Letter 24

24. To Athanasius, father of Athanasius the bishop of Ancyra

That to make one's life superior to a man's slanders is among the hardest of things—not to say among the impossible—I myself am persuaded, and I think your goodness does not doubt it. Yet to give no handle from oneself, either to those who closely watch our affairs or to those who lie in wait, out of malice, for our slips—this is both possible and proper to those who lead their own life prudently and according to the aim of godliness. But do not think us so easy or so easily led as to admit, without examination, the disparagements of any chance persons. For we remember the spiritual injunction that bids us not receive an empty report.

But since you yourselves say—you who have studied the art of words—that things visible are signs of things unseen, this we ask (and do not take it amiss if anything be said by us in the form of teaching; for God chose the weak things of the world and the things despised, and through them often accomplishes the salvation of those who are saved): what I mean and enjoin is this—that every word and every fitting action should be carried out with circumspection; and, according to the apostolic injunction, that no offence be given in anything. For I hold it fitting that the life of a man who has sweated much over the learning of words, who has directed the governments of nations and cities, and who has zeal for the great virtue of his ancestors, should be set forth as a model of virtue.

As for your disposition toward your children, you ought not now to show it in word, who have long since shown it from the time you became a father—not only using the natural affection which even the irrational creatures display toward their offspring, as you yourself said and as experience shows, but also heightening your love, plainly from deliberate choice, in proportion as you see them to be such as are worthy of a father's prayers. So that we have no need to be persuaded about these things, for the testimony from the deeds themselves is sufficient.

This, however, it is not unseasonable to add for the sake of the truth: that it is not the brother Timothy, the chorepiscopus, who reported to us the things that were noised abroad. For neither in conversation nor by letter does he appear to have uttered anything, small or great, touching slander concerning you. So that we do not deny having heard something, but it is not Timothy who contrives the slanders against you. And hearing it, we shall at all events, if nothing else, do at least what Alexander did, and keep one of our ears uncorrupted in reserve for the one slandered.