Letter 1605: There were once two full brothers who had quarreled so violently with each other that they regarded as enemies even...

To the Sophist [the recipient is addressed as a sophist, a professional teacher of rhetoric] You yourself greatly admired what was written to you earlier; yet you risk overturning it by having written, asking for what reason Zosimus, and Eustathius, and Maron, men who are distinguished neither in speech nor in life, but who are sick with the utmost lack of education in both respects, and who are set before everyone as objects of comedy and laughter, seem to attain to the priesthood. But I, for my part, shall make a simple and clear defense. For if I had made my argument on their behalf, preferring virtue to education, you would reasonably have brought me into the necessity of a defense. But if there was no account taken of particular persons, and the matter itself was examined in its own right, so that even you yourself, as you said, struck with amazement at the beauty and the truth of what was written, wove together praises greater than I deserve, then why now have you put forward into the midst men who live however they live, attempting to refute what was written earlier? For not even if those men are full of countless evils, and have hidden them all, as you have written, by their lawless deeds, will the argument made by us, fortified by the truth, on that account be overturned. But those men are indeed already of such a kind, along with being made the subject of comedy, and they will pay an unbearable penalty; whereas the truth will shine forth all the more greatly, not refuted by a few wicked men, but for this very reason becoming the more brilliant, because, while it renders those who do not love it inglorious, it makes its lovers most glorious of all.

Αὐτὸς μὲν λίαν ἐξεθαύμασας τὰ πρῴην ἐπιστα- λέντα· κινδυνεύεις δὲ αὐτὰ ἀνατρέπειν τῷ γεγρα- φέναι, δι’ ἣν αἰτίαν Ζώσιμος, καὶ Εὐστάθιος, καὶ Μάρων μήτε λόγῳ, μήτε βίῳ διαπρέποντες, ἀλλ’ ἀπαιδευσίαν ἐσχάτην ἐν ἑκατέρῳ νοσοῦντες, καὶ κωμῳδίᾳ καὶ γέλωσι πᾶσι προκείμενοι, δοκοῦσιν εἰς ἱερωσύνην τελεῖν. Ἐγὼ δὲ ἁπλῆν καὶ σαφῆ τὴν ἀπο- λογίαν ποιήσομαι. Εἰ μὲν γὰρ ὑπὲρ αὐτῶν τὸν λόγον ἐποιησάμην, τὴν ἀρετὴν τῆς παιδεύσεως προκρίνων, εἰκότως ἄν με εἰς ἀνάγκην ἀπολογία· κατέστησας· εἰ δὲ προσώπων μὲν λόγος ἦν οὐδείς, αὐτὸ δὲ τὸ πρᾶγμα καθ’ ἑαυτὸ ἐβασανίζετο· ὡς καὶ αὐτόν σε ἐκπλαγέντα, ὡς ἔφης, τὸ κάλλος καὶ τὴν ἀλήθειαν τῶν γεγραμμένων, μείζους ἡ κατ’ ἐμὲ ἐπαίνους ὑφῆ- ναι. Τί δήποτε νῦν ἀνθρώπους ὅπως δήποτε βιοῦντας εἰς μέσον προύθηκας, ἐξελέγχειν τὰ πρῴην γραφέντα ἐπιχειρῶν; Οὐδὲ γὰρ εἰ μυρίων ἐκεῖνοι γέμουσι κακῶν, καὶ πάντας ἀπέκρυψαν, ὡς γέγραφας, ταῖς παρανομίαις, ἤδη ὁ λόγος ὁ παρ’ ἡμῶν ὁ τῇ ἀληθείᾳ ὠχυρωμένος ἀνατραπήσεται. Ἀλλ’ ἐκεῖνοι μὲν ἤδη τοιοῦτοί εἰσι μετὰ τοῦ κωμῳδεῖσθαι, καὶ δίκην ἀν- ύποιστον δώσουσιν· ἡ δὲ ἀλήθεια διαλάμψει μειζόνως, οὐ παρ’ ὀλίγων πονηρῶν ἐλεγχομένη, ἀλλὰ ταύτῃ μάλιστα λαμπροτέρα γινομένη, ὅτι τοὺς μὴ ἐρῶντας αὐτῆς, δυσκλεεῖς ἀποφαίνουσα, τοὺς ἐραστὰς εὐκλεε- στάτους ἀπεργάζεται.