Letter 255: Your former transgression, Maron, has become a ready pretext for the present one.

To Maron. The two robbers [the two crucified with Christ at Golgotha] prefigured the two peoples [Jews and Gentiles]. The one displayed his ingratitude to the very end, and did not even confess that the final captivity which he endured at the hands of the Romans [the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70] was something he was undergoing as retribution for his proverbial revilings against Christ. The other, at the very end, did not despair of forgiveness, but in that very moment corrected the swarm of his evils by a confession of God [theology]. [The same in Latin:] he corrected the throng of his crimes by the prediction of the divinity.

Οἱ δύο λησταὶ τοὺς δύο ὑπέγραφον λαούς (34)· ὁ μὲν μέχρι τελευτῆς τὸ ἀγνῶμον ἐνδειξάμενος, καὶ οὐδὲ τὴν ἐσχάτην αἰχμαλωσίαν, ἣν ὑπὸ Ῥωμαίων ὑπέμεινεν, εἰς ἄμυναν τῶν κατὰ Χριστοῦ παροιμιῶν ὁμολογήσας ὑφίστασθαι· ὁ δέ, πρὸς αὐτῷ τῷ τέλει μὴ ἀπογνοὺς τῆς ἀφέσεως, ἀλλ' ἐν αὐτῷ τὸν ἐσμὸν τῶν κακῶν θεολογίᾳ διορθωσάμενος. scelerum agmen divinitatis prædictionis correxerit.