Letter 2025: Another letter from the same.

25. ANOTHER LETTER FROM THE SAME MAN. You had promised me something else, with God as my witness: that you would worship Him, and not Janus [the two-faced Roman god of doorways and beginnings], of which crime you also wish me to be a partner, so that I should supply the dainties for the cultivation of this error and pour oil upon the fire. This you should know to be profitable for neither of us. But perhaps you say: you made a promise. With what face do you demand the things promised by me, when you yourself have violated your oaths? On what grounds will you grant pardon to my promise, so long as I have come to know that you are a slave to this passion, lest we should seem to confirm a deed whose compact we condemn, and lest we should be a scandal to one to whom we ought to be an example.

XXV. EIUSDEM ALIA. Aliud mihi deo teste promiseras, quod ipsum deberes colere, non Ianum, cuius criminis etiam me uis esse consortem, ut ego ad hunc errorem colendum delicias subministrem et oleum incendio superfundam. quod neutro nostrum noueris expedire. sed dicis fortasse: pollicitus es. quo ore a me promissa perquires, cum tu sacramenta uiolaueris? unde dabis ueniam meae promissioni, quamdiu te huic seruire cognouero passioni, ne confirmare uideamur factum, cuius reprehendimus pactum, et simus scandalo, cui esse debemus exemplo.