Letter 860: Vice needs no teacher — it comes naturally to our fallen nature.

To Peter. Many people (for one cannot blame all) do evil things even without having been taught them, yet do not grasp good things even when they are being taught. The deeds that breathe punishment they speed to do of their own accord, while the deeds that procure crowns they do not perform even under compulsion. The former they beget though they often do not even have examples of them; the latter, though they see examples before them, they set aside. So far are they from imitating. For what purpose I write these things you are perhaps not unaware: because you have held up to ridicule the lives of Zosimus and Maron.

Πολλοὶ μὲν ἀνθρώπων (πάντας γὰρ αἰτιᾶσθαι οὐκ ἔστι), τὰ μὲν κακὰ καὶ μὴ μαθόντες δρῶσι, τὰ δὲ ἀγαθὰ οὐδὲ διδασκόμενοι συνιασιν· ἀλλὰ τὰ μὲν τιμωρίας πνέοντα ἀφ’ (34) ἑαυτῶν ποιούντες διάττουσι· τὰ δὲ στεφάνων πρὄξενα, οὐδ’ ἀναγκαζόμενοι διαπράττονται· κἀκεῖνα μὲν μηδὲ παραδείγματα πολλάκις ἔχοντες τίκτουσι· ταῦτα δὲ, καὶ παραδείγματα ὁρῶντες παραγράφονται. Τοσοῦτον ἀπέχουσι τοῦ μιμεῖσθαι. Τοῦ χάριν δὴ ταῦτα γράφω, τυχὸν οὐκ ἀγνοεῖς· ὅτι Ζωσίμου καὶ Μάρωνος τοὺς βίους ἐκωμῴδησας.