Letter 237

To Drusillianus. If, while you have a sickly body, you do such bestial and inhuman deeds, what would you have become had you attained vigor and full strength? Therefore the Lord, foreseeing the murders which you were about to commit, checked them beforehand. He has bound your unspeakable madness with a fetter, and with the constraint of your sickness, which calls you to a heavy reckoning and takes many forms.

Εἰ τὸ σῶμα νοσῶδες ἔχων, τηλικαῦτα δρᾷς θηριώδη καὶ ἀπάνθρωπα πράγματα, τίς ἂν ἐγένου τετυχηκώς ῥώσεώς τε καὶ ῥώμης; Προβλέπων τοίνυν ὁ κύριος τὰς φονυκτονίας, ἅπερ ποιεῖν ἔμελλες, προκατείλεν. δέο σου τὴν ἄφατον μανίαν τῷ δεσμῷ, καὶ τῇ ἀνάγκῃ τῆς πολυευθύνου, καὶ πολυτρόπου ἀσθενείας.