Letter 2: If you want to live without fear, you should fear the law.
Letter 2: An Insult
[1] To Joannes
To be free from fear one must fear the law, but you have always been ashamed even to seem to fear them. [2] At all events fear your enemies, and with them fear the judges if they are incorruptible. [3] Nay, they are still to be feared even if they are open to bribery; for such ones, if your purse is not of the longest, are full of zeal to defend the laws once they have found a paymaster into the bargain.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.
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To Joannes [a mutual friend who, after illness left him unfit for military service, entered a monastery].
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I have come to your assistance many times before.
One should use the friendship of the powerful, but not abuse it.
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