Nicene and Post-Nicene Church Fathers Series 2 - The Still Small ...

To Leontius the Sophist. 1911
Letter XX. 1910
I too do not write often to you, but not more seldom than you do to me, though many
have travelled hitherward from your part of the world. If you had sent a letter by every one
of them, one after the other, there would have been nothing to prevent my seeming to be
actually in your company, and enjoying it as though we had been together, so uninterrupted
has been the stream of arrivals. But why do you not write? It is no trouble to a Sophist to
write. Nay, if your hand is tired, you need not even write; another will do that for you. Only
your tongue is needed. And though it does not speak to me, it may assuredly speak to one
of your companions. If nobody is with you, it will talk by itself. Certainly the tongue of a
Sophist and of an Athenian is as little likely to be quiet as the nightingales when the spring
stirs them to song. In my own case, the mass of business in which I am now engaged may
perhaps afford some excuse for my lack of letters. And peradventure the fact of my style
having been spoilt by constant familiarity with common speech may make me somewhat
hesitate to address Sophists like you, who are certain to be annoyed and unmerciful, unless
you hear something worthy of your wisdom. You, on the other hand, ought assuredly to
use every opportunity of making your voice heard abroad, for you are the best speaker of
all the Hellenes that I know; and I think I know the most renowned among you; so that
there really is no excuse for your silence. But enough on this point.
I have sent you my writings against Eunomius. Whether they are to be called child’s
play, or something a little more serious, I leave you to judge. So far as concerns yourself, I
do not think you stand any longer in need of them; but I hope they will be no unworthy
weapon against any perverse men with whom you may fall in. I do not say this so much
because I have confidence in the force of my treatise, as because I know well that you are a
man likely to make a little go a long way. If anything strikes you as weaker than it ought to
be, pray have no hesitation in showing me the error. The chief difference between a friend
and a flatterer is this; the flatterer speaks to please, the friend will not leave out even what
is disagreeable.
1910 Placed in 364.
1911 cf. Letter xxxv.
To Leontius the Sophist.
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