1. Who could have expected or anticipated that I should be demanding by brother Severus the replies that you, my dear friends, have failed to send, though I have waited for them so long and so eagerly: What have I done, to be compelled to endure this thirst for news for two whole summers, and that too in Africa? What more shall I say? You are making daily distribution of what wealth you have—why not pay your debt to me r Can it be that you have so long postponed writing to me from the desire to finish and send the work which I had heard you were writing against devil-worshippers and which I had shown myself very anxious to peruse? I do hope that it will at least be a groaning table at which you eventually receive my hungry appetite, so long denied the products of your pen. But if as yet it be not set and ready, my complaints will give you no respite if, while your book is finishing, you still leave me famishing. Greet the brethren, especially Romanus and Agilis. Those who are with me here greet you. If they are less exasperated than I am, it is because their affection for you is less than mine.
1. Num etiam hoc sperari aut expectari posset, ut per fratrem Severum rescripta flagitaremus tam diu tam ardentibus nobis a vestra caritate non reddita? Quid est, qui duas aestates easdemque in Africa sitire cogamur? Quid amplius dicam? O qui res vestras cotidie donatis, debitum reddite. An forte, quod adversus daemonicolas te scribere audieram atque id opus vehementer desiderare me ostenderam, volens perficere ac mittere tanto tempore ad nos epistulas distulisti? Utinam saltem tam opima mensa iam annosum ab stilo tuo ieiunium meum tandem accipias! Quae si nondum parata est, non desinemus conqueri, si nos, dum illud perficis, non interim reficis. Salutate fratres, maxime Romanum et Agilem. Hinc, qui nobiscum sunt, vos salutant et parum nobiscum irascuntur, si parum diligunt.