Letter 22: To my kindred brother Severus,

Paulinus to his brother Severus, one in soul with him. The letters which you had sent by that unspiritual monk of ours were intercepted and carried through by a truly spiritual letter-carrier, that is, by our son Sorianus, in whom we have perceived that the Lord conferred a double favor: lest that man should reach us empty of your discourse [Sorianus, who had longed for us with affection drawn from your very bowels], and lest again Marracinus should bring your letters to us, who, by a divinely inspired modesty about seeing us, as I believe, or by a sluggishness about extending his journey beyond the city, handed your letters over at Rome to the aforesaid brother, rejoicing in the chance for the shortcut he wished, by which he supposed he had taken counsel for himself against your instructions, so that he would not be compelled either to fashion the monk in himself, as you had ordered, or to discern the monk in me, as was necessary. Let him therefore keep his own cloak [armilausa] and his own boots and his own puffed-out cheeks, of which he feared to change some and to lay aside others. Let our fellow-servants and our fellow pale-faced ones approach us and revisit us, not proud in painted garments but humble in rough haircloth, not in a courtier's short cloak but mantled in coarse little capes, not girt with a belt but bound with a rope, not with hair grown long over the shameless front of a shaven head but, with chaste unsightliness, with their hair cropped to the skin and unevenly half-shorn and shaved bare at the forehead. And let them be unadorned with the adornment of modesty, and decently unkempt, and honorably contemptible, since, scorning even the inborn comeliness of the body for the sake of the inner cultivation, they are deformed even by their own zeal, so that they become shamefully unseemly in their faces while they are made wholesomely seemly in their minds. The face and the dress and the smell of such men cause nausea to those for whom the odor of death is unto an odor of life [II Cor. 2:16], for whom what is bitter is sweet, what is chaste is foul, and what is holy is hostile. For this reason it is just that we should repay them in kind, so that their odor may be to us as it were an odor of death, lest we cease to be the odor of Christ. For with what right would they be angry at us, if in turn the odor of their life stinks to us, for whom our odor is unto death? He shudders at my fast, I cannot bear his drunkenness. He shuns the breath of a monk speaking, I flee the belching breath of a Thraso [a boaster]. If the dryness of our throat displeases them, the surfeit of their gullet displeases us too. If the aridity of our frugality offends them, the gluttony of their bellies offends us too. Let them see us, then, not drunk in the morning but fasting in the evening, not bloated with yesterday's wine but abstemious with today's, not insanely unsteady from the surfeit of lust but soundly wounded by the vigils of honorable conduct and soberly intoxicated, men whom thrift, not the gulf of appetite, makes to totter. We rejoice that we have received such a bearer of your letter, whom I ask you to receive as if he had come to me sent by you. For among those who have come to me in the stead of your brotherhood, this man too ought to be counted, to whom the Lord, that he might thus be counted by you, handed over your letters even without your knowing it. And I think that you too will reckon the gift of this divine favor to this man, through whom it was granted to you as well that no bearer who was not of your own body should bring us your letters. Yet even so, with his own leave, I wish Sorianus to be praised, lest you accuse me to him again. For I judge that I have praised that man rather than disparaged him, by the recollection of those things in which it is necessary for him to glory who is ashamed to be or to seem a monk. Indeed, you remember that in Virgil the Fury is praised for those very things which are usually cast as reproaches. But see that you do not bring a charge against me, that I have taken up something from a poet no longer of our pursuit, as a violator of my own resolve; I call to witness that I have done this by the authority of your own example, for I hold a letter of yours whose closing clause is: "Live happy, you for whom fortune is already accomplished" [Virgil, Aeneid VII, 823 ff.]; and that other one too, in which, mindful of the Plautine prologue, you named the household Lar [guardian spirit] in place of the domestic dwelling [Virgil, Aeneid III, 493; cf. Plautus, Aulularia, prologue 2].

XXII. SEVERO FRATRI VNANIMO PAVLINVS. Epistolas, quas per nostrum illum inspiritalem monachum miseras, uere spiritalis tabellarius intercepit et pertulit, id est filius noster Sorianus, in quo duplicem gratiam dominum contulisse perspeximus, ne uel ille ad nos sermonis tui uacuus 2] Ps. 91, 11. 1 diligemus 0 3 in ona. FPU quae] qui v 6 exhorciste P, eihoraste U cotidianis P1 esset PU 7 refugerit M 8 tingeret FPU 10 tam bellus] tabellus FPU 12 et nos ipsos om. FPU 18 commedamus 0 impressis FU 16 consequamur F; ualere te oro add. FP\' U . — finit . V. 0 FLMOPU . — incipit sexta eiusdem F, item epistola eiusdem ad eundem - V • L, ad sulpitium seuerum • XIII ■ M, incipit ad eundem septima 0, epistola sancti paulini episcopi ad seuerum monacum ubi receptis epistolis ei plurimum gratulatur commendans sorianum uenerabilem monacum portitorem earum: ubi etiam sub compendio mouasticam uitam describit U 19 spiritalem FP\'U 20 est] es U 21 sorianus (ri in ras.) M dum graui M adueniret, qui nos de tuis uisceribus inbuto affectu desiderauerat, ne uel iterum tuas nobis litteras Marracinus adferret, qui diuinitus, ut credo, inspirata sibi aut uerecundia nos uidendi aut pigritia ultra urbem itineris porrigendi Romae litteras tuas supradicto fratri dedit, gaudens optati occasione conpendii, qua sibi aduersum tua praecepta consultum putabat, ne cogeretur monachum aut in se, ut iusseras, fingere aut in me, ut necesse erat, cernere. sibi ergo ille habeat armilausam suam et suas caligas et suas buccas, quarum alia mutare, alia deducere timuit. Nos adeant et reuisant conseruuli et conpallidi nostri, non uestibus pictis superbi sed horrentibus ciliciis humiles nec chlamyde curtalini sed sagulis palliati nec balteo sed reste succincti nec inproba adtonsi capitis fronte criniti sed casta informitate capillum ad cutem caesi et inaequaliter semitonsi et destituta fronte praerasi. et ornatu pudicitiae inornati et decenter inculti sint et honorabiliter despicabiles, cum ingenitam quoque speciem corporis pro interiore cultu aspernantes etiam studio deformantur, ut fiant pudenter inhonesti uultibus, dum perficiantur salutariter honesti mentibus. huiusmodi hominum et uultus et habitus et odor nauseam illis facit, quibus odor mortis est in odorem uitae, quibus dulce quod amarum et turpe quod castum et hostile quod sanctum est. propterea iustum est, ut reddamus illis uicem, ut sit nobis odor eorum . tamquam odor mortis, ne desinamus esse odor Christi. quid enim nobis iure suscenseant, si uicissim nobis foeteat odor uitae eorum, quibus odor noster in mortem est? ille ieiunium 21] (II Cor. 2, 16). 22] (Es. 5,20). 1 ueniret M 3 ut om. FLPU inspirata sibi v, inspiratam sibi 0, inspiratus ibi cet . 6 quia M cogeremur F 7 iusserat FP, iuxerat U 9 alias-alias LM 11 reuiseant FU, reuisent LO pallidi 0 13 chlammide 0, clamide cet . 14 crinit F caste U 15 symetonsi FP, si me tonsi U 16 distituta 0 pudititiae 0 17 despicibiles M 19 prudentes L 20 salubriter F 21 nausiam FLM, nausem U faciat LM 23 est om. F 24 illi FPU 25 desideramus F 26 in nobis L suscenseant 0, succenseant cet . feteat LO, fetat FP, petat U 27 eorum om. U nostrae v meum horret, ego illius crapulam ferre non possum. ille halitum monachi loquentis euitat, ego flatum Thrasonis ructantis effugio. si illis displicet gutturis nostri siccitas, et nobis gulae cruditas. si illos offendit frugalitatis ariditas, et nos uentrium offendit ingluuies. uideant ergo nos non mane ebrii sed uespere ieiuni nec hesterno inflati uino sed hodierno abstemii nec de crapula libidinis dementer instabiles sed uigiliis honestatis integre saucii et sobrie temulenti, quos parsimonia faciat, non uorago titubare. Talem nos epistolae tuae portitorem excepisse laetamur, quem rogo sic accipias, quasi a te missus mihi uenerit. namque inter eos, qui uice fraternitatis tuae ad me uenerunt, debet et iste numerari, cui dominus, ut ita a te numeraretur, litteras tuas et ignorante te tradidit. puto autem quod et tu diuinae huius gratiae beneficium huic deputes, per quem et tibi praestitum est, ne litteras nobis tuas non tui corporis perlator adferret. sed tamen ipsius pace laudatum Sorianum uolo, ne me illi rursus accuses. praedicasse enim me illum magis quam uituperasse existimo eorum commemoratione, in quibus necesse est glorietur qui esse aut uideri monachus erubescit. denique meministi in Vergilio Furiam his laudari quae solent obici. uide autem ne mihi calumnieris, quod aliquid de poeta non nostri iam studii tamquam propositi uiolator adsumpserim; exempli tui auctoritate hoc me fecisse contestor; teneo enim epistolam tuam, cui clausula est: Viuite felices, quibus est fortuna peracta, sed et illam, in qua pro domestica sede larem familiarem Plautini memor prologi nominasti. 20] (Verg. Aen. VII, 823 sqq.) 25] Verg. Aeu. III, 493. 27] (Plaut. Aul. prol. 2). 1 possem FPU hanelitum M, alitum FOPU 2 loquentis monachi F trasonis LM, tyhasonis 0 3 gulae] eorum add. v 4 et Ov, om. cet . uentrum F 5 erga L ueniant ergo ad nos M 6 externo U abstenui U 7 integri 0, integrae F 10 excipias LM missum FU1 12 et om. LM ita otn. LM 13 tuas et] tuas etiam v put U tu] te F 15 tui] tuus Fp\'JU, tua P1 16 sorianum (i cras. uel in lit.) M, Marracinum coni. Sacch . 17 post . me om. LM quam istum M 20 iuj et in LM uertigio 0, uirgilio cet . iis v 27 nominasti] ualeas oro add. Įi\'p\'JU . — explicit L, explicit epistola sexta F, finit ad seuerum VII. 0