73.

And again others such as these met him in the outer mountain and thought to mock ¹ him because he had not learned letters. And Antony said to them, ‘What say ye? which is first, mind or letters? And which is the cause of which—mind of letters or letters of mind?’ And when they answered mind is first and the inventor of letters, Antony said, ‘Whoever, therefore, hath a sound mind hath not need of letters.’ This answer amazed both the bystanders and the philosophers, and they departed marvelling that they had seen so much understanding in an ignorant man. For his manners were not rough as though he had been reared in the mountain and there grown old, but graceful and polite, and his speech was seasoned with the divine salt, so that no one was envious, but rather all rejoiced over him who visited him.