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.
2934
2934
A memorial chapel for the reception of relics of
Saint Stephen had been built at Hippo.—See
City of God
,
book XXII.