Letter 1520: If, as you write, the piety of rulers in matters of God has exposed the impiety of bishops — if the extraordinary...

To Eusebius the presbyter. On the arrogance of the clergy, and its cause. (Compare letters 57 and 268.) Even if, as you have written, the reverence of those who reign toward the Divine has exposed the irreverence of the bishops, and the excessive honor shown them by those rulers has unstrung the men so honored, and the rulers' lavish liberality has become for these bishops an occasion of luxury and dissipation, yet do not you be scandalized. For not all have been mastered by the passions just named, but there are those who are eager to live according to the apostolic stamp. They are very few indeed, I would not myself deny it; but even in this I would marvel at the foreknowledge of the Savior, who declared: "Many are called, but few are chosen."

De cleri fastu, ejusque causa. (Confer epist. 57 et 268). Εἰ καὶ, ὡς γέγραφας, ἡ τῶν βασιλευόντων περὶ τὸ θεῖον εὐλάβεια τὴν ἐπισκόπων ἀνευλάβειαν ἤλεγξεν· καὶ ἡ πρὸς αὐτοὺς ἐκείνων ὑπερβάλλουσα τιμὴ τοὺς τιμωμένους ἐξέλυσε, καὶ ἡ πολλὴ αὐτῶν φιλοτιμία τρυφῆς καὶ ἀσωτείας τούτοις ὑπόθεσις γέγονεν· ἀλλὰ σὺ μὴ σκανδαλίζου· οὐ γὰρ πάντες ἐχειρώθησαν τοῖς εἰρημένοις πάθεσιν, ἀλλ' εἰσὶν οἱ σπουδάζοντες κατὰ τὸν ἀποστολικὸν ζῆσαι χαρακτῆρα. Ὀλίγοι κομιδῇ, οὐδὲ αὐτὸς ἀρνήσαιμην· ἀλλὰ κἂν τούτῳ τὴν τοῦ Σωτῆρος πρόγνωσιν θαυμάσαιμι τοῦ φράσαντος· « Πολλοὶ μὲν κλητοὶ, ὀλίγοι δὲ ἐκλεκτοί. »