Letter 6: Procopius urges Zacharias to match his zeal to a serious case of family abuse and injustice.

I want to tell you about this excellent man, but I am afraid I may seem to trouble you for nothing by speaking to people who already know the case. You know what sort of man he is: he has dedicated his whole life to God, has become a stranger to ordinary human interests, and clings to the hope from above. For that very reason he lies exposed to anyone who wants to wrong him and is well suited, by his patience, to suffer harm. You also know the other man, though I am ashamed to call him his brother. He seems to think there is one virtue only: to complete every form of vice. For so long he watched his brother pressed by hunger and did not intend to provide from his own house what any sensible man should have provided, especially when the occasion called for it. But that is not the charge now, that he omitted what the truly decent would have done. The charge is that, becoming a lover of things that did not belong to him, he stripped the man of them, abused him repeatedly, and often even raised blows against him. Treating his own will as law, he may perhaps have blamed nature for failing to invent anything more in wickedness. Nor did he stop there. Rather, those things were only prefaces to the evils still to come. His own mother was already an old woman, just when she had hoped to receive the fruits of having raised a child. She was a woman owed respect for her age, her birth, and even among strangers who had no claim of kinship. Yet he often insulted her, and often lifted his hands against the woman who bore him. By Zeus, he respected neither nature, nor time, nor pitiable gray hair, nor the humane name of mother. He violently overturned her, threw her to the ground, and kicked her while she cried out, as one would expect, and called him her child. What would a mother not say, after labor, nurture, and all those noble hopes, when she endured such evils from her own child? At last he drove her out of the house, helpless, stripped of necessities, perhaps granting this one favor only: he freed her from living with him. Now he delights in their miseries, while an old woman, foremost among us in noble birth, holds the hopes of her life in her hands. For this good man, her suffering has become another calamity. Though he lacks even his own food, he has taken her in; she increases his poverty, but he pays the debt that nature requires. Now they live together with one consolation: that they have not suffered still more. The mother, a woman who has endured such things, has one life left to her, to remember her misfortunes, weep over the memory, and show her breast to Justice as she tells what she has suffered. Take all this to heart. Do not think I have added anything to the truth; because this is a letter, I have shown only the main points of his wickedness. Measure your zeal against his evil, and become the kind of man God requires, the law of friendship requires, and the hope of the wronged requires.

Ζαχαρίᾳ ἀδελφῷ Τὰ κατὰ τὸν ἄριστον τόνδε βουλόμενος ὑμῖν διηγήσασθαι δέδοικα μὴ μάτην ἐνοχλεῖν δόξω, παρ' εἰδόσι τοὺς λόγους ποιούμενος. ἴστε γὰρ οἷος μὲν αὐτὸς καθέστηκεν, ὡς, τὸν ὅλον βίον ἀναθεὶς τῷ θεῷ, πᾶσιν ἀπεχθάνεται τοῖς ἀνθρωπίνοις, ἔχεται δὲ τῆς ἄνωθεν ἐλπίδος, καὶ διὰ τοῦτο πρόκειται τοῖς ἀδικεῖν βουλομένοις, καὶ πρὸς τὸ παθεῖν ἐστιν ἐπιτήδειος. ἴστε δὲ καὶ τόνδε, ἀδελφὸν γὰρ τοῦτον προσαγορεύειν αἰσχύνομαι, ὡς μίαν ἀρετὴν ἡγεῖται τὸ πᾶσαν ἐκπληρῶσαι κακίαν, παριδὼν ἀδελφὸν τοσούτου χρόνου οὕτως τῷ λιμῷ πιεζόμενον, οὐκ οἴκοθεν χορηγήσειν μέλλων ὃ παρ' ἀνδρὸς εὖ φρονοῦντος ἔδει γενέσθαι, εἰ καὶ πρὸς τοῦτο ἐκάλει καιρός. νῦν δὲ οὐ τόδ' ἐστὶν ἔγκλημα, διότι τὸ πρέπον τοῖς ἄγαν σωφρονοῦσι παρέλιπεν, ἀλλ' ὅτι καὶ τῶν μὴ προσηκόντων γενόμενος ἐραστὴς ἀφῄρηται ταῦτα, καὶ λοιδορεῖται τούτῳ πυκνῶς, πληγάς τε πολλάκις ἐπέτεινε. καὶ νόμον τὴν αὑτοῦ γνώμην ἡγούμενος, ἴσως τὴν φύσιν ἐμέμψατο, ὅτι πλέον οὐδὲν εἰς πονηρίαν ἐξεῦρεν. ὅθεν οὐ μέχρι τούτων ἔστησε τὴν κακίαν, μᾶλλον δὲ προοίμια ταῦτα τῶν μελλόντων κακῶν. τὴν γὰρ ἑαυτοῦ μητέρα γραῦν ἤδη τυγχάνουσαν, ὅτε τῆς παιδοτροφίας ἤλπισε κομίσασθαι τοὺς καρποὺς γυνὴ καὶ διὰ τὴν ἡλικίαν καὶ διὰ τὸ γένος καὶ παρὰ τοῖς μηδὲν προσήκουσιν αἰδοῦς ἀπολαύουσα, ταύτην πολλάκις μὲν εἶπε κακῶς, πολλάκις δὲ καὶ χεῖρας ἀνέτεινε κατὰ τῆς τεκούσης, ὦ Ζεῦ, οὐ φύσιν οὐ χρόνον οὐ πολιὰν ἐλεεινὴν οὐ τὸ τῆς μητρὸς αἰδεσθεὶς φιλάνθρωπον ὄνομα, ἀλλ' ἤδη καὶ βιαίως ἀνατρέψας εἰς γῆν κατέβαλε, καὶ λὰξ κατ' αὐτῆς ἐνήλατο, βοώσης οἷον εἰκὸς καὶ παῖδα καλούσης. καὶ τί γὰρ οὐκ ἂν εἴποι μήτηρ, μετ' ὠδῖνας καὶ τροφὴν καὶ τὰς καλὰς ἐκείνας ἐλπίδας τοιαῦτα παρὰ τοῦ παιδὸς ἀνασχομένη κακά; τελευταῖον δὲ καὶ τῆς οἰκίας ταύτην ἀπήλασεν ἄπορον γυμνὴν τῶν ἀναγκαίων ἐστερημένην, ἓν ἴσως τοῦτο χαρισάμενος, ὅτι τοῦ συνεῖναι ταύτην ἀπήλλαξε. καὶ νῦν οὗτος μὲν ἐντρυφᾷ τοῖς τούτων κακοῖς, γυνὴ δὲ γραῦς καὶ τὰ πρῶτα φέρουσα τῆς παρ' ἡμῖν εὐγενείας, ἐν ταῖς χερσὶ τὰς ἐλπίδας ἔχει τοῦ βίου. τῷ δὲ χρηστῷ τῷδε καὶ τὸ ταύτης πάθος ἄλλη παρέστη συμφορά, καὶ πρὸς τὴν οἰκείαν τροφὴν ἀπορούμενος ὑπεδέξατο ταύτην, ἐπιτείνουσαν μὲν αὐτῷ τὴν ἔνδειαν, ὅμως δ' ἀναγκαῖον χρέος ἐκτίνει τῇ φύσει. καὶ νῦν σύνεισιν ἀλλήλοις μίαν ἔχοντες παραμυθίαν ὅτι μὴ πλείω πεπόνθασιν, ἡ δὲ μήτηρ οἷα δήπου γυνὴ καὶ τοιαῦτα παθοῦσα, ἕνα βίον ἔχει τὸ μεμνῆσθαι τῶν ἑαυτῆς κακῶν καὶ δακρύειν ἐπὶ τῇ μνήμῃ καὶ τὴν θηλὴν ὑποδεικνύειν τῇ Δίκῃ, οἷα πέπονθε διηγουμένη. ταῦτα τοίνυν εἰς νοῦν λαβὼν καὶ μηδὲν ἡμᾶς προστιθέναι ταῖς ἀληθείαις νομίσας ἀλλὰ τὰ κεφάλαια μόνον δεικνύναι τῆς αὐτοῦ πονηρίας διὰ τὸν τῆς ἐπιστολῆς καιρόν, μέτρησόν σου τὴν σπουδὴν πρὸς τὴν ἐκείνου κακίαν, καὶ γενοῦ τοιοῦτος οἷόν σε θεὸς ἀπαιτεῖ καὶ φιλίας νόμος καὶ ἡ τῶν ἀδικουμένων ἐλπίς.