Letter 446: If you were to dwell on the memory of the coming glory, Pepios, it would put wings on your soul.
To Candidianus: Why do you hasten to wrong the very man whom you ought rather to love -- the one who made known to you the opinion that all hold about you? For disagreements have often set the shrewd right, causing what was done insolently to be healed. If, therefore, you consider what you heard an insult, guard yourself by your conduct from being worthy of insult. For if you improve your deeds, the reproaches too will vanish.
AI-assisted translation — This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek below for scholarly use.
Latin / Greek Original
ΥΠ'. – ΚΑΝΔΙΔΙΑΝΩ.
Τί σπεύδεις ἀδικεῖν, ὃν ἔδει μᾶλλον φιλεῖν, τὴν
πάντων περὶ σοῦ γνώμην σοι φανερώσαντα (71); ΔΙ
γὰρ διαφοραὶ πολλάκις διωρθώσαντο τοὺς ἀγχί-
νους (72), τὰ πραχθέντα ὑβριστικῶς ἱαθῆναι παρα
σκευάσασαι. Εἰ τοίνυν ὕβριν ἡγῇ ἅπερ ἤκουσας, ἢ
πράξει σαυτὸν ἀνύβριστον φύλαξον. Εἰ γὰρ τὰ ἔργα
σου βελτιώσειας, καὶ [αἱ] λοιδορίαι οἰχήσονται.
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On "Do not practice your righteousness before others to be seen by them" [Matthew 6:1].
Justice in ecclesiastical administration requires exactly what it requires in civil administration: impartiality.
This letter is extant also among those of Procopius of Gaza, to whose works it properly belongs. As this Procopius flourished a century later than Jerome, the letter cannot be addressed to him. About this page Source.