Letter 993

To Kalliopios. The tempest of ignorance, which the licentiousness and insatiability of disorderly and greedy men stir up against us, I can no longer measure; nor the great surge from the uproar, which the disorder and inexperience of senseless men, like some savage wave, floods over our reason. But this above all I lament: that those who ought, through the reading of the divine oracles [the Scriptures], to take up the removal of the passions, use it rather to intensify the flame of their unseemly desires. For just as the man who kindles fire toward putting it out not only did not stop it, but rather inflamed the flame still more, so too these men, while reading the divine Scripture for the doing-away of the passions, not only did not put off the disease, but rather kindled still more the pyre of their unbridled desire, making the holy Scripture the pretext of their wicked thought. Farewell, most honored one.

Τὴν μὲν δὴ τῆς ἀγνοίας καταιγίδα οὐκέτι μετρῶ, ἣν ἡ τῶν ἀτάκτων καὶ ἀπλήστων ἀνθρώπων ἀσέλγειά τε καὶ ἀπληστία καθ’ ἡμῶν ἐγείρει· οὐδὲ τὴν ἀπὸ τοῦ θορύβου τρικυμίαν, ἣν ἡ τῶν ἀνοήτων ἀνδρῶν ἀταξία καὶ ἀπειρία, δίκην κύματος τινὸς ἀγρίου, ἐπικλύζει τῷ ἡμετέρῳ λογισμῷ. Ἀλλὰ τοῦτο μάλιστα ὁδύρομαι, ὅτι οἱ διὰ τῆς τῶν θείων λογίων ἀναγνώσεως τὴν τῶν παθῶν ἀποσκευὴν λαβεῖν ὀφείλοντες, ταύτῃ μᾶλλον πρὸς τὸ ἐπιτείνειν τὴν φλόγα τῶν ἀτόπων ἐπιθυμιῶν χρῶνται. Ὥσπερ γὰρ ὁ πρὸς σβέσεσιν ἀνάπτων τὸ πῦρ, οὐ μόνον οὐκ ἐπαύσατο, ἀλλὰ καὶ πλέον ἐξῆψε τὴν φλόγα, οὕτω καὶ οὗτοι, πρὸς τὴν τῶν παθῶν ἀναίρεσιν τὴν θείαν γραφὴν ἀναγινώσκοντες, οὐ μόνον οὐκ ἀπέθεντο τὴν νόσον, ἀλλὰ καὶ πλέον ἐξῆψαν τὴν τῆς ἀκολάστου ἐπιθυμίας πυράν, ὑπόθεσιν δὲ τῆς πονηρᾶς αὐτῶν διανοίας τὴν ἁγίαν γραφὴν ποιοῦντες. Ἔρρωσο, τιμιώτατε.