Letter 174: Truly, as you have written, many disturbances have swept through the churches.

To Leontius. The citizens have sent us a notice [an official posting] which was fixed to the church, as they said, before it was displayed in the city; and it strips everyone of the right to make a defense and of the refuge that is to be had in the church. This is a thing not only of cruelty, but it carries with it the suspicion of impiety as well. For if you grant no share in a defense, and allow no flight to God, you have both whetted the tongues of slanderers and multiplied acts of injustice. How then will you detect what is just? How will you save the one being wronged, who, that he might not become the prey of the powerful man, when he lacked a judge to defend him, ran to the inviolable enclosure [the sanctuary of the church]? But the rotting away of the dealing of the court is its verdict; remove the cruelty, and you will have the marketplace [of justice] most easy and open.

Χάρτην ἡμῖν οἱ πολῖται πεμπήμασι, προπαγέντα τῆς ἐκκλησίας, ὡς ἔφησαν, πρὶν ἐπιδῇ τῆς πόλεως· ὃς καὶ ἀπολογίας πάντας γυμνοῖ, καὶ τῆς ἐν ἐκκλησίᾳ φυγῆς. Ὅπερ οὐ μόνον ἀπηνείας ἐστὶν, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἀσεβείας ἔχει ὑπόνοιαν. Εἰ γὰρ ἀπολογίας οὐ μεταδιδούς, οὐδὲ φυγὴν πρὸς θεὸν ἐνδιδοὺς, καὶ συκοφάντας ἐστόμωσας, καὶ ἀδικίας ἐπλήθυνας· πῶς οὖν φωράσεις τὸ δίκαιον; πῶς σώσεις τὸν ἀδικούμενον; ὅς ἵνα μὴ ἔργον δυνατοῦ γένηται (68), ἀπορῷ δι- καστοῦ τοῦ ἀμύνοντος, πρὸς τὸν ἀχείρωτον ἕδραμες σηκόν. Ἡ δὲ σήψις ἐστι, τῆς τοῦ δικαστηρίου πρά- σεως ἡ ἀπόφασις, ὑπόθηθι τὴν ἀπίνειαν, καὶ ἕξεις τὸ πρατήριον εὐμαρέστατον.