Letter 6030: Opportunities to send you greetings must be sought out when they're scarce and seized when they appear -- especially...

The occasion for sending you a greeting must often both be sought by me, if it is lacking, and embraced, if it is at hand, most of all at this time, when I am anxious about my daughter's health, whose well-being I believe has been weakened even by her fastings. Release our fear, therefore, with the news of good things. My step is even now unsteady, but if a mutual exchange of words brings me what I hope for concerning you, the ailment of my body will at once be soothed. I would not omit to add to this page that a judicial summons has driven Martinianus out. So great a terror was struck into him on account of his long-deferred departure to the Gauls, that it became necessary for him to forestall, by a private journey, the wrong of a compulsory appearance. As for what we wish to be done about Atellanus, the magistrate inquired through the intervention of a friend. I replied that, after the judgment of the priest, I awaited only the punishing of the ill will recently stirred up. Nevertheless I have referred the matters to be decided to your judgment. I beg you, therefore, that amid the delays of the holidays you would deign to make clear what needs to be done, and at the same time consider, against the intervention of so many bishops, what can be obtained rather than what ought to be obtained. For the defense of justice and of innocence can avail very little, when the reverence due to religion is set against them.