12. To those who platted this
crown—that which I speak, I speak it not after the Lord, 2 Cor. xi. 17. 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.