Letter CXXXIV.706    Placed in 373.

To the presbyter Pœonius.

You may conjecture from what it contains, what pleasure you have given me by your letter.  The pureness of heart, from which such expressions sprang, was plainly signified by what you wrote.  A streamlet tells of its own spring, and so the manner of speech marks the heart from which it came.  I must confess that an extraordinary and improbable thing has happened to me.  For deeply anxious as I always was to receive a letter from your excellency, when I had taken your letter into my hand and had read it, I was not so much pleased at what you had written, as annoyed at reckoning up the loss I had suffered in your long silence.  Now that you have begun to write, pray do not leave off.  You will give me greater pleasure than men can give by sending much money to misers.  I have had no writer with me, neither caligraphist, nor short-hand.  Of all those whom I happen to employ, some have returned to their former mode of life, and others are unfit for work from long sickness.

ΠΑΙΟΝΙῼ ΠΡΕΣΒΥΤΕΡῼ

[1] Ὅσον ηὔφρανας ἡμᾶς τοῖς γράμμασιν εἰκάζεις που πάντως αὐτοῖς οἷς ἐπέστειλας, οὕτω τὸ καθαρὸν τῆς καρδίας, ἀφ' ἧς προῆλθεν ἐκεῖνα τὰ ῥήματα, ἀκριβῶς ἐκ τῶν γραμμάτων κατεμηνύετο. Καὶ γὰρ ὁλκὸς μὲν ὕδατος δείκνυσι τὴν οἰκείαν πηγήν, λόγου δὲ φύσις τὴν προενεγκοῦσαν αὐτὸν καρδίαν χαρακτηρίζει. Ὥστε ἄτοπόν τε καὶ πολὺ τοῦ εἰκότος παρηλλαγμένον πεπονθέναι ὁμολογῶ. Σπουδάζων γὰρ ἀεὶ γράμμασιν ἐντυγχάνειν τῆς τελειότητός σου, ἐπειδὴ ἔλαβον εἰς χεῖρας τὴν ἐπιστολὴν καὶ ἀνέγνων αὐτήν, οὐχ ἥσθην μᾶλλον τοῖς ἐπεσταλμένοις ἢ ἠνιάθην, τὴν ζημίαν, ὁπόση γέγονεν ἡμῖν κατὰ τὸν τῆς σιωπῆς χρόνον, διαλογιζόμενος. Ἀλλ' ἐπειδὴ ἤρξω γράφειν, μὴ διαλείπῃς τοῦτο ποιῶν. Εὐφρανεῖς γὰρ πλέον ἢ οἱ τὰ πολλὰ χρήματα τοῖς φιλοπλούτοις διαπεμπόμενοι. Τῶν δὲ γραφέων οὐδείς μοι παρῆν οὔτε τῶν καλλιγραφούντων οὔτε τῶν ταχυγράφων. Οὓς γὰρ ἔτυχον ἐξασκήσας, οἱ μὲν ἀνέδραμον ἐπὶ τὴν πρώτην τοῦ βίου συνήθειαν, οἱ δὲ ἀπειρήκασι πρὸς τοὺς πόνους χρονίαις ἀρρωστίαις κεκακωμένοι.