Letter 233: Chrysostom protests slander and exclusion in a severe letter to the bishop of Antioch.

Your Reverence should not have let your mind be turned aside by the words of those who spoke, but should have searched out the truth carefully amid the mass of lies. If everything rumored were accepted as truth, everyone would be in danger. If hidden matters are investigated by judgment and law, then I would have asked you for a hearing, unless someone again breathed new weapons of slander against me. I am afraid now even of shadows and phantoms, since you have justified matters in this way. Friends have denied their friendship; those nearby have stood far off; those far away shoot the arrows of slander. You have made me suffer shipwreck in the middle of the harbor. Yet even if I am driven from the city and shut out from the church, I am persuaded to strip for every punishment. I have decided to think and endure hardship nobly. I know clearly that the wilderness is stronger than the city, and that the beasts of the field are gentler than friends. Farewell.

ΣΛΓʹ. Πρὸς τὸν Ἀντιοχείας. Ἔδει μὲν τὴν ὑμετέραν εὐλάβειαν μὴ τοῖς ῥήμασι τῶν εἰρηκότων παρατρέπεσθαι τὴν διάνοιαν, ἀλλ' ἐν τῷ πλήθει τοῦ ψεύδους μετὰ πολλῆς τῆς σκέψεως ἀνιχνεύεσθαι τὴν ἀλήθειαν. Εἰ γὰρ ἅπαντα τὰ θρυλλούμενα ἀλήθειαν ὑπολάβοις, κινδυνεύσειαν ἂν ἅπαντες· εἰ δὲ κρίσει καὶ νόμοις ἀνιχνεύεται τὰ λανθάνοντα, κριτήριον ἂν ἔγωγε παρ' ὑμῶν ἐπεζήτησα, εἰ μή τις ἕτερα αὖθις ὅπλα συκοφαντίας μοι ἐπιπνεύσει. ∆έδοικα γὰρ, δέδοικα λοιπὸν τὰς σκιὰς, καὶ τὰ φαντάσματα, ἐπειδὴ αὐτοὶ ἐδικαιώσατε οὕτως. Οἱ φίλοι τὴν φιλίαν ἠρνήσαντο, οἱ πλησίον ὄντες πόῤῥωθεν ἔστησαν, καὶ πόῤῥωθεν ὄντες τὰ βέλη τῆς συκοφαντίας ἀποτοξεύουσιν. Ἐν μέσῳ δὲ τοῦ λιμένος ὄντα με ναυάγιον ὑπομεῖναι ἐποιήσατε. Ἀλλ' εἰ καὶ τῆς πόλεως ἐκβάλλομαι, καὶ τῆς Ἐκκλησίας ἀπείργομαι, πείθομαι πρὸς πᾶσαν ἀποδύσασθαι τιμωρίαν. Κέκριται γάρ μοι φιλοσοφεῖν, καὶ φέρειν γενναίως τὰ δυσχερῆ. Οἶδα γὰρ, οἶδα σαφῶς τὴν ἐρημίαν εὐτονωτέραν εἶναι τῆς πόλεως, καὶ τὰ θηρία τοῦ ἀγροῦ τῶν φίλων ἡμερώτερα. Ἔῤῥωσο.