Letter 14: So this is how sons defend their fathers!

Synesius of CyreneAnysius|c. 412 AD|Synesius of Cyrene
barbarian invasionillnessmonasticism

Letter 14: A Horse Thief

[1] To Anysius

Thus do sons defend their fathers! I thank you for this. Carnas came to me as a suppliant, and God Himself made the prayer more sacred. How can a priest overlook the arrest of a man, on his own mandate too, during a day of fasting? Whoever, therefore, brought him, did not surrender the fellow, but was deprived of him by force. [2] Wherefore, if on account of this violence I am to be punished, I have come to the point of showing humanity to those who have wronged me, and having wronged the very people who have done no wrong.

Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.

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