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| To Niceas, Sub-Deacon of Aquileia.
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Letter VIII. To Niceas, Sub-Deacon of Aquileia.
Niceas, the sub-deacon, had accompanied Jerome to the
East but had now returned home. In after-years he became bishop of
Aquileia in succession to Chromatius. The date of the letter is 374
a.d.
The comic poet Turpilius121
| 121 Turpilius, who appears
to have been a dramatist of some note, died in 101 b.c. He is mentioned by Jerome in his edition of the
Eusebian Chronicle. | says
of the exchange of letters that it alone makes the absent present. The
remark, though occurring in a work of fiction, is not untrue. For what
more real presence—if I may so speak—can there be between
absent friends than speaking to those whom they love in letters, and in
letters hearing their reply? Even those Italian savages, the Cascans of
Ennius, who—as Cicero tells us in his books on
rhetoric—hunted their food like beasts of prey, were wont, before
paper and parchment came into use, to exchange letters written on
tablets of wood roughly planed, or on strips of bark torn from the
trees. For this reason men called letter-carriers tablet-bearers,122
| 122 Tabellarii, from
tabella, a small tablet. | and letter-writers bark-users,123
| 123 Librarii, from liber,
bark. | because they used the bark of trees. How
much more then are we, who live in a civilized age, bound not to omit a
social duty performed by men who lived in a state of gross savagery,
and were in some respects entirely ignorant of the refinements of life.
The saintly Chromatius, look you, and the reverend Eusebius, brothers
as much by compatibility of disposition as by the ties of nature, have
challenged me to diligence by the letters which they have showered upon
me. You, however, who have but just left me, have not merely unknit our
new-made friendship; you have torn it asunder—a process which
Lælius, in Cicero’s treatise,124
wisely forbids. Can it be that the East is so hateful to you that you
dread the thought of even your letters coming hither? Wake up, wake up,
arouse yourself from sleep, give to affection at least one sheet of
paper. Amid the pleasures of life at home sometimes heave a sigh over
the journeys which we have made together. If you love me, write in
answer to my prayer. If you are angry with me, though angry still
write. I find my longing soul much comforted when I receive a letter
from a friend, even though that friend be out of temper with me.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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