Letter 583

To Xenophon the Scholasticus [an advocate or jurist]. There is one kind of justice that turns about within us, the distribution of what is equal. For even if we do not attain it with exactness, yet at least by practicing justice in our intention we do not fall away from the mark. But there is another kind, brought down from heaven by the just Judge, which is both corrective and retributive, and which is very hard to contemplate because of the loftiness of the doctrines stored up within it, as David says: "Your justice is like the mountains of God, your judgments a great deep." [Psalm 35:7 LXX; 36:6 in the Hebrew numbering.]

Δικαιοσύνη ἐστίν, ἡ μέν τις ἐν ἡμῖν στρεφομένη, ἡ τοῦ ἴσου διανομή. Εἰ γὰρ καὶ μὴ τυγχάνομεν αὐτοῦ κατὰ τὴν ἀκρίβειαν, ἀλλὰ γοῦν γνώμῃ δικαιοσύνην ποιοῦντες οὐκ ἐκπίπτομεν τοῦ σκοποῦ. Ἡ δέ τις οὐρανόθεν ἐπαγομένη παρὰ τοῦ δικαίου Κριτοῦ, ἥ τε ἐπανορθωτική, καὶ ἀνταποδοτική, ἧς πολὺ τὸ δυσθεώρητον διὰ τὸ ὕψος τῶν ἐναποκειμένων αὐτῇ δογμάτων, καθά φησιν ὁ Δαυΐδ· «Ἡ δικαιοσύνη σου ὡς ὄρη Θεοῦ, τὰ κρίματά σου ἄβυσσος πολλή.»