Letter 847

To Probatius the Monk. "New wine, a new friend," as a certain wise man says [Sirach 9:10]. But one ought not, apart from much time and testing, to entrust oneself from the very outset, simply and at random, to a love that has the mere appearance of friendship. "But if the wine be aged," he says, "then indeed, then, we drink it for gladness." For when we have found in such a man the fullest signs of goodwill, and the marks of an unfeigned affection, then at last we will both make him our own completely and praise him, no longer hesitating. But "whoever," he says, "blesses and applauds his own friend in the morning" [Proverbs 27:14] -- that is, one newly come and recently drawn near to him, before he has yet taken any trial of that man's friendship -- differs in no way, by his estimation, from one who curses him; for through his untimely praise and his unexamined blessing he provokes the devil to come upon the new friend and to strip bare the dissimulation that, as is likely, is in him, and through the testing to convict him, that he is not a genuine and unalloyed friend.

« Οἶνος νέος φίλος νέοις, » καθά φησί τις σοφός. Οὐ χρὴ δέ τινα, χωρὶς χρόνου πολλοῦ καὶ δοκιμασίας, ἐκ προοιμίων ἀγάπῃ τῷ φαινομένῳ φιλίᾳ ἑαυτὸν ἁπλῶς καὶ ὡς ἔτυχεν ἐμπιστεύειν. Ἐὰν δέ, φησίν, ὁ οἶνος παλαιωθῇ, τότε δὴ, τότε τοῦτον πρὸς εὐφροσύνην πιδόμεθα. Ὅταν γὰρ πλεῖστα σημεῖα εὐνοίας εὕρωμεν ἐν τῷ τοιούτῳ ἀνθρώπῳ, καὶ στοργῆς ἀνυπολύου γνωρίσματα, τὰ τηνικαῦτα τοῦτον καὶ οἰκειωσόμεθα τέλεον, καὶ ἐπαινεσόμεθα, μηκέτι βαμβαίνοντες. « Ὅστις δὲ, φησὶ, εὐλογεῖ καὶ κροτεῖ τὸν ἑαυτοῦ φίλον τὸ πρωῒ, » τουτέστι τὸν ὑπόγυιον καὶ προσφάτως πλησιάσαντα αὐτῷ, μήπω πεῖραν εἰληφὼς τῆς ἐκείνου φιλίας, καταρωμένου οὐδὲν διαφέρει δόξῃ · προκαλεῖται γὰρ τὸν διάβολον διὰ τοῦ ἀκαίρου ἐπαίνου, καὶ τῆς ἀβασανίστου εὐλογίας, ἐπελθεῖν τῷ φίλῳ τῷ προσφάτῳ, καὶ ἀπογυμνῶσαι τῆς ἐν αὐτῷ, ὡς εἰκὸς, ὑποκρίσεως, καὶ διὰ τοῦ πειρασμοῦ ἐλέγξαι αὐτὸν, ὅτι οὐκ ἔστι γνήσιος καὶ ἀκίδηλος φίλος.