Select Letters of Saint Gregory Nazianzen, Archbishop of Constantinople · A Selection from the Letters of Saint Gregory Nazianzen, Sometime Archbishop of Constantinople
Ep. II
Page 83 of 175
(Written about the same time, in reply to another letter now lost.)
I do not like being joked about Tiberina and its mud and its winters, O my friend, who are so free from mud, and who walk on tiptoe, and trample on the plains. You who have wings and are borne aloft, and fly like the arrows of Abaris, in order that, Cappadocian though you are, you may flee from Cappadocia. Have we done you an injury, because while you are pale and breathing hard and measuring the sun, we are sleek and well fed and not pressed for room? Yet this is your condition. You are luxurious and rich, and go to market. I do not approve of this. Either then cease to reproach us with our mud (for you did not build your city, nor we make our winter), or else for our mud we will bring against you your hucksters, and the rest of the crop of nuisances which infest cities.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series II, Volume 7, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace (1890–1900). Public domain. Text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library.