Letter 180

To Leucadius the Archdeacon. It is the custom of the saints to give thanks to God, who through them everywhere makes manifest the fragrance of the knowledge that benefits souls. But you, instead of a sweet odor, burn bran as incense, after the likeness of those women whom the prophet Jeremiah mentions when he writes to those who had been led away captive into Babylon. For how would your message-mongering differ from a vapor of smoke [katêngydias]: a thing both sedition-breeding and profitless?

Ἔθος τοῖς ἁγίοις εὐχαριστεῖν τῷ Θεῷ τὴν ὀσμὴν τῆς γνώσεως τῆς ὠφελούσης ψυχὰς δι' αὐτῶν πανταχοῦ φανεροῦντι· σὺ δ' ἀντ' εὐωδίας τὰ πίτυρα θυμίζεις, κατ' εἰκόνα τῶν γυναικῶν ἐκείνων, ὧνπερ ὁ προφήτης μέμνηται Ἰερεμίας γράφων τοῖς αἰχμαλωτισθεῖσιν εἰς Βαβυλῶνα. Τί γὰρ ἂν διαφέροι κατηγκυδίας τὸ σὺν διάγγελμα, τὸ στασιοποιὸν τε καὶ ἀκερδές;