Epistulae

For to those who long, it is a consolation even to see a small token of the beloved. And remember those words in which there were promises either to come to us more quickly or by frequent letters to make the absence imperceptible. But now I am in danger of being written down by the Muses as one who, like the wise Pancratius, was clever at saying what he did not intend to do. To Zosimus and Macarius: Those who came from the most wise Babylas reported to me eagerly the very things which I pray to hear, but before they spoke I already knew them. For from the fact that, frequenting me, you adorned your zeal for letters with moderation of character and the other virtues, it was surely clear that even when departing for the sake of the laws you would remain the same, and that you would be somewhat more eager to run back to what is better. But if these things prepare pleasure for me, what must one say—and let it be said with God's help—when, with courts of justice set before you and pouring out good order with a temperate tongue, you conquer those present by experience and those far absent by report? For when these things are noised abroad, Polycrates will seem to me but small in good fortune, and Croesus with all his many talents will seem to me nothing. To Zacharias my brother: Those who bring the letter, who they are I do not know, but that they admire you I define as very much akin to me. For these men, having seen me and having come to a thought of a kinsman's stamp, divined this very thing, and having said something to one another and made each other judges of the matter, I have been established as a brother of the most beloved.

But since they were carried along by one resolve, they ran together and addressed you and at the same time looked up with kindly eyes, and they made you an object of wonder throughout, calling you a straight judge and a just ruler and whatever is august, perhaps less than your worth,

yet they were clearly willing to say more than they could report, showing the opinion they held about you to be stronger than their tongue. And I, being crowned by them with many praises—for I made their encomia on your behalf my own—gave them the present letter as a reward for their asking. To Orion: I would not have thought that such a writing would be undertaken by you against me, nor that I stood liable to silence for things unknown—to whatever place on earth or sea they came. But, as it seems, fleeing the accusation to come, you chose rather to accuse than to submit to an accounting before me. For you ought first to have made known that I left Beirut, that I measured a great expanse of sea, that after sailing past the islands I saw the Hellespont, escorted by the wonders of both continents, and passing through the Propontis I came to the Bosporus itself. There I saw a city meeting those who sail in with a strange sight. For lying on the neck of the land it looks upon Asia lying before Europe, and bounding the Pontus it sends its wonders on to the rest of the sea, and all the things those who have seen the region are accustomed to babble in their vulgar way, astounding our hearing. If, when you had written such things, we had kept silent, then we would reasonably have been subject to the accusations. But now, having kept silent and disregarded the law of sailors, you begin the art from me, moving your tongue in a forensic manner. Only write to me.

Even if you write accusations, we will bear them. John—truly wise was the one who surely uttered these words, that the wise man... even if he dwells far from the land, even if I never see him with my eyes, I judge him a friend. Some such feeling, my excellent friend, has taken hold of me, ignorant as I am of the sight of you, yet terribly possessed by longing. But well done, fame, through which even things that are separated are joined together and things far off seem to be present. For by this means I have often seen you, and with naked understanding I have been bathed in your blessed zeal for better things, and being joined to you in bodiless love, I have no great need of bodily tokens of recognition; but even when I received your letter sent from Alexander, I thought I had you yourselves. For the character of your words and your skill in judging, which keeps you from counting divine things as friendship toward me, did not refute the fame that preceded you, but showed you to be such as I expected to see, and that too though you associate with law courts by the law of your craft, and in the drunkenness of affairs are still able thus to sober up. But may you also come to the end of what you expected to obtain. For this is the end for those who think rightly: the return to one's own beginning. For it is a terrible thing to abandon the people within us and to return well to the point from which we flowed away badly. To Sosianus: The most God-fearing so-and-so came to us, having suffered very many things from a most wicked brother, and considering it a moderate justice if he could barely obtain what he has been deprived of. Therefore through me he flees to your influence, which is able both to commend him to the judge and to provide him with those who have great power for alliance, and to cut off the expenses from the court.

For he barely has enough from contributions for his own food. But also arrange that the verdict be brought to him quickly. For he asks for simple things: to dissolve by oath the charges concerning the accusations brought against him. Toward this great zeal of yours and your most gracious tongue, flowing upon just causes with an unhindered stream, contribute as a sufficient alliance in place of some contribution—a thing dear to God and pleasing to those who ask and sufficient for those in need. John, the man carrying the present letter, being a good man, laments his destitution caused by his brother's injustice. Therefore he is reaching Caesarea, if he is able, to receive what is due. But deign to assist him, preparing those powerful among you as a sufficient alliance for him. For he has one hope of consolation: to obtain the help that comes from the laws, of which he has been deprived for a very long time, having a most wicked brother who always devises newer subterfuges. Therefore console him in his destitution, cutting down the expenses of the courts as much as possible. To Elias the bishop. Though there are many things one could say from which someone might dramatize the tragedies of fortune

These are child's play, since our circumstances are always changing to whatever seems best and do not allow anything to remain in the same form. I will keep silent on these matters before a man who long ago condemned the things of this earth and conquers fortune by the very things he despises, not wishing to marvel at it at all. But I will remind you of this one thing only: that nothing is so much our own as we are ourselves. And what are we? Surely not this fluid body, nor the nonsense of wealth, nor all that furnishes strength to fortune, but a rational soul bound to the body for reasons of some kind. Hence those who have resolved to think as they ought have set aside everything else besides this as a foreign burden, considering that these things contribute nothing to one's own true substance, and they allowed nothing to be an obstacle to their judgment—not bodily torture, not loss of wealth, not the difficulty of the times—but running back to themselves they were free and guarded against one loss only: to fall away from virtue and, through desire for wealth and sparing of the body, to be ranked in the position of a slave, basely subjecting the better to the worse and admiring insolent men who are rich in everything rather than themselves. Hence one man, treating his body as something alien, struck that free utterance of his, saying, "Strike the bag that was Anaxarchus, for you will never strike Anaxarchus himself." And another, Crates, having made a voluntary casting away of his possessions, said, "Crates sets Crates free." These things and the like are truly the marks of a noble soul, one that tramples its own pleasures and does not know how to change along with the times. Remember, then, as Epictetus holds, that you are an actor in a drama of whatever kind the playwright wishes.

And Plato too, I think, holds that the wise man is happy, even if everything not directed to this end goes badly for him. For whenever the things within our power go well, there is, I suppose, little concern for external things. For those are carried off by another current. To Philip my brother. The one who brings you this letter I have long desired, and not least because, always remembering you for good things, he has at last become the cause of my writing a letter to you as well, saying it would be a terrible thing if your brother should appear before you destitute of letters from me. Do you then set one letter against ours in return, and in the fifth year, with the Pythagoreans, dissolve your silence. For I too have become a bronze cauldron of Dodona, wishing to stir you to speech. To Evagrius. As one who greatly desires your words and has resolved to crown his darling with the victory over all—for in your writings you conquered not only the men of today, but, what it is not lawful to say, even Demosthenes was defeated, and Thucydides held second place, and sweet Herodotus was ranked with these—since, then, he was such a man in his words, I smiled to myself and said, "Nothing is more violent than the dominion of Eros." For my dearest friend, possessed by goodwill toward me, has not understood my circumstances, and suffers something very like what would happen if someone were to bring forward the fox-like man in Homer—and what else is he but Thersites?—as first of the Greeks to view, better perhaps even than Nireus himself, who "came to Ilium the fairest man." But for me the greatest praise is if I should seem to have known those whom, with you as judge, we have conquered.

Wherefore, admiring your goodwill, I dedicated my words to the Loves, having excused myself from those around the Paeanian, if desire persuades men to say all that they wish to say, and especially those who exult in the strength of words. But I shall turn to a prayer, and a moderate one at that, saying: may you fare well, dearest friend, and may you conquer by the laws as much as you have conquered by your words. O Nile, you were surely a dread fellow at making small things great and displaying an invincible tongue in whatever you wish. For you have fashioned so many praises against me, and you have reported them so easily as no one would speak easily starting from the truth. And you seem to me to have been poured out with such a tongue, perhaps wishing to show what sort of man you were while you went unnoticed. For perhaps you think you were unknown when present—how great a Muse you have nurtured though starting from rhetoricians. But I knew you well even when present, yet I did not praise you as much as I ought, while you were being trained in my company, lest the praises, by loosening your zeal, should check a course that always advances to something greater and hastens toward its peak. But now I have rejoiced exceedingly in your writings, not looking at the praises—for I was carried aloft on your words, flitting about everywhere—but because we have been fortunate to call you a child of the Muses. For even so, moving your tongue toward falsehood, how could you be one who has grasped the truth? And I rejoiced also at your mocking yourself, because, loving money insatiably, you extended your trade even to my words. But fill your right hand, most fortunate one, and I shall bear it moderately, watching the words for sale. Only see that you do not also submit to a penalty, having demanded payment in advance from home, because you dared to publish my unseemly children.

To Cledonius: Bravo for the grace in your letters and for a tongue that flows without hindrance and can say as much as it wishes. For when you have raised me, small in words and clad in the art only as far as its outward form, so high, so that I am henceforth at a loss when writing to others, and then you inscribed a salutation to me through forgetfulness, what would you not easily say when you wish? And you seem to me to have stirred your tongue so much, wishing to make clear that you will demand from me the child who can speak in this way. Hence you have caused me such great anxiety that I almost shrank from the promise of teaching him, if the thought had not entered me that the young man, having obtained his father's nature, will in all likelihood surpass my teaching, supplying from home what is lacking in it. So it is time for you not to seek everything from me, lest I be at a loss before the scrutiny and fall silent. But I promise goodwill toward him as great as you yourself would have shown, if you happened to be teaching him; for the young man draws me to this, offering a diligence equal to his nature. To Gessius: The impulse toward writing that I have had until now, my excellent friend, has, to speak in the Socratic manner, been met by some divine opposition, wrapping us in one illness after another, as is bound to happen to those enjoying our present life. For a crowd of countless evils has, I know not how, obtained the life of men as its lot; poverty harasses one, passions stretch out another's soul, another's body is in a bad state, another laments having no child, and another bewails those he has.

And what need is there to speak of the loss of women and children, which experience has provided to you to know by experience not as it ought? And it would be long to go around in speech over what lies before our view and what life shows us in deeds, since God thus orders our affairs, as it seems to me, so that, having fallen into a multitude of things not willed, we might cling to nothing of the things on earth that have nothing standing and unmoved, but leaving the place of misfortunes we might hasten to another life, flying up in thought to heaven itself, even if the body still forces us to remain, and we should not lament one who has departed, who has appeared scarcely free from the bonds here below. For I praise the one who said, whoever he was, the father of this saying, that from the beginning not to have been born is best for those on earth, but having been born, to pass through the gates of Hades as quickly as possible. Which the tent, having drawn aside, says that we, going to the assembly, must lament the one born for all the evils into which he comes. Why then do we still lament, having safely sent forth our dearest ones from the storm of life, before they came into experience of the evils here below? And why do we wish the divine to be as it seems to us, when it is necessary to judge this beautiful, whatever seems good to him? Such was truly the one who emulated that great Pythagoras, who indeed, to the one who said in prayer, "May God give you whatever you wish," said, "Speak well, but I would wish what he gives." For having often prayed that many things happen to us, then not obtaining them, we have learned from deeds that it did not happen as it ought; and having obtained many things even according to our mind, as it seemed, I blamed fortune a little later that it had happened.

So it is that people who look to small things do not have a nature that endures, and we have failed to recognize the things that are going to be wholly beneficial. Therefore it is necessary to yield to the better one who wisely guides our affairs, even if his judgments are unknown to us. To Musaeus, the most learned Palladius came bringing your whole letter as gold, and if he had brought me the talents of Croesus, I would not have looked upon him with such kindly eyes. For different men take pride in different things—the Lydian in gold, the Spartan in the spear, Arion in strings and striking—but for me the boast is your sight and your letters and everything of yours that I may enjoy; so that to the young man we too owe a wage from what is just, and not paying it we would reasonably be ashamed. And the wage is not, by Zeus, gold nor some Indian stones—for I am not wealthy in these things, nor has the young man come to hunt for these—but neither is it beauty of words—for I am not fertile in the Muses, nor do I exult in the things of Attica, for these have fallen to the lot of the fortunate children of the blessed—but if you wish to look at my gift, whatever it is, it is goodwill and eagerness; for of these I am master, as Demosthenes says, but of the others, fortune and the Muses, dispensing the gift as seems good to them. To Procopius, from Megethius. When you first brought the funeral oration into our midst, I was so pleased with your Attic bees that I thought the Leader of the Muses himself had worked with you and the Graces on the speech. At each of the names, then, I and as many of the audience as there were filled the theater at that time with clapping, each shouting the Stentorian cry.

But when we had arrived in the city, your admirers' wonder grew all the more from that point, and your golden offspring were on everyone's lips, as they judged them against one another—since nothing was quite like them—and were at a loss which of them to crown above the rest for beauty. For the Graces came in equal measure. Since, then, all those who through busyness had happened to remain unacquainted with the speech kept begging me to let them taste your Attic bee through me, send the speech, knowing well that after we have crowned it again with countless praises we will send it back promptly.