Letter 26

26. To Caesarius, brother of Gregory.

Thanks be to God, who has displayed his own wonders in you also, and has rescued you out of so great a death, restoring you both to your country and to us, your kinsmen. It remains, then, for us not to be found ungrateful, nor unworthy of so great a benefit, but, according to our ability, to proclaim the marvels of God, and to celebrate in song that love for humanity of which we have had experience in deed, and to render thanks not in word alone, but to become also in deed such men as we are now persuaded we ought to be, judging from the wonders worked in your case.

And we exhort you to serve God yet more fully, ever increasing your reverence by fresh additions and advancing toward perfection, so that we may be shown to be wise stewards of our life, for which the goodness of God has kept us in reserve. For if it is a command laid upon all of us to present ourselves to God as men alive from the dead, how much more does this hold for those who have been lifted up from the very gates of death? And this, I am persuaded, would best be accomplished if we were willing always to keep the same mind that we had at the moment of our danger. For surely there came home to us then the emptiness of life, and how nothing human is trustworthy or secure, since all things are so easily subject to reversal. And surely there arose in us, as was natural, some repentance for what had gone before, and a promise concerning what should follow, that, if we were preserved, we would serve God and attend to ourselves with all exactness. For if the peril of death pressing upon us gave us any thought at all, I suppose that you reasoned then on these very things, or very near to them.

And so we have come to stand answerable for the payment of a necessary debt. With these things in mind — at once overjoyed at the gift of God, and at once anxious about the things to come — I have taken courage to remind your perfection. And it is for you to receive our words kindly and gently, as was your custom also in our conversations face to face.