Letter 72: In the days when humanity was buried in the darkness of ignorance, different cities celebrated different festivals.

To Hermesigenes the Assessor, In the days when humanity was buried in the darkness of ignorance, different cities celebrated different festivals. In Elis there were the Olympic games, at Delphi the Pythian, at Sparta the Hyacinthian, at Athens the Panathenaic, the Thesmophoria, and the Dionysian. These were the most famous -- and beyond them, various peoples held revels for one deity or another. But now that those mists have been scattered by intellectual light, on every land and sea, mainlanders and islanders together keep the feast of our God and Savior. Wherever one might wish to travel -- toward the rising sun or the setting -- everywhere one finds the same celebration observed at the same time. There is no longer any necessity, as under the Mosaic law (which was adapted to the weakness of the Jews), to gather in a single city to commemorate our blessings. Every town, every village, the countryside and the farthest frontiers are filled with the grace of God, and in every place shrines and sanctuaries have been consecrated to the God of all. So through every city we keep our festivals and greet one another in the joy of the feast. It is the same God and Lord who is praised in our hymns and to whom our sacred offerings are made. For this reason, as is well known, we neighbors send letters to one another to share the gladness the feast brings. And so I write to you now and offer the festal greeting to your excellency. You will no doubt reply and honor the custom of the feast.

Letter 72