princes than what they brought from their fathers. And although we may seem to rule our nation, we believe ourselves to be nothing other than your soldiers. Your prosperity fills us with the gift of joys: whatever you there attend to for the safety of all is ours as well. Through us you administer the expanses of distant regions; our homeland is your world. The light of the East touches Gaul and Scythia, and the ray which is believed to rise in those parts shines forth here. We do not grasp the radiance of your countenance by direct contemplation, but we possess by longing the light of the serenity which you diffuse everywhere. No barrier confines the dominion divinely bestowed upon you, nor is the diffusion of your fortunate scepters limited by any boundaries of provinces. Be it said, with the honor due to the divinity preserved: it does not diminish your majesty that not all are able to hasten to you; it suffices well for the reverence owed you that all adore you from their own seats. By valor you reign over the eastern world, by good fortune over the western; though you are loved everywhere, even if it is not granted to all to behold you. But since that is rightly declared of the whole world, conjecture now how much they ought who are exalted by you with honors, whom you attach by titles of dignity as companions of all your triumphs and successes: so that thus the glories of your valor may be ours, and whatever the fountain of honors has accomplished may pertain to the adornment of those honored. Therefore, illustrious among princes, I desire the dutiful offices of letters, the prayers of thanksgiving; I await the oracle of the august discourse; I seek eagerly, if there be anything which you may deign to command. For even if your dignity is not believed to have need of our service, yet whoever has merited to serve the fortunate one campaigns for himself. Let the distance of the Eastern nations also demand me, I beseech; let the Parthian leader by his cruelty demand that our governor preside over him; and on account of these things, if for the advantage of peace he should rejoice to pass into the laws of the Roman empire, let the Indian himself, made gentle after trials, with the voice of his shrill mouth subdued, learn through an interpreter, by your favor, the laws by which he is bidden to serve. If there is any heat by which the southern region boils, temper it with coolness and tame through reverence whatever before you had been untamed by nature. Whoever does not choose the scepters of the unconquered religion pressing upon him, let him receive them. Through you let religion be extended no less than your power, religion which to the peoples that serve may build up the truth for the reverence of both heavenly and earthly things alike and may extend liberty: with this as mediator, it becomes us, who lean upon you for the worship of eternal salvation, to serve long not only by human order but also by divine love. [King Sigismund to the lord emperor.] By what judgment of pious majesty your serenity either holds the obstacles of the times of little account or esteems the hearts of your servants is recognized by no better sign than that, in extending your sacred letters to a greater distance, you fulfill the prayers of those who desire and do not wait for the dutiful approaches of suppliants. The minds of all long for an encounter with you: nor is it so glorious that few are able to see you as that all desire to. But as for the fact that now the address of your august salutation has anticipated the service of the page owed to you, let the arbiter impute nothing more to want of devotion, nothing to slowness. Had not an interposed barrier suspended the approach to our endeavors, even now indeed the word venerable to the world would have sent replies rather than oracles. Nor yet did delay harm me so much as envious spite begrudged me. You did not indeed read me as one in command of my own office, but you rendered me happy by the address of your pious mouth. Nor does it matter whether the august discourse receives us or awaits us: it is as much for us not to be despised by your most exalted graciousness as it is for yours to be granted. Therefore, after the death of my father, most devoted and most faithful to you, your magnate, to whom, amid most fortunate successes with prosperity unimpaired, it also fell by divine favor as a thing to be wished, that he knew the commonwealth glad and flourishing while you rule the world, and that he left you, lords of the nations, by a peaceful reception at his end: for the purpose of making these things known and commending them to you, and indeed also the first beginnings of my military service, which while my father yet survived you nourished, but which more and more after him you will increase with the accumulation of sacred graciousness, just as I ought to wish or as it had been fitting, I was offering to the ears of your venerable retinue one of my counselors, who, as far as concerns Gallic ignorance, is reckoned to surpass the rest in letters, having conceived a more particular assurance from this, that the ruler of Italy publicly applauded your peace, and by a scattered report colored over the favor of the East restored to him. The journey undertaken was therefore cut off and forbidden to the appointed reports. Surely he himself will have seen what, in this matter, the sequence of truth looks toward before your august gladness. Yet it seems a small token of friendship to be unwilling that the one whom you assert you cherish be honored by others: since all of us who regard you with worthy worship ought to wish that this same thing be done by all. For one shows little of his own devotion if, having condemned the liberty of hastening to you, he should strive to make others also undevoted: although nevertheless the holiness of your heavenly genius cannot judge guilty one whom even will alone has rendered innocent. Whence you clearly see that the very man who so anxiously endeavored to prevent it, that I should not be able, alleges what I desired. And so, since by divine and by your gift both sacred letters and opportune ones come forth, although it differs, those to whom you present new things pray for the increase of your kingdom; those for whom you preserve the accustomed things desire its safeguarding. Thus by the moderation of your pious helm one party has sought other remedies, though neither party has borne a refusal. Among these, however, I more especially owe this: that, doubling the effect of this petition granted to my regard, you have shown how much favor you have bestowed upon your particular servant by granting it freely; and on this account alone, with the recompense laid up in your treasuries, you wished what you were giving to the poor to consist not in price but in reward. And with what elegance even this very thing may be worthily recorded: you chose rather to return what had been offered by your servants than to spurn it, and, that the gift might be made more gladly, you were unwilling to sadden the act of homage. And although whatever comes to your hands is turned toward the poor, and therefore he perhaps dissuades you from accepting who begrudges the distributing: yet supply to the divine recompense the means whereby you may both dispense when the needy are in want and grant when debtors make supplication. Run therefore, most pious one, along the native path of your work in unity. Never, if you believe, will sufficiency be lacking to such a soul. With him granting the means whereby it may be provided, you have the wherewithal from him by whom it has been instilled into your will that you can deny nothing.

Avitus episcopus domno Sigismundo. Videtur quidem de divina promissione diffidere, quicumque minus de vestra pro- speritate securus est. Sed si animum meum solita dignatione perpenditis, facile in- tellegitis veniam ignaviae meae pro nimia trepidatione deberi. Quippe cum, quicum- que veraciter catholicorum nomen usurpant, pervigili prece deo supplicare nunc debeant, ut vobis vota nostra illibata atque integra relaturis et fideliter vicina coniungat et feliciter adversa subiciat sicque in rerum necessitate multiplici ambifariam vobis Christo propugnante contingat et pax, quae cupitur et victoria, quae debetur. Qua- propter si memoriae meae gratiam de animo vestro nec tantae anxietatis tempus im- minuit, famulus specialis salutationem quidem deferre non ausus, sed salutem vestram a domino praestolaturus satis suspenso attentoque animo servitium praesentis paginae destinavi primum de vestra, tum de exercitus sanitate sollicitus. Vnde licet in dei nomine per quoscumque transeuntes prospera cognoscamus, potestis tamen piissimi domni conicere, quantum mihi dulcius erit, si, sicut me quibuscumque referentibus pascit illa sancti affectus recognitio, sic me rescriptio laetificet, in qua ad quandam praesentiae vicem verba vestra pro conspectibus adipisci et subscriptionem pro manu merear osculari. Sigismundus rex domno imperatori. Notum est omnibus celsitudinem vestram non impedimenta temporum, sed subiec- torum vota metiri. Sub cuius fiduciae securitate atque laetitia gloriosissimo principi nostro qui corpore absumus, animo praesentamur. Et quamquam istud famula vestra, prosapia mea, ex devotione persolverit, me tamen gratiae debitorem non magis paren- talia debita quam beneficia mihi impensa fecerunt. Vester quidem est populus meus, et plus me servire vobis quam illi praeesse delectat. Traxit illud a proavis generis mei apud vos decessoresque vestros semper animo Romana devotio, ut illa nobis magis claritas putaretur, quam vestra per militiae titulos porrigeret celsitudo, cunctisque auctoribus meis semper magis habitum est, quod a principibus sumerent, quam quod a patribus attulissent. Cumque gentem nostram videamur regere, non aliud nos quam milites vestros credimus. Implet nos gaudiorum munere vestra prosperitas: quidquid illic pro salute omnium curatis, et nostrum est. Per nos administratis remotarum spatia regionum, patria nostra vester orbis est, tangit Galliam, Scythiam lumen Orien- tis et radius, qui illis partibus oriri creditur, hic refulget. Iubar quidem conspectus vestri contemplatione non capimus, sed lucem serenitatis, quam ubique diffunditis, desiderio possidemus. Dominationem vobis divinitus praestitam obex nulla concludit nec ullis provinciarum terminis felicium sceptrorum diffusio limitatur. Salvo divinitatis honore sit dictum: non minuit maiestatem vestram, quod adcurrere non omnes valent; satis ad reverentiam vobis debitam sufficit, quod omnes e propriis sedibus vos adorant. Virtute orbi eoo, felicitate regnatis occiduo: licet vos ubique diligi, etiamsi non datur omnibus intueri. Sed cum iure istud de universitate dictatur, conicite nunc, quantum debeant, quos honoribus fastigiatis, quos socios triumphorum omnium successuumque vestrorum dignitatum titulis applicatis: ut sic virtutis vestrae decora nostra sint et ad honoratorum ornamenta pertineat, quidquid gesserit fons honorum. Affecto igitur, principum inclite, litterarum obsequia, vota gratiarum; praestolor oraculum sermonis augusti; ambio, si quid sit, quod iubere dignemini. Quia etiam si indigere famulatu nostro dignitas vestra non creditur, quisquis tamen felici meruerit servire, sibi militat. Me exposcat, supplico, Orientalium quoque gentium distantia, crudelitate exposcat principari sibi praesulem nostrum Parthicus ductor; propter quae si pacis commodo in Romani imperii gaudeat iura transire, Indus ipse post experimenta mansuetus oris striduli voce compressa leges, quibus servire iubeatur, gratia cognoscat interprete. Si quis feruor est, quo axis meridianus exaestuat, refrigerio temperate et edomate per reverentiam, quidquid ante vos indomitum fuerat per naturam. Incumbentia sibi sceptra religionis invictae quisquis non optat, excipiat. Prorogetur per vos non minus potestate religio, quae famulantibus populis ad caelestia pariter terrenaque veneranda et veritatem adstruat et porrigat libertatem: qua mediante vobis cultui aeternae salutis innisis non humano tantum ordine, verum etiam divino amore longum servire nos deceat. [Sigismundus rex domno imperatori]. Quam piae maiestatis iudicio serenitas vestra vel parvi pendat impedimenta tem- porum vel censeat corda famulorum, nullo indicio meliore cognoscitur, quam quod in sacris apicibus longinquius porrigendis implet desiderantum vota et supplicum non expectat officia. Appetunt occursum vestri omnium mentes: nec tam gloriosum est, quod pauci possunt, quam quod cuncti videre vos cupiunt. Quod autem nunc augustae compellationis affatus debitae vobis paginae praevenit obsequium, nihil indevotioni plus arbiter, nihil imputet tarditati. Nisi aditum conatibus nostris obex interiecta suspenderet, iam nunc profecto verbum mundo venerabile responsa potius quam oracula destinasset. Nec tamen remorando mihi tantum nocuit, quantum invidit aemulus livor. Non me quidem legistis officii mei compotem, sed reddidistis pii oris compellatione felicem. Nec interest, excipiat nos sermo augustus, an expectet: a celsissima digna- tione tantum est nostra non despici, quantum vestra concedi. Igitur post obitum devo- tissimi fidelissimique vobis patris mei, proceris vestri, cui ad felicissimos integra pro- speritate successus id quoque contigit divino favore votivum, ut laetam florentemque rempublicam vobis orbem regentibus sciret vosque dominos nationum placido receptus fine derelinqueret: ad haec intimanda vobisque commendanda quin etiam meae mili- tiae rudimenta, quae genitore quidem meo superstite nutristis, sed magis magisque post eum cumulo sacrae dignationis augebitis, sicut debebam vel optare par fuerat, unum de consiliariis meis, qui, quantum ad ignorantiam Gallicanam, ceteros praeire litteris aestimatur, venerandi comitatus vestri auribus offerebam, specialius securitate concepta, quod rector Italiae de pace vestra publice plauderet et rumore disperso redditam sibi Orientis gratiam coloraret. Interclusum est ergo atque prohibitum rela- tionibus destinatis iter arreptum. Certe ipse viderit, quid hinc apud augustam laeti- tiam spectet series veritatis. Parvum tamen amicitiae videtur indicium eum, quem te colere adseras, nolle a ceteris honorari: cum omnes, qui vos digno cultu suspicimus, id ipsum a cunctis fieri velle debeamus. Parum enim propriae devotionis ostendit, si quis occurrendi libertate damnata alios quoque facere studeat indevotos: cum tamen sanctitas caelestis ingenii nequeat censere culpabilem, quem vel sola voluntas reddi- derit innocentem. Vnde evidenter ipsum videtis allegare, quid cuperem, qui tam sollicite conatus est impedire, ne possem. Itaque quoniam divino vestroque munere et sacri apices et opportuni proveniunt, quamquam discrepat, orant augmentum regni vestri, quibus nova profertis; optant custodiam, quibus consueta servatis. Sic pii moderamine gubernaculi remedia quidem altera conquisivit, etsi repulsam neutra pars pertulit. Inter hos tamen peculiarius illud ego debeo, quod huius petitionis effectum respectui meo praestitum duplicantes quantum peculiari servo impenderitis gratiae, gratis praestando monstrastis: solumque ob hoc commodum in thesauris vestris mercede reposita quod pauperibus donabatis, non pretio voluistis constare, sed praemio. Et hoc ipsum qua elegantia digne memoretur: reddere, quod a famulis oblatum fuerat, quam spernere maluistis et quo laetius fieret donum, contristare noluistis obsequium. Et licet, quidquid ad manus vestras pervenit, vergatur in pauperes atque idcirco ille vos forsitan dehortetur accipere, qui invidet erogare: subministrate tamen retributioni divinae, unde et dispensetis, cum egent inopes, et concedatis, cum supplicant debi- tores. Currite quapropter piissimi via genuina vestri operis unitate. Numquam, si creditis, sufficientia deerit animo tali. Ipso possibilitatem largiente unde praestetur, habetis, a quo voluntati infusum est, ne aliquid negare possitis.