Letter CCXII.

(a.d. 423.)

To Quintilianus, My Lord Most Blessed and Brother and Fellow Bishop Deservedly Venerable, Augustin Sends Greeting.

Venerable father, I commend to you in the love of Christ these honourable servants of God and precious members of Christ, Galla, a widow (who has taken on herself sacred vows), and her daughter Simplicia, a consecrated virgin, who is subject to her mother by reason of her age, but above her by reason of her holiness. We have nourished them as far as we have been able with the word of God; and by this epistle, as if it were with my own hand, I commit them to you, to be comforted and aided in every way which their interest or necessity requires. This duty your Holiness would doubtless have undertaken without any recommendation from me; for if it is our duty on account of the Jerusalem above, of which we are all citizens, and in which they desire to have a place of distinguished holiness, to cherish towards them not only the affection due to fellow-citizens, but even brotherly love, how much stronger is their claim on you, who reside in the same country in this earth in which these ladies, for the love of Christ, renounced the distinctions of this world! I also ask you to condescend to receive with the same love with which I have offered it my official salutation, and to remember me in your prayers. These ladies carry with them relics of the most blessed and glorious martyr Stephen: your Holiness knows how to give due honour to these, as we have done.1498    A memorial chapel for the reception of relics of Saint Stephen had been built at Hippo.—See City of God, book XXII.

EPISTOLA CCXII . Augustinus Quintiliano, commendat matrem viduam cum filia virgine, quae deferebant reliquias Stephani martyris.

Domino beatissimo, et merito venerabili fratri et coepiscopo QUINTILIANO , AUGUSTINUS, in Domino salutem.

Honorabiles Dei famulas, et pretiosa Christi membra, Gallam viduam sancti propositi, et ejus filiam Simpliciolam virginem sacram, matri aetate subditam, sanctitate praelatam, quas verbo Domini aluimus ut potuimus, Venerationi tuae in Christi dilectione commendo, et tanquam mea manu per hanc epistolam trado consolandas, et in omnibus adjuvandas, quae utilitas earum vel necessitas postulat: quod et sine mea commendatione procul dubio faceret Sanctitas tua. Si enim nos propter supernam Jerusalem, cujus nos omnes cives sumus, et in qua concupierunt habere excellentioris sanctitatis locum, non solum civicum, verum etiam fraternum eis debemus affectum: quanto magis vos, apud quos earum etiam carnalis est patria, in qua saecularem nobilitatem pro Christi amore contemnunt dominae illae? Officium quoque salutationis per illas meum ea charitate peto digneris sumere qua direxi, et meminisse nostri in orationibus tuis. Portant sane secum reliquias beatissimi et gloriosissimi martyris Stephani, quas non ignorat Sanctitas vestra, sicut et nos fecimus, quam convenienter honorare debeatis.