Letter 605
To Emperor Julian. (~360 AD)
I sent you the speech — a small thing about great matters. To make the speech greater, you are surely the master, if you grant what would make it so.
By granting it, you will show that you consider me a craftsman of encomia. By not granting it, you will leave room for other suspicions.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.
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1. The heroic deeds of your present splendour are small, and your grand attack against me, or rather against yourself, is paltry. When I think of you robed in purple, a crown on your dishonoured head, which, so long as true religion is absent, rather disgraces than graces your empire, I tremble.
How watchfully and how devotedly you guard the Catholic Faith, brother, the tenor of your letter shows, and my anxiety is greatly relieved by the information it contains; supplemented as it is by the most religious piety of our religious Emperor, which is clearly shown to be prepared by the Lord for the confirmation of the whole Church; so that,...