Ep. CLXXXVI.

What would you have done if I had come in person and taken up your time?  I am quite certain you would have undertaken with all zeal to deliver me from the slander, if I may take as a token what has happened before.  Do me this favour, then, through my most discreet kinswoman who approaches you through me, reverencing first the age of your petitioner, and next her disposition and piety, which is more than is ordinarily found in a woman; and besides this, her ignorance in business-matters, and the troubles now brought upon her by her own relations; and above all, my entreaty.  The greatest favour you can do me is speed in the benefit for which I am asking.  For even the unjust judge in the Gospel84    S. Luke xviii. 1, etc. shewed kindness to the widow, though only after long beseeching and importunity.  But from you I ask for speed, that she may not be overwhelmed by being long burdened with anxieties and miseries in a foreign land; though I know quite well that Your Piety will make that alien land to be a fatherland to her.

[186] ΤΩΙ ΑΥΤΩΙ

Τί ἂν ἐποίησας, εἰ παρὼν αὐτὸς εἶχον πράγματα; ἦ δῆλον ὅτι πᾶσαν ἂν ἔθου σπουδὴν ἐλευθερῶσαί με τῆς ἐπηρείας, εἴπερ τι δεῖ τοῖς προλαβοῦσι τεκμαίρεσθαι. Τοῦτο καὶ νῦν ἡμῖν χάρισαι διὰ τῆς κοσμιωτάτης ἀνεψιᾶς ἡμῶν τῆς προσπιπτούσης σοι δι' ἡμῶν, αἰδεσθεὶς μὲν τὴν ἡλικίαν τῆς ἱκέτιδος, αἰδεσθεὶς δὲ τὸν τρόπον καὶ τὴν εὐλάβειαν οὐ κατὰ πολλὰς οὖσαν γυναῖκας, αἰδεσθεὶς δὲ πρὸς τοῖς ἄλλοις καὶ τὴν ἀπραγμοσύνην τῆς γυναικὸς καὶ τὸ παρὰ τῶν οἰκείων νῦν ἔχειν πράγματα, πρὸ πάντων δὲ τὴν ἡμετέραν παράκλησιν. Ἡ μείζων δὲ χάρις, τὸ τάχος τῆς εὐεργεσίας ἣν ἀπαιτοῦμεν. Τὸ μὲν γὰρ φιλάνθρωπον τῇ χήρᾳ καὶ ὁ ἄδικος ἐν τῷ Εὐαγγελίῳ κριτὴς ἐχαρίσατο, ἀλλὰ μετὰ πολλὴν ἱκεσίαν καὶ προσεδρείαν. Παρ' ὑμῶν δὲ ὑπαρχέτω τὸ τάχος ἵνα μὴ κάμνῃ μακρὰ ταῖς φροντίσι καὶ ταῖς ἐπὶ τῆς ἀλλοδαπῆς κακοπαθείαις: εἰ καὶ τὰ μάλιστα οἶδα σαφῶς ὅτι οἰκείαν αὐτῇ ποιήσει καὶ τὴν ἀλλοτρίαν ἡ σὴ θεοσέβεια.