Letter 33: Who knows so well as you do how to respect an old friendship, to pay reverence to virtue, and to sympathise with the sick? Now my God-beloved brother Gregory the bishop has become involved in matters which would be under any circumstances disagreeable, and are quite foreign to his bent of mind. I have therefore thought it best to throw myself on...
Aburgius,
No one is better than you at honoring old friendships, respecting genuine virtue, and showing compassion to those who are suffering. So I'm turning to you for help.
My dear friend Bishop Gregory [Gregory the Elder, father of Gregory of Nazianzus, bishop of Nazianzus in Cappadocia] has gotten tangled up in responsibilities that are completely alien to his temperament — and frankly unpleasant under any circumstances. I'm hoping you can help us find a way out.
The situation is genuinely unfair. Here is a man with no aptitude or desire for administrative burdens, yet he's being held accountable for them. They're demanding money from someone who has none. They're dragging a man who chose a quiet life into the public spotlight against his will.
I'll leave it to your good judgment whether it would help to write to the Comes Thesaurorum [the imperial Count of the Treasury — the finance minister responsible for tax collection] or anyone else who might intervene.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.
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