Letter 298

To Sosthenes the Commentariensius [registrar of prison and court records]. I perceive you to be foolish and without understanding. For if you find fault with the God-bearing man John, the bishop of Constantinople [John Chrysostom], as being irascible and as delighting in insults, when in rebuking those who sin he gravely lays hold of those who are sick with insensibility and lack of feeling, then it is time for you also to censure John the Baptist, because he called certain men a brood of vipers, being venomous in their character; and to judge the Apostle [Paul] to be an insulter, because he twice called the Galatians foolish; and to render the prophets liable to the charge of insult, since they applied to rational beings the names of lust-maddened horses, and of dogs that bite in secret, and of wolves, and of swine, drawing the one who had gone astray toward correction by their reproofs. And what would you say about the God of all and the provident Christ, the humble-minded one, who by his own forbearance and gentleness surpassed all gentleness, when you hear him calling those who transgress the law fools, and blind, and sons of the devil, and tares, and dogs, and swine, and certain other mocking names?

Ἀνόητόν σε καὶ ἀσύνετον καταμανθάνω· εἰ γὰρ ἐπιλαμβάνῃ τοῦ θεοφόρου ἀνδρὸς Ἰωάννου τοῦ ἐπισκόπου Κωνσταντινουπόλεως, ὡς ὀργίλου, καὶ ὕβρεσι χαίροντος, ἐν τῷ ἐπιπλήττειν τοῖς ἐξαμαρτάνουσι, καὶ ἐμβριθῶς καθάπτεσθαι τῶν τὴν ἀναλγησίαν, καὶ τὴν ἀναισθησίαν ἀῤῥωστούντων, καιρός σοι καὶ τὸν Βαπτιστὴν Ἰωάννην ἐλέγχειν, ὅτι γεννήματα ἐχιδνῶν τινας ἀπεκάλεσεν, ἰώδεις τὸν τρόπον ὑπάρχοντας, καὶ τὸν Ἀπόστολον ὑβριστὴν εἶναι. χρίνειν, ὅτι Γαλάτας δεύτερον ἀνοήτους προσέπεν, καὶ τοὺς προφήτας τῷ τῆς ὕβρεως ἐγκλήματι ὑπεύθυνους καθιστᾷν, ἐπειδὴ ἵππων θηλυμανῶν, καὶ κυνῶν λαθροδάκνων, καὶ λύκων, καὶ χοίρων ὀνόματα, τοῖς λογικοῖς ἐπετίθεσαν, πρὸς διόρθωσιν ἐπισπώμενοι τοῖς ἐλέγχοις τὸν διασφαλλόμενον. Τί δ’ ἄν εἴποις περὶ τοῦ πάντων Θεοῦ, καὶ προνοητοῦ Χριστοῦ, τοῦ ταπεινόφρονος, καὶ τῇ οἰκείᾳ, ἐπιεικείᾳ, καὶ πραότητι, πᾶσαν πραότητα ὑπεραχοντίσαντος, ὅταν ἀκούσης αὐτοῦ, μωροὺς, καὶ τυφλοὺς, υἱούς τε τοῦ διαβόλου, καὶ ζιζάνια, κύνας τε καὶ χοίρους, καὶ ἄλλα τινὰ σκώμματα, τοὺς παρανομοῦντας ἀποκαλοῦντος;