Letter 364

To Leonidas the Monk. It is best now to pronounce over you the saying of Jeremiah: O foolish and senseless people! [Jeremiah 5:21] For though you ought to be ashamed at your base deeds, at your vainglories, and at your unrestrained talk, instead at these very things you clap your hands, and in your other displays of arrogance you take all the more pride, and you delight, and you boast before everyone, and you praise yourself, and lavishly glorify yourself. But be ashamed, says the holy prophet in the person of God, and receive your dishonor, so that, coming to a sense of yourself, you may recognize yourself, and, having condemned your own baseness, you may be able to be enlightened. For the recognition and condemnation of one's sins is the dawn of the soul and the beginning of salvation.

Βέλτιστον νῦν ἐπιθέγξασθαί σοι τὸ τοῦ Ἱερεμίου· Ὢ λαὲ μωρὸς καὶ ἀκάρδιος. Δέον γὰρ αἰσχύνεσθαί σε ἐπὶ τοῖς φαύλοις πράγμασι, καὶ ταῖς κενοδοξίαις, καὶ ταῖς ἀθυροστομίαις, τότε πλήττῃ ταῖς χερσὶ, καὶ ταῖς ἄλλαις ἀγερωχίαις ἐναβρύνῃ μᾶλλον τούτοις, καὶ τέρπῃ, καὶ ἐπὶ πάντων καυχᾶσαι, καὶ ἐπαινεῖς σαυτὸν, δαψιλῶς δοξάζεις. Ἀλλ’ αἰσχύνθητι, φησὶν ὁ ἅγιος προφήτης ἐκ προσώπου τοῦ Θεοῦ, καὶ λάβε τὴν ἀτιμίαν σου, ὅπως ἂν εἰς συναίσθησιν ἐλθὼν, σαυτὸν ἐπιγνῇς, καὶ καταγνοὺς. τῆς ἑαυτοῦ φαυλότητος, δυνηθῇς φωτισθῆναι· ὄρθρο γὰρ ψυχῆς ἁμαρτημάτων ἐπίγνωσις καὶ κατάγνωσις, καὶ ἀρχὴ σωτηρίας.