Letter 142: Only experience or reason can show how much gratitude children owe their parents.
No one can know properly how much gratitude children owe their fathers unless he is himself a father of children. Only then, from the affection he feels for his own children, will he fully know what those who gave him life were like toward him. The exception is those dedicated to the Muses, who before experience can distinguish truth by reason. So you ought to become such a man toward your parents, who perhaps contribute more than others to goodwill. They moved me to this letter, asking from you the paternal reward that you not shame them, but become the kind of man they want and God may bring to completion. Then even death will be easier for them, knowing what sort of successor to the family they have left behind.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek below for scholarly use.
Latin / Greek Original
Κυριακῶι Ὅσον οἱ παῖδες τοῖς πατράσιν ὀφείλουσι χάριτας οὐκ ἔστιν εἰδέναι πρὸς ἀξίαν, εἰ μή τις καὶ αὐτὸς παίδων ὑπάρχει πατήρ. τότε γὰρ ἐξ ἧς ἔχει πρὸς τοὺς παῖδας στοργῆς εἴσεται πάντως ὁποῖοι πρὸς αὐτὸν ὑπῆρξαν οἱ φύσαντες. πλὴν ὅσοι ταῖς Μούσαις ἀνάκεινται καὶ πρὸ τῆς πείρας λόγῳ τἀληθῆ διακρίνουσιν. ὅθεν σε τοιοῦτον περὶ τοὺς τεκόντας προσήκει γενέσθαι, οἳ τάχα τῶν ἄλλων πλέον εἰς εὔνοιαν συνεισφέρουσι. διό με καὶ πρὸς τὴν παροῦσαν ἐπιστολὴν κεκινήκασι, μισθὸν αἰτοῦντές σε πατρικὸν τὸ μὴ καταισχῦναί σε, τοιοῦτον γενόμενον οἷον αὐτοί τε βούλονται καὶ θεὸς εἰς πέρας ἐνέγκοι. τότε γὰρ αὐτοῖς καὶ θάνατος ῥᾴων, ἐπισταμένοις οἷον διάδοχον τοῦ γένους ἀπέλιπον.
Revision history
- 2026-05-27v2.2.34-import
Initial corpus import from modern procopius gaza batch9 matia greek v1.
Fields: letter text, metadata, source links. Source: https://www.matia.gr/pisth/pdf/pg_migne/Procopius_of_Gaza_PG_87a-87c/Epistulae.pdf
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