Letter 56: Procopius defends inward friendship during the pressures of teaching.

If silence shows friendship to be false, then friendship must always consist only in words, if it is convicted whenever words are absent. The result would be that even an enemy must be considered a friend, provided only that he speaks. But I am not such a judge of friendship. What prevents a silent person from seeing friends in memory? That is what happens with me now, and it will never stop. Let us rather reckon that it has not been granted to everyone to do everything as he wishes. The external cares of life and the uncertainty of the future sometimes overpower reason: those forces lead, and reason serves and obeys. For me too, since I began teaching, contests and the cares surrounding them fell on me from the beginning and have not left me even now. You ought to have considered this rather than suspecting on small grounds that I was once good for friendship and have now ceased to be. O Zeus, Loves, and all watchers over friendship, persuade my accusers that I have never come to forget them. I live with them in thought; I seem to say something to them and to hear them speaking. If I do not know them, then I have forgotten myself as well.

Ἰωάννῃ Εἰ τὴν φιλίαν ἐψευσμένην δείκνυσι τὸ σιγᾶν, ἀνάγκη μέχρι λόγων αὐτὴν ἀεὶ συνεστάναι, εἴ γε τούτων ἀπόντων ἐλέγχεται. οὐκοῦν λείπεται καὶ τὸν δυσμενῆ φίλον ἡγεῖσθαι, μόνον εἰ φθέγγοιτο. ἀλλὰ μὴ τοιοῦτοι κριταὶ φιλίας ἡμεῖς. τί γὰρ κωλύει καὶ σιωπῶντα τῇ μνήμῃ τοὺς φίλους ὁρᾶν; ὅπερ ἡμῖν καὶ νῦν ἐστὶ καὶ οὔποτε παύσεται. λογισώμεθα δὲ μᾶλλον ὡς οὐ δέδοται πάντα πράττειν ὡς ἕκαστος βούλεται, αἱ ἔξωθεν δὲ φροντίδες τοῦ βίου καὶ τὸ τοῦ μέλλοντος ἄδηλον ἐπικρατοῦσιν ἔσθ' ὅτε τοῦ λογισμοῦ, καὶ τὰ μὲν ἄγει, ὁ δὲ δουλεύει καὶ πείθεται. κἀμοὶ τοίνυν, ἐπειδὴ τοῦ διδάσκειν ἐπέβην, ἀγῶνές τε συνεχεῖς καὶ αἱ περὶ τούτων φροντίδες ἐξ ἀρχῆς τε ἐπέθεντο καὶ μέχρι νῦν οὐκ ἀπέλιπον. ταῦτα μᾶλλον ἐχρῆν ἐνθυμεῖσθαι ἢ ἐπὶ μικροῖς ὑποπτεύειν ὡς ἦμεν ἀγαθοί ποτε πρὸς φιλίαν καὶ νῦν ἤδη πεπαύμεθα. ἀλλ' ὦ Ζεῦ καὶ Ἔρωτες καὶ ὅσοι φιλίας ἐπόπται, πείθοιτε τοὺς ἐμοὺς κατηγόρους, ὡς οὔποτε πρὸς λήθην αὐτῶν ἀφικόμην, ἀλλὰ σύνειμι τῷ λογισμῷ καὶ λέγειν τι δοκῶ καὶ λεγόντων ἀκούειν, καὶ ὡς εἰ τούτους ἀγνοῶ, καὶ ἐμαυτοῦ ἐπιλέλησμαι.