96 (332). To the Master Sophronius
LETTERS
ent; if not, we ourselves, God willing, shall pay last year's debt of a meeting with you, unless, because of our sins, some obstacle again comes in our way; in which case we shall defer the meeting of the bishops until another time.
96. To the Master Sophronius1 Who is as devoted to his city, honoring even as he does his parents the land which bore and nurtured him, as you yourself are, you who pray for blessings for the whole city in general and for each person individually, and not only pray, but also confirm your prayers through your personal efforts?
Certainly, it is by the grace of God that you are able to do such things, and may you retain this power for a very long time indeed, since you are so very kind.
Nevertheless, our country became rich drowsing under your protection, because it had a man entrusted with its care whose like they who know the conditions existing among us from the earliest times said had never before mounted the governor's chair. But, it has been suddenly deprived of him through the malice of some men who made the man's frankness and inaccessibility to flattery an occasion for hostility toward him, and who secretly invented slanders against him for the ears of your Perfection. Therefore, all of us, the whole mass of the people, are downcast, suffering the loss of a governor, the only one able to lift up our city which has already fallen to her knees, a true guardian of justice, a man easy of access for the wronged, dreaded by the lawless, equally just to the poor and rich, and, greatest of all, one restoring Christianity to its former honor. For, the fact that he is the most incorruptible
I For Sophronius, d. Letter lI2 n. 1. Cf. also Letters 84 and 94, which St.
Basil wrote to Elias. This letter was written, in 372.