Accused on Both Sides

But my fault, you will say, was that I did not restrain your accusers, who were my friends. Why, I had enough to do answering their accusations against myself! For they charged me with hypocrisy, as I could show by producing their letters, because I kept silent when I knew you to be a heretic, and because by carelessly keeping peace with you I fed the civil wars of the church. You call them my disciples; they suspect me of being your fellow disciple. And because I was rather sparing in rejecting your praises, they think I have been initiated along with you into the mysteries of heresy. This was the service your prologue did me: you injured me more by appearing as my friend than you would have by showing yourself my enemy. They had convinced themselves once and for all that you were a heretic; whether rightly or wrongly is their business. If I were to decide to defend you, I would only succeed in getting myself accused by them along with you. They throw your praise of me in my teeth, believing it was written not in cunning but in sincerity, and they fiercely reproach me with the very things you always praised in me. What am I to do? Turn my disciples into my accusers for your sake? Take on my own head the weapons hurled at my friend? [a]