Letter 254: Truth is powerful, Peter — and often silent.
To the same. You asked why inanimate things were struck. To accuse, I say, the stupidity of the Jews — because inanimate things were shattered by fear, while they themselves were turned to the nature of stones, insensible to fear and ungrateful toward beneficence. To Paul. The present life, O best of men, differs in nothing from a tent, having nothing firm, or lasting, or stable, or secure. "The affairs of mortals are a shadow," says the comedy. I do not know how you have been captivated by these things, even though you admire the comic poet.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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
ΤΟ ΑΥΤΩ.
Τίνος χάριν, ἔφης, τα άψυχα ἐμαστίζετο; Τῆς
Ἰουδαίων, φημὶ, κατηγοροῦντα ἡλιθιότητος· ὅτι τὰ
C μὲν φόβῳ συνετρίβετο, αὐτοὶ δὲ εἰς λίθων φύσιν
μεθίσταντο, καὶ πρὸς φόβον ἀναίσθητοι, καὶ πρὸς
εὐεργεσίαν ὄντες ἀχάριστοι.
ΣΜΔ΄. – ΠΑΥΛΟΣ
Σκηνῆς οὐδὲν, ὦ βέλτιστε, ὁ παρών διενήνοχε
ẞloς, οὐδὲν βέβαιον, ἢ μόνιμον, ἢ σταθερὸν, ἢ πά-
γιον ἔχων. Σκιὰ γὰρ τὰ θνητῶν, λέγει ἡ κωμ-
ῳδία (66). Οἷς οὐκ οἶδ᾽ ὅπως ἑάλως, καίτοι τὸν κωμι-
κὸν θαυμάζων. Ἐνταῦθα μὲν γὰρ καὶ τὰ ἀγαθὰ καὶ
τὰ χαλεπὰ πέρας ἔχει, καὶ τοῦτο τάχιστον· ἐκεῖ δὲ
ἀθανάτοις ἀμφότερα παρεκτείνεται αἰῶσιν.
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)
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