Letter 30: Now is the moment for your Academy to prove the value of all your discussions.

To Aerius the Sophist. Now is the moment for your Academy to prove the value of all your discussions. I am told that a brilliant circle gathers at your house — men distinguished by birth and polished in speech — and that you debate together about virtue, the immortality of the soul, and kindred themes. Show now, in a concrete case, the nobility of soul and wealth of virtue that all this training is supposed to produce. The most admirable and honorable Celestinianus is coming to you — a man who was once an ornament of the city of Carthage, where he threw open his doors to many clergy and never imagined that he would one day need a stranger's kindness. Receive him in the spirit of men who have learned, from all your philosophical discussions, just how rapidly human prosperity can change. Be his advocate, dear friend. Help him with the voice he himself is too ashamed to use on his own behalf — he cannot bring himself to follow the poet's advice that even the person in need must speak up. Persuade any of your circle who are capable of it to emulate the hospitality of Alcinous: remove the poverty that has come upon him so unexpectedly, and turn his ill fortune into good. Let them praise our kindly Lord for making us wise through other men's calamities — for not sending us to strangers' houses while bringing strangers to our own. To those who show such kindness he promises what no words can express and no mind can fully grasp.

Letter 30