To Hermesigenes the Assessor, a Festal Greeting

In the days when people were sunk in the darkness of ignorance, they did not all keep the same feasts; different cities celebrated different rites. In Elis there were the Olympian games, at Delphi the Pythian, at Sparta the Hyacinthian, and at Athens the Panathenaic, the Thesmophoria and the Dionysian. These were the most famous. Beyond these, some people held revels in honor of some demons, and others in honor of others. But now that those mists have been scattered by the light of the mind, on every land and sea, mainlanders and islanders together keep the feast of our God and Savior. Wherever anyone may wish to travel, whether he journeys toward the rising sun or toward the setting sun, everywhere he will find the same celebration kept at the same time. There is no longer any need, in obedience to the law of Moses, which was suited to the weakness of the Jews, to come together into one city and keep the feast in memory of our blessings. Every town and every village, the countryside and the farthest frontiers, are filled with the grace of God, and in every place divine shrines and sacred precincts are consecrated to the God of all. [a]

So each of us keeps the festivals in his own town, and we share the feast with one another. It is the same God and Lord who is honored in our hymns, and to him our mystic sacrifices are offered. For this reason, as everyone knows, we who are neighbors write to one another and tell of the joy that comes to us at the feast. So I am doing now, and I offer the festal greeting to your excellency. You will no doubt reply, and so honor the custom of the feast.