Letter 119: The most destructive thing in the world is false doctrine, and the labors of those who follow it are utterly fruitless.

On the fact that it is dreadful in the extreme to sell the priesthood or to buy it. To Lampetius. Nobly have you studied the Psalmist's word, and have gathered the solitaries [monks] into the house of the Lord, yoking Maron together with Zosimus, taking all care, as I suppose, that none of the worthless should stand outside the altar. Know then that, by multiplying the Simons [Simon Magus, who tried to buy the Spirit, Acts 8] -- those who suppose that the Spirit of God is to be acquired with money -- you have made a common purse with the betrayer [Judas], rolling about in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity [Acts 8:23], and recklessly drinking away as a toast the very things that are longed for even by the angels themselves.

Ὅτι φρικτὸν εἰς ὑπερβολὴν τὸ πιπράσκειν ἱερωσύνην ἢ ἐξωνεῖσθαι. Καλῶς τὸ Ψαλμικὸν ἐμελέτησας, καὶ τοὺς μονότροπους ἐν τῷ τοῦ Κυρίου οἴκῳ συνήγαγες, Ζωσίμῳ συζεύξας [καὶ] Μάρωνα· πᾶσαν σπουδήν, ὡς οἶμαι, τιθέμενος, μή τι τῶν φαύλων ἔξω τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου σταίη. Ἴσθι τοίνυν ὡς πληθύνων τοὺς Σίμωνας, τοὺς χρήμασι κτᾶσθαι τὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ Πνεῦμα νομίζοντας, κοινὸν ἐκτήσω βαλάντιον τῷ προδότῃ, εἰς χολὴν πικρίας καὶ σύνδεσμον ἀδικίας κυλινδούμενος, καὶ προπίνων τολμηρῶς τὰ καὶ ἀγγέλοις αὐτοῖς περιπόθητα.