I cannot bear your horse-racing factions, your theaters, or this evenly matched frenzy in spending and party zeal. We change teams, hitch ourselves to the other side, and neigh against one another. Like the racers, we almost beat the air; like madmen, we throw dust toward heaven. Under different masks we act out our own rivalries. We become poor referees of rivalry and ignorant judges of the matters before us.
Today we share the same thrones and the same opinions, if our leaders carry us that way. Tomorrow we sit on opposing thrones and hold opposing opinions if the wind blows the other way. Our labels change with our friendships and hostilities. Worst of all, we are not ashamed to present contrary teachings before the same listeners. We do not even remain standing on the same ground; our contentiousness makes us different people at different times. We are like the changing currents of the Euripus, or the ebb and flow of the tide.
Suppose young boys were playing games in the middle of the marketplace. It would be shameful and completely unworthy of us to abandon our own work and be swept up with them. Children’s toys do not suit old age. In the same way, everyone else may be carrying and being carried along by these factions. Even if I know something better than the majority, I would rather remain as I am—free, even in obscurity—than become one of them.
There is something else about me as well. In most things I do not move with the majority, and I cannot bear to walk the same road. Perhaps this is rash and foolish, but it is how I am. What delights other people pains me, and I take pleasure in what others find painful.
So I would not even be surprised if I were imprisoned as a troublesome man and most people thought me mad. Something similar is said to have happened to one of the Greek philosophers. His soundness of mind was called madness because he laughed at everything, seeing that the things most people pursued so seriously were worthy of laughter. Nor would I be surprised if people thought me full of sweet wine, as they later thought of Christ’s disciples when they spoke in tongues. They did not understand that this was the power of the Spirit, not a derangement of the mind.