Greek Education in the Family of the Patriarch
To the Patriarch
Your son came with ability to learn; indeed, through the rhetorical power of Argeus1 he had something in common with me even before he saw me. He has not attained anything more noble, but perhaps it will be profitable for him to see many cities—as it was for Odysseus. I entreat you to forgive his flight and not to treat him harshly or to make him despair, for that could cause sorrow, which, we see, becomes an obstacle even for those who earnestly desire rhetorical training.
Notes
[A teacher of rhetoric with whom Libanius corre- sponded.—Ed.]
Credits
Libanius, Epistle 1098, trans. Wayne A. Meeks, in Wayne A. Meeks and Robert L. Wilken, Jews and Christians in Antioch in the First Four Centuries of the Common Era (Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press for the Society of Biblical Literature, 1978), p. 62. Used with permission of the Society of Biblical Literature.
Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 2: Emerging Judaism.
