To Areobindas the Patrician, for the Farmers in a Bad Year

In distributing wealth and poverty among people, the Creator and Governor of all gives no unjust judgment. He gives the poverty of the poor to the rich as a means of doing good. So he brings chastisement on people not merely to punish their faults, but to give the wealthy opportunities to show their love for humankind. This year the Lord has sent us scourges, far lighter than our sins, but enough to distress the farmers. I recently told Your Magnificence of their sufferings through your own farmhands. Pity, I beg you, the tillers of the ground, who have spent their labor for very little return. Let this bad year suggest to you a spiritual abundance, and by showing compassion, gather in the harvest of God’s compassion. For this reason the excellent Dionysius has hurried to Your Greatness to tell you of the trouble, so that he may receive the remedy. He carries this letter like a suppliant’s olive branch, in the hope that by its means he will receive greater kindness. [a]