Letter 158: Do not grow weary in the contest.
Some call you boorish, arrogant, and surpassing the ordinary measure of human baseness. For my part, though many discordant reports are sung about you, I cannot bring myself to believe them.
To Hierax the deacon: Do not define blessedness by a table overflowing with food, a singer given over to pleasure, and wealth that flows freely, but rather by self-sufficiency and the lack of nothing truly necessary.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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
Σκαιόν σε φασί τινες καὶ ἀλαζόνα καὶ ὑπερβαί-
νοντα τὴν φύσιν τῶν ἀνθρώπων φαυλότητι. Ἐγὼ δὲ
πολλῶν περὶ σοῦ ἀπηχῶν ἀδομένων οὐκ ἔχω τὸ πεί-
ΙΕΡΑΚΙ ΔΙΑΚΟΝΟ.
Μὴ τραπέζῃ πληθούσῃ, καὶ ὠδῷ ἀνειμένῳ, καὶ
πλούτῳ ῥέοντι τὴν μακαριότητα ὁρίζου, ἀλλ᾽ αὐταρ-
χείᾳ, καὶ τῷ μηδενὸς τῶν ἀναγκαίων λείπεσθαι -
ΡΛΕ΄. – ΕΥΑΓΡΙΩ
Σωφρόνιον εἶναι χρή.
Revision history
- 2026-03-20v2.1.0-import
Initial corpus import from Patrologia Graeca 78 OCR.
Fields: letter text, metadata, source links. Source: https://archive.org/details/PatrologiaGraeca (PG vol.78)
Related Letters
I will not pass judgment, and I will not condemn, a man whom I have never heard speak and never met in person.
You have filled our heart with a joy singularly pleasant, because of the love we bear to you, and singularly acceptable, because of the promptitude with which the tidings came to us. For while the consecration of the daughter of your house to a life of virginity is being published by most busy fame in all places where you are known, and that is ...
The Olbiates — a village community — were required to elect a bishop to replace the blessed father Athamas, who died...
The most destructive thing in the world is false doctrine, and the labors of those who follow it are utterly fruitless.
It delights me to write frequently to those whose loving disposition toward me I have confirmed by clear evidence.