Letter 812: Prayer is not the manipulation of God but the alignment of our will with his.

To Zosimos. With what eyes do you still look upon your own friends, if indeed you have any friends, after plotting against a man who was your benefactor and your friend? For he, as I have learned, kept company with you all too freely, supposing that he held an indisputable pledge that he would suffer nothing from any plot, namely, the greatness of his goodwill and of his benefaction toward you. But you have outdone even the wild beasts themselves in savagery and in cruelty; for there are even beasts that know gratitude toward their benefactors [the text here is corrupt], while you take pride in your wickedness. When, then, will you at last cease from drowning your own soul, laying upon it the necessity of being borne downward without end?

Ποίοις ὀφθαλμοῖς εἰς τοὺς φίλους ἔτι τοὺς σαυτοῦ, εἴ γ’ ἔχεις φίλους, βλέπεις, ἀνθρώπῳ εὐεργέτῃ καὶ φίλῳ ἐπιβουλεύσας; Ὁ μὲν γὰρ ἀδέστερον (26), ὡς ἐπυθόμην, συνῆν, ἀναμφισβήτητον ἐνέχυρον οἰόμενος ἔχειν τοῦ μηδὲν ἂν ἐξ ἐπιβουλῆς παθεῖν, τὸ τῆς εὐνοίας καὶ τῆς εὐεργεσίας μέγεθος. Σὺ δὲ καὶ αὐτοὺς τοὺς θῆρας τῇ ἀγριότητι, καὶ τῇ ὠμότητι νενίκηκας· εἰσὶ γὰρ αἱ τοῖς εὐεργέταις χάριν ἴσασι (27)· καὶ ἐναβρύνῃ τῇ κακίᾳ. Πότε οὖν στήσῃ λοιπὸν καταποντίζειν τὴν σαυτοῦ ψυχήν, τοῦ φέρεσθαι κάτω διηνεκῶς ἀνάγκην αὐτῇ ἐπιτιθείς;