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to be managed for us. 194.τ TO ZOILUS 194.1 What are you doing, my excellent friend, in forestalling us in the measure of humility? You, who are so well educated and so skilled in writing letters, as your letter shows, nevertheless ask to receive pardon from us as though for some rather bold undertaking that exceeds your station. But abandoning this irony, write to us on every pretext. For if we have any share in eloquence, we shall most gladly encounter the letters of an eloquent man; or if we have been taught by Scripture how good a thing is love, we consider the company of a man who loves us to be worth everything. May you write about the good things for which we pray for you: health of body and prosperity of your entire house. As for our own affairs, know that they are no more tolerable than usual. It is enough to say this much and to show you the weakness of our body. For the excess of illness that now holds us is neither easy to show in word nor to be believed in fact, if indeed anything greater than what you yourself knew was found in us in the way of illness. But it is the work of the good God to give us strength to bear with patience the blows inflicted on our body for our benefit by our benefactor, the Lord.

195.τ TO EUPHRONIUS, BISHOP OF COLONIA IN ARMENIA 195.1 Because Colonia, which the Lord has given you to govern, is situated far from the travelled places, often, even when we write to the other brethren in Lesser Armenia, we are hesitant to send letters to your Reverence, not expecting there to be anyone to carry them that far. But now, expecting either that you yourself will be present or that the letter will be sent on by the bishops to whom we have written, we both write to your Reverence and greet you through this letter, at once indicating that we seem to still be above the earth, and at the same time exhorting you to pray for us, that the Lord may lessen our afflictions and take away from us, like some cloud, this great weight of sorrow that now lies upon our hearts. And this will happen if He grants a swift return to the most God-beloved bishops who are now in exile, paying the penalty for their piety.

196.τ TO ABURGIUS 196.1 That you are rushing about like the stars, rising now in one part of the barbarian land, now in another, sometimes providing rations for the military, sometimes appearing before the Emperor in splendid attire—this, rumor, the messenger of good news, does not cease to report to us. We pray to God that your undertaking, proceeding reasonably, may bring you to great advancement, and that you may one day appear in your fatherland, as long as we are above the earth and draw this air. For we have only so much of life as to breathe.

197.τ TO AMBROSE, BISHOP OF MILAN

197.1 Great and many are the gifts of our Master, and neither is their magnitude measurable nor their number countable. And one of the greatest gifts for those who receive His favors with ready perception is this present one, that He has granted us, though separated by a great distance in place, to be united with one another through address in letters. And He has graced us with a twofold manner of acquaintance: one through personal meeting, the other through the conversation of a letter. Since, therefore, we have come to know you through what you have spoken, and we have come to know not the bodily form in our memories