“They are happily linked in the bond of blood who are held together in the bond of love. And for this gift - which is descended to us from the father of lights, - both you and myself may greatly rejoice: whom love as well as kindred hath united, and those two fair obligations have betrothed in one entire affection. One of them we took from the fathers of the flesh, and the other from our private dispositions. This double tie by which - love bounding us on the one side, and blood on the other, - we are mutually knit together, hath enforced me to enlarge myself in this Epistle with some excess more then usual: that I might commend unto your consideration the cause of your own soul, and assert the work of our profession to be that supreme beatitude which is only true, and capable of those things which are eternal.”  -St. Eucherius of Lyons, Epistle to Valerianus