On the Death of Valentinian

What then shall I first bewail? What first shall I lament with bitter complaint? Our days of hoped-for prayers are turned for us into tears; since Valentinian came to us, but not such as was hoped for. And yet even he wished by his death to fulfil the promise; but his presence, which was longed for, has been made most bitter to us. Would that he were still absent from us, that he might live for himself! But he, when he heard that the Alps of Italy were being harassed by the barbarian enemy, would not suffer it, and preferred to endanger himself, if he should abandon the Gauls, rather than fail us in our peril. We recognize a great crime of the emperor, that he wished to succor the Roman empire! This was the cause of his death, a cause full of praise. Let us pay to the good prince the tribute of our tears; since he paid for us even the tribute of his death.

Nor indeed is any exhortation to weeping needed. All weep; even strangers weep, even the fearful weep, even the unwilling weep, even the barbarians weep, even those who seemed enemies weep. How many groans of peoples did he draw forth from the Gauls all the way hither, along the whole course of his journey? For all mourn him with the tears of domestic grief, not as though an emperor, but as though a common father had died, and all weep as it were their own funerals. For we have lost an emperor in whom two things equally embittered our grief: the immaturity of his years, and the old age of his counsels. In these things I weep, as the Prophet said: "Mine eyes have failed with weeping, because he that comforted me is far from me" (Lament. 1:16).

My eyes, not only of the body but also of the mind, are dimmed, and a certain blindness has overspread every sense; since he has been snatched from me who converted my soul, and called it back to the greatest hope out of the utmost despair of affairs.

Hear, all ye peoples, and behold my grief. "My virgins and my young men have gone into captivity": but, being known to be of Valentinian's party, they returned free. The barbarian enemy served as a soldier for the young emperor, and forgetting his own victory, remembered the reverence due to imperial majesty. He released of his own accord those whom he had captured, excusing himself that he had not known them to be Italians. We were still preparing to add a wall to the Alps: the grace of Valentinian did not wait for the rampart of the Alps, the streams of rivers, the ramparts of snows, but, surmounting the Alps and the rivers, protected us with the wall of his own rule. Whence it seems fitting for me to use the opening of the prophetic Lamentations: "How doth Italy mourn, that abounded in joys? Weeping she hath wept in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks. There is none to comfort her among all that love her. All that loved her have despised her.

All her people are groaning".

And because it was said of Jerusalem: "Weeping she hath wept in the night"; so also our Jerusalem, that is, the Church, has wept in the night; because he who by his own faith and devotion made her more splendid, has fallen. Rightly therefore, "weeping she hath wept," and her tears are still upon her cheeks. Indeed the abundance of tears is wont to be declared by the moistening flow upon the countenance, when the cheeks are wet with weeping; but since it is written: "Her cheeks are as bottles of spices, bringing forth ointments, her lips are lilies dropping choice myrrh"; the mystical grace of the weeping Church is understood, which at the death of Valentinian poured forth the good ointment of her grief, and celebrates his life in praise. Death could not harm him, since the sweet odor of his praise, celebrated in the mouth of all, has abolished every stench of death.

The Church, then, weeps for her pledge, and her tears are on her cheeks. Hear what that cheek is: "Whosoever shall strike thee on the cheek, offer him also the other"; because she is patient in grief, so that the striker may repent. Thou wast struck, O Church, on thy cheek, when thou didst lose Gratian: thou didst offer the other also, when Valentinian was snatched from thee. Rightly are thy tears not on one cheek, but on both; because thou dost piously bewail both brothers. Thou weepest then, O Church, and with weeping thy cheeks overflow as it were with certain flowing drops of piety. What are these cheeks of the Church? Of which elsewhere Scripture says: "Thy cheeks are as the rind of a pomegranate". These are the cheeks in which modesty is wont to shine, and beauty to gleam: in which is either the flower of youth or the mark of perfect age.

In the death, then, of faithful emperors there is a certain modesty of the faith, a certain shame of the Church; and in so untimely a death of pious princes, the beauty of the whole Church is the sadder.

The Church weeps in her wise men, who are as the head of the Church: for "the eyes of a wise man are in his head". She weeps in her eyes, that is, in her faithful ones; for it is written: "Thy eyes are as doves, apart from thy silence", because they see spiritually, and know how to keep silent about the mysteries they have seen. She weeps in her priests, who are as the cheeks of the Church, in whom is the beard of Aaron, that is, the priestly beard, upon which the ointment descends from the head. These are they in whom is the beauty of the Church, in whom her flower is more pleasing, in whom age is more perfect: who, like the rinds of pomegranates, display outwardly the comeliness of bodily abstinence, but within nourish, with spiritual wisdom, the people of diverse age and sex entrusted to them—exposed indeed to the world for injuries, but dispensing the inner mysteries.

She weeps in her virgins, who are like lilies, and lilies full of myrrh, displaying the whiteness of integrity and the glory of mortified bodily allurement.

In these, then, she weeps, as it is written: "The ways of Sion mourn, her priests groan, her virgins are led away, and she herself is grieved within her" (Lament. 1:4). And within herself indeed she is grieved, but to Valentinian she says: "I will take thee, and bring thee into my mother's house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me. I will give thee drink of spiced wine", that is, of ointment of much labor, of much fragrance, from the flow of my pomegranates; that he may drink the wine which gladdens the heart of man, and that the flow of pomegranates may pour into him, in which is much and diverse fruit. For discourse of many senses, and abounding from diverse Scriptures, the discourse of angels, the discourse of apostles and prophets, whom the holy Church embraces as it were within one rind, is the flow of pomegranates.

Seeing these things, Valentinian, full of complete grace, replies: "It is of the mercies of the Lord that we have not been consumed; for his compassions have not failed. He will renew them as the morning light" (Lament. 3:22-23). "Many are my groans, and my heart has fainted. The Lord is my portion, I said; therefore will I wait for him. The Lord is good to them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. It is good to hope for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for a man when he has borne the yoke from his youth: he shall sit alone, and hold his peace; because he has taken up the yoke". And indeed he consoles himself with the reward of his own virtues; because in his youth he absorbed labors, endured many perils; he preferred to bear on the vigorous neck of his mind the heavy yoke of a more corrected purpose, rather than that soft one full of delights.

Blessed truly is he who, even in old age, has corrected his error; blessed is he who, even under the stroke of death, has turned his mind away from vices. For "blessed are they whose sins are covered"; for it is written: "Cease from evil, and do good, and dwell forever". Whosoever, then, shall have ceased from sins, and shall have turned to better things at whatever age, shall have indulgence for his former sins, whether he has confessed them with the affection of penitence, or has turned from them by the disposition to amend. But such a one shares the merit of pardon with very many; for very many are they who have been able to call themselves back from sins and the slipperiness of youth in old age: rare, however, is he who in youth has borne with serious sobriety the heavy yoke. This is that yoke of which the Lord in the Gospel says: "Come to me, all ye that labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you; take up my yoke upon you".

If, then, anyone, before he is burdened with the heavy load of sins, shall have taken up the yoke in his youth, he shall sit alone: not to be compared with the many, but with him who can say, "For thou, O Lord, hast singularly established me in hope".

But perhaps you may say: How does Jeremiah call the yoke heavy, when in the Gospel the Lord said: "My yoke is sweet, and my burden is light"? First learn that the Greek merely set down "yoke," and did not add "heavy." Yet note this too, that even if it were so in the Lamentations (Lament. 3:27), still in the Gospel he called the yoke sweet, and the burden light, not the yoke light. For the yoke of the Word can be heavy, and yet sweet: heavy to the adolescent, heavy to the youth, whose age is more flowering; so that he is unwilling to offer the neck of his soul to be subjected to the yoke of the Word. And the yoke of the Word can also seem heavy on account of the burdens of discipline, the austerity of correction, the weight of abstinence, and the restraint of wantonness; yet sweet in the fruit of grace, in the hope of eternal reward, in the sweetness of a purer conscience.

Yet he called the yoke of the Word sweet, and the burden of obedience light; since to him who has taken up the yoke of the Word with a patient neck, the burden of discipline cannot be heavy.

He, then, who has borne the yoke from his youth, shall sit alone, and shall keep silence, rejoicing that the eternal mysteries of the divine reward have been revealed to him. Or certainly he shall be silent, having no need of excuse for sin, since he forestalled it by timely confession, and laid it aside by prompt correction. For it is not said to him: "What thou hast not gathered in thy youth, how shalt thou find it in thy old age?" It can also be understood thus: that he who has quickly borne the yoke of the Word, that is, from youth, will not mingle himself with the young, but will sit apart and be silent; until he shall have instructed himself with the full perfection of virtue, and shall have put on great patience of soul: and he will give his cheek to the one who strikes him, even despising the injury of the blow, that he may obey the heavenly commandments.

For it is a great thing either to abstain from the vices of youth, or to leave it in the very threshold of youth, and to turn oneself to more serious things; for the ways of youth are slippery and perplexed. Finally Solomon says: "Three things are impossible for me to understand, and a fourth which I do not know: the ways of an eagle flying, and the ways of a serpent upon a rock, and the paths of a ship sailing, and the ways of a man in his youth". David, however, says: "Remember not the sins of my youth, and my ignorances". For the youth not only slips through the frailty of his slippery age, but also for the most part sins through ignorance of the heavenly commandments: and he who pleads ignorance quickly obtains pardon.

Thus the Prophet says: "Remember not the sins of my youth, and my ignorances." He does not say: "Remember not the sins of my old age, and of my knowledge"; but, as a prophet who quickly corrected and amended the vices of his youth, he pleads his age and ignorance.

Valentinian too, like the Prophet even in this same matter of fault, says: "Remember not the sins of my adolescence, and my ignorances." Nor did he only say it, but even corrected the error before he learned that he had fallen into any error. And so he says: "Remember not the correction of my youth." Error is in many; correction, in few.

And what shall I now say of other things—he who thought that even the sport of youth should be abstained from, the license of that age curtailed, the harshness of public severity softened, the leniency of old age to be shown, in years not his own, to one who was summoned into danger on a charge of crime? He was said at first to delight in circus games: this he so wiped away, that not even on the solemn birthdays of emperors, or for the honor of imperial dignity, did he think circus games should be celebrated. Some said that he was occupied with hunting of wild beasts, and that his attention was drawn away from public business: he ordered all the wild beasts to be killed at one stroke.

He heard cases in the consistory, and, with the spirit of Daniel, in matters wherein old men were doubtful, or were led by regard for some person, one might see the youth render a fitting and elderly judgment. The envious used to complain that he sought his meal too early: he began so to observe fasting frequently, that often, unfed himself, he provided a solemn banquet for his Comites—so as both to satisfy sacred religion and the humanity of a prince.

It was being reported that certain noble youths of Rome were dying with passion for the beauty and grace of a certain stage-actress: he ordered her to come to the court. The man sent, corrupted by a bribe, returned without carrying out the mandate; he sent a second, lest he should seem to have wished to correct the vices of the young men and yet not been able to. Occasion was given to some for detraction; yet, though she was brought, he never watched her performance nor even saw her. Afterward he ordered her to return home, so that all might recognize that his mandate was not idle, and that he might teach the young men to restrain themselves from love of a woman whom he himself, who could have had her in his power, had disdained. And this he did while he did not yet have a wife, and yet displayed a chastity of his own as if bound in wedlock. Who was ever so much the master of a slave, as he was of his own body?

Who was ever so much the judge of others, as he was the censor of his own youth?

What shall I say of his piety? When men born of noble stock and of a wealthy line—which is wont quickly to stir up envy—were being pressed by an accuser charging royal ambition, and the prefect was insisting upon it, he answered that nothing bloody should be decreed, especially on holy days. And when after some days the accuser's petition was read, he pronounced it a calumny, and ordered that the accused be kept freely under observation until the prefect should investigate. Never before or after did anyone under a youthful emperor fear the odium of so great a charge. The young man laughed at what robust emperors fear.

Rome had sent envoys to recover the rights of the temples, the profane privileges of the priesthoods, and the worship of her sacred rites; and, what is more serious, they were pressing in the name of the senate. And when all who were present in the consistory, Christians and pagans alike, were saying that these things ought to be restored, he alone, like Daniel, the Spirit of God being roused within him, charged the Christians with faithlessness, and confronted the pagans, saying: What my devout brother took away, how do you think it should be restored by me? Since in that both religion would be injured, and my brother, by whom he would not wish to be surpassed in devotion.

And when he was confronted with the example of his father, that under his father no one had taken these things away, he answered: You praise my father, because he did not take them away; neither have I taken them away. Did my father restore them, that you should demand that I ought to restore them? Finally, even if my father had restored them, my brother had taken them away, and I would rather be an imitator of my brother in this matter. Or was my father Augustus, and was my brother not? Equal reverence is owed to each, and equal favor toward the commonwealth belongs to both. I will imitate both: so that I will not restore what my father could not restore, because no one had taken it away; and I will preserve what has been established by my brother. Let Rome, our parent, ask whatever else she desires: I owe affection to my parent, but I owe obedience still more to the author of my salvation.

What shall I say of his love for the provincials, whether that with which he himself embraced them, or that which was returned to him, their counselor, by them, to whom he never allowed anything to be imposed as a burden? Past debts, he said, they cannot pay off; will they be able to bear new ones? For this the provinces praise Julian: and he indeed in the vigor of his age, this one in the growth of his youth; he found very much, and exhausted all of it; this one found nothing, and yet supplied everyone in abundance.

While stationed in the regions across the Alps, he heard that barbarians had drawn near to the borders of Italy: anxious lest his own kingdom be assailed by an enemy not his own, he hastened to come, eager to lay aside the leisure of Gaul and to take upon himself our dangers.

These things are common to me with others. This is what is mine alone: that he often summoned me though absent, and preferred to be initiated by me into the sacred mysteries. Indeed, when a certain rumor had reached the city of Vienne, that I was going there for the sake of inviting him to Italy, how he rejoiced, how he congratulated himself that I would be present at his wish! The delay of my arrival seemed too long to him. And would that no messenger had come before his own arrival!

I had already promised that I would set out, answering either the officials who asked or the prefect, that so the tranquility of Italy might be provided for; that, as I could not intrude superfluously out of modesty, so I would not fail in cases of necessity. This had been confirmed: and behold, the next day letters concerning the arrangement of way-stations, the conveyance of the royal ornaments, and other such things which signified that the emperor was about to set out on his journey. On account of these very things, by those very persons by whom they had been requested, the embassy was suspended.

I seemed to myself guilty of a hoped-for presence not fulfilled: but would that I owed this guilt to you while you were living! I would excuse myself on the ground that I had heard nothing of your dangers, that I had received no letters from you, that I could not have come with my own beasts to meet you, even if I had set out on the journey. And so, secure of pardon, while I was reckoning up the days, I was measuring my journey by your arrival; and behold, I receive a rescript, by which I thought I ought to proceed without delay, because you wished to have me as a surety of your faith before your Count. Did I resist? Did I delay? It was added that I should hasten more quickly, and that I should not think the cause of my journey was the synod of the Gallic bishops, on account of whose frequent dissensions I had often excused myself, but rather that he himself was to be baptized.

Even at my very departure I could have recognized signs of the events already occurring, but in my eagerness to hasten I could notice nothing. Now I was crossing the ridges of the Alps, and behold, the bitter news to me and to all, of the death of so great an emperor. I turned back my journey, and washed it with my tears. With what prayers of all did I set out? With what groaning of all did I return? For they thought it was not an emperor, but their salvation, that had been snatched from them. With what grief was I myself afflicted? First, because so great a prince, because my sweet pledge, because one so utterly devoted to me, had perished. What anguish of his I have learned there was in those two days, in which he survived after sending the letters he had sent to me?

In the evening the silentiary set out; on the third day, in the morning, he was asking whether he had already returned, whether I was already coming: so did he think some kind of salvation was about to come to him.

O best of young men, would that I might have found you living, would that some delay had reserved you for my arrival! I promise nothing of any virtue of mine, nothing of talent or prudence: but with what care between you and your Count, with what diligence would I have restored concord and favor? How would I have offered myself for your protection, how would I have taken upon myself those whom he said he feared? Certainly, if the Count had not been moved, I would have remained with you. I presumed of you, that you yourself would hear me, if you saw that hearing had not been granted on your behalf.

I had had much that I might hold: now I have nothing but tears and weeping. Daily you grow greater to me for sorrow, you increase to groaning. All bear witness to how much you esteemed me: all call my absence the cause of your death. But I am not Elijah, I am not a prophet, that I could have known future things: but I am a voice of one crying in groaning, whereby I may be able to weep for what is past. For what do I have that I could do better, than to repay you tears for so great an affection of yours toward me?

I received you as a little child, when I went as an envoy to your enemy: I embraced you when you were handed over into Justina your mother's arms: I again, as your envoy, sought Gaul, and that duty was sweet to me, first for your safety, then for the peace and devotion by which you were requesting your brother's remains: not yet at ease concerning you, and already anxious for the honor of your brother's burial.

But let us return to the Lamentations, and let us enter into the very inmost parts of grief: What shall I testify to you, he says, or to what shall I compare you, daughter of Jerusalem? Who shall make you safe, and who shall comfort you, virgin daughter of Zion? For your ruin is great as the sea. Who shall heal you? But who shall comfort me, from whom others seek the office of consolation? He has filled me with bitterness, he has made me drunk with gall. My belly, my belly grieves me, to use the prophetic word; since he whom I was to beget in the Gospel, I have lost.

But he has not lost the grace which he sought, he who today rose again for me in the sermon which I was delivering to the people. For when I had come, in my treatment of the reading appointed, to the point where the poor people were to bless God, I began to inquire who this people might be, and to distinguish that there was one people, rich, and another, poor: the rich, that of the Jews; the poor, that of the Church: the rich in the eloquences entrusted to them, the poor having borrowed another's eloquence. Rightly poor; because it was gathered by one who was poor, namely by him who was made poor, though he was rich, that we might be enriched by his poverty: for he emptied himself, that he might fill all.

But how was he poor, who possessed the riches of eternity, and the fullness of divinity? For indeed he was in the flesh, and he said: Henceforth you shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power. And elsewhere he says to Peter: I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. How then was he poor, who was bestowing the heavenly kingdom? But hear in what way he was poor: Take up, he says, my yoke upon you; for I am meek and humble of heart. Therefore his people also are poor, not from want—whom I see richer than that rich people; for they have merited to have not only the oracles of the prophets, but also the precepts of the apostles, poured forth by the divine Spirit.

Therefore not poor from want, but poor in spirit, to whom it is said: Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Truly blessed are the poor, who have received what the rich did not have. Of this number is that prophetic poor man, of whom it is written: This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him. Of this people is he who said: Silver and gold I do not have, but what I have, this I give you: In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, rise up and walk. That poor man, then, the founder of the poor people, says: O God, do not keep silence on my praise; for the mouth of the sinner and the mouth of the deceitful is opened against me. They have spoken against me with a deceitful tongue, and with words of hatred they have surrounded me, and have fought against me without cause. Instead of loving me, they detracted from me: but I gave myself to prayer.

Prayer is a good shield, by which all the fiery darts of the adversary are repelled. So the Lord Jesus prayed, and his imitator Valentinian prayed.

But perhaps someone may say: What did his prayer profit him? Behold, he perished at the very beginning of the course of his life. I speak of the swiftness of his death, not of its manner; for I use no voice of accusation, but of grief. But even the Lord prayed, and was crucified; for he was praying this, that he might take away the sin of the world. Let us hear then what a disciple of Christ prays: certainly what the master taught. He taught, moreover, that we should watch and pray, lest we enter into temptation, that is, lest we fall into sin. For this is the temptation of a Christian, if he should slip into the peril of his own soul: but to fear death is not a mark of perfection.

One ought also to pray for one's enemies, to pray even for persecutors, as the Lord prayed, saying: Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they do. See his great clemency. They were persecuting their own author, yet he was forgiving even grave sins to his adversaries; indeed, he excused the deed under the veil of ignorance, saying: Because they do not know what they do; for if they knew, they would not persecute their own Lord, in whose power and right they would consider their own salvation to lie. And because those who persecuted Christ were not content with his death alone, they added curses and reproaches, as he himself says: They will curse, and you will bless. He taught us that we should not fear at all the curses of persecutors, since we have the author of blessing; nor should reproaches move us, where there is a protector who can take away curses.

What of this, that he did not fear to die? Nay rather, he offered himself for all, saying that innocent men were in vain called into odium, that others were in vain endangered on his account: and he wished death rather for himself, lest he himself be the cause of death to others. This is that saying of the Lord in the Gospel, at the very moment of his own arrest: If you seek me, let these go their way. So he died for all whom he loved, for whom his friends thought it little, if all should perish.

We have noted what disposition he held toward his friends; let us consider what affection he held toward his sisters. In them he found rest, in them he consoled himself, in them he relaxed his mind, and soothed a heart wearied with cares. He would ask them, that if by any lapse of his boyhood, if by any word, they seemed to have been offended by their brother, they would forgive him, and would pray pardon for him from the Lord God. He kissed the hands and heads of his sisters, forgetful of his empire, mindful of his kinship: and the more he excelled others by right of power, the more humble he showed himself toward his sisters. He would ask that they remember not the injury, but the affection.

It had happened that he heard of a certain matter concerning their property; for so great was he that even in a case involving his sisters he was reckoned by the provincials to be perhaps an even-handed arbiter: because although in regard to his holy kinswomen he inclined by affection, yet he tempered his devotion by justice. He heard the matter, not concerning the right, but concerning the possession of an estate. Here devotion contended for his sisters, there mercy for the cause of an orphan; so that he might intervene on the orphan's behalf with his own sisters. He referred the matter to the public judge, lest he should injure either the right or his devotion. Privately, however, as far as we gather from the proposal of the noble maidens, he impressed a devout affection upon his holy sisters; that they might have the will of yielding the estate, and give a sign of it.

Truly worthy sisters of so great a brother, who preferred to relax something of their own right in what their mother had left them, rather than that their brother should endure embarrassment in their case.

This is for you, holy souls, an inheritance more precious than a brother's praise and glory; with these your devoted brother made you more noble and richer, who did not burden your head with jewels, but with kisses: he did not court your hands so much with royal insignia, as lick them with an imperial mouth. In the enjoyment of your presence he placed all his consolation, so that he did not overmuch desire even a wife. He put off marriage for this reason, because the affection of your favor nourished him more. Let these things be for you rather a matter of longing than of grief; so that a brother's glory may refresh the mind more than grief may torment it. Tears too often nourish, and lighten the mind: weeping cools the breast, and consoles a sorrowful affection.

You see indeed a harsh funeral; but holy Mary also stood beside the cross of her Son, and the Virgin beheld the passion of her only-begotten. I read that she stood, I do not read that she wept. Whence the Son said to her: Woman, behold thy son. And to the disciple he said: Behold thy mother; leaving to them the inheritance of his charity and grace. In this, devoted children, since I did not deserve to save your brother because of my sins, I desire to show you a father's affection. I behold him in you, I hold him, I think him present to me; nay rather both brothers, whom I reckon as eyes plucked out for me. Emperors persecute bishops more happily than they love them. How much more blessedly did Maximus threaten me? In his hatred there was praise, in the love of these a deadly inheritance of punishment. Would that, my sons, it had been granted for your sake to pour out this spirit!

I had found an abridgment of grief, and it would have been more glorious for me to die for such great pledges.

But I shall return to your consolation, holy daughters, although the bitterness of the events swallows up all force of consolation. If it be brief, it brings nothing to soothe the sorrowful affection; but if it be more prolonged, it brings a longer reminder of grief. For the longer you dwell on it, the more you will afflict him whom you wish to console, and the longer you will hold his sorrow.

I shall not, then, wipe away your tears as if with some brush of my speech; nor indeed would I wish to do this, even if I could: for in pious affections there is even a certain pleasure in weeping, and grief that is heavy often evaporates in tears. But this I ask, that you neither tear out with harsh groans the brother fixed in your breast, nor turn him away by lamentations, nor rouse him as he rests. Let him remain for you in the heart, let him live in the breast, let him cling in pious embraces, as he was wont; let him press brotherly kisses, let him be always in your eyes, always in kisses, always in your speech, always in your minds: let him now be such that you fear nothing for him as before. Forget his hardship, keep his grace. Let him be hoped for as one who will aid you, let him as guardian stand by you in the nights, let not even sleep now exclude him from you.

For his sake let rest be pleasant, that it may return to you more welcome. It is in your power, daughters, that no one can now take your brother from you.

But you desire to hold his body, you hold his tomb, gathered around it. Let that tomb be for you your brother's dwelling, let it be the hall of his palace, in which his dear limbs will rest.

But if you recall me to that grief, that he departed life so quickly: I too do not deny that he died at an untimely age, whom we would have wished to be sustained by the length of our own lives; that he might live from our years, who could not enjoy his own.

But I ask whether there is any sense after death, or none? If there is, he lives; nay rather, because he is, he already enjoys eternal life. For how does he not have sense, whose soul lives, and is vigorous, and will return to the body; and will make it, when it is restored, live again? The Apostle cries out: We would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them that sleep, that you be not sorrowful, even as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with him those who have slept through Jesus. Life, then, awaits those whom resurrection awaits.

But if the nations, who have no hope of resurrection, console themselves with this one thing—that they say there is no sense after death for the departed, and therefore no sense of grief remains—how much more ought we to receive consolation; since death is not to be feared, in that it is the end of sins: nor is life to be despaired of, which is restored by resurrection? Job also teaches that death is not to be feared, and rather to be desired by the pious, saying: O that thou wouldest keep me in the grave, and hide me till thy wrath be past, and appoint me a set time when thou wilt remember me. For if a man die, shall he live again? All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee: but do not despise the work of thy hands.

Yet grant that it is to be grieved that he died in his earliest age; still it is to be rejoiced that he departed a veteran in the wages of virtue. For so great was the amendment of his life in that time so slippery for all in adolescence, so great the praise of his conduct, that it overshadows every memory of grief. For that he died is a matter of frailty: that he was such a man is a matter of wonder. How blessed the commonwealth would have been, if it could have kept him longer! But since the life of the saints is not here on earth, but in heaven (for to the just, to live is Christ, and to die is gain, since to be dissolved and to be with Christ is far better), it is to be grieved that he was snatched from us so quickly, it is to be consoled that he has passed to better things.

Finally, David wept for his son who was dying, he did not grieve for him once dead. He wept lest he be snatched from him, but he ceased to weep once he was snatched away, whom he knew to be with Christ. And that you may know what I assert is true, he wept for Amnon, an incestuous son, when slain; he grieved for Absalom, a parricide, when killed, saying: My son Absalom, my son Absalom; he did not think an innocent son ought to be mourned, because he believed those had perished for him for their crime, but this one for his innocence would live.

You have nothing, then, which you should most heavily grieve in your brother: a man was born, he was liable to human frailty. No one redeems himself from death, not the rich, not kings themselves; nay rather they themselves lie under it more heavily. Job said: The number of years is hidden even from the mighty, and the fear of it is in his ears; when he seems to have peace, then shall come his overthrow. You yourselves also ought to bear patiently that things so bitter have befallen you, seeing that you have them in common with the saints. Even David, when his sons were lost, was bereft: he would have wished them to die such as your brother was taken from you; he grieved for their crimes, not for the departure of his sons.

But grant that it was to be lamented. How far are the times of mourning to be prolonged? You have closed the course of two months in the daily embrace of a brother's funeral. Only in the Scriptures did the daughter of Jephthah ask for a time of her weeping, once she knew that her father, about to set out for battle, had vowed that, if he were victorious, he would offer to the Lord whatever first met him. After the victory, returning, his daughter met him, ignorant of his vow, ignorant of the promise. He saw her, and the father groaned, saying: Alas, my daughter, thou hast brought me low, and thou art become a torment to me. For I have opened my mouth concerning thee to the Lord, and I cannot go back. She said to him: Father, if thou hast opened thy mouth concerning me, do to me as it has come out of thy mouth (Judges 11:35).

And again she said: Let me alone for two months, that I may go and mourn my virginity upon the mountains, I and my companions, my friends. And so, when two months were completed, she returned and fulfilled the sacrificial duty; a thing which, by the decree of the people of Israel, was mourned four days each year by the women of that same people.

So then, the daughter of Jephthah judged two months to be enough for mourning the flower of her virginity, and resurrection had not yet come; and in this space of time she thought herself sufficiently mourned by a few; with you all the peoples have mourned, all the provinces have groaned; and do you still think these your sufferings small? If you could redeem your brother by his ruin, yet he would not wish to be raised again by your affliction; for he believed he lived better in you, he who chose rather to die himself than to see your wrong—he who was gladly ready to offer himself for you, who on that very day of our grief is said to have uttered this one saying alone: Woe to my wretched sisters! And so he grieved more for your desolation than for his own death.

But I hear that you grieve, because he did not receive the sacraments of baptism. Tell me, what else is in us but the will, but the petition? And yet he had long since had this in his vow, that even before he came to Italy he might be initiated, and lately he signified that he wished to be baptized by me; and for this reason above other causes he thought I should be summoned. Does he then not have the grace which he desired: does he not have what he asked? Surely, because he asked, he received. And whence comes that word: The just man, by whatever death he be overtaken, his soul shall be at rest (Wisdom 4:7).

Grant, then, holy Father, to thy servant the gift which Moses, because he saw it in spirit, received: which David, because he knew it by revelation, earned. Grant, I say, to thy servant Valentinian the gift which he desired: the gift which he asked for while sound, robust, unharmed. If sickness had delayed his affection, still he would not have been entirely estranged from thy mercy, since he would have been cheated by the swiftness of the moment, not by his will. Grant then to thy servant the gift of thy grace, which he never denied, he who before the day of his death refused the privileges of temples, though pressed by those whom he might have feared to offend. A crowd of gentile men stood by, the senate entreated: he did not fear to displease men, that he might please thee alone in Christ. He who had thy spirit—how has he not received thy grace?

Or if this troubles you, that the mysteries were not solemnly celebrated—then neither should martyrs, if they were catechumens, be crowned; for they are not crowned, if they are not initiated. But if they are washed by their own blood, this man too is washed by his own devotion and will.

Do not, I beg, O Lord, separate him from his brother, nor suffer this yoke of pious brotherhood to be broken. He is already thine, and vindicated by thy judgment; Gratian is in greater peril, if he be separated from his brother, if he not deserve to be with him, through whom I deserved to be avenged. What hands does he now raise to thee, Father? What prayers does he pour out for his brother? With what embrace does he cling to him? How does he not suffer him to be torn from him?

Present too is the father, who despised for love of the faith his military service under Julian, and the honors of the tribunate. Give to the father his son, to the brother his own brother, both of whom he imitated: the one in faith, the other equally in devotion and piety in refusing the privileges of temples. What was lacking in the father he supplied; what the brother established, he preserved. And to this one I still add my intercession, from whom I presume a recompense.

Give the holy mysteries to the departed, let us seek his rest with pious affection. Give the heavenly sacraments, let us accompany the soul of our nephew with our offerings. Lift up your hands, O people, with me toward the sanctuary, that by this gift at least we may repay something for his merits. I shall not sprinkle flowers upon his tomb, but I shall pour forth upon his spirit the fragrance of Christ. Let others scatter lilies from full baskets; for us the lily is Christ. With this I shall consecrate his remains, with this I shall commend his grace. Never shall I separate the names of pious brothers; I shall distinguish their merits. I know that this commemoration reconciles the Lord, and that this union delights him.

Let no one think that anything was taken away from their merits by the swiftness of their death. Enoch was snatched away, lest malice should change his heart, and Josiah in the eighteenth year of his reign celebrated the Lord's passover in such a way that he surpassed all the princes before him in devotion, nor did he survive much longer beyond the merits of his faith; nay rather, because a grave destruction was imminent for the people of Judah, the just king was taken away beforehand. I fear, therefore, lest you too were snatched away from us by some offense of ours, so that in the eighteenth year of your reign you might escape, as a just man, the bitterness of the evil that was impending.

But now let me embrace those dear inward parts of mine, and bury them in a fitting tomb; yet first let me look upon each member. My Valentinian, my youth, both white and ruddy, bearing in himself the image of Christ; for with such words the Church pursues Christ in the Canticle. Do not think this an injury: even little servants are inscribed with the character of the Lord, and soldiers are marked with the name of the emperor. Finally, the Lord himself said: Touch not my anointed ones, and you are the light of the world. And Jacob said: Judah, your brothers shall praise you. He was speaking to his son, and yet was revealing the Lord. And of Joseph it was said: My son has grown, my son Joseph has grown, and this signified Christ.

Let it be permitted to me also, then, to mark my little servant with the character of the Lord: My youth, white and ruddy, chosen out of ten thousand. My son was chosen, when, after his father's death, though a small child, he was taken up into empire. His head is gold; his eyes are like doves upon the abundance of waters. For there we sat and wept, said those who came from there.

His belly is an ivory box, which received the oracles of the Scriptures, so that he could say: I grieve in my belly, as the prophet said; for he who is an imitator of Christ says these things.

His cheeks are like vials of spices, into which the ointment of Christ flowed.

His lips are like lilies dripping with myrrh, full. His hands are turned, golden, full of Tharsis; because justice shone forth in his words, and grace gleamed in his deeds and works: in him there was an utterance full of virtue and of royal authority, and a constancy unbent by any terror of death, and a precious and corrected amendment of deeds; for every good workman is the hand of Christ.

His throat is sweetness, and he is wholly desire. How sweet were all his judgments, which clung to the throats of all! With how much grace are his individual words recalled! How, my son, are you desired by the peoples? To me, certainly, you impressed those last words which I hold in my breast, by which you asked that I become your surety. You yourself left concerning me the testimony of a glorious judgment. I was not able to render to you my pledge, which I was preparing; yet, though absent, I spoke, and Christ heard me speaking my pledge on your behalf. My promise is held in heaven, even if it is not held on earth. I am bound to God, even if I could not be bound to men.

I have spoken of your body; now let me address your soul, worthy of prophetic adornments. I shall therefore use the same opening words: Who is this that looks forth like the dawn, fair as the moon, chosen as the sun? I seem to myself to see you shining, I seem to hear you saying: Dawn is come for me, father. The earthly night has passed, the heavenly day has drawn near. You look forth upon us, then, holy soul, from a higher place, as one looking back upon lower things. You have gone out from the darkness of this age, and shine like the moon, and gleam like the sun. And rightly like the moon, because before, though in the shadow of this body, you shone and illumined the darkness of the earth, and now, changed, you lead a bright day with light from the sun of righteousness.

I seem, then, to see you as though withdrawing from the body, and, the darkness of night being driven back, rising at dawn as the sun approaching God, and with swift flight, like an eagle, leaving behind what is earthly.

Return, O Shulammite, return; and we shall see you. Return to us in peace; that you may show your glory to your sisters, and they may begin to be comforted by the assurance of your rest and grace. Turn to us only once, that we may see you, and turn again, and hasten with all intent toward that Jerusalem, the city of the saints. Or certainly, since Christ says this to the pious soul, he bids her turn for a little while; that his glory may appear to us, and the rest to come with the saints: and afterward he commands her to hasten to that heavenly fellowship of the saints.

What will you see, he says, in the Shulammite, who comes like the dances of camps? That is, in her who has fought much and against very many in the body. For she has fought against foreign enemies, she has fought against the slippery changes of the world, she has fought against the frailties of the body, against manifold passions. She heard from the Lord: Return, O Shulammite. She turned once to peace in the world, she turned again by renewed communion to the grace of Christ; and therefore her turning in the world was beautiful, most beautiful her going forth and flight into heaven.

Whence she deserves to hear: How beautiful are your steps become in sandals, daughter of Aminadab, that is, daughter of a prince; for you had beautiful goings forth in the body, using it as a sandal, not as a wrapping; that, as one superior and more eminent, you might carry your footstep wherever you wished without any stumbling: or certainly that you might loose that sandal, as Moses did, to whom it was said: Loose the sandal from your feet.

The father Aminadab, that prince of the people, says to you now: Hear, O daughter, and see that the king has desired your beauty. How beautiful, then, are your steps become in sandals, daughter of Aminadab. The joints of your thighs are like necklaces, that is, a grace and moderation consonant with itself in all your deeds equaled the insignia of great triumphs. Finally, by your moderation and peaceful tranquility neither did Gaul feel the enemy, nor did Italy fail to repel the enemy who threatened its borders. And that necklaces are insignia of victory cannot be doubted, since those who have acted bravely in war are honored with neck-chains.

Your navel is a rounded bowl, never lacking mixed wine. Your belly is a heap of wheat, set about with lilies. Your neck is like a tower of ivory. Your eyes are like the pools in Heshbon. A good navel of the soul, capable of all virtues, like a bowl turned by the very author of faith. For Wisdom mixed her wine in a bowl, saying: Come, eat my bread, and drink the wine which I have mixed for you. This navel, then, turned with every adornment of virtues, does not lack its mixture. Her belly too was filled not only, as with grain-food, with justice, but also flourished with grace and sweetness like a lily. Her neck too was white and pure, willingly subjected to the yoke of Christ, with rational thoughts, the odor of faith, the attentiveness of circumcision, a glorious adornment of the head; because not royal diadems but the marks of the Lord's blood crowned it.

Deservedly, as a king victor over sin, and wreathed with a heavenly crown, he ascends, to whose soul God the Word says: How fair and sweet you have become, O charity, in your delights! Fair through the beauty of virtue, sweet through grace. Tall as a palm tree, which is the prize of the victor.

To this ascending soul his brother Gratian runs to meet him, and embracing him says: I am my brother's, and his turning is upon me; either because he desires that he cling to him, or because, by brotherly piety, he stands by as advocate, saying that his conversion is to be preferred even to his own grace.

Come, he says, my brother, let us go forth into the field, let us rest in the villages, let us rise at dawn into the vineyards, that is, you have come to where the fruits of diverse virtues are brought according to each one's merits, where the rewards of merits abound. Let us go forth, then, into the field, in which labor is not vain, but the yield of graces is fruitful. What you sowed on earth, reap here: what you scattered there, gather here. Or certainly, come into that field which is the odor of Jacob, that is, come into the bosom of Jacob, that as poor Lazarus rests in the bosom of Abraham, so you too may rest in the tranquility of the patriarch Jacob; for the bosom of the patriarchs is a certain retreat of eternal rest. Rightly, then, is Jacob's field fruitful, as the patriarch Isaac testified, saying: Behold, the smell of my son is as the smell of a full field which the Lord has blessed.

Let us rest, he says, in the villages, showing that there is a safer rest there, which, fortified and ringed about with the enclosure of heavenly refuge, is not troubled by the incursions of worldly beasts.

At our doors, he says, are all the fruits of the trees: new and old, my brother, I have kept for you. Who will give you, brother, to me as a brother, nursing at my mother's breasts? Finding you outside, I shall kiss you; and indeed they will not scorn me: I shall take you, and lead you into my mother's house, and into the secret chamber of her that conceived me. I shall give you to drink of the spiced wine, from the flow of my pomegranates. His left hand is under my head, and his right hand shall embrace me. Gratian, of august memory, promises his brother that the fruits of diverse virtues are ready for him; for he himself too was faithful in the Lord, pious and gentle, of pure heart. He was also chaste in body, having known, apart from marriage, no acquaintance with another woman.

Therefore at the doors of his dwelling he has fruits ready, not to be sought far off. He offers to his brother what he has kept, new and old, that is, the mysteries both of the Old Testament and of the Gospel, and he says: Who will give you, brother, to me as a brother, nursing at my mother's breasts, that is, not just anyone, but Christ, has illumined you with spiritual grace, He has baptized you, since human offices were lacking to you. He has gained more, who you believed had lost the lesser things. What are the breasts of the Church, but the sacraments of baptism? And he rightly says, nursing, as of one who, being baptized, seeks the taste of snow-white milk. Finding you, he says, outside, I shall kiss you, that is, finding you outside the body, I shall embrace you with the kiss of mystic peace.

No one will scorn you, none will exclude you, I shall lead you into the inner chambers and secret places of Mother Church, and into all the secrets of the mystery; that you may drink the cup of spiritual grace.

Having embraced his brother, then, he began to lead him to his own dwelling: and since by pious office he had gone forward to further things, he began to ascend with his brother, asking that a greater charity be increased there for himself and his brother; because human vices had ceased, envy and boastfulness, which in many are wont to empty the rights of brotherly piety.

Seeing them, either angels or other souls, ask those who, as it were in their retinue and by their office, were leading these brothers, saying: Who is this that ascends, white, leaning upon her brother? Nor let us indeed doubt concerning the merits of Valentinian, but let us now believe, even by the testimonies of angels, that, the stain of sin wiped away, he ascends washed, whom his own faith cleansed, and his petition consecrated. Let us believe also, as others have it, that he ascends from the desert, that is, from this dry and untilled place to those flowering delights, where, joined with his brother, he enjoys the pleasure of eternal life.

Blessed both, if my prayers have any power! No day shall pass you by in silence, no prayer of mine shall pass you by unhonored, no night shall run its course without some weaving of my prayers being bestowed: I shall attend upon you with all offerings. Who shall forbid the naming of the innocent? Who shall prohibit embracing you with the pursuit of commendation? If I forget you, holy Jerusalem, that is, holy soul, pious and peaceful brotherhood, let my right hand forget me: let my tongue cleave to my jaws, if I do not remember you, if I do not remember Jerusalem in the beginning of my joy. I shall forget myself sooner than I shall forget you: and if ever speech shall fall silent, affection shall speak; and if voice shall fail, the grace fixed in my inmost heart shall not fail.

How have the mighty fallen? How did both fall by those rivers of Babylon? How were the courses of both their lives more swift than the very streams of the Rhone? O Gratian and Valentinian, beautiful and dearest to me, with how august an end have you closed your life! How near to you were the boundaries of death! How neighboring the tombs! Gratian, I say, and Valentinian, in your names it is pleasing to cling, and delightful to rest in remembrance of you. O both Gratian and Valentinian, beautiful and dearest to all! Inseparable in life, and in death you are not separated. No tomb has parted you, whom affection did not part. No cause of death has separated you, whom one devotion joined. No difference of virtues made you unlike, whom one religion cherished. Above doves the more simple, above eagles the swifter, above lambs the more gentle, above calves the more innocent. Gratian's arrow did not turn back, and Valentinian's righteousness was not empty, nor his authority vain.

How have the mighty fallen without a fight?

I grieve for you, son Gratian, exceedingly sweet to me. You gave very many marks of your devotion. You sought me amid your dangers, you called upon me in your last moments, you grieved more over my sorrow for you. I grieve also for you, son Valentinian, exceedingly beautiful to me. Your love for me had settled like the love of a child for a parent. You thought that through me you would be delivered from dangers: you loved me not only as a parent, but hoped in me as your redeemer and deliverer. You used to say: Do you think I shall see my father? Beautiful was your wish concerning me, but ineffectual the presumption. Woe is me, vain hope in man! But you sought the Lord in his priest. Woe is me, that I did not know your will beforehand! Woe is me, that you did not send secretly before! Woe is me, what pledges I have lost! How have the mighty fallen, and the weapons of desire perished?

Lord, since no one has anything he could offer to another more than what he wishes for himself; do not separate me after death from those whom in this life I felt to be dearest. Lord, I ask that where I shall be, they too may be with me; that there at least I may enjoy their perpetual companionship, since here I could not enjoy a longer union with them. I beseech you, most high God, that you raise up and revive these dearest young men in an early resurrection; that you compensate this untimely course of their life with an earlier awakening. Amen.