I too contributed something to those who wove this crown. “What I am saying, I do not say according to the Lord”—but I will say it nonetheless. Some of these people were formed by my words: not words we tossed off carelessly, but words we cherished. Nor were they formed by the kind of words someone accused us of using, slandering us as though both our speech and our conduct were those of prostitutes. No: these were thoroughly chaste words.
Some are also the offspring and fruit of my Spirit, in the way the Spirit knows how to beget those who rise above the body. I know that the fair-minded among you will testify to this—indeed, perhaps all of you, since we have cultivated all of you. Your acknowledgment is our only reward. We seek nothing else now, nor have we sought anything else before. Virtue is without reward so that it may remain virtue, looking only to what is good.