Letter 83: "Professing to be wise, they became fools" [Romans 1:22] — this was said, my wise friend, because among the...
To Peter.
That a gentle and altogether wise word can, like a remedy, quench anger seething from the depths of the heart, this I know quite precisely. But whether in our own words too it is possible to find a drug able to lull it to sleep, this I no longer know clearly. Yet, were it any of you [concerned], I would affirm it confidently; and if I were to fail, I would above all be grieved [...]. Since, then, your strife has grown, as they say, sky-high, and has wounded in their vital parts not only you but also many others, I should wish you to quench and do away with it, and to run back to friendship; but if this is for now, as some say, not possible, then at least by silence to unnerve your immoderate contentiousness, and not to increase it by words spoken and unspeakable. For if you cease uttering against yourselves the things that are not lawful, gently and little by little the strife will be quenched, and, collapsing, it will prepare friendship to be rekindled. For just as for the sick to be no worse off may become the beginning of being better (for in the most acute diseases mere stability has reasonably been reckoned an improvement), so too for you, being very sick (do not suppose that you are in health, behaving so drunkenly toward one another), the not letting the affliction be aggravated may become for you the beginning of utterly doing away with the enmity, or at least of its not advancing further. I will not deprive myself of the good hope [that the matter is] worthy of discourse, that you will be judged through words. [The remainder of the source is corrupted: the clause "Whether, then, for you it is wholly worthy of discourse, that you will be judged through words" is repeated mechanically about eleven times in the manuscript/OCR and reflects no further genuine text.]
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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
Ὅτι μὲν λόγος πραΰς καὶ πάνσοφος, βοηθήματος δίκην σβέσαι δύναται θυμὸν ἐκ μέσης καρδίας ζέοντα, μάλα ἀκριβῶς οἶδα. Εἰ δὲ καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἡμετέροις λόγοις ἔνεστι φάρμακον εὑρεῖν κοιμίσαι δυνάμενον, τοῦτο δὴ οὐκέτι σαφῶς ἐπίσταμαι. Ἀλλ’ εἰ μὲν ἂν ὑμῶν, δισχυρισαίμην. Εἰ δὲ διαμάρτοιμι, μάλιστα μὲν λυπηθείην (71). Οὐκοῦν ἐπειδὴ ἡ ἔρις ἡ ὑμετέρα οὐρανομήκης, ὥς φασι, γεγενημένη, οὐ μόνον ὑμᾶς, ἀλλὰ καὶ πολλοὺς ἄλλους εἰς τὰ καίρια ἔτρωσε, βουλοίμην ἂμ ὑμᾶς (72) ταύτην μὲν σβέσαι καὶ ἀφανίσαι, εἰ δὲ φιλίαν παλινδρομῆσαι· εἰ δὲ τοῦτο τέως, ὡς φασί τινες, οὐχ οἷόν τε, κἂν τῇ σιωπῇ ἐκνευρίσαι τὴν ἄμετρον φιλονεικίαν, καὶ μὴ ῥητοῖς καὶ ἀῤῥήτοις ῥήμασι ταύτην αὐξῆσαι. Ἢν γὰρ παύσησθε ἃ μὴ θέμι, καθ’ ἑαυτῶν φθεγγόμενοι, ἠρέμα καὶ κατὰ μικρὸν σβεσθήσεται ἡ ἔρις καὶ καταπεσοῦσα, τὴν φιλίαν ἀναζωπυρῆσαι παρασκευάσει. Ὥσπερ γὰρ τοῖς κάμνουσι τὸ μὴ χεῖρον ἔχειν, ἀρχὴ γένοιτ’ ἂν τοῦ βέλτιον ἔχειν (ἡ γὰρ ἐν τοῖς ὀξυτάτοις νοσήμασι ταὐτότης, βελτίωσις εἰκότως ἐνομίσθη)· οὕτω καὶ ὑμῖν μάλα κάμνουσι (μὴ γὰρ δὴ ὑγιαίνειν νομίζετε, τοιαῦτα εἰς ἀλλήλους παροινοῦντες), τὸ μὴ ἐπιτριβῆναι τὸ πάθος, ἀρχὴ γένοιτ’ ἂν ὑμῶν τέλεον ἀφανίσαι τὴν ἔχθραν, εἴτε μὴ περαιτέρω προελθεῖν, οὐκ ἀφαιρήσομαι ἐμαυτοῦ τὸ εὐελπι ἄξιον εἶναι λόγου, διὰ λόγους κριθήσεσθαι. Εἴτε οὖν ὑμῖν τέλεον ἄξιον εἶναι λόγου, διὰ λόγους κριθήσεσθαι. Εἴτε οὖν ὑμῖν τέλεον ἄξιον εἶναι λόγου, διὰ λόγους κριθήσεσθαι. Εἴτε οὖν ὑμῖν τέλεον ἄξιον εἶναι λόγου, διὰ λόγους κριθήσεσθαι. Εἴτε οὖν ὑμῖν τέλεον ἄξιον εἶναι λόγου, διὰ λόγους κριθήσεσθαι. Εἴτε οὖν ὑμῖν τέλεον ἄξιον εἶναι λόγου, διὰ λόγους κριθήσεσθαι. Εἴτε οὖν ὑμῖν τέλεον ἄξιον εἶναι λόγου, διὰ λόγους κριθήσεσθαι. Εἴτε οὖν ὑμῖν τέλεον ἄξιον εἶναι λόγου, διὰ λόγους κριθήσεσθαι. Εἴτε οὖν ὑμῖν τέλεον ἄξιον εἶναι λόγου, διὰ λόγους κριθήσεσθαι. Εἴτε οὖν ὑμῖν τέλεον ἄξιον εἶναι λόγου, διὰ λόγους κριθήσεσθαι. Εἴτε οὖν ὑμῖν τέλεον ἄξιον εἶναι λόγου, διὰ λόγους κριθήσεσθαι. Εἴτε οὖν ὑμῖν τέλεον ἄξιον εἶναι λόγου, διὰ λόγους κριθήσεσθαι.
Revision history
- 2026-05-27v2.2.34-import
Initial corpus import from modern isidore pelusium workflow v1.
Fields: letter text, metadata, source links. Source: https://archive.org/details/PatrologiaGraeca (PG vol.78)
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