Letter 146: Those who think well leave earth to earth and swim beyond matter and the senses.
You lament poverty amid a multitude of possessions; I despise possessions and the wealthy, though I am held by marvelous poverty. So poverty and wealth are made by judgment, not by money wandering here and there at Fortune's will. Stop grieving to me in so small-minded a way. Consider nothing great unless it bears toward virtue; whatever is not like that is alien and draws a person toward deception. Those who know how to think shake these things off like drunkenness and nonsense. Leaving earth to earth, with a mind lifted high, they travel the heavens, having swum through the senses, matter, and the place of wandering as through a hard sea.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek below for scholarly use.
Latin / Greek Original
Νηφαλίωι Σὺ μὲν ἐν πλήθει χρημάτων τὴν ἀπορίαν θρηνεῖς, ἐγὼ δὲ τὰ χρήματα καὶ τοὺς πλουτοῦντας περιφρονῶ, καίτοι πενίᾳ θαυμαστῇ συνεχόμενος. οὕτως ἄρα τὸ πένεσθαι καὶ πλουτεῖν ἡ γνώμη ποιεῖ, οὐ χρήματα παρὰ τῆς τύχης τῇδε κἀκεῖσε πλανώμενα. τοιγαροῦν παῦσαι μικροψύχως ἡμῖν ὀδυρόμενος, μηδὲν μέγα νομίζων, πλὴν εἰ μή τι φέροι πρὸς ἀρετήν. ὅ τι γὰρ μὴ τοιοῦτον, ἀλλότριόν τέ ἐστι καὶ πρὸς ἀπάτην ἐφέλκεται. ὅθεν οἱ φρονεῖν εἰδότες ὥσπερ τινὰ μέθην καὶ φλυαρίαν ταῦτα ἀποσεισάμενοι, τὴν γῆν καταλιπόντες τῇ γῇ, μεταρσίῳ γνώμῃ περιπολοῦσι τὸν οὐρανόν, τὰς αἰσθήσεις καὶ τὴν ὕλην καὶ τὸ τῆς πλάνης χωρίον ὥσπερ τινὰ χαλεπὴν διανηξάμενοι θάλατταν.
Revision history
- 2026-05-27v2.2.34-import
Initial corpus import from modern procopius gaza batch9 matia greek v1.
Fields: letter text, metadata, source links. Source: https://www.matia.gr/pisth/pdf/pg_migne/Procopius_of_Gaza_PG_87a-87c/Epistulae.pdf
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