Letter 305

305. Without address, on virtuous men

So-and-so is already known to you, as the man's own accounts make plain. For on every occasion his tongue is full of you: in the remembrance of the orthodox, in the hospitality shown to ascetics, in every virtue, the man sets you first. And if anyone makes mention of teachers, he will not endure to put others before you; if of champions of true religion, men able to refute the plausibility of heresy, he would not choose to reckon another ahead of you, testifying that in all things your virtue is unconquerable and unrivalled. And it costs him no great effort to persuade us when he says these things; for he recounts to our ears greater things of men he knows than one might be thought to be reporting with exaggeration.

This man, then, on returning to you, asked for a letter—not that he might commend himself to you through us, but that he might do me a kindness, by furnishing an occasion to greet my beloved ones; and may the Lord reward him for his good intention. And do you also, by your prayers and by your good disposition toward all, apportion to him what favour you can. Let us know, too, how the affairs of the churches stand.