Letter 215

215. To Dorotheus the Presbyter.

As soon as I obtained an opportunity, I wrote to that most admirable man Count Terentius, considering it less open to suspicion to write to him about the matters before us through strangers, and at the same time wishing that no delay should come to the affair of our most beloved brother Acacius. So I gave the letter to the inspector of the prefects' staff, who was traveling by the public post, charging him also to show the letter first to you. But how it is that no one has reported to your good sense that the road to Rome is in winter wholly impassable, the country between Constantinople and our borders being filled with enemies, I do not know. And if we must use the sea, there will be a time for it — only if the most God-beloved bishop Gregory, the brother, will consent both to the voyage and to the embassy on behalf of such matters. For I neither see those who would go along with him, and I know him to be wholly inexperienced in the affairs of the churches; and to a well-disposed man his company is venerable and of much worth, but to one who is lofty and high-flown, sitting somewhere up aloft, and for this reason unable to hear those who from below speak the truth to him, what benefit could come to the common cause from the conversation of such a man, whose character is a stranger to mean flattery?