Letter 158: Do not grow weary in the contest.

To Retheus. Some say that you are boorish and boastful, and that you surpass the baseness of human nature. But I, though many discordant tales are sung about you, cannot bring myself to believe them, since I do not know you at all. One point of agreement with these tragic reports I do infer, however: the strangeness of your native land. And I fear that you may belong to that other portion of the Cappadocians, the one marked with every defect. For there is, by contrast, another portion of the Cappadocians, an utterly excellent one, from which those men sprang who everywhere, by the light of their own conduct and admonition, illumined the ends of the earth like torch-bearers [an allusion to the Cappadocian Fathers, Basil of Caesarea and the two Gregories]. Since, then, a purchase has laid the priesthood upon you [that is, you obtained holy orders by simony], fear those God-bearing men, and either imitate their resolve, or do not insult their ministry. For if it should befall you to be convicted by them, neither will condemnation by Christ be wanting.

Σκαιόν σέ φασί τινες καὶ ἀλαζόνα καὶ ὑπερβαίνοντα τὴν φύσιν τῶν ἀνθρώπων φαυλότητι. Ἐγὼ δὲ πολλῶν περὶ σοῦ ἀπηχῶν ἀδομένων οὐκ ἔχω τὸ πεί- θεσθαι, ἀγνοῶν σε παντάπασι· μίαν δὲ συγκατάθεσιν πρὸς τὰς τραγῳδίας τεκμαίρομαι, τὸ τῆς πατρίδος ἀλλόκοτον. Καὶ δέδοικα μή ποτε θατέρου πράγματος ὑπάρχεις Καππαδοκῶν τοῦ πᾶσι κατεστιγμένου τοῖς ἐλαττώμασιν. Ἔστι γὰρ ἀθέας ἑτέρα μοῖρα Καππαδοκῶν πανάριστος· ἀφ' ἧς ἐκεῖνοι γεγόνασιν, οἱ πανταχοῦ τῷ φωτὶ τῆς ἑαυτῶν πολιτείας καὶ νουθεσίας τὰ τῆς γῆς δᾳδουχήσαντες τέρματα. Ἐπειδὴ οὖν καὶ ἱερωσύνην σοι πράσις ἐπέθηκε, φοβήθητι τοὺς θεοφόρους ἐκείνους ἀνθρώπους, καὶ ἢ τὴν αὐτῶν προαίρεσιν μίμησαι, ἢ τὴν αὐτῶν λειτουργίαν μὴ ὕβριζε. Εἰ γὰρ τὸ ὑπ' αὐτῶν ἐλεγχθῆναι συμβαίη σοι, οὐδὲ τὸ παρὰ Χριστοῦ κατακριθῆναι λελεῖψεται.