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.

Letter 128, written in 412, is offered here in the translation by A. Fitzgerald.

Letter 128: Consolation

To a Bishop, expelled from his Bishopric because he was unwilling to subscribe to the Arian dogma.

You have recovered what you were, you have not lost it. For when one is struck off from the list of impiety, he is not at the same moment deprived of the throne of piety. Welcome this banishment of yours from Egypt, and believe that it was also to you that the prophet cried aloud:

"What hast thou to do with the land of Egypt, that thou shouldest drink from the water of Geon?"[1]

It is a race which has for a long time been rebellious to God and an enemy of the Holy Fathers.

Note 1:
Jeremia 2.18.

Online 2007
Revision: 20 August 2007