Letter 28: In visiting the mountain cities which border on Pamphylia I fished up in the Mountains a sea Glaucus; I did not drag the fish out of the depths with a net of flax, but I snared my game with the love of a friend. And having once taught my Glaucus to travel by land, I sent him as the bearer of a letter to Your Goodness. Please receive him kindly, ...
Ep. XXVIII.
In visiting the mountain cities which border on Pamphylia I fished up in the Mountains a sea Glaucus; I did not drag the fish out of the depths with a net of flax, but I snared my game with the love of a friend. And having once taught my Glaucus to travel by land, I sent him as the bearer of a letter to Your Goodness. Please receive him kindly, and honour him with the hospitality commended in the Bible, not forgetting the vegetables.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.
Related Letters
Again I write when I ought to come: but I gain confidence to do so from yourself, O Umpire of spiritual matters (to put the first thing first), and Corrector of the Commonweal — and both by Divine Providence: who have also received as the reward of your piety that your affairs would prosper to your mind, and that you alone should find attainable...
My silence shouldn't be held against me.
Mine was a desire not entirely unreasonable; yours was the wiser counsel.
Who could blame a man for fleeing fire?
Jerome's reply to the foregoing. For the second and fourth questions he refers Damasus to the writings of Tertullian, Novatian, and Origen. The remaining three he deals with in detail.