Letter 591

To Trajan the Adjutor [adiutor, an administrative aide]. If you forestall the proud thought of self-conceit, you will burst it like a bubble. Reckoning yourself ashes, and smoke, and grass, and a worm, as the Scripture teaches, you will neither be puffed up at praises, nor be made savage at insults.

Ἂν προφθάσας τὸ φρόνημα τῆς οἰήσεως, ῥήξεις καθάπερ πομφόλυγα. Τὴν σεαυτὸν καὶ σποδόν, καὶ καπνόν, καὶ χόρτον, καὶ σκώληκα λογιζόμενος, ὡς διδάσκει ἡ Γραφή, οὔτε πρὸς τοὺς ἐπαίνους χαυνωθήσῃ, οὔτε πρὸς τὰς ὕβρεις ἀγριανθήσῃ.