Letter 486

To Taurianus, a former Prefect. Woe to your soul, you inhuman and senseless man! For you do not know that it is hard for you to kick against the goads [cf. Acts 9:5], and that it is a fearful thing to dare to raise your hand against God. For the outrage committed against the saints is in every case carried up to God himself. For you, having dared to seize with intolerable violence the contemplatives [monks] who had fled for refuge to the shrine of the all-victorious martyr Plato, and to cast them into the public prison, roaring intolerable things, puffing out your cheeks, raising your eyebrows, and enslaving free men by your all-tyrannical resolve, how do you not reckon on what is to come, you reasonless man? How do you not consider what will befall you afterward, you man without feeling? How are you unwilling to foresee the reversals of affairs, you deranged man, and especially since, for your own purpose, you have close at hand a most base and most utterly defiled counselor, Laurentius, the advocate sprung from a sausage-seller [a man of low birth], a most impious man, wholly corrupted and rotted through? Know therefore that the all-holy martyr is not one to be despised, and prepare yourself to receive the terrors that will come upon you: first the wrath of the mortal emperor, on account of which, in your fear, you will flee for refuge to the most august shrines, the very ones that were outraged and dishonored by you; then a grave and grievous sickness, of yourself and of all those most dear to you; and after all this, the confiscation of the great fortune that formerly belonged to you. And then at last Cronos, the father of Zeus, will shrilly lament you and gladly beat his breast over you [in mock mourning], precisely because you above all the other gods reverenced him in your prosperity, and many a time at his festival you consoled his lamentations, inasmuch as his private parts had been pitifully cut off, and he had been wretchedly bound by his own son, and covered over with the leather hood, and dwells forever in the darkness.

Οὐαὶ τῇ ψυχῇ σου, καὶ ἀπάνθρωπε, καὶ ἀνόητε! Ἀγνοεῖς γὰρ, ὅτι σκληρόν σοι πρὸς κέντρα λακτίζειν, καὶ φρικῶδες τὸ κατὰ τοῦ θεοῦ αἴρειν τολμῆσαι χεῖρα. Ἡ γὰρ ὕβρις ἡ κατὰ τῶν ἁγίων γινομένη, πάντως ὅτι εἰς θεὸν ἀνάγεται. Τοὺς γὰρ δὴ τὸν σχὸν Πλάτω- νος τοῦ καλλινίκου μάρτυρος καταφυγόντας φροντιστάς τετολμηκὼς ἁρπάσαι τῇ ἀφορήτῳ βίᾳ, καὶ εἰς φυλακὴν ἐμβαλεῖν δημοσίαν, καὶ βρέμων ἀφόρητα, φυσῶν τε τὰς γνάθους, καὶ τὰς ὀφρῦς ἀνασπῶν, καὶ καταδου- λούμενος τοὺς ἐλευθέρους τῇ παντοτυράννῳ γνώμῃ, πῶς οὐ λογίζῃ τὸ μέλλον, ἀλόγητε; πῶς τὰ συμβησό- μενα ὕστερον οὐ διασκέπτῃ, ἀναίσθητε; πῶς τὰς μετα- βολὰς τῶν πραγμάτων προβλέπειν οὐ θέλεις, παρε- πλήξ, καὶ μάλισθ’ ὅτι πρὸς τὸν σκοπὸν τοῦ σαυτοῦ, πη- φαυλότατον σύμβουλον καὶ παμμιαρώτατον ἐγγύθεν ἔχεις τὸ ἀπὸ φύσκου συνήγορον Λαυρέντιον, ἄνδρα δυσσεβέστατον, διεφθαρμένον ὅλον καὶ σεσηπότα; Γίνωσκε τοίνυν μὴ εὐκαταφρόνητον τυγχάνοντα τὴν πανάγιον μάρτυρα, καὶ σαυτὸν εὐτρέπιζε πρὸς τὸ ὑποδέξασθαι τὰ ἐπελευσόμενά σοι δεινά, ὀργὴν μὴν τοῦ θνητοῦ βασιλέως, δι’ ἣν καὶ δειλιάσας προσφεύξ δροις τοῖς σεπτοτάτοις, οἵτινες παρὰ σοῦ ὑβρίσθη- σαν καὶ ἐξητιμάσθησαν, εἶτα νόσον βαρεῖαν καὶ χαλεπὴν σαυτοῦ τε καὶ πάντων τῶν περιποθήτων σοι, μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα πάντα τὴν δήμευσιν τῆς προρε- ρούσης σοι μεγάλης περιουσίας. Καὶ τότε λοιπὸν ὁ τοῦ Διὸς πατὴρ Κρόνος λιγυρῶς σε θρηνήσει, καὶ κόψεται ἡδέως, διότι μάλιστα καὶ σὺ παρὰ τοὺς ἄλ- λους θεοὺς τοῦτον σέβων ἐν τῇ εὐημερίᾳ, θρήνους παρεμυθήσω καθ’ ἑορτὴν πλειστάκις, ἅτε τῶν αἰδοίων ἐκτετμημένων ἐλεεινῶς, καὶ δεδεμένον οἰκτρῶς ὑπὸ οἰκείου παιδός, καὶ τῷ δερμοκουκουλίῳ κατακεκαλυμ- μένον, καὶ τὸ σκότος οἰκοῦντα διηνεκῶς.