Letter 504: The difficulty you are experiencing in maintaining the disciplines you have chosen is not a sign that you chose...
To Archontius the Presbyter: If those who are stung by the sharp goads of worldly glory embrace voluntary toils, how much more manfully should those who are wounded by the keenest arrows of supramundane glory...
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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
ΚΖ. - ΑΡΧΟΝΤΙΩ ΠΡΕΣΒΥΤΕΡΩ.
Εἰ οἱ τοῖς ὀξέσι τῆς κοσμικῆς δόξης κέντροις πλητ-
τόμενοι πόνους αὐθαιρέτους ἀσπάζονται· οἱ τοῖς
ὀξυτάτοις τῆς ὑπερκοσμίου εὐκλείας βέλεσι τετρω
μένοι πολλῷ μᾶλλον νεανικῶς ἐπὶ τὸν τῶν πόνων
ἀγῶνα ἀποδύεσθαι ἂν εἶεν δίκαιοί.
ΣΠΕ΄. – ΩΡΙΩΝΙ ΜΟΝΑΖΟΝΤΙ.
Πολὺ ἀσφαλέστερόν ἐστι τὸ μὴ πολεμεῖσθαι τοῦ συμμαχεῖσθαι· τὸ μὲν γὰρ ἡσυχίαν ἀπράγμονα ἔχει, τὸ δὲ ἀναγκάζει συμπολεμεῖν τοῖς βοηθήσασι, καὶ εἰ ἀδίκως πολεμοῖεν. Πολλάκις γὰρ ἀδικούμενοί τινες συμμαχίαν ἐπεκαλέσαντο· ἧς καὶ τυχόντες, τοῖς συμμαχήσασι δικαίως πολεμουμένοις, οὐ δικαίως ἀμύνουσι, χάριν ἄδικον ἀντὶ δικαίας ἐκτιν-νύντες.
```
Ρ. 504. - LIB. I, EP. 362.
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
Related Letters
So you weren't actually longing for the speeches — you just wanted to be seen longing for them.
God's judgment is certain, and no amount of cleverness or delay can avoid it.
To Παλλαδίῳ. (361)
The spiritual life is a journey with a beginning, a middle, and an end.
Scripture speaks with precision to those who read carefully.