Letters 1 part 14/32

And along with these reflections there also arose this thought:

Has the Lord, then, utterly abandoned His own Churches? Is this, perhaps, the last hour, and is the apostasy gaining entrance through these very events, so that at last the lawless one may be revealed — the son of perdition, the adversary who exalts himself above everything that is called God or an object of worship? Nevertheless, whether the trial be but for a season, bear it, you noble athletes of Christ;

and even if all things are being given over to utter destruction, let us not grow weary in the face of present circumstances, but let us await the revelation from heaven and the appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.

For if all creation is to be dissolved and the fashion of this world is to be transformed, what wonder is it that we too, being part of creation, should suffer the common sufferings and be delivered over to afflictions which the just Judge brings upon us according to the measure of our strength, not allowing us to be tried beyond what we are able to bear, but providing, together with the trial, also the way of escape, so that we may be able to endure it? The crowns of the martyrs await you, brothers;

the choirs of confessors stand ready to stretch out their hands to you and to receive you into their own number.

For no one living in luxury or being flattered has been deemed worthy of the crowns of endurance, but all who were tried by fire through great afflictions have shown forth their proof.

For some had trial of mockings and scourgings, others were sawn asunder, and others died by the slaughter of the sword.

These are the glorious boasts of the saints.

Blessed is he who has been deemed worthy of sufferings for the sake of Christ.

But more blessed still is he who abounds in sufferings, because the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed in us.

If, then, it were possible for me myself to come, I would have preferred nothing above a meeting with you, so as both to see the athletes of Christ and to embrace them, and to share in the prayers and the spiritual gifts among you.

But since my body has now been wholly worn away by a long illness, so that I am not even able to move from my bed, and since those who lie in wait for us are many, like rapacious wolves watching for the moment when they might be able to plunder the sheep of Christ, I have of necessity come to visit you by means of this letter, entreating you first of all to make earnest supplications on my behalf, that I may be deemed worthy to serve the Lord according to the Gospel of the Kingdom for whatever days or hours remain to me, and then also to grant pardon for my absence and for this delay in writing.

For it was only with difficulty that I found a man able to serve my desire.

I mean our son Eugenius the monk, through whom I entreat you to pray for us and for the whole Church, and to write back to us concerning your affairs, that having learned of them we may be put in better spirits.

Who will give me wings like a dove? Then I would fly to you and set at rest the longing I have for a meeting with your love.

But now I am lacking not only wings, but even my very body, which long ago had grown weary from prolonged illness, is now utterly shattered by continual afflictions.

For who is so adamantine in soul, who so utterly without sympathy and so savage, that on hearing the groaning that assails us from every side—as though some chorus of mourners were chanting a common and harmonious lament—would not be moved in soul, and bowed down to the earth, and utterly consumed by these helpless anxieties? But the Holy One is able to give some release from these helpless straits, and to grant us respite from our long labors.

Wherefore I ask that you too have the same consolation, and that, rejoicing in the hope of consolation, you endure the present grief of these afflictions.

For whether we are paying the penalty for our sins, the scourges are now sufficient to turn away the wrath of God that is upon us;

or whether we have been called through these trials to the contests on behalf of piety, the righteous Judge of the Contest will not allow us to be tempted beyond what we are able to bear, but will render to us, for our previous labors, the crown of endurance and of hope in Him.

Let us not, therefore, grow weary in contending in the contests on behalf of piety, nor through despair abandon the labors we have endured.

For it is not a single act of courage, nor a brief labor, that displays the fortitude of the soul; but He who tries our hearts wills, through a long and prolonged testing, that we should be shown to be crowned victors of righteousness.

Only let our resolve be kept unyielding, let the foundation of our faith in Christ be preserved unshaken, and He who will come to our aid will arrive swiftly;

For expect affliction upon affliction, hope upon hope, yet a little while, yet a little while. Thus the Holy Spirit knows how to encourage His own nurslings by the promise of what is to come.

For after the afflictions comes hope, and the things hoped for are near at hand.

For even if one should speak of the whole of human life, it is altogether the smallest interval in comparison with that endless age which is laid up for us in our hopes.

But we neither accept any newer faith written for us by others, nor do we ourselves dare to hand down the offspring of our own private reasoning, lest we should make the words of piety merely human; rather, we proclaim to those who ask us those very things which we have been taught by the holy Fathers.

There is, then, handed down from the Fathers and abiding in our Church as its constitution, the faith which was written by the holy Fathers who assembled at Nicaea;

which we suppose to be also on your lips by heart, but we do not refuse—lest we incur the charge of negligence—to set down its very words also in this letter.

We believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible;

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father as Only-begotten, that is, of the substance of the Father;

Light of Light, true God of true God;

begotten, not made, of one substance with the Father, through whom all things were made, both things in heaven and things on earth;

who for us men and for our salvation came down, was incarnate, was made man, suffered and rose again on the third day, ascended into the heavens, and is coming to judge the living and the dead;

But as for those who say that there was a time when He was not, and that before He was begotten He was not, and that He came into being out of things that were not, or who assert that the Son of God is of a different hypostasis or substance, or subject to change or alteration—

these the Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematizes. Let us believe these things.

Since the Pneumatomachians have now appeared, they passed over in silence the necessity of anathematizing those who say that the Holy Spirit is of a created and servile nature.

For nothing whatsoever belonging to the divine and blessed Trinity is created.

TO EUSEBIUS, BISHOP OF SAMOSATA. I have already received two letters from your God-inspired and most perfect wisdom;

of which the one made clear to us how greatly we were expected by the people under the hand of your holiness, and how much we grieved them by being absent from the most holy synod.

The other, earlier by its writing as I conjecture, but delivered to us later, contained teaching befitting you and necessary for us: not to grow negligent concerning the Churches of God, nor gradually to abandon matters to our adversaries, by which their affairs would increase while ours would diminish.

And I believe I have replied to each; nevertheless, even now, since it is uncertain whether those entrusted with the errand preserved our replies, I offer my account of the same matters again;

writing concerning my absence a most true reason, the report of which I suppose has already reached even your holiness—namely, that I was seized by an illness that brought me down to the very gates of death itself;

And even now, at the very time I was writing about these things, I wrote while still bearing the remnants of that illness.

And these are of such a kind that they would suffice to be, for another person, a grievous sickness in themselves.

But concerning the fact that the affairs of the Churches have not been betrayed to our adversaries through our own negligence, I wish your godliness to know that those of the bishops who are supposedly in communion with us are unwilling to cooperate with us, whether out of reluctance, or because they still regard us with suspicion and not sincerely, or because of the opposition to good works that is instilled by the devil.

But in outward appearance, indeed, we are for the most part together with one another, now that the good Bosporius has also been added to us; yet in truth they cooperate with us in none of the most necessary matters, so that I am, for the greater part, hindered in my recovery by this very despondency, my illnesses continually recurring on account of the intense grief.

But what could I do alone, since the canons, as you yourself also know, do not permit one man to carry out such administrative arrangements? And yet what remedy have I not applied? Of what judgment have I not reminded them, partly through letters, partly also through personal meeting? For they even came as far as the city, upon hearing a report of my death.

But since it pleased God that I should be found by them still alive, I spoke with them as was fitting.

And while present they show respect and promise everything that is fitting, but once I am absent again they revert back to their own opinion.

Such, then, is our experience of the common condition of affairs—it being quite evident that the Lord has abandoned us, who have grown cold in love because iniquity has been multiplied.

But let your great and most powerful supplication to God suffice for us in all things.

For perhaps we might either become of some use to the affairs at hand, or, even if we fail in the things earnestly sought, we might escape condemnation.

TO THE NUMERARIUS OF THE PREFECTS. I gathered together all our brothers the chorepiscopi at the synod of the blessed martyr Eupsychius, so as to make them known to your honor.

But since you were absent, it is necessary that they be presented to your excellency by means of a letter.

Know, then, this brother here to be worthy of being trusted by your prudence on account of the fear of the Lord.

...whatever he reports to your good disposition for the sake of the poor, deign to trust him as one who speaks the truth, and to grant such assistance as is possible to those who are afflicted.

And you will, of course, also deign to look into the poorhouse of the guild under him, and to release it entirely from taxation.

For this was already also approved by your colleague—to render the small property of the poor exempt from public burdens.

TO ANOTHER NUMERARIUS. If it were possible for me myself to be present with your honor, I would certainly have reported in person concerning the matters I wished, and would have stood up for those who are afflicted.

But since bodily illness and the press of affairs draw me away, in my own stead I recommend to you this brother, the chorepiscopus, so that, giving him your genuine attention, you may make use of him as a counselor, since he is able to give advice concerning these matters truthfully and prudently.

For as regards the poorhouse administered by him, once you deign to look upon it (for you will indeed look upon it, I know well, and not pass it by, since you are not unacquainted with this work—rather, as a certain person has reported to me, you support one of those in Amasea out of what the Lord has given you)—once, then, you have seen this one as well, you will supply him with everything that is being sought.

For your colleague has already also promised me a certain benevolence toward the poorhouses.

But I say this not that you yourself should imitate another (for it is fitting that you yourself be a leader of good deeds to others), but that you may know that others too have entreated us concerning these very matters.

TO THE TRACTATOR OF THE PREFECTS. You certainly know this man from our meeting in the city, yet we also bring him to you by means of this letter, recommending him, because he will be useful to you in many of the matters you are earnestly pursuing, on account of his ability to suggest what should be done both prudently and reverently.

As for the things you spoke to me privately in my ear, now is the time to show them in deed, once the aforementioned brother points out to you the affairs of the poor.

TO EUSEBIUS, BISHOP OF SAMOSATA. I know the countless labors you have endured on behalf of the Churches of God, and I am not ignorant of the multitude of occupations that you have;

arranging the administration not carelessly, but according to the will of the Lord, and mindful of him who lies encamped upon your borders, on whose account we, like cowering birds, must each of us not run far from cover.

But longing is a violent thing, both to hope for what is not possible and to attempt the impossible—or rather, hope in the Lord is the strongest thing of all.

For it is not by unreasoning desire, but by the strength of faith, that I expect a way will appear even in helpless straits, and that you will easily overcome all hindrances, so as both to see the Church most dear to you, and moreover to be seen by her;

which, of all good things, is most precious to her—to look upon your face and to hear your voice.

Do not, then, leave her hopes unfulfilled.

For indeed, last year, when I returned from Syria bearing this promise which I had received, how do you suppose I set her aflutter with hopes? Do not, then, postpone your visit to her to another time, O wondrous man.

If it is possible for you to see her at some time—yet not together with us, whom illness is now urging to depart at last from this painful life.

TO ANTIOCHUS. I have no cause to reproach you for idleness or negligence, in that, when the occasion presented itself, you fell silent and did not write.

The greeting you sent me by your own hand—precious to me—I count more precious than many letters.

In return for this, then, I greet you and earnestly exhort you to hold fast to the salvation of your soul, disciplining all the passions of the flesh by reason, and keeping the thought of God continually established in your own soul, as in some most holy temple;

and in every deed and every word to set before your eyes the tribunal of Christ, so that your individual actions, gathered together before that exacting and fearsome scrutiny, may bring you glory on the day of recompense, when you shall be deemed worthy of praise before all creation.

But if the great man should consent to make the journey as far as us, it would be no small gain to see you together with him in our region.

TO ABURGIUS. I used to consider the tales of Homer mere myth, until I read through that other part of his poetry in which he relates the sufferings of Odysseus.

But the misfortune that has befallen the most excellent Maximus in every way has taught us to regard those hitherto legendary and quite incredible things as plausible.

For he too became ruler of a people by no means insignificant, just as that general of the Cephallenians.

And that man, though carrying great wealth, returned home naked; and misfortune has so treated this man that he has run the risk of being seen by his own kin clad in another's rags.

And he has suffered these things, perhaps having provoked the Laestrygonians against himself and having fallen in with a Scylla who, though of woman's form, possessed a dog's inhumanity and savagery.

Since, then, he has scarcely managed to swim through this inescapable flood, he beseeches you through us, asking that you have regard for our common nature, and that, grieving over his undeserved misfortunes, you not hide his case in silence but report it to those in power, so that, most especially, some help may come to him against the outrage contrived against him; but if not, that at least the intent of the one who insolently abused him may be made public.

For the exposure of the wickedness of those who plotted against him is consolation enough for the man who has been wronged.

TO TRAJAN. It brings great consolation to those who are afflicted merely to be able to lament their own misfortunes, and especially when they meet with men who, through the nobility of their character, are able to sympathize with their sufferings.

Hence our most reverend brother Maximus, who once governed our homeland, having suffered such things as no other man has ever yet suffered—stripped of all his possessions, both what was ancestral to him and what had been gathered from his former labors, and having endured countless bodily hardships in his wanderings to and fro, and not even preserving unassailed his very honor, for the sake of which free men are accustomed to toil at everything—has lamented much to us concerning what befell him, and has asked us to make known to you, in summary, the Iliad of evils that has beset him.

And I, since I was unable in any other way to relieve him of his troubles, readily granted him this favor, to report to your Excellency a few things out of the many I heard from him, since he himself seemed to blush at recounting his own misfortunes in full detail.

...shows that he belongs among the pitiable, since merely to fall into heaven-sent afflictions seems in some way to furnish proof that one has been delivered over to the passions.

But it is enough for him, as consolation for what has happened, that you look upon him with a kindly eye, and that the abundant grace which all who enjoy it cannot exhaust (I mean that of your gentleness) be extended also to him.

And that in the courts too your favor will be a great advantage to him toward victory, we are all firmly convinced.

May we see him, together with the rest, praising your reverence with as loud a voice as he is able.

TO TRAJAN. You yourself have witnessed with your own eyes the misfortune, undeserved as it was, of Maximus—once a man of good repute, but now the most pitiable of all—who governed our homeland.

For I think that the governance of the provinces would become a thing shunned by many, if their terms of office are destined to end in such an outcome.

Why, then, should we report to you each detail, both what we ourselves saw and what we heard, to a man who, through the great keenness of his mind, is able from a few facts to conjecture the rest? Yet in saying this one thing, perhaps I shall not seem superfluous to you: that although many terrible things were dared against him before your arrival, what happened afterward was such that what had gone before came to be reckoned an act of kindness.

So great was the excess of outrage, loss, and bodily suffering in what was subsequently devised against him by the one in power.

And now he arrives under guard, to fill up the remnant of his afflictions here, unless you are willing to stretch out your mighty hand over him in his distress.

I know, then, that I am doing something superfluous in exhorting your goodness to kindness.

Nevertheless, since I wish to be of use to the man, I beseech your dignity to add something, for our sake, to your natural zeal for what is good, so that the benefit of our intercession on his behalf may become evident to him.

And now, public life no longer holds me fast.

For although in heart I am still the same, and have not yet put off the old man, yet in outward form, and by removing myself far from the affairs of life, I have come, it seems, at last to have set foot, as it were, upon the threshold of the life according to Christ.

And I sit by myself, like those who are about to set sail upon the open sea, watching intently for what is to come.

For those who sail need winds for a fair voyage, but we need one who will lead us by the hand and safely convey us through the salt waves of life.

For I consider that I myself need, first, a bridle against youth, and then goads for the race of piety.

And it is reason, clearly, that furnishes these—at one time disciplining our disorderliness, at another rousing the sluggishness of the soul.

Again I have need of other remedies, so as to wash away the stain contracted from habit.

For you know that we, who have long been accustomed to the marketplace, are reckless with our words, and unguarded against the fantasies that arise in the mind from the Evil One.

We are also overcome by love of honor, and we do not easily lay aside a certain high opinion of ourselves.

Furthermore, that the eye of the soul be purified, so that, having removed all the darkness cast by ignorance—like some kind of rheum—it might be able to gaze intently upon the beauty of the glory of God, I judge to be no small task, nor one that brings only a little benefit.

And I know full well that your learned self perceives this too, and desires that some help exist toward this end;

and if God should ever grant that I come to the same place as your Excellency, clearly I shall learn more concerning the things I ought to be concerned about.

For at present, through great ignorance, I am not even able to recognize how much I am lacking—except that I have felt no regret for my first impulse, nor does my soul flag in its aim toward the life according to God, a matter over which you were anxious on my behalf, doing well and fittingly for yourself, lest, turning back, I should become a pillar of salt, as a certain woman suffered, so I hear.

But even now the outward authorities still hold me in check, as if the magistrates were searching for me as some deserter.

But what restrains me most of all is my own heart, bearing witness to itself of the very things I have said.

But since you mentioned agreements and threatened to bring an accusation, you have made me laugh in the midst of my dejection—because you are still an orator, and have not given up your rhetorical skill.

For I believe, unless in my ignorance I am altogether missing the truth, that there is one road leading to the Lord, and that all who journey toward him travel together with one another, and proceed according to one covenant of life.

Where, then, could I go and be separated from you, and not live with you and serve God together with you, to whom we have both taken refuge? For our bodies will indeed be set apart by place, but the eye of God clearly watches over both of us together—if indeed my own life is worthy to be beheld by the eyes of God;

for I have read somewhere in the Psalms that 'the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous.' I, for my part, pray to be present in the body also with you and with everyone who has made a like choice to yours, and every night and day to bend the knee together with you before our Father who is in heaven, and with anyone else who worthily calls upon God.

For I know that fellowship in prayer brings great gain.

But if, as often as it falls to me to sigh, cast off in some separate little corner, falsehood must altogether attend my words, I have nothing to say against the charge; rather, I already condemn myself as a liar, should I have spoken any such thing out of my old carelessness—words that render me answerable to the judgment against falsehood.

Having come near Caesarea in order to learn how matters stood, but not enduring to enter the city itself, I took refuge at the nearby poorhouse, so as to learn there what I wished to know.

Then, when the most God-beloved bishop arrived on his customary visit, I reported to him the matters concerning which your learned self had instructed us.

And what he answered can neither be preserved by us in memory, nor does it fit within the compass of a letter.

But in summary, concerning the possession of nothing, he said that the measure was this: that each person should reduce his own possessions to a single last tunic.

And he offered us proofs from the Gospel:

one, in that John the Baptist said:

"Let him who has two tunics share with him who has none"; another, in that the Lord forbade his disciples to have two tunics.

And to these he added also the saying:

"If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor." And he said that the parable of the pearl also bears upon this point, that the merchant who found the pearl of great price went and sold all that he possessed and bought it.

He added to these, moreover, that no one ought to entrust the distribution of his money to himself, but rather to one entrusted with administering what belongs to the poor.

And this he confirmed from the Acts, that they, selling what belonged to them, brought it and laid it at the feet of the Apostles, and from them it was distributed to each one according as any had need.

...of the one who is in need, and of the one who asks out of greed.

And he who gives to the afflicted has given to the Lord, and will receive his reward from him; but he who gives to the vagrant has merely thrown it to a dog—burdensome because of its shamelessness, but not pitiable on account of its need.

Concerning how we ought to live day by day, he had already said only a little in proportion to the magnitude of the subject; nevertheless, I should wish you to learn it from him himself.

For it is not reasonable that I should obscure the precision of his teachings.

And I have prayed that I might someday go to him together with you, so that, having carefully preserved in memory what was said, you might also, by your own understanding, discover further what is lacking.

For, out of the many things I heard, I remember this of him: that teaching on how the Christian ought to live has need not so much of words as of daily example.

And I know that, if the bond of caring for your aged father did not hold you fast, you yourself would have preferred nothing above meeting with the bishop, nor would you have advised me to leave him and wander off into the wilderness.

For caves and rocks will always be waiting for us, but the benefits derived from such men do not always remain with us.

Therefore, if you will bear with my counsel, you will persuade your father to allow you to withdraw from him for a little while, and to go meet a man who knows much, both from the experience of others and from his own understanding, and who is able to impart it to those who come to him.

TO EUSTATHIUS THE CHIEF PHYSICIAN. If our letters are of any use, do not let any time pass without writing to us and rousing us to write.

For it is quite evident that we ourselves become more cheerful when we read the letters of intelligent men who love the Lord.

But whether you yourselves also find in us anything worthy of attention is for you, the readers, to judge.

If, then, we were not drawn away by the multitude of our occupations, we would not deprive ourselves of the joy that comes from writing continually.

But you, who have fewer cares, as often as it is possible, stir us up with your letters.

For indeed they say that wells become better when they are drawn from.

Your medical exhortations seem to be turning into a secondary matter — not because we are pressing on the blade, but because the parts that have become useless are falling away of their own accord.

Now the saying of the Stoic is this:

"Since," he says, "things do not happen as we wish, let us wish them to happen as they do happen." But I do not accept adapting one's judgment to circumstances; yet I do not disapprove of doing, unwillingly, some of the things that are necessary.

For neither is it your wish, you physicians, to cauterize the sick man or otherwise cause him pain; yet you often submit to it, following the severity of the ailment.

Nor do sailors willingly throw the cargo overboard; but, in order to escape shipwreck, they submit to the jettison, preferring a life of poverty to death.

So think of us too as bearing the separation of those who depart painfully and with countless laments, yet bearing it nonetheless, since to lovers of truth nothing is preferable to God and to the hope set on him.

TO VICTOR THE GENERAL. Were I not writing to anyone else, I might perhaps justly incur a charge of laziness or forgetfulness.

But how is it possible to forget you, whose name is spoken among all men? And how could I be negligent toward you, who have risen above almost all in the inhabited world by the height of your rank? But the reason for our silence is clear.

We are reluctant to become a burden to so great a man.