To Aerius the Sophist.

XXX. To Aerius the Sophist. ¹⁶⁶⁶

Now is the time for your Academy to prove the use of your discussions. I am told that a brilliant assemblage collects at your house, of which the members are both illustrious by birth and polished of speech, and that you debate about virtue and the immortality of the soul, and other kindred subjects. Show now opportunely your nobility of soul and wealth of virtue, and receive the most admirable and honourable Celestinianus in the spirit of men who have learnt the rapid changes of human prosperity. He was formerly an ornament of the city of Carthage, where he flung open the doors of his house to many priests, and never thought to need a stranger’s kindness. Be his spokesman, my friend, and aid him in his need of your voice, for he cannot suffer the advice of the poet which bids him that needeth speak though he be ashamed. ¹⁶⁶⁷

Persuade I beg you any of your society who are capable of so doing to emulate the hospitality of Alcinous, ¹⁶⁶⁸ to remove the poverty which has unexpectedly befallen him, and to change his evil fortune into good. Let them praise our kindly Lord for making us wise by other men’s calamities, not having sent us to strangers’ houses and having brought strangers to our doors. To men that shew kindness He promises to give what words cannot express and no intelligence can understand.

Footnotes

260:1666

A Christian Sophist of Cyrus. cf. Letter LXVI.

260:1667

This passage is corrupt, and I cannot discover the quotation. There may not impossibly be a reference to Hom. Od. xvii. 345.

260:1668

Hom. Od. vii.