Letter 36: The strength of rulers lies in friendship with God.

To Markianos. You ought to have written to him before forming judgments about what seems likely. To Alypios. Perhaps you are unaware that a difficulty is never resolved by another difficulty; but we are accustomed to derive the credibility of what is disputed from what is acknowledged. To Eutonios. The terrible and powerful love of vainglory, mightily dominating the human race, the saving Word wisely and skillfully restrains and redirects toward what is better. To the same. How to understand: "If your eye or your hand causes you to stumble." The evangelical oracle is not irrational, but full of mind and reason; for great as it is, both in appearance and in reality, to master desire, greater still is it to take precaution that one not be captured by the disease. This very thing Christ was establishing when he said: "Everyone who looks at a woman to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart" — not declaring the one who saw in passing and suddenly, and was wounded, and extracted the arrow, and healed the wound, to be an adulterer; for he did not say, "The one who has looked," but, "The one who looks" — the one who by premeditation drew the passion upon himself, and nurtures it within himself, and continually visits the one he has seen, and scrutinizes another's beauty, and through the continual gazing enjoys the pleasure in a certain way. You, then, managing your own affairs prudently, rightly shudder at the oracle, and ask for it to be interpreted for you, and disbelieve those who have arrived at such a degree of insensibility as to say that looking does no harm to the one who looks. But I commend you for caring about your own salvation. And concerning those others I say that security is better than perilous ambition, and that one should regard the divine oracles as more authoritative than one's own reasonings. To Ophelios the Grammarian. Not only the shores, as Homer said and you have written, roar with the spray of the surging sea, but both land and sea dramatize the lawless deeds perpetrated by Zosimos. For he has risen, they say, to such a degree of insensibility that he considers the divine oracles to be the babbling of charlatans, and supposes the advisers of what is right to be talking nonsense, and revels against every age and rank alike. Who then would not weep? Who would not lament not only him, but also the one who dared to entrust to him the holy priesthood? For it is terrible enough when someone numbered among the common and obscure is stained by so many evils; but when one who has forced his way into the priesthood does so, it is in every way most terrible. We know these things, and continually hearing them we lament, and we have not ceased admonishing — nor shall we cease as long as we breathe. For do not attempt to teach us as if we were unaware of things that can be committed neither to oblivion nor to silence. Some try to call him back as one half-dead; others lament over him as one already dead. But neither the former nor the latter accomplish anything; rather they incur laughter from him.

Δ΄. ΜΑΡΚΙΑΝΩ. Ἔδει τοῦ γράφειν αὐτῷ, πρὶν περὶ ὧν εἰκὸς δοχεῖ Ζ΄. – ΑΛΥΠΙΩ. Ἴσως ἀγνοεῖς, ὅτι οὐδέποτε ἄπορον ἀπόρῳ λύεται· ἀλλ᾽ ἀπὸ τῶν ὁμολογουμένων τὴν πίστιν τῶν ἀμφι- σβητουμένων (91) λαμβάνειν εἰώθαμεν. ΑΔ'. - ΕΥΤΟNIQ. Δεινὸν ὄντα καὶ δραστήριον τὸν τῆς φιλοτιμίας έρωτα, καὶ δεινῶς κρατοῦντα τοῦ ἀνθρωπίνου γέ- νους, ὁ σωτήριος Λόγος σοφῶς τε καὶ ἐπιστημόνως καταστέλλων, καὶ πρὸς τὸ κρεῖττον μετοχετεύων, ``` ΣϚ'. - ΤΟ ΑΥΤΟ Πῶς νοητέον. Εἱ ὀφθαλμός σου ἢ χείρ σου σκανδαλίζει σε. Οὐκ ἔστιν ἄλογος ὁ εὐαγγελικός χρησμός, ἀλλὰ νοῦ καὶ λογισμοῦ μεστός· μεγάλου γὰρ καὶ δοκοῦν τος καὶ ὄντος τοῦ κρατεῖν ἐπιθυμίας, μεῖζόν ἐστι τὸ προνοεῖν ὅπως μὴ ἀλοίη [τις] τῇ νόσῳ. Τοῦτο γοῦν αὐτὸ κατασκευάζων ὁ Χριστὸς ἔφη - - Πᾶς ὁ βλέ- πων γυναῖκα πρὸς τὸ ἐπιθυμῆσαι, ἤδη ἐμοίχευσεν αὐτὴν ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ ἑαυτοῦ· · οὐ τὸν ἐκ παρόδου καὶ ἐξαίφνης ἑωρακότα, καὶ τρωθέντα, καὶ ἐξελκύ- σαντα τὸ βέλος, καὶ τὸ τραῦμα θεραπεύσαντα, μοι- χὸν ἀποφαίνων· οὐ γὰρ εἶπεν, Ὁ θεασάμενος, ἀλλ', • Ὁ θεώμενος, » ὁ ἐκ προενθυμήσεως τὸ πάθος ἐπισπασάμενος, καὶ παρ' ἑαυτῷ τρέφων καὶ συν- εχῶς φοιτῶν πρὸς τὴν θεαθεῖσαν, καὶ περιεργαζό- μενος κάλλος ἀλλότριον, καὶ διὰ τῆς συνέχοῦς θέας τρόπον τινὰ τῆς ἡδονῆς ἀπολαύων. Σὺ μὲν οὖν ἀσφα- λῶς τὰ κατὰ σαυτοῦ οἰκονομῶν εἰκότως φρίττεις τὸν χρησμὸν, καὶ ἑρμηνευθῆναι σοι παρακαλεῖς, καὶ ἀπιστεῖς τοῖς εἰς τοσοῦτον ἤκουσιν ἀναισθησίας, ὡς λέγειν ὅτι οὐδὲν ἡ θέα βλάπτει τὸν ὁρῶντα. Ἐγὼ δὲ σε μὲν ἀποδέχομαι φροντίζοντα τῆς οἰκείας σωτηρίας. Περὶ δὲ ἐκείνων φημί, ὅτι κρείττων ἀσφάλεια φιλο- τιμίας ἐπισφαλοῦς (28). Καὶ τὸ τοὺς θείους χρη- σμοὺς τῶν οἰκείων λογισμῶν προτιμοτέρους ἅγειν. Ο. – ΟΦΕΛΙΩ ΓΡΑΜΜΑΤΙΚΟ. Οὐκ ἠϊόνες μόναι, ὡς Ὅμηρος μὲν ἔφη, σὺ δὲ γέγραφας, βοῶσιν ἐρευγομένης ἀλὸς ἄχνην· ἀλλὰ γῆ τε καὶ θάλαττα, τὰς παρὰ Ζωσίμου καινουργηθείσας παρανομίας ἐκτραγῳδεῖ. Τοσοῦτος γὰρ, ὡς φασιν, εἰς ἀναλγησίαν ἤρθη, ὡς μὲν τοὺς θείους χρησμούς, ἀγυρτικάς λογοποιίας νομίζειν· τοὺς δὲ τῶν δεόντων παραινέτας ληρεῖν ὑπολαμβάνειν, καὶ κατὰ πάσης ὁμοῦ ἡλικίας τε καὶ ἀξίας ἐπικωμάζειν. Τις οὖν οὐ δακρύσει; τίς οὐ καταθρηνήσει οὐ μόνον αὐτὸν, ἀλλὰ καὶ τὸν τούτῳ τὴν εὐαγῆ ἱερωσύνην ἐμπιστεύ σαι τολμήσαντα ; Δεινὸν μὲν γὰρ τὸ καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἀγε- λαίοις καὶ ἀφανέσι τελοῦντά τινα τοσούτοις καταμο λυνθῆναι κακοῖς· τὸ δὲ καὶ εἰς ἱερωσύνην εἰσβιασά μενον, πάντη δεινότατον. Ἴσμεν οὖν ταῦτα, καὶ συν- εχῶς ἀκούοντες, ὀλοφυρόμεθα, καὶ παραινοῦντες οὐκ ἐπαυσάμεθα· ἀλλ' οὐδὲ παυσόμεθα ἕως ἂν ἐμα πνέωμεν. Μὴ γὰρ δὴ ὡς ἀνηκόους διδάσκειν πειρῶ τὰ μήτε λήθῃ. μήτε σιγῇ παραδοθῆναι δυνάμενα. Τινές μὲν γὰρ ὡς ἡμιθνῆτα τυγχάνοντα, ἀνακαλοῦνται· τινὲς δ᾽ ὡς νεκρὸν καταθρηνοῦσιν. ᾿Αλλ' οὔτε ἐκεῖνοι, οὔτε οὗτοι ἀνύουσιν, ἀλλὰ γέλωτα παρ᾿ αὐτῷ ὀφλισ- πάνουσιν. Λϛ΄. – ΤΩ ΑΥΤΩ Εἰ καὶ οἱ πολλοὶ περὶ τὴν ἀλήθειαν διακείμενοι ἐκ τούτου τὸν σκόπον ἀπολαύουσιν, ἐν τούτῳ μάλιστα εἰσὶν πειρώμενοι καὶ σπουδάζοντες ἀεὶ τὰ πλεῖστα περὶ τὴν ἀλήθειαν κακουργῆσαι. ΡΝΓ΄. – ΔΟΜΝΩ ΚΟΜΙΤΙ Οἱ τῆς φιλαργυρίας ἀθλούμενοι τυφλοῦσι τὰ τῆς ψυχῆς ὄμματα.