Letter 128
To a Bishop, expelled from his diocese for refusing to accept Arian doctrine.
You have recovered what you truly are — you have not lost it. When a man is struck from the rolls of impiety, he is not at the same moment deprived of the throne of genuine piety. Welcome your exile from Egypt, and believe that the prophet's cry was also addressed to you: "What have you to do with the land of Egypt, that you should drink from the waters of the Nile?" [Jeremiah 2:18].
It is a people that has long been rebellious against God and hostile to the Holy Fathers.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.
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