us instead of rebuking us; you should not have despised us, but have had compassion on our grief. Indeed, we owe pity and kindness and not insult and contempt to those who have suffered violence. But we have suffered violence, how great, God alone, who knows the most secret things, can know; we have been detained against our wishes, we have been, watched narrowly, surrounded with spies like a culprit; we have received votes against our will, we have been created a bishop in spite of our tears, our complaints, our affliction, our despair. Every one knows it; for these things were not done in secret, and the exceeding violence to which I have been subjected was so public as to be known of all. What! should not those who have endured such violence be pitied and consoled as much as possible, rather than be attacked, evil-entreated, and laden with insults? I have lost a sweet and tranquil life; I have lost my glory, (since there be who love earthly glory;) I have lost my precious leisure, my intercourse so pure and delightful with my friends, that intercourse whence grief, double-dealing, and recrimination were excluded. No one hated me then; and I. ... I accused, I hated no one, neither at home nor abroad. I had nothing against those who had the least intercourse with me, and nothing à fortiori against my friends. I have never caused such pain to any one as that I should reap an outrage from it, save in those dangers to which I have been exposed for the cause of religion.[1] Nor has any one so seriously offended me as to drive me to insult him. All were good to me. As for my conduct, I must be silent on that point; but every one proclaims what that has been. My friends loved me better than their parents; as for my parents, they loved me more than the other members of the family, and knew it was I who loved them best."
- ↑ Photius here alludes to the resistance he had made to the iconoclastic emperors and their partisans.
