Letter 731

To the Same Persons. You have written that you have been delivered from your spiritual anguish, and lightened of its burden, having laid upon me all the things you have undergone. And did I not know that you would be relieved and comforted, once you had laid bare the things that befell you to a man who has been warred upon ten thousand times by the demons and has received their bites? For indeed, whenever someone is bitten by a viper, and finds another man who has likewise been bitten by a viper before him, if he tells of what has befallen him, he obtains consolation.

Γεγράφατε ἀπηλλάχθαι τῆς ψυχικῆς ὀδύνης, καὶ ἠλαφρῦνθαι τῆς ἀχθόνους, ἀναθέμενοι μοι πάντα, ἃ ὑπέστητε. Καὶ οὐκ ἔγνων ἐγώ, ὅτι κουφισθήσεσθε, καὶ παρηγορηθήσεσθε τὰ συμβάντα γυμνώσαντες ἀνθρώπῳ μυριάκις ὑπὸ τῶν δαιμόνων πολεμηθέντι. καὶ δήγματα λαβόντι; Καὶ γὰρ ὅταν τις ὑπὸ ἐχίδνης δηχθῇ, καὶ εὑρὼν ἕτερον ἄνθρωπον ὑπὸ ἐχίδνης ὁμοίως πρὸ τούτου δεδηγμένον, εἰ λαλήσει τὸ συμβὰν, παραμυθίας τυγχάνει.