Letter 63: I am ashamed both when I write to you and when I turn away from your bad conduct.

To Chaeremon. That it is wholly foreign to an anchorite [a solitary monk] to busy himself with Greek [i.e. pagan] writings. Who will not make a comedy of you? Who will not pity you, seated in the calm of the philosophy of the Lord's disciples, yet dragging in upon yourself the uproar and ferment of the Greek prose-writers and poets? For tell me: what among them is to be preferred to the things that belong to us? What of theirs, in which they take such pains, is not full of falsehood and of laughter? Are not their deities born of the passions? Are not their feats of valor on behalf of the passions? Are not their contests on behalf of the passions? Flee, therefore, even the reading of such shamefulness. For it is terribly skilled at reopening the welts of wounds that have already scarred over; lest the spirit of wickedness return upon you more violently and work in you a defeat worse than your former ignorance or sloth.

Ὅτι πάντη ἀλλότριον ἀναχωρητοῦ, τὸ Ἑλληγι- κοῖς ἐντυγχάνειν συγγράμμασιν. Τίς σε οὐ κωμῳδήσει; τίς σε οὐκ ἐλεήσει, ἐν γα- λήνῃ φιλοσοφίας τῶν τοῦ Κυρίου μαθητῶν καθεζό- μενον, καὶ θύρυβον καὶ βρασμὸν Ἑλληνικῶν συγγρα- φέων καὶ ποιητῶν ἐφελκόμενον; Τί γάρ, εἰπέ μοι, παρ᾿ ἐκείνοις τῶν καθ᾿ ἡμᾶς προτιμότερον; Τί δὲ οὐ ψεύδους γέμει καὶ γέλωτος, ὧν ἐκεῖνοι σπουδάζου- σιν; Οὐχ αἱ θεότητες ἐκ παθῶν (61); Οὐχ αἱ ἀνδρεῖαι ὑπὲρ παθῶν; Οὐχ οἱ ἀγῶνες ὑπὲρ παθῶν; Φεῦγε τοίνυν καὶ τὴν ἀνάγνωσιν τῆς αἰσχρότητος. Δεινῶς γὰρ οἶδεν ἀναστομοῦν τοὺς τῶν τραυμάτων συνου- λώσαντας μώλωπας· μήποτε ὑποστρέψῃ τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς πονηρίας σφοδρότερον, καὶ χείρονά σοι τὴν ἧτταν τῆς προτέρας ἀγνοίας ἢ ῥαθυμίας ἐργά- σηται.