Letter 1642: Anger is a fire: useful when controlled, devastating when unleashed.

To Elias the deacon. [originally in Greek] Since vice makes its way through things that seem delightful for the moment, and has pleasure to keep it company, whereas virtue holds out toils and contests, for this reason vice has drawn many, but virtue few, to love of itself. For we ought to recognize that the pleasure of vice is easily quenched, while the gladness of virtue is celebrated in song and immortal; and that vice gives birth to ill repute and shame, but virtue to praises and glory; and that the one ends in punishment, the other in honor. Vice has the devil as its advocate, but virtue has God, the lawgiver of the noblest things. The one overturns our life, while the other holds it firmly together; and the one is often torn to pieces even by those present, while the other is admired even by those who do not pursue it; and for the one fire has been made ready, but for the other a kingdom. We ought, therefore, considering all these things, to turn away from vice as something beast-shaped and serpent-like, but to embrace virtue as something divine and beyond this world. Yet people do the opposite, choosing the harlot instead of the chaste woman.

Ἐπειδὴ ἡ μὲν κακία διὰ τῶν παραυτίκα δοκούντων εἶναι τερπνῶν πορεύεται, καὶ τὴν ἡδονὴν ἔχει σύμμετροῦσαν· ἡ δὲ ἀρετὴ πόνους προτείνεται καὶ ἀγῶνας· διὰ τοῦτο ἐκείνη μὲν πολλούς, αὐτὴ δὲ ὀλίγους ἐπεσπάσατο εἰς τὸν ἑαυτῆς ἐρωτα. Δέον γάρ, συνορῶντας ὅτι ἡ μὲν κακίας ἡδονὴ ῥᾳδίως σβέννυται, ἡ δὲ τῆς ἀρετῆς εὐφροσύνη ἀοίδιμός ἐστι καὶ ἀθάνατος· καὶ ὅτι ἡ μὲν ἀδοξίαν καὶ αἰσχύνην, ἡ δὲ ἐπαίνους καὶ δόξαν τίκτει· καὶ ὅτι ἡ μὲν πρὸς τιμωρίαν, ἡ δὲ πρὸς τιμὴν τελευτᾷ. Καὶ ἡ μὲν τὸν διάβολον ἔχει συνήγορον, ἡ δὲ τὸν τῶν καλλίστων νομοθέτην Θεόν. Καὶ ἡ μὲν ἀνατρέπει, ἡ δὲ συγκροτεῖ. τεῦ τὸν ἡμέτερον βίον· καὶ ὅτι ἡ μὲν παρὰ τῶν παρ- όντων πολλάκις διασύρεται, ἡ δὲ καὶ παρὰ τῶν μὴ μετιόντων αὐτὴν θαυμάζεται· καὶ τῇ μὲν πυρ, τῇ δὲ βασιλεία ηὐτρέπισται. Δέον τοίνυν ταῦτα πάντα ἐννοοῦντας, τὴν μὲν ἀποστρέφεσθαι, ὡς θηριόμορ- φον καὶ ὀφιώδη, τὴν δὲ ἀσπάσασθαι ὡς θείαν καὶ ὑπερκόσμιον. Τοὐναντίον ποιοῦσι, τὴν πόρνην ἀντὶ τῆς σώφρονος αἱρούμενοι γυναικός.