Letter 307

307. Without address

Contentious natures often thrust aside even good counsels, and judge a thing fine and useful not by what seems so to everyone else, even when it is profitable, but by what pleases themselves alone, even when it is harmful. The cause is folly and a perversity of character that pays no heed to the advice of others, but trusts only its own opinions and the reasonings that occur to it. And the reasonings that occur are those in which they take pleasure, and they take pleasure in what they wish. But the man who thinks that what he wishes is profitable is no sure judge of what is just; he is like the blind being led by the blind. Hence he readily stumbles into losses, and has experience for his teacher of what is to his advantage.

This is the very fate that the man here joined in dispute is now enduring. For when he ought to have entrusted the case to mutual friends—indeed, after having been judged often before, by many who cared for justice and truth—he has now run off to the magistrates and the verdict of the law courts, and chooses, after losing much, to gain a little. But judgments before magistrates do not bring even victory without loss.

Be a helper, then, dear friend—best of all to both parties to the suit, for that is the godly course—by preventing the approach to the magistrate, and by becoming their judge in his stead. But if the other party will not obey and contends against the verdict, then take the side of the one who is wronged, and add the weight of your support to the man who seeks to obtain his rights.