You threaten me with destruction. I will not reply in the same way. Personalities should be excluded from controversies of faith.

41. I come now to your Epilogue, (that is to the revilings which you pour upon me,) in which you exhort me to repentance, and threaten me with destruction unless I am converted, that is, unless I keep silence under your accusations. And this scandal, you say, will recoil upon my own head, because it is I who by replying have provoked you to the madness of writing when you are a man of extreme gentleness and of a meekness worthy of Moses. You declare that you are aware of crimes which I confessed to you alone when you were my most intimate friend, and that you will bring these before the public; that I shall be painted in my own colours; and that I ought to remember that I am lying at your feet, otherwise you might cut off my head with the sword of your mouth. And, after many such things, in which you toss yourself about like a madman, you draw yourself up and say that you wish for peace, but still with the intimation that I am to keep quiet for the future, that is that I am not to write against the heretics, nor to answer any accusation made by you; if I do this, I shall be your good brother and colleague, and a most eloquent person, and your friend and companion; and, what is still more, you will pronounce all the translations I have made from Origen to be orthodox. But, if I utter a word or move a step, I shall at once be unsound and a heretic, and unworthy of all connexion with you. This is the way you trumpet forth my praises, this is the way you exhort me to peace. You do not grant me liberty for a groan or a tear in my grief.