Note: This is a new translation prepared for Geoffrey Dunn to accompany his edition of the letters of Innocent I, in preparation

for CCSL. It is posted with his permission. The Greek text is preserved by Sozomen, HE 8.26. Innocent, Letter 111 Innocent to the beloved brother John I [5] Even though the innocent person ought to expect everything to be for the best and to beg mercy from God, nonetheless the appropriate2 letter has been sent by us via the deacon Cyriacus3 as well, counselling that you put up with the evil so that the outrage youve suffered may not take on greater power in its aggravation of you than your good conscience in its exercise of hope. II After all, you, who are a teacher and shepherd4 of so many laypeople, have no need to be taught that [10] the best are constantly and frequently tested to see if they remain steady on the pinnacle of patience and succumb to no pang of distress. Indeed the conscience is a truly unyielding object in the face of everything that happens unjustly. III If a person does not defeat those things5 through patient endurance, they6 deliver definitive proof of their worthless response.7 For the person who trusts first in God, then too in their own conscience, is obliged to endure everything with patience. [15] This is because it is especially the case that the person of virtue8 has the capacity to be trained in patience and not defeated when the divine Scriptures guard their mind. IV The divine lections which we pass on to our congregations9 are rich in the kinds of examples well acquainted with the fact that just about all the saints have struggled and been subdued by diverse and constant means and tested under a type of scrutiny, so to speak, and have in this way arrived at the crown of patience. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1

Ep. 11 belongs to the genre of the consolatio or letter of consolation. For a convenient definition see A. Cain, The Letters of Jerome: Asceticism, Biblical Exegesis and the Construction of Christian Authority in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 211-12. Such letters typically do little more than express in a variety of ways the same simple message (in this case, that virtue requires that one patiently endure misfortune). 2 It is not clear whether by this Innocent means the letter required by him as bishop and colleague (i.e that he is obliged to send a letter anyway) or required by these particular circumstances (i.e. a letter of consolation). It may be that he intends both. 3 Along with the deacon Paul, Cyriacus had earlier conveyed ep. 7 to Rome. See DELMAIRE, Les lettres dexil, p. 122 s.v. Cyriacus 1. 4 Common metaphors for the office of bishop, alluding to the preaching and pastoral care aspects of the office respectively. 5 I.e. everything that happens unjustly. 6 I.e. the person, rather than everything that happens unjustly. 7 Translated by W.R.W. Stephens, Correspondence of St Chrysostom with the Bishop of Rome. in NPNF Series 1 vol. 9 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1889), p. 436, as supplies an argument for evil surmising and by C.D. Hartranft, The Ecclesiastical History of Sozomen, comprising a History of the Church from A.D. 323 to A.D. 425, in NPNF Series 2 vol. 2 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 0000), p. 933, as furnishes a ground for evil surmising, but the vocabulary here is derived from the logic of philosophical argument. The sense is rather that, if a person trusts in God and their own conscience, then they must endure patiently; if they dont endure patiently, their rejoinder to things that happen unjustly (i.e. not enduring patiently) definitively and publicly proves its trivial content (ergo, that they neither have a good conscience nor trust in God). 8 Gr. ! "#$%& "#' ()#*+&. 9 Lit. laypeople.

V Let your conscience itself, which in your troubles has the consolation of virtue, most honoured brother, console Your Love. For under the watchful eye of the Master, Christ, your conscience will be led into and come to rest in the harbour of peace.