Synesius of Cyrene

Mosaic depicting an angel. Museum of Ptolemais

Synesius of Cyrene (c.370-c.413) was a Neo-Platonic philosopher who became bishop of Ptolemais in the Cyrenaica. He left behind a small corpus of texts that offer much information about daily life in Late Antiquity, and about the christianization of the Roman world.

The text of Letter 112 is offered here in the translation by A. Fitzgerald. It is written in 399.

Letter 112: On Praise and Love

To Troilus

Praise and Love cannot be explained by the same motives, and they are not regulated by the same faculties of the soul. Feeling determines love and hatred, whereas it is by the use of the critical and rational faculties that we praise and blame.

Online 2007
Revision: 12 August 2007