Letter 69

To Frumentius, church advocate [ekklesiekdikos, the legal defender (defensor ecclesiae) of a church]. Sailors and helmsmen do everything they can so that they may run across the open sea and sail down into harbor; but you, on the contrary, are forever contentiously bent on fishing in the deep, continually amid the towering breakers of the affairs of this life, turning about in the marketplaces and the law-courts, on the pretext of providing for the business of the Church, but in truth for the sake of insatiable greed and unjust gain.

Ναῦται μὲν καὶ κυβερνῆται πάντα ποιοῦσιν, ὅπως ἂν τὸ πέλαγος διαδράμοιεν, καὶ πρὸς λιμένα κατα- πλεύσαιεν, σὺ δὲ διὰ παντὸς πελαγίοις φιλόνεικεις ἁλιεύειν ἐν ταῖς τρικυμίαις τῶν βιωτικῶν πραγμά- των συνεχῶς, καὶ ἐν ταῖς ἀγοραῖς, καὶ τοῖς δικαστη- ρίοις στρεφόμενος, προφάσει μὲν τῆς τῶν ἐκκλη- σιαστικῶν πραγμάτων προμηθείας, τῇ δ’ ἀληθείᾳ χάριν πλεονεξίας ἀκορέστου καὶ συλλογῆς ἀδί- κου.