Orations

¹² To those who platted this crown— that which I speak, I speak it not after the Lord, nevertheless I will say it— I also have given assistance. Some of them are the result of my words, not of those which we have uttered at random, but of those which we have loved— nor again of those which are meretricious, though the language and manners of the harlot have been slanderously attributed to me, but of those which are most grave. Some of them are the offspring and fruit of my Spirit, as the Spirit can beget those who rise superior to the body. To this I have no doubt that those who are kindly among you, nay all of you, will testify, since I have been the husbandman of all: and my sole reward is your confession. For we neither have, nor have had, any other object. For virtue, that it may remain virtue, is without reward, its eyes fixed alone on that which is good.