Letter 26
Glimpses of Daily Life
you and more constructive. But since what is less good has prevailed, you cannot be persuaded; here are the books which you ask from us, insofar as they have escaped the worms and the smoke above which they had been relegated .
. . . But let us stop with that joking; it is inappropriate for the present and foreign to our old comradeship . ... If what we write seems correct, but if you feel that it is unbecoming for a philosopher to take payment for the tablets, just send me the money; the poor will solve your objection!
GREGORY OF NAZlANZUS TO AMPHILOCHlOS,
LETTERS 25 and 26 (before his consecration as bishop of Iconium, 375) Letter 25 We are not asking for bread from you, nor would one ask for water from the inhabitants of Ostrakine by the Sea.
But if one asks for vegetables from a man of Ozizalaea, vegetables which are so abundant in your parts and so rare in ours, there is little wonder about that, and nothing extraordinary. So kindly send us a load of nice vegetables, or at least what you can, since even small things look great to those in need; and in need we are, all the more because we are going to receive the "great Basil." You have seen him contented and philosophizing; beware, lest you find him hungry and in a bad mood!
Letter 26 How parsimoniously your vegetables came to us! Could it be that they are of gold? Yet your riches are in gardens, brooks, woods, orchards, and your land is "oleripherous"