" But you answer: "Thou hast spoken evil of us,
therefore, thou shouldst suffer the stripes thou deservest." But I named
no one, I only blamed your vices in general. If you have sinned, be
angry with yourselves, not with me. I name none of you, but if the sins
I have mentioned are without question yours, then they and not I make
you known. As the smitten beast asked Balaam, so I ask you: "Tell me, am
I not your ass? and do you not know that I have been obedient to you up
to this very moment, that I have even done what my superiors have
commanded, and have always behaved myself peaceably?" You know this, and
because I am now so entirely different, you may well believe that a
great cause drives me to it. Many knew me as I was at first; if I
remained so I could have had as much honor as I wanted. I lived six
years among you, and now I speak otherwise, nevertheless I announce to
you the truth that is well known. You see in what sorrows and what
opposition I must now live, and I can say with Jeremiah: "O, my mother,
that thou hast borne me a man of strife and contention to the whole
earth!" But where is a father or a mother that can say I have led their
son into sin; one that can say I have ruined her husband or his wife?
Everybody knows my manner of life, therefore it is right for you to
believe that I speak the truth which everybody knows.
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