Letter 254: Truth is powerful, Peter — and often silent.

To Peter. For what reason, you asked, were inanimate things scourged? In order to accuse the folly of the Jews, I say; because those things, on the one hand, were shattered by fear, while the Jews themselves were transformed into the nature of stones, being both insensible to fear and ungrateful toward kindness.

Τίνος χάριν, ἔφης, τὰ ἄψυχα ἐμαστίζετο; Τῆς Ἰουδαίων, φημί, κατηγοροῦντα ἠλιθιότητος· ὅτι τὰ μὲν φόβῳ συνετρίβετο, αὐτοὶ δὲ εἰς λίθων φύσιν μεθίσταντο, καὶ πρὸς φόβον ἀναίσθητοι, καὶ πρὸς εὐεργεσίαν ὄντες ἀχάριστοι.