To the Prefect Eutrechius

I know well, and need no words to tell me, how your excellency regards me. Actions speak more clearly than words. But I have been anxious for you to know the reason for the accusation brought against me. For I am suffering under a most extraordinary charge: I am attacked at one and the same time as unmarried and as married twice. If my present slanderers claim that I am falsifying the teaching of the apostles, why in the world do they not try to prove it against me face to face, instead of accusing me in my absence? This fact alone is enough to refute their lies completely. It is because they know I have countless witnesses that my doctrines are those of the apostles that they have pressed a charge I am given no chance to answer. Lawful judges, on the contrary, must keep one ear unprejudiced for the accused. If they give both ears to the pleading of my opponents and pronounce a sentence that pleases them, I will bear the injustice as something that brings me nearer to the kingdom of heaven. And I will wait for that impartial court where there is no prosecutor, no advocate, no witness and no distinction of rank, but a judgment of deeds and words, and a just repayment. For, it is said, “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive the things done in his body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.” [a]